Castillo was aware that Pevsner was trying to make sense of his call.
"Ever hear of a little town called Maschwitz?"
"Yeah. I won't ask what the hell you're doing way out there."
"Don't. There's one more thing, Alex. It was suggested to me that the kidnappers might not be Argentine, that they might even be American."
"That was very delicately suggested to the FBI by the Policia Federal. If you notice a lot of activity in the commo center, it's the transmission of the names of every American who's come to Argentina in the past thirty days to the NCIC-the National Crime Information Center-to see if they come up with a hit."
"Well, somebody's done this, Alex."
"Some sonsofbitches."
"One more thing, Alex. Lowery took my Secret Service credentials to get me a visitor's badge, and we left the embassy before I got them back."
"I'll take care of it," Darby said. "We'll be in touch."
The connection was broken.
"Thank you," Pevsner said.
"For what?"
"For Maschwitz."
"If I think anyone is unusually curious about where I've been, or with whom, I'll drop your Austro-Hungarian grand duke into the conversation," Castillo said. "That'll lead them on an interesting expedition."
Pevsner smiled.
"Alex, I have to get back to Buenos Aires."
"I understand. You want me to send Howard with you?"
"That's not necessary. I just need a ride to the embassy." Charley's cellular buzzed as they approached Buenos Aires.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Castillo?"
Castillo recognized Darby's voice.
"Alexander Darby here, Mr. Castillo."
"What can I do for you?"
"Mr. Castillo, Ambassador Silvio wonders if you would be free to come to his office at nine-thirty tomorrow morning."
"I'll be there."
"Thank you. I'll see you then."
The connection was broken.
It didn't take you long to tell the ambassador about me, did it, Alex?
And why do I suspect you made that call in his presence?
And that you told him simply that I had identified myself to you, and not that we knew each other in Afghanistan? An American who did not identify himself in any way- making Castillo reasonably confident that he was a CIA agent who worked for Darby-was waiting just outside the fence at the employee entrance to the embassy grounds with Castillo's visitor's pass and Secret Service credentials.
"If you'll come with me, please, Mr. Castillo?" [SIX] The Communications Center The United States Embassy Avenida Colombia 4300 Buenos Aires, Argentina 2230 22 July 2005 There was a "phone booth" in the embassy communications room, too. As the man Castillo now thought of as "Darby's guy" led him to it, most of the eight or ten people in the room looked at him with frank curiosity. One of them was the Oriental FBI agent, Yung.
The guy who looked at me in the brainstorming center with what I thought was a little too much interest. He's either fascinated with my good looks and manly charm, or the Secret Service, or he knows something about me. Or suspects something.
Oh, Jesus! Has there been an FBI back-channel, no copies, burn before reading, "Let us know if a guy named Castillo shows up anywhere and what he's doing. He has embarrassed the director and we would really like to burn his ass"?
Castillo closed the door of the phone booth and sat down before a tiny desk, more of a shelf built into the wall, on which sat the secure telephone. It looked- except for the much thicker than usual cords to the wall, and from the base to the handset-like an ordinary phone. There was also a lined notepad, which had a sheet of aluminum under the top page to keep whatever was written from making an impression on the pages beneath, two sharpened pencils in a water glass, and a red-striped Burn Bag hanging from the wall.
Castillo picked up the telephone.
"Operator," a male voice said.
He sounds young. Probably a soldier.
"My name is Castillo. I need a verified secure line."
"Yes, sir. You have been cleared. The number, please?"
It's a little after ten-thirty here; half past nine in Washington. Hall may or may not be in the office. I'll let the switchboard find him.
Castillo gave the White House switchboard number to the operator.
"Sir, that's the White House," the operator said.
"Yeah, I know."
"Sir, you're not cleared to call the White House."
"Who has to clear me?" Castillo asked, and at the last split second added, "Sergeant."
"Either the ambassador or Mr. Masterson, sir."
Well, he took the Sergeant without any reaction. That may be helpful.
"Well, I don't want to bother Mr. Masterson, Sergeant, so I suppose you'd better get the ambassador on the horn. I need to put this call through."
"Sir, Mr. Darby has the authority to clear calls to the White House. Would he know if you're authorized?"
"Yes, he would. Give him a yell, Sergeant."
Thirty seconds later, "Commercial Attache" Darby gave the operator permission to put Mr. Castillo's call through to the White House switchboard. "White House."
"This is the U.S. Embassy, Buenos Aires," the operator said. "Would you verify the line is secure, please?"
That took about fifteen seconds.
"The line is secure," the White House operator announced.
"This is C. G. Castillo. I need to speak with Secretary Hall. I have no idea where he is."
"Oh, I think we can find him for you. Hold one." "Hall."
"I have a secure call for you, Mr. Secretary, from Mr. Castillo in Buenos Aires."
"Put Mr. Castillo through, please," Hall said. In the presidential apartment in the White House, the President looked across the table in the breakfast room at his wife, and Matt Hall's wife, and made a decision.
"Put that on the speakerphone, Matt," he ordered, "but don't tell him." "You there, Charley?"
"Yes, sir."
"We've been expecting to hear from you before this."
"Sir, there's not much to report that you probably haven't heard already."
"Well, take it from the top, Charley. You never know."
"Yes, sir. Joel's pal Tony Santini met me at the airport. Really good guy, sharp as a tack. Tony took me to the hotel, the Hyatt-which is now the Four Seasons, by the way. He told me what he knew, essentially that Mrs. Masterson was grabbed in the parking lot of a restaurant called Kansas in an upscale neighborhood called San Isidro. She was waiting for her husband, and when he didn't show went to her car and was grabbed.
"He said there had been no word from the kidnappers-this was at maybe seven this morning, and there still has been no word, as of now. Tony said the Argentines were keeping it out of the papers, so if I went there as Gossinger, they would (a) wonder how I heard about it, and (b) tell me zilch.
"So I went there as a Secret Service agent who just happened to be in town. Apparently that happens all the time. Tony introduced me to the embassy security guy, Lowery, nice guy, but a lightweight-"
"Why do you say that, Charley?" Hall interrupted.
"The way Tony Santini put it, most of his investigations have been of some diplomat fooling around with some other diplomat's wife. Nothing like this."
"Okay," Hall said.
"While I was in his office, Masterson came in. A really nice guy, and really upset. You know the story of his getting run over and-"
"Getting a fifty-million-dollar settlement? Yeah, I know it."
"The figure I heard was sixty million. Anyway, I was introduced to him as a Secret Service agent, and he asked me to go to a brainstorming session with all the players. The CIA station chief-more about him in a moment- the DEA people, and two FBI guys from Montevideo who are supposed to have some experience with kidnappings. One of them looked at me strangely. Then, and just now when I came in the commo room."
"What do you mean by that?"
"If I were paranoid, and I am, I would suspect that there's been a deniable bulletin from the J. Edgar Hoover Building telling everybody to keep an eye open for that sonofabitch Castillo."
"You really think that, Charley?"