When Otto reached the bottom of the stairs, he was in water just over his waist.
Well, at least his crotch and far-from-athletic buttocks are now concealed from public view.
Castillo shook his head, quickly tossed his robe on a marble bench, and very quickly went down the stairs into the water and then waded across the pool after Göerner.
Fernando, Torine, and Kranz took off their robes, looked at each other, shook their heads, and then, as if someone had barked “Ready! Run! Dive!” took running dives into the water.
The bushy white eyebrows on Eric Kocian’s ruddy, jowly face rose in amazement at this display of bad manners.
“Good morning, Eric,” Göerner said, when he’d waded close.
“Grüss Gott, Otto,” Kocian replied in a thick Viennese accent.
“This is Karl Gossinger, Eric,” Göerner said. “Do you remember him?”
“The distinguished Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung? That Karl Gossinger?”
“Guten morgen, Herr Kocian,” Charley said.
“I was fond of your mother and your grandfather,” Kocian said. “I never thought much of your uncle Willi. You look a lot like Willi.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Castillo said in German and then switched to Viennese gutter dialect. “Can we cut the bullshit, Herr Kocian? I don’t have time to play games with you.”
“I’m crushed,” Kocian said. “I know you have time to play games with Otto and our readers.”
“Excuse me?”
A hand came out of the water and a pointing finger dripped water on one of the magazines. It was The American Conservative.
“There’s a reason for that,” Castillo said.
“It’s easier to steal someone else’s story than to write your own?”
“There’s a reason for that,” Castillo repeated.
“I’d love to know what it is,” Kocian said.
“Because being the Washington correspondent for the Tages Zeitung is a cover for what I really do,” Charley said.
“Which is?”
“I’m an Army officer.”
Kocian considered that long enough to puff twice on his cigar.
“An Army intelligence officer, you mean?” he asked.
Castillo nodded.
Kocian looked at Otto Göerner, who nodded.
“You’ll have to forgive me, Herr Gossinger. I’m an old man, my brain is slowing down, and for the life of me I can’t understand why an American Army intelligence officer would confess that. To anyone, much less a real journalist.”
“Because Otto has led me to believe we’re on the same side.”
“The same side of what, Mr. Intelligence Officer?”
“I’m after the people who are willing to kill to keep it from getting out that they’ve profited from the oil-for-food arrangement. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“You told him that, did you, Otto?” Kocian asked.
Göerner nodded.
“And what are you going to do if you learn who these people are?”
Castillo didn’t immediately reply. He looked around and saw that they had an interested audience in Torine, Fernando, and Kranz.
Kranz may, just may, understand the Viennese patois. But Torine and Fernando don’t. All they see is that the old guy and I are sparring, and not very politely.
“I’m unable to believe the U.S. government doesn’t already know who they are,” Kocian went on. “And that there are political considerations involved that have kept it from coming out.”
“We don’t know who murdered our chief of mission in Buenos Aires, a very nice young Marine sergeant, and seriously wounded one of my agents.”
“Okay. Let’s talk about that. If you find out who these people are, then what?”
“I’ll deal with them.”
“ ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ Herr Gossinger.”
“My orders are to deal with them.”
“Your orders from who?”
“Someone who remembers that the Bible also says, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ ”
“Someone with the authority to give an order like that?”
Castillo nodded.
“And what will happen when, say, your secretary of state or, for that matter, your President learns—as they inevitably will—that someone has given you these orders?”
“That’s not going to be a problem, Herr Kocian.”
“You’re not afraid that you and whoever gave you this order will not be—what’s that wonderful American phrase?—‘hung out to twist in the wind’?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You will excuse me, Herr Gossinger, if I think you are being naïve,” Kocian said. “Junior intelligence officers—and you’re not old enough to be anything but a junior intelligence officer—are expendable.”
“So what?” Castillo said.
“I was very fond of your grandfather and your mother. I don’t want it on my conscience that I was in any way responsible for Little Karlchen being left hanging out twisting in the wind or, more likely, being strapped into a chair with his throat cut after his teeth were extracted with pliers.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Castillo said.