AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"You want me to give him a heads-up?"
"Thank you, but I don't think that'll be necessary."
"I'm going to have to wake the President up with this. He finally told me, last night, that he'd sent you down there. And of what you found out, Sherlock."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm sure we'll be talking, Charley."
"Yes, ma'am."
There was a series of clicks on the line, then:
"White House. Are you through?"
"Castillo again. Now I need Secretary Hall on a secure line."
"Hold, please."
"Secretary Hall's secure line," said a new voice.
"Tom?"
"This is Special Agent Dinsler. Who is this, please?"
"Is either Tom McGuire or Joel Isaacson around there?"
"No."
"My name is Castillo. Will you put me through to Secretary Hall, please."
"The secretary is asleep, sir."
He called me "sir," which means he doesn't know Castillo from Adam's off ox.
"Wake him, please."
"May I ask what this concerns, sir?"
"Get him on the goddamn phone, now!"
There was no reply, but fifteen seconds later Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall came on the line.
"All you had to do was tell Dinsler who you are, Charley. You didn't have to swear at him," Hall said, his voice annoyed.
"Yes, sir. Sir, Mr. Masterson, Mr. Masterson, the chief of mission, has been murdered."
"Jesus Christ!" Hall said. "And his wife?"
"She's in the German Hospital, surrounded by eight SIDE agents, and four of ours. The bastards drugged her. She woke up-more accurately, came half out of it- in the backseat of a taxicab and found her husband slumped beside her with two bullets in his brain."
"My God, Charley!"
"Yeah, and he was a really nice guy, too."
"When did this happen?"
"Sometime after midnight. He got away from the people sitting on him at his house-a CIA guy and a big shot, a colonel from SIDE, plus half a dozen others- and apparently took a taxicab to meet somebody. Probably to pay ransom, or to arrange to pay it."
