told you, I was very fond of your mother and your grandfather.”
“Eric, I’m as concerned as you are that Karl may be hurt, even murdered,” Otto Göerner said, in the Viennese patois. “But I have reason to believe that he won’t be left hanging in the breeze.”
“What reason?”
“Otto,” Castillo said. “Stop right there.”
“What reason, Otto?” Kocian pursued.
“I know who gave him his orders.”
“Otto, goddammit!” Castillo said.
“He told you who did, or you know?”
“Let me put it this way, Eric,” Göerner said. “I know he’s not as junior an intelligence officer as you might think he is; quite the opposite.”
“Are you going to tell me how you know that?”
“Not unless Karl tells me I can,” Göerner said.
“And are you, Herr Gossinger, going to give Herr Göerner permission to tell me?”
“If I told you that, Herr Kocian, I would have to kill you.”
Kranz laughed.
“I’m only kidding, Herr Kocian,” Castillo said. “That’s a special operations joke.”
Kocian met Castillo’s eyes for a long moment. Then he shrugged and said, almost sadly, “I’d be more comfortable, Karl, if I was sure you were not kidding.”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“All right. May God forgive me, but all right,” Eric Kocian said. “I will tell you what I know. Come with me.”
He started to wade toward the side of the pool, pushing the floating table before him. When he reached the side, he carefully put his cigar in the ashtray, then moved the ashtray to the low-tiled coping surrounding the pool. He did the same thing with his cellular telephone, the metal pitcher, the newspapers, and the copy of the American Conservative. Then he pushed the floating table away into the center of the pool and with surprising agility hoisted himself out of the pool and sat with his feet dangling into the water.
Out of the water, Kocian looked his age. The flesh on his arms and chest and legs sagged. His jockstrap was almost hidden by a roll of flesh that sagged down from his abdomen. There were angry scars on his upper shoulder, his abdomen, and his left leg.
“You speak German,” Kocian said to Kranz. “I could tell.”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“These two don’t,” he said, gesturing at Fernando and Torine. “You want all these people to hear what I have to say, Karl?”
“Bitte,” Castillo said.
“Then I will speak English,” Kocian said in English. “Very softly, because speaking English in here will attract attention.” He switched back to German and pointed at Kranz. “In each of those cubicles,” he went on, pointing, “there is a bucket and a water glass or two. Go get two buckets and six—no, eight—glasses, and bring them here.”
Kranz hoisted himself out of the pool.
He then switched to English and quietly ordered, “The rest of you get out, and lay close to me—there are towels in the cubicles—and if you have something to say, say it very softly.”
In a minute, after two trips to the dressing cubicles lining one wall of the pool, Kranz had arranged on the tile coping two white buckets, capable of holding perhaps a gallon each, and eight water glasses about six inches high, and everybody was sitting or lying on thick white towels on the tiled floor beside the pool.
“This,” Kocian said softly, splashing his feet in the pool, “is the nearly limitless pool of oil under Iraq. It was controlled—owned—by Saddam Hussein. When Hussein was quote President of Iraq end quote, he was more of an absolute ruler than the king of Arabia.
“He had many vices, including greed, which did him in. He wasn’t satisfied with what he had. He wanted the oil which lay under the sands of Kuwait . . . down there.”
He pointed.
“If Hussein had not invaded Kuwait, we almost certainly would not be sitting here today, but he did.
“This bothered the Americans, and even some members of the United Nations. Some say the Americans rushed to defend poor little Kuwait because they believed that Saddam Hussein was naughty, and needed to have his wrist slapped. Others suggest that they were afraid Saddam also had his eyes on the oil under Arabia . . . over there . . . which was and is essential to the American economy.
“Whatever the reasons, there was a war. Iraq lost. Some of you may remember that.”
“We were all there, Herr Kocian,” Castillo said. “Can we get to the end of the history lesson?”
“I’m surprised that no one has taught you, Karl, that those who do not understand