Black Ops

hill. A neat little wall kept people and cars from going over the edge into the city below.

Castillo, the collar of his trench coat up and buttoned around his neck against the cold, sat with his feet dangling over the wall, clenching an unlit cigar between his teeth. Max, his natural coat clearly making him immune to the cold, lay contentedly by the wall. Siggie Muller, the drape of his Loden cloth cape revealing the outline of what had indeed turned out to be a Heckler & Koch MP7A1 submachine gun, leaned against the hood of Otto Gorner’s Jaguar.

Castillo was trying to follow his own advice—and for once being successful—which was that as soon as you have decided what to do, and put the decision into action, stop thinking about it and think of something else. That way, your mind will be clearer if you have to revisit your decisions when something goes wrong.

What he had decided to do was send Jack Davidson to have a look at the church. Davidson was a recognized expert in being able to spot places where a sniper—or something else dangerous, such as an improvised explosive device, or IED—might be concealed.

That decision had been implemented without even discussion. Edgar Delchamps suggested that it might be a good idea if he, too, went to the church and looked around. So both Jack and Edgar were at the church.

It had been Castillo’s intention to send Inspector Doherty and Two-Gun Yung to das Haus im Wald. Both had made it clear that anyone refusing the services of two FBI agents—one of them very senior and the other a distinguished veteran of the Battle of Shangri-La—in these circumstances was not playing with a full deck.

Doherty and Yung, now equipped with P-38s from the grenade cases in the attic, were melding themselves into the crowds of mourners and curious—mostly the latter, according to a telephoned report from Inspector Doherty—at Saint Elisabeth’s.

So were Colonel Jacob Torine and Captain Richard Sparkman of the United States Air Force, both of whom had shot down Castillo’s theory that it might be a good idea if they went to Flughafen Frankfurt am Main and readied the Gulfstream for flight, in case they had to go somewhere in a hurry.

“We’ll be ready to go wheels-up thirty minutes after we get to the airport,” Colonel Torine had said. “That’s presuming you can tell us where we’re going. And while you’re making up your mind about that, Captain Sparkman and I will pass the time in church.”

Eric Kocian and Otto Gorner and his wife and children, surrounded by twice their number of security guards, had gone to Wetzlar so they could be part of the funeral procession. Castillo was more than a little uncomfortable that Willi and Hermann were involved, but that decision, too, had been taken from him. Otto had decided there was no way the boys could be left at home without telling Helena why, and he wasn’t up to facing that.

Otto said Helena would decide that if there was a threat to her and the boys, then there also was a threat to her husband, and he would just have to miss the Friedler funeral, something he had no intention of doing.

What Castillo was thinking of, to divert his attention from those things now out of his control, was “the castle walk” itself.

He had been here more times than he could count, from the time he was a small boy. He thought it was about the nicest place in Marburg. But when he had “suggested” to Otto that he have the security people bring Yung and Doherty here from the Europaischer Hof, he couldn’t think of its name. It hadn’t been a problem. Otto, an alt Marburger, had of course known where and what Castillo meant by “the castle walk.” But Castillo hadn’t heard him when Otto talked to the security people, so he hadn’t heard what name Otto had told them.

It had to have a name—Universitatstrasse, or Philippsweg, or even Universitatplatz—and not remembering —maybe not knowing—what it was annoyed Castillo. So as he drove Otto’s Jaguar up the hill, and then onto it, he started looking for signs. He had found none by the time he’d brought the car to a stop and he and Siggie had gotten out.

The castle walk was as he had remembered it, and he thought it had probably looked just about the same when his grandfather had begun his first year at the university. Or his great-grandfather.

Castillo remembered sitting here with his mother, eating a wurstchen, and then, when his mother wasn’t watching, throwing the sandwich over the edge and watching it fall. It was a long way down. Twice, he had managed to hit a streetcar. He had never been caught.

“Karlchen,” Muller called softly, looking across the car and down the road.

Castillo looked over his shoulder.

A black Volkswagen Golf was coming up the road. The windows were darkened, and on its roof were multiple antennae neither available from nor installed by the manufacturer. It wasn’t the car that had taken Davidson and Delchamps to the church, but Muller obviously recognized it as a security car—he hadn’t bothered to move off the Jaguar, even when the Golf pulled in the parking space beside it—and Castillo was not surprised when Davidson and Delchamps got out.

Delchamps held a large, somewhat battered briefcase in his hand, and Castillo decided that was where he was carrying the P-38 he’d taken from the hand grenade box in the attic.

Castillo swung his legs off the wall and stood up. Max sat up, too.

“A very interesting development, Ace,” Delchamps said.

Castillo raised his eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Then he noticed that Delchamps was wearing gloves, some sort of surgeon’s gloves but thicker.

Delchamps went into the briefcase and came out with what at first looked to Castillo like a small unmarked package of Kleenex, the sort found on hotel bathroom shelves and which some petty thieves, including one C. G. Castillo, often took with them when checking out.

Delchamps went into the package and pulled from it another pair of the gloves. He handed them to Castillo.

“Rubber gloves, Ace. Never leave home without them.”

Castillo pulled them on.

Delchamps went back into his briefcase and took out a business-size envelope.

“Eagle Eye here spotted this in your prayer book,” he said.

“What?”

Davidson said, “Your seats—yours, Billy’s, and Otto’s—were in the second row, right side. There were prayer books, hymnals, whatever, in a rack on the back of the front row of seats—”

“Pew,” Castillo corrected him without thinking.

“Okay. Pew. A printed program was stuck in each prayer book. I saw this peeking out of the program in the center prayer book.”

“And you opened it?” Castillo asked. “You ever hear of ricin?”

“Edgar opened it,” Davidson said. “And yeah, Charley, I’ve heard of ricin.”

“I stole those gloves from the lab at Langley,” Delchamps said. “They’re supposed to be ricin-proof. And a lot of other things proof. When the lab guy showed them to me, he said they cost thirty bucks a pair.”

“Well, if we start soiling our shorts then dropping like flies, we’ll know he wasn’t telling the truth, won’t we?” Castillo said and reached for the envelope.

“I don’t think they want you dead, Ace. If they did, they would have just put whatever on the prayer books.” Delchamps pulled, then released the wrist of his left glove; it made a snap. “But ‘Caution’ is my middle name.”

He went into the briefcase again and came out with three red-bound books.

“Billy and Otto don’t get no prayer books,” he said. “They’ll just have to wing it.”

Castillo examined the envelope. It was addressed—by a computer printer, he saw; no way to identify which one—to “Herr Karl v. und z. Gossinger.”

The envelope had been slit open at the top with a knife.

Castillo reached inside and saw what looked like calling cards. He took them out. There were four, held together with a paper clip. They were printed, again by a computer printer. One read “Budapest”; the second, “Vienna”; and the third, “Berlin.”

An “X” had been drawn across “Berlin” by what looked like a felt-tip permanent marker. The fourth card had “Tom Barlow” printed on it.

Castillo looked at Delchamps and Davidson. Both shrugged.

Castillo handed the cards to Davidson, then took from the envelope a sheet of paper that had been neatly folded in thirds. He unfolded it.