XI
[ONE]
The Oval Office
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1405 8 February 2007
Secretary of State Natalie Cohen, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Powell, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Mark Schmidt, and General Allan B. Naylor, the commanding general of the United States Central Command, were all in the reception area of the Oval Office when the President of the United States, having returned from his trip to Chicago, entered.
They all rose to their feet when they saw the President. He acknowledged none of them.
Instead, Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen continued walking into his office, sat in the leather chair behind his desk, and issued two orders: “Get me some coffee. And then let them in.”
Three minutes later, Cohen, Powell, Schmidt, and Naylor filed into the Oval Office.
“I’m glad you weren’t in Timbuktu, General,” Clendennen said.
Thinking that the President was joking, Naylor replied in kind: “That’s next Thursday, Mr. President.”
“You’re not going anywhere, General, until this business is finished,” the President snapped.
“Yes, sir,” General Naylor said.
“Sit down,” the President said, gesturing to all of them.
“General, C. Harry Whelan, Jr., and Andy McClarren were talking about you on Wolf News last night. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whelan told McClarren that the chief of staff of the Army no longer runs it—he’s just in charge of administering it—and that since Central Command controls more troops, more airplanes, more ships, and more military assets in more places all around the world than any other headquarters, then that makes you, as its commanding general, the most important general in the Army. Did you see the program, by any chance?”
“It was brought to my attention, Mr. President.”
General Naylor did not think he should get into the details of how the Wolf News program had come to his attention. He had been reading in his living room, and ignoring the television. His wife, Elaine, and their son, Major Allan B. Naylor, Jr., and his family, who had come for supper, were watching the Wolf News program The Straight Scoop.
When the Whelan-McClarren exchange concluded, General Naylor’s wife and son went to him on their knees, called him “Oh, Great One!” and mimed kissing his West Point ring, then backed out of his presence into the kitchen convulsed with laughter and to the applause of his daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
He actually had had to demand to be told what the hell was going on.
What was so funny?
And when he was told, he didn’t think it was at all funny.
The chief of staff was going to hear about it, Naylor had said, and he wasn’t going to find any humor in it.
And then he’d had an even more disquieting thought. He didn’t like C. Harry Whelan, Jr., but it was possible that he was right about this, too. It seemed to be a truism that whoever commanded the most troops was de facto, if not de jure, the most important general officer.
The President asked, “Would you agree with that assessment, General?”
“Sir, since the chief of staff gives me my orders and writes my efficiency reports—”
“Well, this is one of those rare occasions on which I fully agree with Mr. Whelan,” the President said. And then went on: “Does the name ‘Sergei Murov’ mean anything to you, General?”
“The SVR rezident in the Russian embassy, sir?”
The President nodded. “And I believe you know Frank Lammelle, the deputy director of the CIA, pretty well?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Mr. Powell, will you please tell General Naylor of the meeting Lammelle had with Murov in the Russian compound on the Eastern Shore?”
“Yes, sir,” Powell said, and did so.
When Powell had finished, Naylor said, “Very interesting.”
“I have never liked traitors,” the President then announced, more than a little piously. “And so I have decided to give the Russians these two. What are their names again, Jack?”
“Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva, Mr. President,” the CIA director furnished.
“Mr. President, do we have them?” Naylor asked. “I was under the impression that—”
“That Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo,” the President said, “who snatched them away from our CIA station chief in Vienna, has them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I understand, General, that you are personally acquainted with Lieutenant Colonel Castillo.”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
During the Cold War, there had been a custom in the regiments of the United States Constabulary in occupied West Germany called the “Dining In.” Once a month, the officers of the regiments met for dinner in their regimental officer’s club. These were formal affairs, ones presided over by the regimental commander, with seating at the one large table arranged strictly according to rank. Dress uniform was prescribed. Officers’ ladies were not invited.
A splendid meal was served, with appropriate wines at each course. After the food had been consumed, and the cigars and cognac distributed, one of the officers—in a rigidly choreographed ritual—rose to his feet, and said, “Gentlemen, I give you the President of the United States.”
Whereupon all the other officers rose to their feet and raised their glasses in toast.
The toasting then worked its way down the chain of command until it had reached the regimental commander.
And then the officers got down to some serious informal drinking and socializing, the intention of which was to raise the awareness of officers—particularly officers just reporting for duty—of their role in the Army, the Army of Occupation, the United States Constabulary, and their regiment.
It was at his first Dining In that newly arrived Major Allan B. Naylor, Armor, had first heard about the Gossinger family. The event had been held at the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment Officer’s Club in Bad Hersfeld, which was in Hesse, very close to the border between West Germany and East Germany.
The 11th ACR—“The Blackhorse Regiment”—had the mission of patrolling the border between East and West Germany. Their patrols ran through the Gossinger family’s farmlands, which had been cut by the barbed-wire fence and the minefields erected by East Germans at Soviet direction to separate the East and West Germanys. Most of the Gossinger farmlands had wound up in East Germany.
By the time the story of the princess in Castle Gossinger came up, both alcohol and tradition had eased much of the formality of the Dining In. It was now time to tell war stories and other kinds of stories, the idea being more to entertain those who had not heard them than to present an absolutely truthful version of the facts.
For example, the story went that the barbed-wire fence and the minefields had been erected to keep Americans and West Germans from escaping into the Heaven on Earth of the Communist world.
As far as the Gossinger castle was concerned, the good news was that the Gossinger family—the full family name, identifying them as highly ranked in the Almanach de Gotha, was “von und zu Gossinger”—had lucked out: After the fence had gone up, their castle was in West Germany.
The bad news was that the Gossinger castle didn’t look at all like Neuschwanstein Castle, the one built—damn the expense—by Mad King Ludwig in Bavaria. It instead more resembled a tractor factory.
The good news was that there was a fair princess living in the castle who loved Americans.
The bad news was that her loving of Americans was past tense. She had loved one American. He had ridden up to the castle on his white horse—actually flying a Bell WH-1D “Huey”—dallied awhile, left her in the family way, and disappeared, never to return. Nor to be heard from again.
More bad news was that her daddy—formerly Oberst Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, who had been one of the last seriously wounded evacuated before von Paulus had surrendered at Stalingrad—did not like Americans. This was possibly because of the American chopper jockey’s relationship with the princess. He had made it clear that any contact with Americans would be rare and brief.
Shortly after the Dining In, Major Naylor had been taken to the castle—formally known as Das Haus im Wald—by the Blackhorse’s commander, Colonel Frederick Lustrous, and there introduced to former Oberst Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, who received them courteously but rather coldly in his office.
Naylor had obeyed Lustrous’s order: “Allan, look closely at the pictures on the shelf behind his desk” as Lustrous explained to Herr von und zu Gossinger that as the Regiment’s S-3, Naylor would be dealing with the von und zu Gossingers for the regiment.
Major Naylor was surprised at what he saw on the shelf. There was a photo of General George S. Patton standing with his arm around von und zu Gossinger’s shoulder. The third man in the photo Naylor recognized after a moment as Colonel John Waters, Patton’s son-in-law, who had been captured in North Africa. Patton and Waters were splendidly turned out, while “Von und Zu”—as Naylor had quickly come to think of the starchy German—was in a tattered suit.
The picture had obviously been taken immediately after the war, probably just after Waters had been freed and just before Patton had died of injuries suffered in a car/truck accident in Heidelberg. And, judging by the way Oberst von und zu Gossinger was dressed, not long at all after he had been released from a POW camp and taken off his uniform for the last time.
But the photograph clearly made the point that Von und Zu had some powerful American friends. Waters was now a general officer.
Naylor got his first look at the princess—Frau Erika von und zu Gossinger—that first visit to the castle, but they were not introduced. She was a slim young woman in a black dress, her blonde hair gathered in a bun at her neck, and had been with her son, a towheaded ten- or eleven-year-old.
At the time, Naylor decided that while the story of the princess getting herself knocked up by some American chopper jockey made a great Dining In story, it was probably pure bullshit.
Over the next two years, he became more sure of that as he developed a personal relationship with the princess. Or, more accurately, as his bride, Elaine, and Erika became friends, as did the boy and Allan Junior, who was a year younger than Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger.
The two women became much closer about a year later, after Von und Zu and his son went off a bridge on the Autobahn near Kassel in their Mercedes at a speed estimated by the authorities at one hundred ninety kilometers per hour (one hundred eighteen miles per hour), which left the princess and her son not only alone in the castle but the sole owners of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.
By that time Major Naylor had learned the Gossinger assets went far beyond the farmlands now split by the barbed-wire fence and minefields. There were seven newspapers all over Europe, two breweries, a shipyard, and other businesses.
At the funeral of Erika’s father and brother, Allan had told Elaine that he thought Erika would now be pushed into marrying Otto Görner, managing director of the Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., empire, who he knew had made his intentions of such known a long time ago, and who had enjoyed the blessing of the late Oberst von und zu Gossinger.
Elaine had told him that Erika had told her she would never marry—Otto or anyone else.
And she hadn’t.
Six months after the funeral, Elaine, white-faced, showed up at Naylor’s office—something she almost never did—and announced she had to talk to him right then.
“The best of the bad news is that scurrilous story about Karl being the love child of one of our oversexed goddamn chopper jockeys is true,” Elaine had reported, and handed him a slip of paper. “That’s his name.”
On the paper she had written, “WOJG Jorge Castillo, San Antonio, Texas.”
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he’d said.
“Find him.”
“After all this time? Why?”
“The worst of the really bad news, sweetheart, is that Erika has maybe a month, maybe six weeks, to live. She’s kept her pancreatic cancer a secret.”
“My God!”
“Very shortly, that Tex-Mex sonofabitch is going to be Karl’s only living relative. Find him, Allan.”
As any wise major destined for high command would do when faced with a problem that he didn’t have a clue how to solve, Naylor turned to the Blackhorse’s sergeant major. It took the wise old noncom not even thirty minutes to locate Warrant Officer Junior Grade Jorge Alejandro Castillo. He had remembered the name from somewhere, and then he had remembered where.
The sergeant major handed Major Naylor a book entitled Vietnam War Recipients of the Medal of Honor.
WOJG Jorge Castillo was in San Antonio, in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. His tombstone bore a finely chiseled representation of the Medal of Honor and dates that indicated he had been nineteen years old at the time of his death.
That presented problems for Naylor and the Army that were difficult to express without sounding like a three-star sonofabitch. But they had to be, as Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger was about to become a very wealthy twelve-year-old. And all of that money was now going to come under the control of some Mexican-Americans in Texas who probably didn’t even know he existed.
The Army tries to take care of its own. This is especially true when the person needing help is the only son of a killed-in-action officer whose incredible courage in the face of death earned him the nation’s most prestigious medal for valor.
The problem went up the chain of command. Senior officers of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps were directed to find ways to save the boy’s inheritance from squander by his new family.
Naylor was flown to San Antonio to “reconnoiter the situation” two days after Elaine had walked into his office with the bad news. The commanding general V U.S. Corps telephoned the commanding general of the Fifth United States Army at Fort Sam Houston, and told him Naylor was coming and why.
That officer quickly informed Naylor that the problem was not that the Castillo family was going to squander the inheritance—they owned square blocks of downtown San Antonio, and a great deal else, and didn’t need anyone else’s money.
Naylor’s—and the Army’s—problem was going to be to convince them that the boy’s mother was not some fraulein of loose morality trying to dump someone else’s bastard on them to get her hands into the Castillo cashbox.
Naylor found Doña Alicia Castillo at her office near the Alamo.
When she telephoned her husband, who was in New York City on business, to tell him she had just been told that their only son had left behind a son in Germany, he begged her to take things very slowly, and to do nothing until he could return to Texas and look into it himself.
“He has Jorge’s eyes,” Doña Alicia had said, and hung up.
Juan Fernando Castillo caught the next flight he could get on to Texas. It took him to Dallas, not San Antonio, but that wasn’t going to pose a problem. He had called Lemes Aviation and told them to have the Lear waiting for him in Dallas for the final leg to San Antonio.
When he got to Dallas, however, the Lear wasn’t there. When he called Lemes Aviation, he was told that Doña Alicia had taken the jet to New York, so that she and some Army officer could make the five-fifteen Pan American flight to Frankfurt.
Within twenty-four hours of meeting Doña Alicia Castillo, Allan and Elaine Naylor stood in the corridor outside Erika von und zu Gossinger’s room in the castle and overheard Doña Alicia say, “I’m Jorge’s mother, my dear. I’m here to take care of you and the boy.”
Juan Fernando Castillo arrived in Germany ten hours after his wife.
A week later—Erika having decided she didn’t want the boy to see her in the final stages of her illness—Naylor and Elaine and Allan Junior had shaken hands and hugged the boy, who now carried an American passport in the name of Carlos Guillermo Castillo and was preparing to board a Pan American 747 airliner bound for New York.
“You don’t happen to know where your friend Lieutenant Colonel Castillo is, do you, General?” President Clendennen asked.
“No, sir, I do not.”
“Well, I’ve got a mission for you, General. I want you—as your highest priority—to find Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, wherever he might be, whereupon you will personally hand him orders recalling him from retirement to active duty. You will then personally order him to turn these Russian traitors over to the CIA. And when he has done so, then I want you to place Castillo under arrest, pending investigation of charges that may be laid against him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Do you understand these orders?”
Allan Naylor stood stonefaced, and thought: Goddamn you to hell, Bruce McNab!
He then said: “May I ask questions, sir?”
The President wiggled his fingers, granting permission.
“Sir, what is my authority to detain or arrest the Russians?”
“That won’t pose a problem for you, General. Mr. Lammelle will deal with that.”
“Sir, I don’t understand.”
“From right now—or at least from as soon as Mr. Lammelle can get here from Langley—until this mission has been accomplished, you and Lammelle will be, so to speak, joined at the hip. I wouldn’t think, General, of asking you or the Army to do anything that would constitute a violation of any law. Nor would I ask that Mr. Lammelle or the CIA violate any laws. Having said that, we all know that the agency has a certain latitude in the gray areas, and I will personally accept full responsibility for any action that Mr. Lammelle feels he should take to carry out the desires of the commander in chief in this matter. Does that answer your question, General Naylor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How soon can you start on this, General?”
“Sir, I’ll have to set up things at MacDill so that I can devote my full time to this. So, as soon as Mr. Lammelle gets here, I’ll go there.”
“Jack,” the President said to the DCI, “Lammelle has a radio in his car, right? Why don’t you get on the horn and tell him to meet the general at Andrews? There’s no reason he actually has to come here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good hunting, General,” the President said. “I don’t think I have to tell you to keep me posted, do I?”
“No, sir.”
[TWO]
Office of the Commanding General
United States Army Central Command
MacDill Air Force Base
Tampa, Florida
1710 8 February 2007
By the time of the First Desert War, Allan Naylor was a well-respected major general, obviously destined for greater responsibility and the rank that would come with it. He had been selected to be General H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s J-3, the Joint Staff’s operations officer.
It was the J-3’s responsibility to know what assets—usually meaning which units—were available to his general, and lists were prepared and updated daily that showed the names of the units and of their commanding officers.
One day, as they prepared to strike at Iraqi forces, Naylor had noticed on that day’s list, under NEWLY ARRIVED IN THEATRE, the 2303rd Civil Government Detachment.
Lieutenant Colonel Bruce J. McNab was listed as the commanding officer.
Naylor felt a little sorry for McNab for several reasons, including that lieutenant colonel was a pretty junior rank for those who had graduated from the Point, and that command of a civil government detachment was not a highway to promotion. But Naylor also had decided that the lowly status was almost certainly Scotty McNab’s own fault. He had always been a troublemaker. And Naylor had heard somewhere and some time ago that McNab had gone into Special Forces—another dead end, usually, for those seeking high rank—and this meant that McNab had somehow screwed up that career, too, the proof being that he now held only the rank of a light bird and was commanding a civil government detachment.
Two days later, the list, under CHANGES, noted: “Change McNab, Bruce J. LTC Inf 2303 CivGovDet to COL, no change in duties.”
Naylor had thought that McNab had been lucky the Desert War had come along. Now he would be able to retire as a full bird colonel.
And then the shooting war began, and Major General Naylor gave no further thought to Colonel McNab.
Two days after that, Naylor learned from the public relations officer that in the very opening hours of the active war, the co-pilot of one of the Apache attack helicopters sent in to destroy Iraqi radar and other facilities had performed these duties with extraordinary skill and valor.
The Apache had been struck by Iraqi fire, which wounded both the pilot and co-pilot, blinding the former. A lesser man than the co-pilot would have landed the Apache and waited for help. This one, in the belief the pilot would die unless he got prompt medical attention, flew the battered, smoking, shuddering Apache more than a hundred miles back across the desert to friendly lines, ignoring the wounds he had himself received, and the enormous risk to his own life.
“The G-One, General,” the public relations officer said to Naylor, “has approved the Impact Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross for this officer. Can General Schwarzkopf find time to make the presentation personally?”
“Why is that important?”
“The public relations aspect of this, General Naylor, is enormous. Once we release this story—especially with General Schwarzkopf personally making the award—it will be on the front page of every newspaper in America.”
“Why enormous?”
“The co-pilot is a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant, General. He just got out of West Point. And there’s more, General, much more!”
The first thing General Naylor thought was: Then Charley Castillo probably knows him. He also just got out of the Point.
That was immediately followed by: What the hell is a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant months out of Hudson High doing flying an Apache over here?
“What more?” Naylor had asked.
“This kid’s father won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, General, flying a Huey helicopter.”
“Colonel, you don’t win the Medal of Honor. You receive, are a recipient of, the Medal of Honor,” Naylor corrected him in a Pavlovian reaction, and then said, “Let me see that thing.”
The name of the officer who had performed so heroically was Second Lieutenant Carlos G. Castillo.
“Where is this officer?” he asked softly.
“In your outer office, sir.”
“Get him in here,” Naylor ordered.
The hand with which Lieutenant Castillo saluted General Naylor was wrapped in a bloody bandage. Much of his forehead and right cheek carried smaller bandages.
“Good afternoon, sir. Allan said if I had a chance, to pass on his regards.”
“Right about now, you were supposed to be starting flight school, basic flight school. How is it you’re here, and flying an Apache?”
“Well, when I got to Rucker, it came out that I had a little over three hundred hours in the civilian version of the Huey, so they sent me right to Apache school. And here I am.”
Naylor had thought: And damn lucky to be alive.
Questions of personal valor aside, standing before me is a young officer who is blissfully unaware that he has been a pawn in what is obviously a cynical scheme on the part of some senior aviation officers who wanted to garner publicity for Army Aviation—“Son of Vietnam Army Pilot Hero Flies in Iraq”—and turned a blind eye to his lack of experience, and the very good chance that he would be killed.
Goddamn them!
They probably would’ve liked it better if he had been killed. It would have made a better story for the newspapers: “Son of Hero Pilot Dies Like His Father: In Combat, at the Controls!”
Sonsofbitches!
Ten minutes later, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf agreed with Major General Naylor’s assessment of the situation.
“What do you want to do with him, Allan? Send him back to Fort Rucker?”
“That would imply he’s done something wrong, sir.”
“Then find some nice, safe flying assignment for him,” Schwarzkopf said. “Anything else?”
“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”
That then posed the problem of where to find a nice, safe flying assignment for Second Lieutenant Castillo out of the reach of glory-seeking Army Aviators.
“McNab.”
“Allan Naylor, Scotty. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you. How may I serve the general?”
“Tell me, Scotty, are there any Hueys on your T O and E?”
“Somebody told me you’re the J-Three. Aren’t you supposed to know?”
We may be classmates, but I’m a major general, and you’re a just-promoted colonel.
A touch more respect on your part would be in order.
“Answer the question, please.”
Scotty McNab affected an officious tone, and said, “Rotary-wing aircraft are essential to the mission of the 2303rd Civil Government Detachment, sir. Actually, sir, we couldn’t fulfill the many missions assigned to us in the area of civil government without them. Yes, sir, I have a couple of Hueys.”
“Colonel, a simple ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘No, sir’ would have sufficed,” Naylor snapped.
“Yes, sir.”
By then Naylor had been half-convinced that McNab’s disrespectful attitude was induced by alcohol. He had an urge to simply hang up on him, but that would not have solved the problem of finding Second Lieutenant Castillo a nice, safe flying assignment.
“I’m about to send you a Huey pilot, Colonel. A Huey co-pilot.”
“What did he do wrong?”
“Excuse me?”
“What did this guy do to get banished to civil government?”
“As a matter of fact, Colonel, this officer was decorated not more than an hour ago by General Schwarzkopf with the Distinguished Flying Cross,” Naylor said sharply. He heard his tone, got control of himself, and went on: “The thing is, Scotty, this officer is very young, has been through a harrowing experience, has been wounded, and what I was thinking ...”
“Got the picture. Send him down. Glad to have him.”
“Thanks, Scotty.”
“Think ‘Civil Government,’ General. That’s what we’re really all about.”
Not long after the shooting war had ended, Schwarzkopf’s aide-de-camp arrived in Naylor’s office, and announced: “General Schwarzkopf asks you to be in his office at 1500, when he will decorate Colonel McNab, General. You’re friends, right?”
“Colonel McNab is to be decorated? With what? For what?”
“With the Distinguished Service Cross, General. And afterward, the President’s going to call to offer his congratulations on his promotion. The Senate just confirmed his star.”
“Jack, are we talking about Colonel McNab of Civil Government?”
“Well, sir, that’s what they called it. But that’s not what it really was.”
“Excuse me? If it wasn’t Civil Government, what was it?”
“Sir, maybe you better ask General Schwarzkopf about that.”
At 1445, General Naylor went into General Norman Schwarzkopf’s office and confessed that he was more than a little confused about Colonel McNab’s 2303rd Civil Government Detachment and what he had been told was to happen at 1500.
“You weren’t on the need-to-know list, Allan,” Stormin’ Norman said. “I told McNab I thought you should be, but he said if he ever needed anything from you, he’d tell you what he was up to. And it was his call. My orders were to support him, but he didn’t answer to me. He took his orders from the CIA.”
“Sir, what was he up to?”
“He ran Special Operations for the campaign. And did one hell of a job. They grabbed two intact Scud missiles and a half-dozen Russian officers—including two generals—who were showing the Iraqis how to work them. Embarrassed the hell out of the Russians. There was a lot more, but you don’t have the need-to-know. I’m sure you understand.”
Naylor understood, but that was not the same as saying he liked being kept in the dark.
At 1500, Colonel Bruce J. McNab, followed by Second Lieutenant Castillo, marched into General Schwarzkopf’s office, came to attention, and saluted. Allan Naylor could not believe his eyes.
Colonel McNab was a small, muscular, ruddy-faced man with a flowing red mustache. He wore aviator sunglasses, a mostly unbuttoned khaki bush jacket with its sleeves rolled up, khaki shorts, knee-length brown socks, and hunting boots. On his head was an Arabian headdress, circled with two gold cords, which Naylor had recently learned indicated the wearer was an Arabian nobleman. An Uzi submachine gun hung by a strap from his shoulder.
Castillo was similarly dressed, except he had no gold cords on his headdress, and he had a Colt CAR-15 submachine gun slung from his shoulder.
“What the hell are you two dressed up for, Scotty?” General Schwarzkopf asked.
“Sir, I researched what Lawrence of Arabia actually wore during his campaigns in the desert—and it was not flowing robes—and adopted it for me and my aide-to-be.”
“It’s a good thing the press isn’t here,” Schwarzkopf said. “They’d have a field day with you two.”
Schwarzkopf offered his hand to Castillo.
“Good to see you again, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“And speaking of Lieutenant Castillo,” McNab said, and handed Schwarzkopf two oblong blue medal boxes. “These are for him. I’m sure he’d rather get them from you, sir.”
“What are they?”
“The Silver Star for the business with the Russian generals. And the Purple Heart, second and third awards.”
“I sent him to you, Scotty,” Naylor heard himself say, “to get him out of the line of fire.”
“Didn’t work out that way, General,” McNab said. “Charley’s a warrior.”
“I have General McNab for you, sir,” Command Sergeant Major Wes Suggins, the senior noncommissioned officer of the United States Central Command, announced to General Naylor from the office door.
Naylor gave him a thumbs-up gesture and snatched the secure telephone from his desk.
“Good evening, sir,” Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, commanding general of the Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, said cheerfully. “And how are things on beautiful Tampa Bay?”
“General, I want you in my office at oh-seven-thirty tomorrow,” Naylor said.
“Perhaps, if I may make the suggestion, sir, your quarters would be a better place to meet, sir,” McNab said. “I suspect we are going to say unkind things to one another, and that sometimes adversely affects the morale of your gnomes.”
“Oh-seven-thirty, General,” Naylor said, coldly furious. “My office, and leave your wiseass mouth at Bragg.”
“I hear and obey, my general,” McNab said cheerfully.
Naylor slammed the secure telephone into its cradle.
The damned call didn’t take thirty seconds and he made me lose my temper!
Referring to my staff as my “gnomes”! Goddamn him!
Allan B. Naylor had never liked Bruce J. McNab during their four years at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He had come to dislike him intensely in later years, and now he could not think of an officer he had ever despised more.
[THREE]
Morton’s Steakhouse
1050 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1930 8 February 2007
Sergei Murov sat at the bar of the restaurant, drinking twelve-year-old Chivas Regal while he watched in the mirror behind the row of bottles the headwaiter stand at the entrance. Murov was waiting for the syndicated columnist C. Harry Whelan, Jr., to show up.
Murov knew that the headwaiter—and other restaurant staff—were aware of who the freely spending cultural attaché of the embassy of the Russian Federation was. And he was equally certain—Washington being the small town that it really was, where everybody knew each other’s business—that they had at least heard and probably believed that he was the head Russian spy.
Murov wanted the word to get out around town that he had had a private dinner in Morton’s with Whelan. The FBI would be helpful in this regard. The usual quartet of FBI special agents had been waiting outside the embassy with two cars and had followed him here.
He knew how they worked. The cars were now parked on opposite sides of Connecticut Avenue so that they could easily follow him no matter which direction he took when he left the restaurant. One special agent had followed him into the restaurant and was now sitting at the end of the bar. The second agent-on-foot was now standing in the alley outside the kitchen against the possibility that the wily Russian spy might try to elude surveillance by sneaking out of Morton’s through the kitchen.
One of the FBI men had almost certainly already radioed the information to whoever was supervising his surveillance that he was in Morton’s, and just as soon as C. Harry Whelan arrived and joined him, that information, too, would be passed on.
That information, however, would not be shared with anyone—at least immediately—outside the J. Edgar Hoover Building. But the information would get around where Murov wanted it to go via the headwaiter, who would be on the receiving end of at least one “Flying C-Note”—he loved that phrase—for making discreet telephone calls to various print and television journalists telling them that C. Harry Whelan, Jr., had just walked into Morton’s and was breaking bread with Sergei Murov behind a screen erected at Murov’s request.
“Good evening, Mr. Whelan,” the headwaiter said when the journalist walked through the door. “Nice to see you again. Your regular table?”
“I think I’ll have a little taste first, thank you,” Whelan said, gesturing toward the bar. “Oh, look who’s there!”
Sergei Murov had gotten off his bar stool and was smiling at Whelan. Whelan walked to him and they shook hands.
Whelan, too, knew that a substantial percentage of the headwaiter’s income came to him off the books and thus tax-free in the form of Flying C-Notes given him as an expression of gratitude by various print journalists and television producers for keeping them up to date on where C. Harry Whelan and others of Inside-the-Beltway prominence were, had been, or were going to be, and who they were talking to.
Whelan was usually delighted with the system, and especially so today when he knew the word would spread that he had had dinner with Murov. Murov met with only the more important journalists, and actually very few of those.
Whelan had no idea what Murov wanted from him, and would have been very surprised if he got anything at all useful from the Russian. But the word would spread. Among those it would annoy to learn that he was bending elbows with the Russian spymaster was Andy McClarren, anchor of Wolf News’s most popular program. Whelan recently had come to think that Straight Scoop McClarren was getting more than a little too big for his kilt.
This was by no means the first, or even the tenth, time that he’d met Murov at Morton’s. He knew what was going to happen: There would be some very good whisky at the bar, and then, when they had moved to a table, some really first-class wine, and one of Morton’s nearly legendary steaks.
People often quoted Whelan’s evaluation of Morton’s Steakhouse: “The food is so good in Morton’s that it’s almost worth about half what they charge for it.”
And afterward, Murov would not only insist on paying the check, in cash, but also would leave the actual bill lying on the table, from where he knew Harry would discreetly—and thinking Murov didn’t notice—slip it in his pocket.
Murov had diplomatic privilege, which would allow him to turn the bill over to the IRS for a refund of the tax. He had decided, the first time he’d seen Whelan grab the bill, that the Russian Federation could easily afford forfeiting the returned taxes if that meant a very important—and thus potentially very useful—journalist would come to the conclusion that he was putting something over not only on the IRS but also on the rezident of the Russian embassy. It is always better if one’s adversary thinks he is far more clever than oneself.
“How are you, Sergei?” Whelan greeted Murov.
“What a pleasant surprise!” Murov said. “Have you time for a drink, Harry?”
“I could be talked into that, I think,” Whelan said, and slipped onto a bar stool.
He ordered a Famous Grouse twelve-year-old malt Scotch whisky with two ice cubes and half as much water as whisky.
As the bartender was making the drink, Murov said, “I saw you on Wolf News, Harry. ‘Straight Scoop something’?”
“You and four million other people,” Whelan said somewhat smugly.
“I thought your ‘arf-arf’ business was hilarious, but I wondered what it did to your relationship with President Clendennen.”
“It went from just-about-as-bad-as-it-can-get to worse.”
“What was that all about, anyway, at Fort Detrick?”
“I don’t know, Sergei. I think you know what really goes on out there.”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“The hell you don’t. Okay, they have a biological weapons laboratory out there. That’s probably classified Top Secret, but it’s really about as much of a secret as McClarren’s wig.”
“Really? That red hair isn’t his?”
“That’s why they always shoot him up,” Whelan said, demonstrating with his hands a low camera angle pointing upward. “If they shoot him down, or even straight on, you can see the cheesecloth or whatever it is under the hair.”
“You really are a fountain of information, Harry,” Murov said.
Whelan thought: Actually, of disinformation.
As far as I know, all that red hair comes out of Ol’ Andy’s scalp.
But the bartender heard what I just said, and before the night is over, it will be all over Morton’s.
And before the week is out, Jay Leno will have made a joke about Old Baldy and His Red Rug.
Whelan said, “So, what happened at Fort Detrick was that they had an accident. Somebody dropped a bottle or somebody forgot to close a door. They’re prepared for something like that. The emergency procedures were put into play. Since the world didn’t come to an end, we know that the emergency procedures worked. But in the meantime, Homeland Security, the Defense Department, every other agency determined to prove it’s on the job protecting the people, rushed up there, and the Wolf News photographers in the helicopter got those marvelous shots of everybody getting in everybody’s way. Chasing their tails. Arf-arf. ”
Twenty minutes and two drinks later, Murov called for the bartender, told him he was ready for his table, and asked for the bill. When it was presented, Murov laid three twenty-dollar bills on the bar, and told the bartender to keep the change. The headwaiter appeared, bearing menus and trailed by the sommelier bearing the wine list.
C. Harry Whelan, Jr., slipped the bar bill into his pocket and followed everybody to a table set against a wall behind a folding screen.
Ten minutes after that, a waiter had delivered a dozen oysters on the half-shell and the sommelier had opened and poured from a bottle of Egri Bikavér, which Murov told Whelan he had learned to appreciate as a young officer stationed in Budapest.
“‘Bull’s blood,’ they call it,” Murov said. “The Hungarians have been making wine for a thousand years.”
“What were you doing in Budapest?” Whelan asked. “As a young officer?”
“I was in tanks,” Murov said.
Bullshit. You were in the KGB, or the OGPU, or whatever they called the Soviet secret intelligence service in those days.
You are a charming sonofabitch, Sergei, but you didn’t get to be the Washington rezident because you’re a nice guy.
You’re dangerous.
What the hell do you want from me?
They tapped the rims of their glasses together.
“I’m going to tell you a story, Harry,” Murov said, “one that would go over very well if you went on The Straight Scoop tonight with it—”
Well, here it comes!
Whelan interrupted: “Sergei, my experience has been that if someone tries to feed you a story ...”
Murov went on: “—but I think when you hear the whole story, you will decide to wait a little before coming out with it.” Murov paused, then added: “And if you decide to break the story immediately, I will of course deny it. And since it touches on the incredible, I really think people would believe my denial.”
“Why are you being so good to me, Sergei?”
“Because it is in my interests to do so. And because, frankly, you are the most important journalist to whom I have access.”
Whelan thought: That makes sense.
Murov reached for, and then placed on the table, a very elegant dark red leather attaché case. When Whelan saw it, he thought of the wine—bull’s blood.
Murov took two sheets of paper from the attaché case, laid them on the table, closed the attaché case, returned it to the floor, and then handed Whelan the two sheets of paper.
“What am I looking at? It’s in Russian.”
“Underneath is the translation. What you’re looking at is a letter from Colonel Vladlen Solomatin.”
Whelan read the translation, and then looked at Murov, his eyebrows raised in question.
“When you have your own translation of the Russian made, Harry,” Murov said, “I think you’ll find that one’s quite accurate. I know that because I did it myself.”
“I confess I don’t understand what this is all about,” Whelan said.
“Those warmongers who scurrilously accuse me of being a member of the SVR rather than the innocent diplomat that I am would also allege that my superior in the SVR is Vladlen Solomatin. The second directorate of the SVR is in charge of SVR agents around the world, exercising that authority through the senior SVR officer in each country, commonly called the rezident. Are you hearing all this for the first time, Harry?”
“Absolutely. This is all news to me.”
“I’m not surprised. Anyway, so I’m told, most of these rezidents know each other. We ... excuse me ... they went to school together, served together, et cetera. You understand?”
“Sort of an old boy’s club, right?”
“Precisely,” Murov said. “Not very often, but once in a great while, people who are not in the SVR form close friendships with people who are. In our embassies—as, I am sure, in yours—cultural attachés know who the rezident/ CIA station chief is even if that is supposed to be a secret. Am I right?”
“Probably. Are you going to tell me who the SVR rezident in your embassy here is, Sergei?”
“No. But I know who he is, even though I am not supposed to.”
“And I’m sure that secret is safe with you,” Whelan said as he reached for the bottle of Egri Bikavér. “Vladimir Putin may sleep soundly tonight.”
Whelan saw in Murov’s eyes something that told him Murov did not like the sarcasm or—maybe particularly—the reference to Putin.
Good!
“Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky and I are friends from childhood,” Murov said. “And we went to Saint Petersburg University together.”
“And Berezovsky is ...?”
“The former commercial attaché of our embassy in Berlin.”
“Read rezident?”
Whelan had asked the question to annoy Murov and was genuinely surprised when Murov replied: “All right, the former rezident in Berlin. And I was therefore genuinely surprised when word came that he and his sister, who was the rezident in Copenhagen, had deserted their posts shortly before they were to be arrested on charges of embezzlement.”
“This letter,” Whelan said, tapping the document with his fingers, “says they didn’t do it. ‘Come home. All is forgiven.’”
“They didn’t do it. Svetlana’s husband was trying to pay her back for leaving him. In the SVR, husbands are expected to control their wives; if they can’t, it puts their character into question.”
“Are you pulling my leg, Sergei?”
“Not in the slightest. Svetlana—”
“You keep using her first name. You know her, too, huh?”
“Very well. As I was saying, Svetlana not only moved out of their apartment, but had begun divorce proceedings against Colonel Alekseev. Having one’s wife—particularly a wife who is a co-worker, so to speak—find one wanting in the marital situation is very damaging to an officer’s career. Evgeny’s father was a general—”
“Evgeny’s the husband?”
Murov nodded and said, “Colonel Evgeny Evgenyvich Alekseev. And Evgeny wanted to be a general, too. And I would suppose there was a human element in here as well.”
“Human element?”
“Aside from everything else, his losing Svetlana. She’s a strikingly beautiful woman. Charming, elegant. Evgeny was crazy about her. Jealous.”
“Does the term ‘soap opera’ mean anything to you, Sergei?”
“I know what a soap opera is, of course.”
“This sounds like a soap opera. A bad one.”
Murov sucked in his breath audibly. And then he was spared having to reply immediately by the waiter.
“Excuse me,” the waiter interrupted. “Are you ready to order, gentlemen?”
He was pushing a cart loaded with steaks, chops, lobster, and other items from which one could select one’s steak, chop, lobster, or other item.
Whelan seriously doubted one actually got what one selected. For one thing, all the cuts were lying on a bed of ice, and were therefore presumably below room temperature, and you weren’t supposed to grill steaks unless they were at room temperature. For another, it was reasonable to assume the diner would pick the best chunk of meat. If this then went to the grill, another good-looking steak would have to be added to the cart.
It would therefore be easier to let the customer think he was selecting his entrée, and actually serve him with something from the kitchen, and he was sure they did just that.
“Filet mignon, pink in the middle, with Wine Merchant’s sauce, asparagus, and a small salad, please,” Whelan ordered without looking at the selection on the cart.
“Twice, except because of the big portions I’ll have mushrooms instead of asparagus,” Murov said, then looked at Whelan, and said, “We can rob from one another’s side dish,” then turned back to the waiter, and added, “And bring another bottle of the Egri Bikavér.”
The waiter repeated the order and then left.
“You will recall I used the phrase ‘touches on the incredible,’” Murov said, “when we began.”
“That was an understatement, but go on,” Whelan said. “What happened?”
“Well, all of this apparently pushed him over the edge. He decided to punish her. Or maybe he did what he did consciously, thinking that losing a wife who was a thief would be less damaging to his career than a wife who had kicked him out of the marital bed. So he started to set up her and her brother on false embezzlement charges.”
“Sounds like he’s a really nice guy,” Whelan said.
Murov exhaled audibly again.
“One does not get to be the Berlin rezident of the SVR without a very well-developed sense of how to cover one’s back,” Murov said.
“I suppose that would also apply to the Washington rezident of the SVR.”
Murov ignored the comment. He went on: “Dmitri learned what was going on ...”
“Why didn’t he go to his boss and say, ‘Hey, boss. My sister’s husband is trying to set me up. Here’s the proof.’”
“Because his boss was his cousin, Colonel V. N. Solomatin. I’m sure Vladlen would have believed him, but Solomatin’s superior was—is—General Yakov Sirinov, who runs the SVR for Putin. And Sirinov was unlikely to believe either Vladlen or Dmitri for several reasons, high among them that he believed Dmitri was a personal threat to his own career. The gossip at the time Sirinov was given his position was that it would have gone to Dmitri if Dmitri and Putin had not been at odds. And also of course because Vladlen and Dmitri were cousins.”
The odds are a hundred to one that I am being fed an incredible line of bullshit.
But, my God, what a plethora of details! Murov should have been a novelist.
Either that, or he’s telling me the truth.
Careful, Harry! Not for publication, but you’re really out of your league when dealing with the Washington rezident of the SVR.
“So Dmitri did what any man in his position would do.”
“The SVR Washington rezident, for example?”
Murov looked at him, shook his head, smiled, and said, “No. What the Washington rezident would have done in similar circumstances would have been to call Frank Lammelle, and say something like, ‘Frank, my friend, when I come out of Morton’s tonight, have a car waiting for me. This spy’s coming in from the cold.’
“Dmitri didn’t have that option. He was in Berlin. His sister was in Copenhagen. And they were being watched by other SVR officers. They couldn’t just get on a plane and come here. But what they could do, and did, was contact the CIA station chief in Vienna and tell her that they were willing to defect, and thought the best time and way to do that was to slip away from the festivities at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.”
“I don’t understand,” Whelan confessed. “What festivities? Where?”
“There was going to be a gathering in Vienna of rezidents and other SVR officers. As a gesture of international friendship, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg sent Bartolomeo Rastrelli’s wax statue of Russian tsar Peter the First on a tour of the better European museums. First stop was Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.”
“Okay.”
“The CIA station chief set things up. The CIA sent a plane to Vienna with the plan that, as soon as Dmitri and Svetlana got into it, it would take off, and eight hours later Dmitri and Svetlana would be in one of those safe houses the agency maintains not far from our dacha on the Eastern Shore here.
“So far as General Sirinov was concerned, the business at the Kunsthistorisches Museum was going to provide him with two things. First, an opportunity to get all his people together without attracting too much attention. Second, when everybody was gathered, and people asked the whereabouts of Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva, Sirinov was going to tell them they were under arrest for embezzling funds of the Russian Federation, and then put them on an Aeroflot aircraft to Moscow.”
“Sirinov ... is that his name?”
Murov nodded.
“He knew these two were going to defect?”
Murov nodded.
“And here is where the plot thickens,” Murov said. “There were CIA agents waiting in Vienna’s Westbahnhof for Dmitri and his sister. And there were representatives of the SVR waiting for them. And they never showed up.”
“What happened to them?”
“It took General Sirinov several days to find out. There were two problems. First, the officer responsible for meeting them at the railway station, the Vienna rezident, Lieutenant Colonel Kiril Demidov, was found the next morning sitting in a taxicab outside the American embassy with the calling card of Miss Eleanor Dillworth, the CIA station chief, on his chest. Poor Kiril had been garroted to death.”
“Jesus Christ!” Whelan exclaimed.
“And then, the second problem was that General Sirinov was naturally distracted by world events. You will recall that your President somehow got the idea that the Iranians were operating a biological warfare laboratory in the Congo and rather than bring his suspicions to the United Nations, as he was clearly obligated to do, instead launched a unilateral attack and brought the world dangerously close to a nuclear exchange.”
Do I let him get away with that?
What good would arguing with him do?
“Are you going to tell me what happened to Colonel Whatsisname and his sister?”
“That is the real question,” Murov said. “Eventually, General Sirinov learned that within hours of their scheduled arrival in Vienna, they were flown out of Schwechat on Lieutenant Colonel Carlos G. Castillo’s Gulfstream airplane. That was the last time anyone has seen them.”
“How did Castillo get involved?”
Murov shrugged.
“General Sirinov’s intention had been to present the arrest of Dmitri and Svetlana to Putin as a fait accompli. Now he had to report that not only were they not under arrest, but no one had any idea where they might be, although of course the CIA was presumed to be somehow involved.
“Putin—who, as I said, has known Dmitri and Svetlana for years—thought there was something fishy about the embezzlement charges and ordered Sirinov to have another look. Sirinov discovered Evgeny’s little scheme. Putin was furious, both personally and professionally.”
“What does that mean?” Whelan asked.
“In addition to his personal feelings about the injustice done to Colonel Berezovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva, Putin knew that SVR officers all over the world were thinking, That could happen to me.”
“Including you, Sergei?”
“Well, since I’m not an SVR officer, no. But to answer what I think you’re asking, ‘Was the Washington rezident thinking that what happened to two fine SVR officers like Berezovsky and Alekseeva could happen to him?’ I happen to know he was. And Putin, knowing this, ordered that things be made right. If he could get through to Berezovsky and Alekseeva and get them to come home, and they were promoted ... If the injustice done to them ...”
“I get the point,” Whelan said.
Why am I starting to believe him?
“So Putin went to Vladlen Solomatin and told him what he wanted to do. And that letter was written. The problem then became how to get the letter to Berezovsky and his sister. The decision was made—by Putin personally—to go right to the top. So the Washington rezident invited Frank Lammelle to our dacha on the Eastern Shore—you know where I mean?”
Whelan nodded.
“And explained the situation, gave him the letter from Solomatin, and asked that he deliver it, and made it clear that his cooperation in the matter would not be forgotten.
“Lammelle, however, said he was sorry, but he didn’t think he could help, as much as he would like to. Then he related an incredible story. Castillo had had no authority to take Berezovsky and Alekseeva from Vienna. Castillo had never been in the CIA, but had been in charge of a private CIA—called the Office of Organizational Analysis, OOA—that your late President had been running. OOA was disbanded, and its members been ordered to disappear the day before you bombed the Congo. Lammelle said he had no idea where Castillo or Berezovsky and Alekseeva could be.”
“You’re right. That’s incredible,” Whelan said.
“What’s really incredible, Harry, is that the rezident believed Lammelle. They had over the years developed a relationship. In other words, they might say ‘No comment’ to one another, but they would not lie to one another. Over time, that has worked to their mutual advantage.”
Murov topped off their wineglasses.
“That’s why I asked you to dinner, Harry,” Murov said. “To propose something I think will be mutually advantageous.”
Whelan said, “‘And what would that be?’ Harry Whelan, suspicious journalist, asked, as he put one hand on his wallet and the other on his crotch.”
Murov chuckled.
“Your wallet, maybe, Harry. But I am really not interested in your crotch. Would you like me to go on, or should we just forget we ever had this conversation?”
“I’m all ears.”
“Putin wants this problem resolved. There is great pressure on the rezident to solve it. He came to me and said he thought the greatest obstacle to solving it is President Clendennen ...”
“Clendennen? He’s the obstacle? How’s that?”
“The rezident thinks the President just wants the problem to go away, and he thinks the President believes the best way to do that is to do nothing. His predecessor never told him a thing about the OOA. He has no idea what it is, or was. He’s never heard of Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, and therefore knows nothing of Castillo taking two Russian defectors away from the CIA, and if he did, he has no idea why, or what Castillo has done with the defectors. Getting the idea?”
“Yeah,” Whelan said. “So, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Start looking for Castillo and the OOA ... at the White House. Ask Clendennen to tell you about his secret private CIA, and the man who runs it for him. When he tells you he knows nothing about it, ask him why you can’t find Castillo. Tell him you suspect he’s hiding Castillo, and that unless you can talk to Castillo and get a denial from him, that’s the story you’re going to write: ‘President Denies Knowledge of Secret Special Operations Organization.’”
“And he says, ‘Go ahead, write it. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Then what?”
“Then you tell him that after you write it, and he denies it, you’re going to write another story: ‘Former CIA Station Chief Confirms That Rogue Special Operator Stole Russian Defectors from CIA.’ And that the only way you’re not going to write the story is if Castillo tells you it’s not true.”
“And who is this former CIA station chief? And why would he tell me this?”
“It’s a she. Her name is Eleanor Dillworth. The day after Kiril Demidov was found in the taxicab outside the American embassy with Dillworth’s calling card on his chest, she was fired. She feels she has been treated unfairly.”
“Why should I believe her?”
“Roscoe J. Danton does. She went to him with this story. He’s now in Buenos Aires looking for Castillo.”
“How do you know that?”
“The rezident there told me. He’s actually very good at what he does.”
He wouldn’t tell me that if it wasn’t true.
It’s too easy to check out.
“Just for the sake of argument, Sergei: Say I believe you. Say I do all this—I’d start by talking to this Dillworth woman—what’s in it for me?”
“Well, Harry, it would be a hell of a story. Especially once we get Colonel Berezovsky and his sister out in the open, if they told their story to you, and only to you. And of course I would be very grateful to you. And so would the rezident. That might be very useful in the future, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I can see that,” Whelan said. “But I can’t help but wonder why you’re being so good to me.”
“Because you are not only a very nice fellow, Harry, but the most important journalist I know.”
“Oh, bullshit!” Whelan said modestly.
But I probably am the most important journalist you know.
Murov took his cell phone from the breast pocket of his suit, opened it, punched buttons, and then put it on the table.
“What’s this?” Whelan asked.
“It’s what they call a cell phone, Harry.”
Whelan took a closer look, and then picked it up.
The telephone was ready to call a party identified as DILLWORTH, E.
“You said you’d want to start by talking to Miss Dillworth,” Murov said.
If I push the CALL button, I’ll probably wind up talking to some female Russian spy.
But what good would that do him?
He pushed the CALL button.
A female voice answered on the third buzz.
“Miss Eleanor Dillworth, please.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“My name is C. Harry Whelan.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Whelan?”
“Do you know who I am, Miss Dillworth?”
“If this is the talking head I see on Wolf News, yes, I do.”
“Miss Dillworth, I’m running down a story that a rogue special operator named Castillo stole two Russian defectors from you. Would you care to comment?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’d rather not say just now, Miss Dillworth, but if this story is true ...”
“It’s true.”
“I’d like to talk to you about it at some length.”
“Okay. When and where?”
I have had too much of the Egri Bikavér.
“It’s too late tonight. But what about first thing in the morning? Would it be convenient for you to meet me at the Old Ebbitt Grill? Do you know it?”
“What time?”
“Half past eight?”
“See you there, Mr. Whelan.”
“How will I recognize you?”
“I’ll recognize you. Half past eight.”
She hung up.
Whelan closed the cell phone and handed it back to Murov. Murov returned it to his jacket pocket and then put out his hand.
“I presume we have a deal, Harry?” he asked.
Whelan took the hand.
Forty-five minutes later, Sergei Murov laid three one-hundred-dollar bills on the waiter’s leather check folder and told him to keep the change.
“Mind if I look at that?” Whelan asked, and picked up the bill.
“They don’t give that Egri Bikavér away, do they?” he asked.
“They don’t give anything at all away,” Murov said.
Whelan slipped the check in his pocket, and followed Murov out of the restaurant.
