X
[ONE]
Penthouse B
The Grand Cozumel Beach & Golf Resort
Cozumel
Quintana Roo, Mexico
2215 7 February 2007
Castillo was standing at the railing of the patio, taking an occasional pull at the neck of a Dos Equis bottle and somewhat inhospitably wishing that the fish-eaters would get the hell out of the penthouse—which would leave him alone with Sweaty—when Edgar Delchamps joined him.
“Got a minute, Ace?” Delchamps asked.
“Always,” Castillo said.
Delchamps pointed to a far corner of the patio surrounding the swimming pool. As they started walking toward it, Castillo saw that Alex Darby and Dick Miller were also headed in that direction.
And he knew that he had fucked up somehow and was about to learn how the moment Edgar Delchamps began the chat by saying, “We know that even though you have a lot on your mind, you probably have thought about this ...”
“But?” Castillo interrupted.
“I recognize that tone of voice, so I’ll cut to the chase,” Delchamps said. “We just got word from one of the dinosaurs that the tapes and the narrative are in that building at Langley in a position where Frank Lammelle can’t help but find them when he goes to work in the morning.”
“That was quick!” Castillo said, genuinely surprised.
“Real dinosaurs move much more quickly than the ones you saw in the Jurassic Park movies, Ace. You might want to write that down.”
“If you say so.”
“And when Lammelle and Company finish authenticating the tapes, someone is going to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’ll bet this came from Charley Castillo.’”
“What was I supposed to do, not send it?”
“What you were supposed to do—what we were all supposed to do—was fall off the face of the earth and never be seen again.”
“Same question: What were we supposed to do once we came up with this? Keep it to ourselves?”
Delchamps didn’t respond directly. He looked between Darby and Miller, then back at Castillo, and went on: “And even if Lammelle or one of his guys doesn’t attach you to the tapes, Casey is going to send the tapes to the DCI himself, and Casey is going to say something like, ‘You can rely on this; I got it from Castillo.’ So the President will know you didn’t fall off the face of the earth as ordered.”
“And you don’t think he’ll be happy I didn’t? According to Casey, they don’t have a clue about what’s going on with the Congo-X. All I’m guilty of is lending a helping hand.”
“You really have no idea how much the agency—everybody in the quote unquote intelligence community—hated the Office of Organizational Analysis, and in particular Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, do you? And how overcome with bureaucratic joy they were when the President cut your throat and told you to disappear, taking OOA and all its wicked members with you?”
“I did have some small inkling that I wouldn’t have won any popularity contests,” Castillo said. “Actually, Edgar, I thought about that when I sent the tapes. I would have preferred they would have come from an unknown source. But there were two things wrong with that, starting with I don’t think it would have been possible, because of Casey’s connection with somebody—probably, but not certainly, the DCI—at the agency. But say I had managed to convincingly send them from Mr. Unknown Source. I don’t trust unknown sources, and I don’t think Lammelle would have either. So let him know the tapes came from me. I didn’t expect a letter from Lammelle—or Jack Powell—like the one Sweaty and Tom got. ‘Come home. All is forgiven. We love you.’”
“Let me try this on you: If our late President—who was a really good guy, and for whom you did everything he asked you to, including coming up with the Fish Farm—was willing to cut your throat to cover his ass, what do you think Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen, who is the master not only of covering his own ass, but also of throwing people who have done him a service under the bus so he can take the credit, will be willing to do to you?”
“For example?”
“Turning Tom and your girlfriend—and maybe you—over to the Russians, for one thing.”
“Where the hell did you get that?”
Delchamps and Darby exchanged glances, then Edgar said, “That’s the scenario Alex and I have come up with for what’s behind this whole Congo-X operation. If they wanted to hurt us with that stuff, they would have. They haven’t hurt us, just let us know they can. Why? They want something. What do they want? They want Tom and Sweaty back. Clendennen gives them to the Russians, they give Clendennen the Congo-X, the problem is done. If he also gives them you, that solves that problem.”
Castillo didn’t respond for a moment, then looked at Darby.
“That’s the way I see it, Charley,” Darby said.
“What supports that scenario?”
“Nothing concrete yet, Ace, except the thing that I’ve developed—that Alex and I have developed—in our long service as spooks: a feeling in the gut that just won’t go away.”
“You talk to either Tom or Sweaty about this?” Castillo asked softly.
Both Delchamps and Darby shook their heads.
“You’ve got a solution?” Castillo asked.
“I’ve got a suggestion that may not be a solution, but it’s all I have.”
“All we have, Charley,” Darby said.
Castillo gestured for Delchamps to tell him.
“Disperse,” Delchamps said. “Fall off the face of the earth.”
Castillo looked thoughtful for a moment, then gestured again for Delchamps to continue.
“If Clendennen isn’t already looking for us—even though my gut tells me that he is—he’ll really start looking when Lammelle shows that tape to him. They’ll probably start in Argentina—”
“We know Roscoe J. Danton is down there looking for you,” Darby interjected. “So, they likely do, too.”
Delchamps went on: “And when they don’t find you—us—down there, they’ll look elsewhere, and inevitably find us all gathered here getting sunburned and eating broiled fish in a penthouse.”
“I’m sure there’s already a satellite picture of the Gulfstream sitting here in somebody’s database,” Darby interjected again.
“Cut to the chase,” Castillo said.
“Darby flies to Washington, where he immediately goes to a bank and asks for a mortgage to buy the house in Alexandria, and then starts looking for a job suitable for his talents with one of those hire-a-spook companies. Blackwater, for example.
“Britton returns to Philadelphia, where Sandra goes back to the classroom, and Jack starts trying to get back in the police department. Peg-Leg goes back to Vegas, where Casey has already given him a job.” He looked at Dick Miller, then went on: “Dick, Jake, and Sparkman go to Panama City, Panama, where they immediately put the Gulfstream up for sale, start looking for a better airplane, and go into the private-jets-for-hire business. Two-Gun goes to Montevideo and opens a financial management—read money-laundering—business. Getting the picture?”
Darby added: “The Gulfstream has six—maybe seven—of Casey’s latest radios in the baggage compartment. We’d all be in contact.”
“What happens to Lester?” Castillo asked.
“He stays here—or around here—with you, Sweaty, Tom, and Uncle Remus. You own a farm here in Old Meh-hee-co, right?”
“And you?”
“I go to Budapest. Where I will find employment with Billy Kocian.”
Darby put in: “Everybody could be back here—or be anywhere else—in twenty-four hours, when you decide what we have to do about the Congo-X. And how to keep Sweaty and Tom from being loaded on an Aeroflot flight to Mother Russia.”
“And Pevsner?”
“He disappears once again into the wilds of Argentina.”
Castillo exhaled audibly.
“Apparently, you have given this some thought.”
“There we were, floating around on the ocean, catching our supper and giving this a lot of thought,” Delchamps said.
When Castillo didn’t immediately reply, Delchamps added, “Your call, Ace. But I think we’d all be more efficient if we didn’t have members of the Clandestine Service breathing down our necks. Or trying to put handcuffs on us. But if you—”
“Everybody’s willing to go along?”
Delchamps nodded.
“They would have joined this little chat,” he said, “but Uncle Remus said that you get really antsy when you feel outnumbered.”
“When do you plan to leave?” Castillo asked.
“First thing in the morning,” Delchamps said.
“I wonder what Pevsner’s going to think about this,” Castillo said.
“Well, he probably won’t like it when he learns he has just sold his new fly-the-high-rollers-around airplane to the LCBF Corporation, but the bottom line there, Ace, is you don’t ask your Russian pal anything. You tell him the way it is.”
[TWO]
The Oval Office
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0915 8 February 2007
“Good morning, Mr. President and Madam Secretary,” John Powell, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said as he walked into the Oval Office.
“This had better be important, Jack,” President Clendennen replied. “I am supposed to take off for Chicago in fifteen minutes, and Natalie has a lunch in New York with a gaggle of UN morons.”
“I believe it is important, Mr. President,” the DCI replied. “And all I have to do is slip this in the machine ...”
With a DVD disc in his hand, Powell walked toward a large flat-screen television monitor mounted on a wheeled table.
“Let him do that,” Clendennen said, indicating a Secret Service agent. “I know he won’t screw up the TV.”
“Yes, sir,” Powell said, and handed the disc to the Secret Service agent.
“Before it starts to play, Mr. President, I’d like to say, if I may, that we believe this disc to be authentic. That is, the surveillance tapes from which we made this are authentic. And that what you will see when it plays is authentic and has not been altered or changed in any way.”
“I’m delighted to hear that, Jack,” Clendennen said. “Play your movie.”
“What kind of an airplane is that?”
“That’s a Tupolev Tu-934A, Mr. President.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before,” Natalie Cohen said.
“Few people have. It’s a Russian Special Operations aircraft. Magnificent airplane. It’s practically invisible to radar, can fly nonstop—with aerial refueling, of course—anywhere in the world at Mach zero point nine and land on a football field. We are offering a hundred twenty-five million for one.”
“You better hope Senator Johns doesn’t hear about that,” the President said. “A hundred twenty-five million! Are the Russians that far ahead of us?”
“In this area, yes, sir. We have nothing like it; the Air Force really wants to take a close look at the Tu-934A. And, in a manner of speaking, sir, the Russians have been ahead of us before. They beat us into space of course, and before that, Igor Sikorsky—who fled the Communist revolution to come here—is generally recognized as the man who made rotary-wing flight practical.”
“And exactly where is this example of Russian aeronautical genius landing, Jack?”
“In a dry lake in Mexico, sir. Specifically, Laguna el Guaje, in Coahuila State.”
“How do you know that?”
“Our analysts worked with the angle of sun, Mr. President,” Powell said. “And with the date and time on the surveillance tapes. At the time shown, the angle of the sun would be like that on the tapes at only Laguna el Guaje.”
“I’m impressed, Frank, I really am. What I’m wondering is where you got the tapes.”
Powell did not respond directly, and instead said, “The man walking toward the Tupolev, sir, is, with a ninety-nine-point-nine-percent certainty, Pavel Koslov, the FSB rezident in Mexico City. We computer-compared the image on the surveillance tapes with images in our database.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Those men, sir, coming down the ramp of the Tupolev are almost certainly Russian Spetsnaz—Russian Special Forces. And that man, sir, is General Yakov Vladimirovich Sirinov. We made that identification ninety-nine-point-nine-percent certain by comparing this image with images of him in our database. Sirinov runs the FSB for Vladimir Putin, Mr. President.”
“What are those barrels?” Clendennen asked.
“What we believe, sir, with an eighty to eighty-five degree of certainty, is that those barrels are the ones sent to Colonel Hamilton at Fort Detrick. The scenario is that they were taken across the border near the dry lake; that the first was then moved to Miami, and from there FedExed to Colonel Hamilton, and the second left for the Border Patrol to find near McAllen.”
Natalie Cohen said, “If you can compare pictures of people on a computer, Jack, and say they’re just about a perfect match, why can’t you do the same thing with a couple of what look like blue beer barrels?”
Powell said, “According to Stan Waters—”
“Who?” the President asked.
“J. Stanley Waters, the deputy director for operations, Mr. President. He supervised the analysis of these tapes. He’s an old analysis type.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“There are more details on a human being that can be compared to another image of that person, Mr. President. An object like these blue ‘beer’ barrels is more difficult; they look like every other barrel.”
“Are these the same barrels? Yes or no?”
“With an eighty to eighty-five percent degree of certainty, Mr. President, we believe they are.”
President Clendennen snorted.
“Where did you get these tapes, Jack?” Natalie Cohen asked, and immediately, when she saw the look on his face, regretted having asked. She had guessed the source.
“I think we can safely proceed on the assumption that these are the barrels of Congo-X now at Fort Detrick, Mr. President,” Powell said.
“Answer Natalie’s question, Jack,” the President said.
“They were, in a manner of speaking, slipped under our door, Mr. President, addressed to DDCI Lammelle.”
“Tell me what that means,” Clendennen said.
“Sir, parties unknown delivered them to my outer office yesterday.”
“In other words, you don’t know where these came from?”
“No, sir. I don’t know where they came from.”
“Mr. President, it doesn’t matter, does it?” the secretary of State began. “We have them, and they have been determined to be genuine. We now can send Frank Lammelle back to Sergei Murov—”
“Maybe God slipped them under your door, Jack,” the President cut her off. “Or little green men from Mars. Or maybe, as incredible as it might sound, Lieutenant Colonel Castillo might even be responsible. Isn’t that true?”
“Mr. President, since I don’t know where these tapes came from, anything is possible.”
“You were both here, I seem to recall, when I made it as plain as I knew how that I didn’t want my predecessor’s loose cannon, or anyone associated with Colonel Castillo, Retired, connected in any way with our Congo-X problem. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir,” Powell said.
“I was here, Mr. President,” the secretary of State said.
“Where is Castillo?” the President asked.
“I have no idea, Mr. President,” Powell said.
“Nor do I,” Cohen said.
“What about Ambassador Montvale, my Director of National Intelligence? Has anyone heard from him?”
“I spoke with the ambassador last night, Mr. President. He’s in Buenos Aires. As is Truman Ellsworth. At your orders, sir.”
“And has he found Castillo and delivered my orders to him that he is not to get involved in any way with Congo-X?”
“No, sir.”
“Did Montvale have anything at all to say?”
“He believes he knows where Mr. Darby is, sir.”
“Who is Darby?”
“Until he was recruited for OOA, Mr. President, he was the CIA station chief in Buenos Aires. He retired when OOA was disbanded.”
“And he’s in Argentina?”
“Ambassador Montvale has information suggesting that Mr. Darby may be in Ushuaia.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“It’s the southernmost city in South America, sir.”
“What’s he doing there?” the President asked, and then, before Powell could reply, went on: “Is Usah ... whatever you said ... a place where Castillo could hide the defectors?”
“That has occurred to Ambassador Montvale and myself, sir.”
“And what have you done about it, either of you?”
“I sent six first-class officers of the Clandestine Service down there, Mr. President, to assist the new station chief. And of course Ambassador Montvale. They should be in Argentina this morning. I’m sure that as soon as they get there, Ambassador Montvale will send at least two of them to Ushuaia.”
Clendennen nodded.
“But I must tell you, Mr. President, that Ambassador Montvale told me he has also developed intelligence that suggests that Mr. Darby’s presence in Ushuaia has nothing to do with Castillo or the Russians.”
“What the hell else would he be doing in some town on the southern tip of South America?”
“He may be there with an Argentine national, a young woman not his wife, if you take my meaning, Mr. President.”
“Where the hell did Montvale get that?”
“From Mrs. Darby, sir. She’s here in the States.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch!”
“May I speak, Mr. President?” the secretary of State said.
The President made an impatient gesture giving her permission to do so.
“Mr. President, I respectfully suggest that this whole business could be put behind us by sending either DCI Powell or—probably preferably—DDCI Lammelle back to Sergei Murov with this tape. And this time, Frank delivers the ultimatum: ‘Turn over whatever Congo-X you have, give us a written statement that you neither have control of nor have knowledge of any more of this substance, or we’ll call an emergency session of the United Nations and play this tape for the world.’”
The President didn’t respond for a moment, then he asked, more or less courteously, “Are you through, Madam Secretary?”
“Yes. For the moment.”
“The female is really the deadlier of the species, isn’t it?” the President asked rhetorically. “Natalie, do you know what would happen while we’re calling the Russian bluff? We’d be right back where we were when my impulsive predecessor sent the bombers to take out the Fish Farm: at the edge of a nuclear exchange.”
“With respect, Mr. President, I don’t think so,” Cohen said.
“What you think doesn’t really matter, does it, Natalie? I’m the President.”
“With respect, Mr. President, I associate myself with the position of the secretary of State,” Powell said.
The President ignored him.
“Now, what’s going to happen is that nothing will be done with these tapes until I say so,” the President said. “What I intend to do is find those Russians and put them on a plane to Moscow. Once we have done that, we’ll evaluate the Russian reaction, and go from there.
“And since the way to find the Russians is to find Colonel Castillo, that is the priority. When I get back from Chicago this afternoon—somewhere around three, I would guess—I want you both back here. Plus the secretary of Defense and the director of the FBI.”
“The secretary of Defense is in India, Mr. President,” Cohen said.
“I was about to say, Madam Secretary, ‘Then his deputy,’ but when I think about it, when I think about who that is, I don’t want to do that. Have General Naylor here, and if Naylor is in Timbuktu or someplace, get word to him to return immediately. When I walk back in this office this afternoon, I want to see Naylor, or you holding the general’s estimated time of arrival in your hand, Madam Secretary.
“This meeting is concluded. Thank you for coming,” the President said.
And then he walked out of the Oval Office without shaking hands with either Powell or Cohen.
[THREE]
Aboard Cessna Mustang N0099S
Bahías de Huatulco International Airport
Near Pochutla, Mexico
1015 8 February 2007
“Huatulco, Mustang Double Zero Double Nine Sugar,” Castillo called in Spanish. “Will you close out my VFR flight plan from Cancún, please? We just decided to stop for lunch.”
“Double Zero Double Nine, are you on the ground?”
“No. I’m on final to a dirt strip next to a marvelous restaurant on Route 200 near Bajos de Chila.”
“I know the place. Report when on the ground. Have a nice lunch.”
Castillo passed over the coastline and made a slow, sweeping descent over the Pacific Ocean. Although there was a marvelous restaurant near Bajos de Chila, he had no intention of landing on the dirt strip behind it.
When he had dropped almost to the surface of the sea—and had thus, he hoped, dropped off the Huatulco radar—he touched his throat microphone again.
“Huatulco, Double Zero Double Nine on the ground at one seven past the hour.”
“Double Zero Double Nine, Huatulco closing you out as of ten-seventeen.”
“Thank you.”
Two minutes later, having spotted the pier he was looking for, he picked up enough altitude to pass over a small hill on the coastline. At the peak of the climb, he spotted the landing strip he was looking for, dropped the nose, made a straight-in approach, and greased the landing.
Feeling more than a little smug, he pressed the cabin speaker button.
“Welcome to Grapefruit International Airport. Please remain in your seats with your chastity belts fastened until we reach the terminal. We hope you have enjoyed your flight, and the next time you’re running from the CIA that you will choose High Roller Airlines again.”
“You are insane,” his co-pilot said, but she was smiling. Then she gestured, as he turned the Mustang around, out the windows, at rows of grapefruit trees lining the runway as far as the eye could see. “That’s all grapefruit?”
“That’s all grapefruit.”
He taxied about halfway back down the runway, and then turned the nose toward the closed door of a hangar, and then shut the engines down.
“Carlitos,” Svetlana said, her voice tinged with concern. When he looked at her, she pointed out the window.
Three very large, very swarthy men, each bearing a shotgun, had come around the side of the hangar and were approaching the airplane.
Castillo waved cheerfully at them, and after a moment, as they recognized him, they smiled and waved back.
“I better get off first,” Castillo said. “Otherwise Max will probably get shot by people I’ve known since I was twelve.”
He unstrapped himself quickly, rose from his seat, stepped into the cabin, and began to open the stair door.
“I trust the colonel is aware there are some armed, possibly unfriendly, indigenous personnel out there?” Uncle Remus asked.
The stair door opened and Castillo quickly went down it. Max leapt from the airplane, showed the men his teeth, and headed for the nose wheel.
The larger of the men tossed his shotgun to one of the others, spread his arms, and wrapped them around Castillo.
“Doña Alicia will be so happy, Carlos,” he said.
“She’s here?”
I should have considered that possibility. But it’s too late now.
“Fernando brought her down yesterday. Doña Alicia said it was freezing in San Antonio,” he said. And then added quietly: “I don’t know about the dog, but I like your lady friend.”
“Sweaty, say hello to Pablo,” Castillo said. “We grew up together. The others are Manuel and Juan.”
When all the introductions had been made, Pablo said, “Carlos, why don’t you take one of the Suburbans and go up to the house? Just as soon as we push the plane inside, we’ll bring your luggage.”
“There’s two cardboard boxes in the back,” Castillo said, and then indicated with his hands the size. “Bring one of them, please?”
It was a ten-minute drive from the airstrip to the house, down a gravel road that led between the apparently endless grapefruit trees and over two more ridge lines.
No one was on the verandah of the sprawling, red-tile-roofed building to greet them, which Castillo considered surprising.
Castillo got from behind the wheel of the Suburban, waved for the others to follow him, walked across the verandah, pushed open the door, and bellowed, “Abuela, your favorite grandson is here; you can send the fat and ugly one back to the village.”
The door to the living room opened, and Randolph Richardson III walked into the foyer and said, “Good afternoon, sir. I’m very glad to see you.” Then he spotted Svetlana. “And you, too, ma’am.”
Castillo’s heart jumped into his throat. He was literally struck dumb and knew that all that would come out of his mouth if he tried to speak would be a croak.
Svetlana walked quickly to the boy.
“Are you kissing old Russian women this week, Randy?”
She went to the boy, put her arms around him, and kissed his cheek. He stiffened and seemed uncomfortable, but didn’t try to free himself.
“What?” Svetlana asked. “I kiss you and you don’t kiss me?”
After a moment, he raised his head and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
Castillo found his voice.
“What you have to understand, Randy,” he said as he walked to the boy, “is that you’re surrounded by strange people who hug and kiss each other.”
Svetlana freed the boy, who then extended his hand to Castillo.
“Pay attention,” Castillo said. “We shake hands with people we don’t like. We hug and kiss people we like.”
He put his arms around the boy.
“Sometimes, if we’re related to them,” Castillo said, “we even have to hug and kiss ugly fat people like the one in the door.”
Fernando Manuel Lopez was now in the doorway to the foyer. And so was María Lopez, who did not like Carlos Guillermo Castillo very much in the first place, and whose facial expression showed she really disliked his characterization of her husband as fat and ugly.
Castillo kissed Randy’s cheek and hugged him. The boy hugged back and then gave him the same sort of peck on the cheek he’d given Svetlana.
Castillo’s heart jumped.
Don’t blow this by pushing it.
He let the boy go.
“Sorry it didn’t work, Fernando,” Castillo said.
“What didn’t work, Gringo?”
“The plastic surgery. You’re even uglier than before.”
“Jesus Christ, Gringo!” Fernando said, shaking his head. Then he embraced Castillo.
“Don’t blaspheme, Fernando,” Doña Alicia Castillo said as she came through the door. “And ...”
“... don’t call Carlos ‘Gringo,’” Fernando and Castillo finished for her in chorus.
The boy laughed.
Castillo embraced his grandmother.
“You could have let us know you were coming,” she said, and then she spotted Svetlana and went quickly to her and kissed her.
“I’m so glad to see you, my dear,” Doña Alicia said.
Then she moved to Barlow, Uncle Remus, and Lester, and kissed each of them. Every one seemed delighted to see everyone else except Mrs. María Lopez.
And now there was someone else in the foyer.
“How are you, General?” Castillo said as he advanced on Major General Harold F. Wilson, USA (Retired), with his hand extended.
That didn’t work, either. General Wilson wrapped his arms around Charley and hugged him.
“Pay attention, Randy,” Castillo said.
“I thought I heard a jet flying a little low over here,” General Wilson said. “That was you?”
“A Cessna Mustang,” Castillo said. “Great little airplane.”
“Am I going to get to fly it?” Randy asked. “I flew the Lear here from San Antonio. I mean really flew it. Took it off, navigated cross-country, and landed it.”
Castillo knew the boy was telling the truth when he saw the look on María’s face. Clearly, she regarded fourteen-year-old boys flying as co-pilot of anything more complicated than a tandem bicycle as one more proof of the insanity of the family into which she had made the mistake of marrying.
“I think we can arrange that,” Castillo said. “But only if you promise to forget everything Tío Fernando has taught you about flying.”
“Now, you stop, the both of you,” Doña Alicia said.
“Speaking of tíos,” Castillo began.
“Excuse me, dear?” Doña Alicia asked.
“It’s very important that Tío Héctor García-Romero does not know that any of us are here, or that we’ve been in touch in any way.”
“What’s that all about? He’s our lawyer, for God’s sake,” Fernando said.
“He’s also in bed ...”
Castillo stopped and looked at Randy.
“I know,” Randy said. “Little pitchers have big ears. This is where I’m told to go play with my puppy, right?”
“You do have a mouth, don’t you?” Castillo asked.
“I wonder where he got that from, El Señor Boca Grande?” Fernando said.
“No, Randy,” Castillo said. “I’m not going to tell you to go play with your puppy. Where is he, anyway?”
“His father is teaching him how to steal food in the kitchen,” Fernando said.
“Well, why not?” Castillo said. “Dogs, like boys, have to grow up sometime. And if you need a teacher, go to an expert.”
“Are you talking about your dog or yourself?” Fernando challenged.
“Both,” Castillo said, and turned to the boy. “Randy, we both know that you have learned to keep important secrets.”
And everybody in this room, from Lester to General Wilson, knows what that secret is.
“I don’t think I like where this conversation is going,” Fernando interrupted.
“I don’t think I do, either,” Doña Alicia said.
Castillo ignored both of them. He went on: “So I know, Randy, that if I tell you that this is an important secret—actually secrets, a bunch of them—and if they get out, people can be hurt, or even killed, I know that I can trust you to keep your mouth shut. Okay? If you don’t want that responsibility, I’ll understand if you want to take Max and his puppy for a walk.”
“Jesus Christ, Gringo, he’s fourteen years old,” Fernando said. “He doesn’t need to hear about people getting hurt or killed.”
“Carlos, do you know what you’re doing?” Doña Alicia asked.
“I’ll stay,” Randy said. And then added, “Thank you, sir.”
“Okay. The family lawyer, Randy, El Señor Héctor García-Romero, is up to his ears in the drug business.”
“I don’t believe that!” María Lopez exploded. “Héctor is Little Fernando’s godfather.”
“I don’t care if you believe it or not, María,” Castillo said. “What I’m worried about is your mouth. Will you give me your word to keep it shut?”
“Are you just going to stand there and listen to him talk to me like that?” María demanded of her husband.
Fernando looked at Castillo.
“Gringo, you better be sure you know what you’re talking about.”
“I do.”
“María, honey, if you don’t want to hear this, why don’t you—”
Castillo cut him off. He said, “María, the best way I know to convince you to keep your mouth shut about Tío Héctor, or anything else you will hear if you decide to stay, is to convince you that if you run your mouth, you’ll be putting not only Tío Héctor’s life at risk, but your own, and Fernando’s and your kids’ lives and probably even Abuela’s ...”
She glared at him and then icily demanded, “How could you dare to bring this ... this garbage ... here?”
“Fair question. First, I own half of this place. Second, I didn’t know anyone was here. If I had known, we probably wouldn’t be here. But the hand has been dealt, and we have to play it.”
“You are sure about Héctor, Carlos?” Doña Alicia asked earnestly.
“Abuela, I’m sorry, but it’s true. We were just at a secret airport he operates in the Laguna el Guaje. He doesn’t move drugs out of there, just the cash profits from the drug trade. Suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills.”
“My God!”
“It’s important that Héctor doesn’t know we’re here. That no one knows we’re here. I told Pablo that at the airstrip; he’ll deal with it.”
“Gringo, what the hell is going on?” Fernando asked.
“You believe him?” María asked her husband incredulously.
“Yeah, sweetheart, I believe him. And you better believe him, too.”
“I don’t want Héctor to know you know about him,” Castillo said. “If he calls here, and I suspect he will, act normally, but tell him you don’t know where I am, and that you haven’t heard from me.”
Doña Alicia nodded.
“Okay,” Castillo then said, “what are we doing here? Randy, you were aware that the Army, the armed forces, went to DefConTwo a while back?”
“Just before we bombed some place in Africa?”
Castillo nodded.
“Yeah. Nobody would talk about it, but the G-Three’s daughter heard about it, and snooped around. And she has a big mouth.”
“What is that, Carlos? DefConTwo?” Doña Alicia asked.
“DefCon stands for Defense Condition. DefConTwo is the next-to-highest degree of readiness to go to war.”
“Let me take the briefing, Charley,” Uncle Remus said. “You look pretty beat, and we don’t want to leave anything out.”
Castillo gave him the floor with a wave of his hand.
“The reason the Defense Department went to DefConTwo,” Leverette began, “is because the President had learned that the Iranians, the Russians, and some former East Germans were making a biological weapon in the Congo, and he decided that it had to go.”
“How did he learn about it?” Randy asked.
Leverette looked at the boy, then at Castillo. “You’re right, Charley. He does have a mouth.” He looked again at the boy, and said, “You get one interruption, Randy. And that was it. Next time, raise your hand.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your fa—Colonel Castillo was instrumental in getting two senior Russian intelligence officers to defect. They wanted to get out of Russia for a number of reasons, including that they were unhappy about the biological weapons factory in the Congo. As soon as Colonel Castillo got them to Argentina, they told him about it.”
Both Leverette and Castillo saw Randy look at Tom Barlow and Svetlana, asking with his eyes if they were the Russians, and then saw Svetlana nod.
“Am I allowed to ask questions, Mr. Leverette?” General Wilson asked.
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“Was that attack based on more than what the defectors told Charley? Or the President? The reason I ask is because there was some talk the President went off half-cocked.”
“Sir, it was based on more than what the Russians told us. Colonel Hamilton, from Fort Detrick, went over there himself and brought out samples of the material, and even the cadavers of three people who had died from the effects of the poisonous substance.”
“Thank you. I’m really glad to hear that.” Then he had a thought and said it aloud: “How the hell did Hamilton get into and then out of the Congo with three bodies?”
“Carefully and surreptitiously, General,” Leverette said.
“Tell the general who took Colonel Hamilton into and out of the Congo, Mr. Leverette,” Castillo said.
Leverette, clearly uncomfortable, said nothing.
“Why am I not surprised?” General Wilson said.
“That’s why they gave him another Distinguished Service Medal when he was retired,” Castillo said.
“You were at the retirement parade, Randy,” General Wilson said. “You saw both Mr. Leverette and Colonel Castillo being decorated with the DSM.”
“Then why did my father say he was kicked out of the Army?”
That pompous asshole and chairwarmer is not your father.
I am.
“He must have been given the wrong information,” Castillo said. “It happened so suddenly that it probably looked like we were being thrown out.”
“Anyway, we thought the whole thing was over,” Leverette went on. “I was in Uruguay, about to go into the cattle business, when the Russian rezident in Budapest handed Mr. Kocian a letter. It said that a mistake had been made and that the Russians should come home, all is forgiven.”
“You’re not going back, are you, Svetlana?” Randy asked nervously.
“No,” Svetlana said. “Now shut up and let Uncle Remus finish.”
Leverette went on: “The next thing that happened was a barrel of this stuff was delivered to Colonel Hamilton, at Fort Detrick and ...”
“. . . And that brought us, Doña Alicia, to your door,” Leverette concluded.
“And what happens now?”
“We eat a lot of grapefruit and maybe do a little fishing while we wait to see what the Powers That Be decide to do with the tapes,” Castillo said. “And the one thing we don’t do until that happens—for the next four or five days—is talk about this.”
“I think we should have an early lunch,” Doña Alicia said. “I’ll ask them to set up a table on the verandah.”
[FOUR]
The Office of the Ambassador of the United States of
America
Avenida Colombia 4300
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1315 8 February 2007
Ambassador Juan Manuel Silvio—tall, lithe, fair-skinned, well tailored—stood up behind his desk, smiled, and put his hand out as Ambassador Charles M. Montvale and Truman Ellsworth walked into his office.
“How nice to see you again, Mr. Montvale,” Silvio said.
“Ambassador,” Montvale said.
“I know you only by reputation, Mr. Ellsworth,” Silvio said. “I’m Juan Silvio.”
“I’ve heard about you, too, Mr. Ambassador,” Ellsworth said with a smile.
Ellsworth knew much more about Silvio than the scathing description of the diplomat Montvale had given him.
Ellsworth was aware that there was more to his story than the bare, commonly known facts that Silvio’s family had escaped from Castro’s Cuba on a fishing boat.
He knew that the fishing boat had been a sixty-two-foot Bertram, and that the Silvio family had brought out with them not only the clothing on their backs, but an enormous fish box filled with currency, jewelry, and stock certificates; some of the more valuable antiques from their Havana mansion; and the extra keys to the cars they kept at their Key Biscayne house.
Ellsworth knew Silvio had graduated from his father’s alma mater, Spring Hill College, a Jesuit institution in Mobile, Alabama, which had been educating South American aristocrats for two hundred years. And that Silvio had earned a law degree at Harvard, and then a doctorate in political science at the University of Alabama. He had joined the State Department on graduation.
He had done so for much the same reason that Truman Ellsworth had become executive assistant to the director of National Intelligence: not because they needed the job, but because they saw it—the term “noblesse oblige” fit—as their patriotic obligation to serve their country.
Most important, Ellsworth knew that Silvio was not afraid of Montvale.
So far as Ellsworth knew, Silvio had never had to use it, but if push came to shove, he had behind him the enormous political clout of the Cuban-American community in south Florida. The Silvio family had spent a great deal of their money helping fellow Cubans escape from Castro and establish themselves in the United States. This was remembered. And gentlemen always repay their debts.
“May I offer you a cup of coffee?” Ambassador Silvio asked, waving Montvale and Ellsworth into chairs facing his desk.
“No, thank you,” Montvale said. “Mr. Ambassador ...”
“That would be very nice, thank you,” Ellsworth said.
“. . . I am here at the personal order of President Clendennen,” Montvale finished.
“So Ms. Grunblatt told me,” Silvio said. “And as soon as we have our coffee, I’ll ask how I may be of service. Are you sure you won’t ...”
“I’m sure. Thank you.”
“So how may I be of service to you, Mr. Montvale?”
“My orders are to locate both of the Russian defectors and former Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Castillo.”
“‘Former’? I was under the impression Castillo had been retired. Was that wrong? Did he resign?”
“No. He retired,” Montvale said. “Do you know where he is, Mr. Ambassador? Or the Russians?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. The last time I saw Colonel Castillo was when you and he were both in this office.”
“Do you think if I got Secretary of State Cohen, or the President himself, on the telephone to confirm my mission here, it would improve your memory, Mr. Ambassador?”
Silvio did not rise to the bait.
“Mr. Montvale, when Ms. Grunblatt told me that you had told her that, I telephoned the secretary of State for verification. Secretary Cohen confirmed that you and Mr. Ellsworth are here at the direction of President Clendennen and instructed me to do whatever I can to help you accomplish your mission.”
“And I have told you what that mission is.”
“And I have told you I have no idea where Colonel Castillo or the Russian defectors might be. But I’ll tell you what I can do: Now that everyone’s back from the affair in Mar del Plata, and the embassy’s vehicles are back in the motor pool, I’ll be happy to augment the Suburban in which you must have been really crammed with a vehicle more in keeping with your rank and position. With a driver, of course. For as long as you’re here.”
“Thank you very much,” Montvale said. “Mr. Ambassador, would you be surprised to hear that your former commercial counselor, and my former Buenos Aires station chief, Alexander Darby, is in Ushuaia?”
“Yes, I would. I was led to believe that Mr. Darby had returned to the United States.”
“I have been led to believe he’s in Ushuaia with a young Argentine woman.”
“I find that hard to believe, Mr. Montvale. How good is your source?”
Montvale ignored the question.
“It occurred to me, knowing what little I do about Ushuaia,” he said, “that the southernmost city in South America, as remote as it is, would be an ideal place to hide the Russians. What do you think?”
“I think that’s absurd,” Silvio said.
“You are telling me, and I will tell the President that you have told me, that you think the possibility that Mr. Darby and/or Colonel Castillo are hiding the Russian defectors in Ushuaia is absurd?”
“Yes, I do. Or, rather, yes, Mr. Montvale, that is exactly what I’m telling you.”
“I think I’m wasting my time here,” Montvale said, and stood up. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Montvale,” Ambassador Silvio said, standing up. “On your way out, ask the Marine guard for your car. If you need to contact me, you have my number.”
“Oh, I have your number, Mr. Ambassador,” Montvale said, and, without shaking hands, marched out of the office.
Silvio and Ellsworth nodded at each other, and then Ellsworth followed Montvale.
Ellsworth thought: I would bet two cents against a doughnut that nobody—not this fellow Darby, nor Castillo, nor the Russians—is in Ushuaia.
And I will also bet the same amount that the minute we get into the car, Charles is going to say, “Send the other four Clandestine Service officers down there as quickly as possible. That’s where everybody is.”
Or words to that effect.
Montvale did.
[FIVE]
Marriott Plaza Hotel
Florida 1005
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1620 8 February 2007
It is said that the bar in the Plaza hasn’t changed since General Juan Domingo Perón drank there as a corporal. But this is untrue for several reasons, including the fact that General Perón was never a corporal. It can be more accurately said that the bar has changed very little from the time it opened with the hotel a century ago.
It is a warm and comfortable room, with an L-shaped bar tucked into a corner. There are a half-dozen tables and comfortable leather armchairs.
It is as accurate to say the bar is on the floor below the lobby as it is to say it’s on the ground floor. Avenida Florida, level for most of its length, takes a steep dip as it passes the Plaza on its way to Avenida Libertador and the main railroad station.
It is thus possible to turn off Florida and enter the bar almost directly. It is also possible, fifty feet away, to turn off Florida and enter the hotel lobby. If one elects the latter choice, then one must take the stairs or the elevator and go down one floor to get to the bar.
The director of National Intelligence, the Honorable Charles M. Montvale, and his executive assistant, the Honorable Truman Ellsworth, entered the bar by coming down the stairs, shortly after being told in the lobby that Roscoe J. Danton was sitting at the bar alone, second stool from the wall.
This information had come to them from Winston Gump, one of the Clandestine Service officers who had arrived in Buenos Aires that morning. Montvale had drafted Gump to attend him—the phrase he used was “work with”—in the belief that one never knew when one might require the skills of a veteran of the Clandestine Service. For his part, Gump was flattered by having been selected to serve—he thought “serve,” not “work with”—the most senior person in the American intelligence community and his executive assistant.
Gump did wonder about Executive Assistant Ellsworth. He didn’t look like a male version of a super secretary, nor did he look that way, but Gump knew you couldn’t always judge a book by its cover, and there were all those stories going around how J. Edgar Hoover and his assistant could hardly wait to get home to put on dresses.
Anything, Gump had learned in his clandestine service, was possible.
“Well, Truman,” Montvale said. “Look who’s here!”
Ellsworth took the bar stool closest to the wall; Montvale took the one on the other side.
Roscoe J. Danton raised his voice: “Hey, Pedro, look who’s here!”
Oh, shit! He’s drunk!
On reflection, that might not be entirely a bad thing.
“Friend of yours, Roscoe?” Truman Ellsworth asked as he looked around the bar until he found a man sitting at one of the tables drinking a Coke while trying hard and almost succeeding in pretending he had not heard Danton calling, or seen Danton pointing at Montvale and Ellsworth.
“Not exactly.”
“We’ll have what our friend is having,” Montvale said. “And give him another.”
“And maybe one for your not-exactly-a-friend?” Ellsworth asked.
“I’m sure he’d love one, but he’s on duty, and from what I’ve observed, plainclothes officers of the Gendarmería Nacional do not drink while on duty.”
“You’re suggesting that you’re being surveilled by the Argentines?” Montvale asked.
“It was more a statement than a suggestion, Mr. Ambassador,” Danton said. “Either that guy, or one of his cousins, has been with me from the moment I tried to buy a used car.”
“You what?”
“A man named Alexander Darby—of whom you may have heard ... No. Of whom I’m sure you have heard; he was in the Clandestine Service of the CIA, like the guy I suspect you sent in here a couple of minutes ago—was retiring from government service ...”
“You saw Alex, did you, Roscoe?” Ellsworth asked.
Danton nodded, then went on: “... and had put his car up for sale. Clever journalist that I am, I got from the offer of sale his address, which the embassy press officer, Mizz Sylvia Grunblatt, wouldn’t give me, citing federal rules vis-à-vis privacy.”
“So you saw him?” Ellsworth asked.
“Why did you want to see Darby, Roscoe?” Montvale asked.
The conversation was interrupted by the bartender, who delivered three trays with the proper glasses and other accessories for the whisky-pouring, and a whisky bottle.
“You may have cause to regret your impulsive generosity, Mr. Montvale,” Danton said. He pointed to the whisky bottle. “That is The Macallan eighteen-year-old Highland single malt Scotch whisky. Were I not on the expense account—or for your generosity—I would shudder to think of the cost.”
“My privilege, Roscoe,” Montvale said.
“While he’s going through that absolutely marvelous pouring routine, Roscoe, you were about to tell us why you wanted to see Alex Darby,” Ellsworth said.
“So I was,” Danton said. “So I went to his apartment. He and his wife were there—”
“And how is Julia?” Ellsworth asked.
“Well, now that you mention it, she seemed a little pissed with her husband. But I digress. He was there with another CIA dinosaur, a guy named Delchamps. And, and, and ... an Irishman named Duffy, who had with him three guys. Pedro over there was one of them.”
Danton waved at Pedro, who did not respond.
“No sooner did I begin to mention that I wanted to ask Darby about a rumor going around—”
“What kind of a rumor?”
“Why do I think you know what kind of rumor?”
“Because, by your own admission, you are a clever journalist,” Montvale said. “But tell me anyway.”
“Our late, and not too mourned, President had a Special Operations hotshot working for him. Directly for him. An Army guy, a lieutenant colonel named Castillo. Said Special Operations hotshot ... I have this from a source I almost believe ... is said to have snatched two defecting Russians, big ones—from your CIA station chief in Vienna, Mr. Ambassador—just as she was about to load them on a CIA airplane and ship them to the States. He and they then disappeared.
“I also have heard a rumor that the Russian defectors told this hotshot that the Russians, the Iranians, and other people had a biological warfare factory in the Congo, and that he told the President, whereupon we went immediately to DefConTwo, and shortly thereafter a chunk of the Congo was hit by everything in the arsenal of democracy except nukes.”
“You told Alex ... and this Irish fellow, Duffy ... all that?” Ellsworth asked.
“I didn’t get two words beyond mentioning Costello’s ... Castillo’s ... name when suddenly I was being asked for my identification and being patted down by Pedro over there.”
Danton smiled and waved at Pedro again.
He went on: “Duffy then told me there was a question with my papers, but since I was a friend of Mr. Darby, instead of being hauled off to Gendarmería Nacional headquarters until it could be straightened out, they would allow me to spend the night here in the River Plate Marriott. And they would be happy to drive me there.”
“Where do you think Alex is now, Roscoe?”
“Well, he’s not in his apartment. The next morning, Duffy showed up here and said that I was free to go. He was sure that I understood the situation and was grateful for my understanding. He also said that if I thought I would need a remise—that’s sort of a taxi—to get around Buenos Aires, he knew one he could recommend.
“So, I got in the remise and went back to Darby’s apartment. He was gone.
“I still had one card to play. You remember the Secret Service guy on the presidential protection detail who fell off the bumper of the limousine?”
“Tony Santini,” Montvale said. “Good man.”
“Yes, he is. We have shared a drink or two on occasion. Well, when I knew I was coming down here I remembered that when he got fired from the protection detail, they sent him down here to look for funny money. So, I tried to call him. I got some other Secret Service guy on the phone who told me Tony had retired, but that he thought he was still in Argentina in a country club—that’s Argentine for really tightly gated community—outside of town. I remembered the address: the Mayerling Country Club in Pilar. I’ve got a cousin named Pilar, and Mayerling was the Imperial Austrian hunting lodge where Emperor Franz Josef’s son shot his sixteen-year-old girlfriend and then committed suicide.
“So, I got in the remise Duffy suggested, and told the driver to take me out to this place. We go instead to the Gendarmería Nacional headquarters. Out comes Duffy, now in uniform. He’s the generalissimo or something of the Gendarmería Nacional. Duffy says I really don’t want to go to Mayerling. Too dangerous. People started out for Mayerling and were never heard from again. I got the message.”
“So, you never got to see Tony,” Montvale said. “Pity. I’m sure he would have helped you.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Roscoe, we may be in a position to help each other,” Montvale said. “Can we go off the record?”
“Yeah, sure. But why bother? You tell me something, I report it, and then you say, ‘I never said that,’ and Ellsworth says, ‘That’s right. I was there and the ambassador never said anything like that.’”
“Let me rephrase. What if these rumors you heard were true? What if there was a renegade lieutenant colonel named Castillo who did in fact snatch two senior Russian defectors from the CIA station chief in Vienna? What if he’s now trying to sell them to the CIA?”
“No shit?”
“What if the President sent an unnamed but very senior intelligence official—”
“Who used to be a diplomat, Mr. Ambassador?”
“—down here with orders to find Colonel Castillo and these two Russians and then load them onto an airplane and fly them to the States?”
“You’re going to pay the ransom, or whatever?”
“That’s the point. I’m trusting your discretion on this, Roscoe. I know you’re a patriotic American. No. The United States of America will not ransom the Russians. But they will be returned to the States and turned over to the CIA.”
“Kidnap them back, you mean?”
“The Russians will be returned to the United States and turned over to the CIA. And Colonel Castillo will be returned to the United States and the United States Army for what is euphemistically known as ‘disciplinary action.’”
“Jesus!”
“My search for these people has met with more success than yours, Roscoe,” Montvale said.
“You know where they are?”
“I’m in a position to offer you confirmation of those rumors you heard. I’m further in a position to give exclusive rights to—what shall I say?—‘the repatriation process’ and to the Russians, and to Colonel Castillo.”
“If I what?”
“How do I put this? If, splendid journalist that you are, you nevertheless failed to notice any unpleasantness that may occur during the repatriation process, any minor violations of Argentine law—or, for that matter, of American law. Do you take my meaning?”
Roscoe J. Danton thought: Fuck you, Montvale.
Once I’m back in the States, I’ll write whatever the hell I feel like writing about anything I see.
Roscoe J. Danton said: “Deal. When does this come down?”
“Now. Truman, please call that Air Force colonel and have the plane ready by time we get to the airport.”
Truman Ellsworth said, “Yes, sir.”
Truman Ellsworth thought: If I thought there was any chance at all of Castillo, the Russians, or even Alex Darby actually being in Ushuaia, I would at this moment be experiencing shortness of breath, excruciating pain in my chest, and numbness of my left arm and waiting for the ambulance to haul me off to whatever hospital the embassy sends visiting VIPs suffering a heart attack.
But since I’m sure that all he’s going to find down there—at best—is Alex Darby suffering a midlife crisis in the arms of a girl young enough to be his daughter, I’m going to pretend I believe this idiocy.
For one thing, I simply have to see how Charles tries to talk himself out of this fiasco once it comes tumbling down around him. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t.