XV
[ONE]
Laguna el Guaje
Coahuila, Mexico
1335 11 February 2007
“Sorry to have taken so long,” Castillo said when he walked into the dining room trailed by Max. “Unexpected problems at the used helicopter lot.”
“But you got another Black Hawk?” Sweaty asked.
“I got another one. But the price went up to one point four million, and I suspect it’s not going to be as nice as the one downstairs.”
“Colonel, can I ask where you’re getting all that money?” Roscoe Danton said.
“The LCBF Corporation actually purchased the Black Hawks, and is loaning them to us,” Castillo answered.
“That’s ‘those people’ in Las Vegas?” Danton asked.
“Oh, no,” Castillo said. “The LCBF Corporation has absolutely nothing to do with those people in Las Vegas.”
“Then what the hell is it?”
“I’d really like to tell you, Roscoe,” Castillo said solemnly. “I really would. But if I did, I’d have to kill you.”
That earned a chuckle from not only the Special Operations people around the table—there was one more of them now, CWO5 Colin Leverette (Retired) having come in while they were watching the surveillance camera tapes—but also from Lieutenant Colonel (Designate) Allan Naylor, Jr.
General Naylor, however, who had heard the comment often, was not amused.
He thought: These Special Operations types, from Charley’s teenaged ex-Marine “bodyguard” Lester Bradley up to Lieutenant General Bruce McNab, have an almost perverse sense of humor. They’re different. They have no respect for anything or anyone but each other.
And then he thought: Why do I suspect that things did not go well when Charley was off buying another Black Hawk?
And I think he was telling the truth about that, too. We give the Mexicans multimillion-dollar helicopters, which then promptly wind up in the hands of the drug cartels.
Castillo said, “Well, now that you’ve seen the movie starring General Yakov Sirinov and his Dancing SVR Ninjas ...”
There he goes again! Why does he feel compelled to make a joke even of that?
“. . . I think we should move to the war room, where I will attempt to explain our plan.”
“Am I permitted to make a comment?” the elder Naylor asked.
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“That tape should be in the hands of the President. He could have the secretary of State demand an emergency session of the UN Security Council. . . .”
“Not until we know how much Congo-X the Russians have,” Castillo said very seriously, and then his voice became mocking: “And now, lady, Max, and gentlemen, if you’ll be good enough to follow me to the war room?”
He bowed deeply, holding one arm across his middle and pointing the other toward the door.
Naylor thought: I’d like to throw something at him.
He glanced at McNab, who was smiling.
What’s he smiling at? Charley playing the clown?
Or me?
The war room had been a recreation/exercise room. There was a Ping-Pong table, a pocket billiards table, and half a dozen exercise machines of assorted functioning.
The exercise machines had been moved into a corner of the room. The billiards and Ping-Pong tables were covered with maps. Lester Bradley was at a table on which sat a Casey communicator and several printers. There were armchairs, most of them in a semicircle facing large maps taped to a wall. Another armchair was alone against the side of the wall. And again, there were two burly, fair-skinned, Uzi-armed men sitting by the doors to the room.
“Colonel Castillo, I think we should discuss my understanding of my parole.”
“With respect, sir, will you hold that until I ask the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency if it’s convenient for him to join us?” Castillo replied, and then issued an order in Russian.
Thirty seconds later, Frank Lammelle was ushered into the room by two burly Russians. He was wearing a shirt and trousers. He was barefoot. His wrists were encircled with plastic handcuffs. The handcuffs were held against his waist by another plastic handcuff attached to his belt.
“Good afternoon, Frank,” Castillo said.
“You’re going to jail for this, Castillo.”
Castillo issued another order in Russian. One of the ex-Spetsnaz operators left the room and returned a moment later with a folding metal chair. Castillo showed him where he wanted it, and then, not gently, guided Lammelle into it.
“Lester, go sit in the armchair. Take Mr. Lammelle’s air pistol with you.”
Bradley complied.
“Frank,” Castillo then said, “you pose a problem for me. General McNab, General Naylor, and General Naylor’s staff are also here involuntarily. But they have given me their parole under the Code of Honor. I’m fairly sure you’ve heard of it. I’m also absolutely sure—you being the DDCI—that you wouldn’t consider yourself bound by it. So I will not accept your parole.
“Which means you will sit there in handcuffs. If you even look like you’re thinking of getting out of the chair without my express permission, Lester will dart you. I should tell you that he’s not only a former Marine gunnery sergeant but also a crack shot. He was a designated marksman on the March to Baghdad. He will also dart you if you speak without my permission. You understand?”
“You heard what I said about you going to jail for this, you sonofabitch!”
“You are entitled to one emotional outburst before Lester darts you. You just used it. Lester, put a dart in the back of his neck the next time he says anything.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And, Frank, the next time you use language that offends my fiancée, I will let Max bite you. Show the man your teeth, Max,” Castillo said, then spoke a few words in Hungarian while pointing at Lammelle.
Max, growling deep in his throat, walked to Lammelle and showed him his teeth. Lammelle squirmed on the folding chair.
All the special operators in the room, plus Lieutenant Colonel (Designate) Naylor, chuckled.
General Naylor thought: There’s that perverted sense of humor again!
And Allan thinks that threatening to sic that enormous dog on Lammelle is perfectly acceptable conduct!
“Oh, that’s right,” Castillo said. “You haven’t met my fiancée, have you, Frank? Sweetheart, say hello to Frank Lammelle. He used to be a friend of mine. Frank, the lady is former Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva of the SVR. And sitting next to her is her brother, former Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky of the SVR. I know you’ve been anxious to meet them.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Lester, if Frank doesn’t say ‘Pleased to meet you’ or ‘How do you do?’ in the next three seconds, dart him.”
Lammelle very hastily said, “Pleased to meet you.”
The special operators and Allan Junior now laughed.
“Colonel, regarding the Code of Honor,” General Naylor said.
Goddamn it, I’m smiling! What the hell is happening to me?
“Yes, sir?”
“I don’t know what your intentions are here, but I think I should tell you that when I am no longer constrained by my parole, I will feel free to relate to the proper authorities anything I see or hear here.”
“Yes, sir. That’s understood. It’s not a problem, sir, as you remain here—in other words, not in a position to tell anyone anything—until this operation concludes.”
Castillo looked around the room.
“I think I should make it clear before I start that—as much as I know I could have used his wise counsel—I did not ask General McNab for any assistance in coming up with this plan. The Code of Honor would have precluded him giving me any assistance.”
“You’re wrong about that, Charley,” McNab said.
Naylor glared at him.
“On the other hand,” Castillo, ignoring the comment, went on, “I have been privileged over the years to watch General McNab plan and execute maybe two dozen operations such as this one. What I’m doing now is praying that enough of his expertise has rubbed off on me so that this one will work.”
He looked at Svetlana.
“And I meant that, Sweaty, about praying. That wasn’t a figure of speech.”
“I know, my Carlitos,” Svetlana said.
“Okay, here we go,” Castillo said. “Statement of the Problem: We have to interrogate General Yakov Sirinov to determine how much Congo-X the Russians have. To do this, we have to bring the general, plus whatever Congo-X he has in his possession, here.
“We know from satellite imagery that General Sirinov went from here to the airfield on La Orchila, the island off the coast of Venezuela. The latest satellite imagery we have, as of oh-six-hundred today, no longer shows the Tu-934A aircraft, but does show half a dozen of the Spetsnaz operators near what appears to be one of those canvas-and-poles, throw-it-up-overnight hangars. It is therefore reasonable to presume the Tu-934A is in the hangar; it is unlikely that Sirinov would leave the Spetsnaz in Venezuela. . . .”
“Colonel,” Roscoe Danton said, “you never said where are you getting the satellite imagery ...”
Castillo nodded. “That’s another of those questions, Roscoe, that I’d like to answer, but . . .”
“I know,” Danton said. “You’d have to kill me if you did.”
“Right,” Castillo said. “Now, as far as personnel go, we’re going to use as few Americans as possible. Colonel Berezovsky said that we stand a good chance, if we have the element of surprise on our side and use our ex-Spetsnaz people, to confuse Sirinov’s Spetsnaz to the point where their efficiency will be substantially reduced.”
“Explain that to me, Charley,” General McNab said softly.
“Dmitri and our Spetsnaz get off the plane, the chopper, whatever we wind up using. Dmitri points to the nearest of Sirinov’s Spetsnaz and says, ‘I am Colonel Berezovsky. Take me to General Sirinov.’ Dmitri thinks, and Sweaty thinks, and I agree, there’s a good chance we can get away with that. If we do, we stick a pistol up Sirinov’s nose. . . .”
“And if you don’t?” McNab asked.
“Then we can probably disarm Sirinov’s Spetsnaz. Or, if necessary, take them out.”
“You don’t want to start by taking them out?” McNab said.
“We’re trying to avoid taking anybody out,” Castillo said.
Berezovsky put in: “I think going in there with guns blazing would be counterproductive, General. And possibly disastrous. We don’t know what would happen if one of those rubber barrels was subjected to machine-gun fire. We don’t want little pieces of Congo-X scattered all over that airfield.”
“Good point,” McNab said. “What did you say, Charley, about ‘whatever we wind up using’? That sounds like you’re not planning to use the Black Hawks.”
“We may not be able to use them,” Castillo said. “The closest staging point we can use is Cozumel. And that island is thirteen hundred nautical miles, give or take, from La Orchila. The ferry range of a Black Hawk is in the book at twelve hundred. We might be able to stretch that to thirteen hundred—we probably could; Dick and I have a lot of time in Black Hawks watching the fuel exhaustion warning light blinking at us—but that would put us in La Orchila with dry tanks.”
“Auxiliary fuel cells?” General Naylor asked.
“I don’t know where I can get any, sir,” Castillo said. “And even with fuel cells, we’d have to top off the Black Hawks, and the fuel cells, at La Orchila. That would take twenty minutes at least. I don’t want to be on the ground more than fifteen minutes. And that’s presuming we would be able to refuel at La Orchila.”
“So what is your alternate plan?” McNab said.
“Overload the Gulfstream III—I can get a lot of people in there; maybe fifteen—to go in under the radar at first light and hope Dmitri’s ‘Take me to General Sirinov’ order dazzles Sirinov’s Spetsnaz. Then we load him and what Congo-X he has on his Tu-934A and come back here.”
“What would happen to your Gulfstream?” Naylor asked.
“Sir, maybe there would be fuel there, and time to refuel. Unlikely, but possible. If not, Sparkman leaves with what fuel remains and heads for Barranquilla, Colombia. And we get on the Tu-934A and come here.”
“Charley,” McNab asked softly, “what would your wish list be for this operation?”
“General, we’ve given that very subject a lot of thought,” Castillo said. “If I had my druthers, I’d commandeer four UH-60Ms from the One-Sixtieth Special Operations fleet. Two to use and two for redundancy. All with stub wings and external tanks. They would be armed with GAU-19 fifty-caliber Gatling guns and AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided missiles to take out the commo building.”
He paused, and then went on, “And since I have been a very good boy, I would like Santa to also bring me a Red Ryder BB gun and an anatomically correct Barbie doll.”
McNab, D’Allessando, and Allan Junior laughed.
“Well, you asked me,” Castillo said. “And, oh, I forgot: An aircraft carrier—preferably the USS Ronald Reagan—sitting somewhere out there on the blue Caribbean so that I and my stalwart band could have a last meal on the Navy before we sallied forth to battle the forces of evil.”
This got the expected laughter.
“But since I don’t believe in Santa Claus, I guess we’ll have to go with my tired old Gulfstream III. Among other things, I suspect we’re running out of time.”
“How much time do you think you have?” General Naylor asked.
“Seventy-two hours tops, sir. If I had to bet, I’d wager that in forty-eight hours the Tu-934A will be on its way somewhere.”
“Somewhere?”
“Sir, I have no idea where it will go. Maybe Cuba. I just don’t know.”
General Naylor then suddenly said, “Colonel Castillo, I herewith inform you I am withdrawing my parole.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Allan!” General McNab said disgustedly. “Now what?”
“Yes, sir, General Naylor,” Castillo said evenly. “I regret to tell you, sir, that I am placing you under arrest.”
“Colonel Castillo, are you still determined to proceed on an operation that not only is unauthorized but in my professional opinion is suicidal?”
“Sir, I see going ahead with this as my duty. I beg you, sir, please don’t get in my way.”
General Naylor nodded, then said, “Colonel Brewer, make note of the time.”
“Yes, sir. It’s fourteen twenty-eight, sir.”
General Naylor went on: “Make note of this, please, Colonel Brewer. Write it down. Quote. Having at fourteen twenty-seven withdrawn my parole, at fourteen twenty-eight, in the realization that I was not going to be able to deter Lieutenant Colonel Castillo from proceeding on an unauthorized operation involving Congo-X in Venezuela, I came to the conclusion that my duty lay in increasing his chances of success, as the failure of his operation would cause more damage to the United States than its success.”
“Sir, I don’t understand,” Castillo said.
“Get me on a secure line to my headquarters at MacDill and it will be made clear to you, Colonel.”
The two looked into each other’s eyes for a long minute.
“Do what he says, Carlos,” Svetlana said softly.
Castillo turned to Lester Bradley, and ordered: “Give the air pistol to Uncle Remus, Lester, and get a secure line to MacDill.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Where will the general be calling from?”
“Mexico City,” Naylor said. “I wish to speak with my deputy, General Albert McFadden, USAF.”
Lester looked at Castillo for permission, and when Castillo nodded, said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
“And put it on the loudspeaker,” Naylor said.
“Office of the Deputy Commander, Central Command. Sergeant Major Ashley speaking, sir.”
“This line is secure,” Lester announced. “General Naylor calling for General McFadden.”
“One moment, please.”
“Hello, boss. Where the hell are you?”
“Mexico City, Albert. And you know why I’m here.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
Naylor moved to the map on the wall.
“What’s the Navy got, capable of refueling four UH-60Ms, in the area of eighteen degrees north latitude, eighty-five degrees west longitude? I need it there no later than tomorrow.”
“What the hell is going on, Allan?”
“Don’t ask questions, please. Answer mine, but don’t ask any. And this conversation goes no further than your ears. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. Just a moment, General.”
“I can have the USS Bataan at that point by sixteen-hundred hours, sir.”
“Tell me about the Bataan.”
“It’s a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship,” General McFadden said.
“I know the class. That’ll do fine. Make sure it’s on station as of oh-eight-hundred tomorrow. Alert them, Top Secret, to be prepared to receive and fuel four UH-60Ms.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, I’m guessing this is a black operation?”
“About as black as it can get. Hold one, Albert,” General Naylor said, and turned to McNab.
“General McNab, I presume the four UH-60Ms will be coming from Fort Campbell?”
“Yes, sir,” McNab said, and joined Naylor at the map.
“Where’s the best jumping-off place for them to fly out to the Bataan, would you say?”
“Sir, can we use the Navy base at Key West?” McNab asked.
“General, I’m the commander in chief of Central Command. Of course we can use NAS Key West. Albert?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell Boca Chica airfield to be prepared to receive the Black Hawks, and order them to keep their mouths shut about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll get back to you, Albert. General McNab needs the phone.”
“Sir, how do I get in touch with you?”
“You don’t. I’ll check in with you periodically. Naylor out.”
“Lester,” McNab then said. “Get me the One-Sixtieth Special Operations Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Make it look like I’m calling from Washington.”
“Yes, sir.”
General Naylor looked around the room. “Why do I feel I’m basking in the approval of a number of people who five minutes ago thought I was a chicken-shit sonofabitch?”
“Dad,” Lieutenant Colonel (Designate) Allan Naylor, Jr., said, “why don’t we all try to forget what you were five minutes ago?”
[TWO]
The President’s Study
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0905 12 February 2007
“Good morning, Mr. President,” John Powell, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said as he walked into the room.
“You’re here to tell me that the Russians and Castillo are now en route to Moscow, right?”
“No, sir, I regret that I am not. But there have been some interesting developments, Mr. President, that suggest we’re a good deal closer to that solution of the problem than we were at this time yesterday.”
“Let’s hear them. Before a National Park Service policeman finds another beer barrel of that stuff at Nine Hundred Ohio Drive, Southwest.”
“Mr. President, Nine Hundred Ohio Drive?”
“The Lincoln Memorial, Jack. You don’t know where it is?”
The President looked very pleased with himself.
“Jack,” he went on, “we promised that Russian sonofabitch . . . what’s his name, the rezident?”
“Murov, sir. Sergei Murov.”
“We promised Murov his two traitors and Castillo several days ago. If I were this guy, I would be wondering why that hasn’t happened, and if I were this guy, I think I would be tempted to leave another barrel of this stuff somewhere—say, at Nine Hundred Ohio Drive, Southwest—as a little reminder. You heard what that Fort Detrick scientist . . . what’s his name, the black guy . . . ?”
“Colonel Hamilton, sir. Colonel J. Porter Hamilton.”
“. . . had to say about how dangerous this stuff is.”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“I don’t want any more barrels of Congo-X popping up anywhere. You understand?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“Now, with that in mind, tell me about the interesting developments.”
“Sir, General Naylor has been heard from.”
“Where is he?”
“Sir, according to Bruce Festerman—”
“Who the hell is he?”
“Festerman is the CIA liaison officer with Central Command at MacDill, Mr. President. We’ve been on the phone a half-dozen times since yesterday afternoon.”
“And?”
“General Naylor called General McFadden, his deputy, from Mexico City and ordered that a ship, the USS Bataan, which is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, be moved to a location in the Caribbean and be prepared to receive and refuel four Black Hawk helicopters. He also ordered the Navy base at Key West to do the same thing; in other words, be prepared to receive and refuel four UH-60s. It seems clear, sir, that the helicopters will be flown from Key West to the Bataan.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, sir. What I suspect is that General Naylor has learned where Castillo and/or the Russians are, somewhere in Mexico, and is going to go get them.”
“And what does Lammelle think?”
“Sir, that’s a development I don’t quite understand.”
“What development don’t you understand?”
“Sir, the GPS transmitter in Lammelle’s shoe places him aboard the Queen of the Caribbean, a cruise ship, which is now in the Caribbean bound for Málaga. There has been nothing from him.”
“And the GPS transmitter in Castillo’s laptop places him aboard a river steamer on the Danube between Budapest and Vienna, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now you’re telling me General Naylor thinks he’s found Castillo in Mexico?”
“I am making that inference, sir. I can’t imagine why else General Naylor has—”
“Well,” the President interrupted, “one possibility is that Lammelle has suddenly decided he needs a vacation, and taking a cruise is the way to do that. But, sitting around here, Jack, with nothing to occupy my mind, I have been thinking of all the bad spy movies I’ve seen over the years to see if anything in them might be useful.”
“Sir?”
“For example, do you think it’s possible that somebody shot Lammelle with that whiz-bang dart gun of his and then loaded him onto the cruise ship?”
“Why would anyone want to do that, sir? You’re suggesting that Castillo—”
“I’m suggesting General Naylor might have done it. Or more likely, now that I think about it, General McNab.”
“Why would they want to do that, sir?”
“To keep him from fucking up what they’re doing to put Castillo and the traitors in the bag.”
“I don’t think that’s likely, Mr. President.”
“Tell me about Castillo on the river steamer. You sent people over there, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what have they found out?”
“The ship is called Stadt Wien,” Powell said. “It plies the Danube back and forth between Budapest and Vienna.”
“I already know that. The question is, is Castillo—and maybe the Russians—on it or not?”
“We’ve learned that Castillo never made a reservation on it.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“We don’t know, Mr. President.”
“Did it occur to your people to go aboard the damned ship and look for him?”
“They couldn’t get a ticket, Mr. President. And without a ticket you can’t get on the Stadt Wien. Apparently, sir, you have to make reservations at least two weeks in advance.” Powell hesitated and then went on: “What the Stadt Wien is, Mr. President, is somewhere the Viennese and the Budapesters take their romantic interests for an overnight trip. Not always their wives, if you take my meaning. It’s very popular.”
“Jesus Christ, Jack! Castillo hasn’t been over there two weeks. How the hell could he have made a reservation on this Hungarian Love Boat?”
“Mr. President, all I can tell you is that’s where Casey’s GPS locator shows he is.”
“Presumably fucking the woman traitor as they cruise up and down the Danube? Jack, listen closely: I don’t think Castillo is anywhere near Europe. I think Naylor and McNab have found him in Mexico. And presuming neither the CIA nor Ambassador Stupid get involved and fuck things up for them—the more I think about it, Naylor or McNab did shoot Lammelle with that dart gun and load him on that cruise ship to get rid of him—”
President Clendennen interrupted himself, took a deep breath, and then went on: “Jack, what I want you to do is get in touch with all your Clandestine Service officers who are running around chasing their tails looking for Castillo and the Russians and get them back to Langley. And then lock them in. Naylor is going to bag Castillo if you don’t get in the way. You understand me?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“The next time you walk in that door, Jack, I want you to tell me that you’ve just learned from General Naylor that he’s dealt with the problem. And I don’t want to see you until you can do that.”
[THREE]
Cozumel International Airport
Isla Cozumel
Quintana Roo, Mexico
1010 12 February 2007
Dick Miller and Dick Sparkman had flown the Policía Federal Preventiva UH-60 from Drug Cartel International to Cozumel. They had carried with them all but two of the ex-Spetsnaz special operators and all the weapons and other equipment that would be needed.
Both pilots had been more than a little pissed—and vocally so—with their assigned tasks in the operation. Miller had wanted to fly with Castillo in the UH-60 in the assault, and Sparkman had simply presumed until the last minute that he would be Jake Torine’s co-pilot when the Tu-934A was flown out of La Orchila.
Uncle Remus Leverette had similarly taken for granted that he would be in on the assault and was more than displeased with his assigned role: He was now to “hold the fort” at Laguna el Guaje. It was more than a figure of speech. There was a small but real chance that some members of the drug cartel—either not having heard, or not caring that Drug Cartel International was closed—would drop in.
If this should happen, Uncle Remus would politely suggest to them that they come back another day—say, in a week—and if that didn’t work, he would take the appropriate measures. The drug runners would, if possible, be disarmed, placed in plastic handcuffs, and confined.
If the disarmament option didn’t work, they would be eliminated.
To assist him in this task, in addition to the two ex-Spetsnaz operators, Uncle Remus had Mr. Vic D’Allessando, former Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, and Lieutenant “Peg-Leg” Lorimer (Retired). Former Special Forces Sergeant Aloysius F. Casey and Generals Naylor and McNab were to be the reserve force.
General McNab had voiced no objection to this, but everyone knew if there was shooting, McNab would be in the middle of it.
Lieutenant Colonel (Designate) Naylor—having been told that he would be useless on the actual assault due to the fact that he (a) was a tank driver, (b) had no Special Operations training, and (c) spoke no Russian—first pleaded to be taken along. Then, when his pleas fell on deaf ears, he said very unkind things to Colonel Castillo.
Colonel Castillo forgave the outburst, kissed him on the forehead, and charged him with sitting—literally, if that became necessary—on the deputy director of the CIA, Mr. Lammelle.
All of those remaining at Drug Cartel International had come to see—if very reluctantly—that there was no valid argument against Castillo’s logic in making the assignments. The more the operation was polished, the more it became apparent how much success would depend upon Dmitri Berezovsky’s ability to dazzle—or at least substantially confuse—General Sirinov’s Spetsnaz until they had a pistol up the general’s nose.
Castillo didn’t plan to open his mouth, but if he had to, his Russian was so fluent that people thought he came from Saint Petersburg. None of those being left to hold the fort spoke the language so well. And although Uncle Remus’s Russian was nearly as good as Castillo’s, there were very few Russians as black as God had made Uncle Remus.
Colonel Jake Torine’s Russian was very limited, but he could read the lettering they would find on the instrument panel of the Tu-934A. Navigation of the airplane would be by the Casey GPS system installed on their laptops.
Max, as he was wont to do, suspected his master intended to leave him behind. So, when Castillo, Sweaty, Dmitri, and Roscoe J. Danton got into the Cessna Mustang for the flight to Cozumel, they found Max already lying in the aisle looking at Castillo with melancholy eyes that melted his master’s heart.
What the hell! When we leave Cozumel, I’ll chain him to the seat. Sparkman will be flying this back. He and Sweaty can deal with him; he likes them.
That did not come to pass.
When the Policía Federal Preventiva UH-60 had been refueled at Cozumel, and after Castillo had spent an hour explaining the cockpit specifically and the aircraft generally to Colonel Torine, he had climbed out to see how the loading of the Spetsnaz was going.
He found that everybody had changed into their combat uniforms, which were in fact commercially available summer-weight camouflage-pattern hunting jackets and trousers. They and the khaki trousers/yellow polo shirts everyone wore at Laguna el Guaje had been purchased at three Walmarts in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, by Peg-Leg Lorimer, who had charged them to his LCBF Corporation American Express card.
Peg-Leg reported, on his return from his shopping trip, that his purchases had just about wiped out the stocks in all three Walmart stores.
“When that information is sent by the Walmart computers to Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas,” Peg-Leg said, “the company will rush to replace the deleted stocks. This in turn will result in a gross overstock of khaki trousers, yellow polo shirts, and summer-weight camouflage-pattern hunting clothes in Mexico City. Walmart executives will be baffled.
“But I strongly suspect that Ol’ Jack Walton,” Peg-Leg concluded, “will be smiling down at us from that Great Watering Hole in the Sky, pleased that we outfitted this operation from his daddy’s store.”
John Walton—son of the founder of Walmart, and at his death the eleventh-richest man in the world—had earlier in his life been awarded the nation’s third highest award for valor, the Silver Star, while a Special Forces sergeant in Vietnam.
Among those donning their Walmart combat uniforms was former Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva of the SVR, who was rolling up the sleeves of hers when Castillo came around the nose of the Black Hawk. Max was lying on the floor of the Black Hawk’s cabin, watching with his head between his legs.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Castillo demanded.
“Carlos, I don’t like it when you use that tone to me.”
“You and Max are going back to the lake on the Mustang!”
She pointed at the runway. Castillo looked. The Mustang was beginning its takeoff roll.
“Well, Svet, you got that past me. But now you can wait here. You’re not going.”
“Of course I’m going. Wherever did you get this idea I wasn’t?”
“Honey, for Christ’s sake, we don’t know what’s going to happen at La Orchila. People are likely to get hurt.”
“Did you ever think, Generalissimo Carlitos,” she snapped, “you poor man’s von Clausewitz, what would happen if one of Sirinov’s Spetsnaz takes Dmitri out the moment we land? When you speak Russian, you sound like a Saint Petersburg poet.” She wet her finger and ran it over her eyebrow, the gesture’s meaning unmistakable. “You’d make the Spetsnaz giggle. I was a podpolkovnik of the SVR and I sound like one. I know how to deal with Spetsnaz and I’m going!”
After a moment’s reflection, Castillo asked, “And Max? You want to take him too, I suppose, Podpolkovnik Alekseeva?”
“Absolutely! You get Max to show his teeth to Yakov Sirinov the way you did to Lammelle and he’ll wet his pants. I may not even have to hurt him.”
Castillo considered that a moment, and then asked, “Have you got a weapon?”
“Of course I’ve got a weapon,” she snapped, still angry. “I’ve always got a weapon. You should know that. You’ve been looking up my dress from the day we met.”
Castillo had an immediate, very clear mental image of that day.
Svetlana’s skirt had risen high as she nimbly jumped from the tracks of Vienna’s Sudbahnhof onto the platform, revealing that she was wearing red lace underpants with a small pistol—he later learned it was a Colt 1908 Pocket Model .32 ACP—holstered on her inner thigh just under them.
Roscoe J. Danton walked up.
“Not to worry, Charley,” he said. “I understand Colonel Alekseeva was speaking off the record.”
“Roscoe, sometimes he makes me very, very angry,” Sweaty said.
Jake Torine walked up.
“I didn’t hear that either,” Torine said, and then went on: “It’s about time for us to get going, Charley.”
[FOUR]
The USS Bataan (LHD 5)
North Latitude 14.89, West Longitude 77.86
The Caribbean Sea
1255 12 February 2007
Almost as soon as he spotted the Bataan, Castillo saw that four black 160th SOAR UH-60M helicopters were already sitting on her deck, their rotors folded.
“I think I should tell you, First Officer, that the Bataan has a very impressive array of weaponry—including four forty-millimeter Gatling guns—with which to discourage strange and possibly hostile aircraft from approaching.”
Torine gave him the finger and activated his microphone.
“Bataan, this is Keystone Kop.”
“Keystone Kop, Bataan, be advised we have you in sight. Go ahead.”
Castillo said, “What he meant to say, First Officer, was ‘gun-sights.’”
“Well, Bataan,” Torine spoke into the microphone, “if you have us in sight, then I guess I don’t have to tell you I estimate we are at one thousand feet about two klicks off your stern. Request permission to land.”
“Keystone Kop, are you carrier-qualified?”
Torine looked at Castillo.
“Lie, Jake. We don’t have enough fuel to go back to Cozumel.”
“Affirmative, we are carrier-qualified.”
“Keystone Kop, be advised that Bataan is headed into the wind. The wind down the deck is at twenty knots. Acknowledge.”
“Bataan, Keystone Kop understands wind down the deck is at twenty, and Bataan is headed into the wind.”
“Keystone Kop, you are cleared to land. Be advised a rescue helicopter is to port.”
“I think he knows we were lying,” Torine said. “You really have never done this before?”
“Only as a passenger,” Castillo said. “And what I think the pilot told me that day was that if the wind across the deck is at, say, twenty knots, and you’re indicating twenty knots, that means you’re in a hover over the deck, which, relatively speaking, has an air speed of zero.”
As Castillo very carefully lowered the Black Hawk onto the deck—I am really in a ground effect hover, even if I’m indicating that I’m making twenty knots. How can that be?—he found it easier to look at the “ground,” which was to say the deck, of the USS Bataan out the left window of the cockpit rather than the deck forward of the helo. That way he could tell, relatively speaking, if the Bataan’s island was moving—in which case he was in trouble—or not.
And when he did, he saw that he knew several of the 160th’s Night Stalker pilots. They were standing, arms folded, waiting for him to crash, on the deck next to the superstructure that was the island.
One of them—a tall, graying, hawk-featured man wearing, like the others, the black flight suits favored by the 160th—he knew well. And he knew that hanging from the zipper of Arthur Kingsolving’s black flight suit was the “subdued” insignia of his rank. Castillo couldn’t see it, but knew it was the black eagle of a full colonel.
The Black Hawk touched down.
“You can exhale now, Jake,” Castillo said as he reached for the rotor brake control. “We’re on the ground. More or less.”
“Art Kingsolving’s here.”
“I noticed. I hope you are going to tell me you outrank him.”
“No, I don’t. But your question is moot. Active duty officers always outrank retired old farts.”
“I don’t know about you, but I think of myself as a prematurely retired young fart,” Castillo said.
“And there is a welcoming delegation,” Torine said.
“Why don’t you go deal with them while I finish shutting this thing down?”
The Navy delegation consisted of the officer of the deck, a chief petty officer, and two petty officers, one of them the master-at-arms and the other a medic.
They quite naturally had decided that the senior person aboard the helicopter with Mexican police markings would be riding with his staff in the passenger compartment, and lined up accordingly.
The first person—more accurately, the first living thing—to exit the helicopter was an enormous black dog, closely followed by a redheaded woman in battle dress who was screaming angrily at the dog in what sounded like Russian. Close on her heels came a man holding a camera who began to snap pictures of the Navy delegation, the helicopters on the deck, and the dog, who was now wetting down the front right wheel of the helicopter.
The co-pilot’s door opened and, for a moment, decorum returned as Colonel Jake Torine, USAF (Retired), came out, popped to rigid attention, faced aft, and crisply saluted the national ensign.
Then he did a crisp left-face movement, raised his hand to his temple, and holding the salute, politely announced, “I request permission to come aboard, sir, in compliance with orders.”
“Very well,” the officer of the deck said, returning the salute. Then he said, “Sir, the captain’s compliments. The captain requests the senior officer and such members of his staff as he may wish attend him ...”
At that point, protocol broke down.
The Army pilots who had been standing next to the island came trotting across the deck, including the one that the officer of the deck knew to be a full colonel.
“I’ll be a sonofabitch if Charley didn’t steal another one,” one of the Night Stalkers shouted.
“This time from the Mexican cops,” another of them clarified.
“Zip your lips,” Colonel Kingsolving snapped. He then turned to the officer of the deck. “Mister, I need a word with Colonel Castillo before he attends the captain on the bridge.”
“Colonel, when the captain requests—”
“This time he’s just going to have to wait,” Kingsolving said, and then turned to Castillo, who, having exited the helicopter, was now exchanging hugs, pats on the back, and vulgar comments with the pilots.
“Colonel Castillo,” Colonel Kingsolving called sternly. “I need a word with you right now.”
Castillo freed himself, marched up to Kingsolving, came to attention, and saluted.
“Follow me, Colonel,” Kingsolving ordered, and marched down the deck until they were alone.
“Face away from the island,” Kingsolving ordered.
Castillo turned his back to the ship’s superstructure.
“All McNab told me,” Kingsolving said, “was to send the Black Hawks out here via Key West. ‘The op commander will meet your senior pilot on the Bataan.’ Your name wasn’t mentioned.”
“You didn’t hear I was retired?”
“Yeah, and when we have time, I want to ask you about that.”
“‘Senior pilot’?” Castillo asked.
“I’m not supposed to be here, Charley. The first time I talked to him, McNab told me I was not to go. And then he called me back and said if I was thinking of having a case of selective deafness, the brigadier’s selection board is sitting right now, and if this op gets out—even if it goes as planned—I can forget a star.”
“You’re here,” Castillo said. “You don’t want to be a general?”
“Two reasons, Charley. I’m one of those old-time soldiers who doesn’t send his people anywhere he won’t go himself.”
“McNab was right. Even if I can carry this off, I think there’s going to be serious political implications.”
“Because you stole that helicopter from the Mexicans?”
“Because, for example, the last time I saw Frank Lammelle earlier today, he was wearing plastic handcuffs and Vic D’Allessando was sitting on him.”
“Ouch! Charley, how long is this operation of yours going to take?”
“With a little bit of luck, we should be back on the Bataan by oh-eight-thirty tomorrow.”
“Back from where? Where you’re going to do what? Just the highlights.”
Castillo told him.
“Now I’m really glad I came,” Kingsolving said. “I told you there were two reasons I suffered temporary deafness. The captain of the Bataan, Tom Lowe, is a really good guy. I’ve done a couple of operations with him. Obviously, the more he knows about this one, the better all around. The problem with that is I don’t want him standing at attention before a white-suit board of inquiry trying to explain why he knowingly participated in an obviously illegal operation.”
“How do you want me to handle that?”
“There is a way, but I suspect that as a fellow marcher in that Long Gray Line, it will really bother you. The Code of Honor, don’t you know?”
“Try me. I lie, cheat, and steal all the time, and spend a lot of time hanging out with others that do.”
“Would you be willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that the only thing you told Lowe was where you wanted him to have the Bataan and when, and aside from assuring him that it was a duly authorized, wholly legal operation, didn’t tell him anything else?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you, Charley.”
“For what? You’re the guy who just watched his star disappear down the toilet.”
“One more question. Who the hell is the redhead?”
“Would you believe, my fiancée?”
“No.”
“How about she’s an SVR lieutenant colonel?”
“I thought female SVR lieutenant colonels weighed two hundred pounds and had stainless-steel front teeth. Come on, we’ve got to see the captain.”
“Can I bring my dog?”
“Request permission to come onto the bridge with a party of officers,” Kingsolving said from the door to the bridge.
“You and your party of officers have the freedom of the bridge, Colonel Kingsolving,” Captain Thomas J. Lowe, USN, said. He was a man in his late thirties, tall and deeply tanned.
Castillo marched up to him, stood tall, and announced, his voice raised, “Captain, I am Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo. I regret that the nature of the mission I have been ordered to carry out by the United States Central Command is such that I can tell you very little except where we wish you to place your vessel and when.”
“Welcome aboard the Bataan, Colonel.”
“Captain, may I introduce my officers?”
“Certainly. But may I suggest that we deal with first things first? Where do you want the Bataan, and when?”
“If you have a chart, sir?”
“Right this way, Colonel,” Captain Lowe said, and led Castillo into the chart room.
“Colonel, this is my navigator, Mr. Dinston.”
Mr. Dinston was a lieutenant junior grade who looked like he was nineteen.
The two shook hands.
“Show Mr. Dinston where you want us to go, Colonel,” Captain Lowe said.
Castillo bent over the chart table, found La Orchila island, and then put his finger on the map.
“Fifty miles east of that island,” he said. “I want to be there at oh-three-thirty tomorrow.”
“What’s on that island?” Mr. Dinston asked.
“I’m sorry, but you don’t have the need to know,” Castillo said.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t feel bad, Jerry,” Captain Lowe said. “Neither do I.”
He met Castillo’s eyes as he spoke.
“Plot the course, Jerry,” Captain Lowe ordered, “and bring it to the wardroom.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Before we get started,” Castillo said, when everyone was in the wardroom and the door had been closed, “Captain Lowe was never in this room nor anywhere else when any aspect of this operation except where we’re asking him to place his ship was discussed. Everybody got that?”
There came a murmur of “Yes, sir.”
“Would you like to say anything, Captain, before we get started?”
“Housekeeping,” Captain Lowe said. “Could I get my chief in here and get the cabin assignments out of the way?”
“Captain, you don’t have to ask me permission to do anything,” Castillo said. “This is your ship.”
“I know,” Captain Lowe said. “I’m being nice. Colonel Kingsolving told me he thinks that most of you will shortly be in jail.”
The chief looked as if he had been in the Navy for longer than anybody in the room was old. And he got right to the point: “How many oh-sixes we got? Raise your hands, please.”
Kingsolving and Torine raised their hands.
“Dmitri,” Castillo said, “raise your hand.” Then he explained: “Colonel Berezovsky is a Russian, chief. They don’t do ranks by numbers.”
“Not a problem,” the chief said. “There are three staterooms for visiting oh-sixes. You’ll find the keys in the doors. We also got three staterooms, two officers per, for oh-fives and oh-fours. How many oh-fives?”
Castillo raised his hand. “Two, chief,” he said and pointed at Svetlana.
“You’re an oh-five?” the chief, dubious, asked her.
Svetlana looked at Castillo for guidance. He nodded, and Captain Lowe, seeing this, said, “Colonel, anything you can tell me, you can tell the chief.”
“I am a former podpolkovnik of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, Chief Petty Officer,” Sweaty said just a little arrogantly.
“Yes, ma’am,” the chief said. “Okay, so we put you, ma’am, in one of the oh-five staterooms, and Colonel Castillo in the other, leaving one. How many oh-fours we got?”
“Excuse me, Chief Petty Officer,” former Podpolkovnik Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki said. “Put Lieutenant Colonel Castillo in one of those oh-five staterooms with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You seem surprised,” Sweaty said. “Don’t officers of the U.S. Navy sleep with women?”
“Sometimes, Colonel, some of us do,” Captain Lowe said grinning broadly. “You heard the colonel, chief. Get on with it.”
The chief recovered quickly, and the remaining accommodations were parceled out among the other officers. There was one captain; the rest of the 160th’s pilots were warrant officers.
The chief left, closing the wardroom door behind him.
Castillo laid his laptop computer on the table and opened it.
“Overview,” he said. “The target is on the airfield on the Venezuelan island of La Orchila. The target—targets, plural—are a Russian general named Yakov Sirinov, whom we are going to snatch; the Tu-934A aircraft, which he flew onto La Orchila; and the cargo that that bird carried.”
He looked down at the computer, saw that it was on, and tapped several keys.
“These are the latest satellite images of the target,” he went on, then leaned over for a closer look, and added, “as of forty-five minutes ago.”
“You have imagery like that on your laptop?” Captain Lowe asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Lowe bent over the laptop.
“How could a poor sailor get a laptop like that?” Lowe asked.
“Well, I could give you this one,” Castillo said, affecting a serious tone, “but then I would have to kill you.”
With one exception, the others in the room laughed. It was an old joke, but it was theirs.
The exception was former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki.
“Captain,” she flared, “you will have to excuse Colonel Castillo. He never grew emotionally after he entered puberty. Whenever there is serious business at hand, he makes sophomoric jokes.”
“What is this, dissension in the ranks?” Castillo asked. “Or the beginning of a lover’s quarrel?”
Sweaty let loose a thirty-second torrent of angry words in Russian.
Dmitri Berezovsky laughed, then said, “Captain, gentlemen, permit me to offer an explanation. In our family, my mother used to say that what my sister needed more than anything was a strong man who would take her down a peg or two on a regular basis. She has finally found such a man, and doesn’t like it.”
This produced from Sweaty another torrent of vulgar and obscene Russian language.
“If our mother ever heard her speak like that,” Berezovsky went on, “which on occasion she did, our mother would wash her mouth out with laundry soap.”
This was too much for the men in the room who had been studiously ignoring the exchange. Most of them chuckled, and several laughed.
Sweaty, red-faced, opened her mouth to deliver another comment.
“Colonel,” Castillo said very softly. “Zip your lip. One more word and you’re out of here and off the operation.”
Carlito and Sweaty locked eyes for a very long moment.
And then wordlessly she sat down.
Castillo turned to the laptop.
“If you’ll gather around here, please,” he said, “you’ll see that while the Tu-934A is not visible, there are Spetsnaz guarding this canvas temporary hangar, which makes it fairly certain that the Tu-934A is inside.
“Now, this is what we’re going to do. Please hold comments until I’ve finished.
“I want to arrive at first light ...”
Some five minutes later, when Castillo had finished, he said, “Okay, comments, please. But I’m not going to start with the juniors, the way a good commander is supposed to. We’re starting at the top. Captain Lowe, your thoughts, please.”
Lowe took a full thirty seconds to consider his response.
“There’s a maybe ten-minute period, during which we will be recovering the UH-60s, that worries me. We’ll be headed, slowly, into the wind. If Venezuelan Air Force or Navy aircraft find us with our hand still in the cookie jar, so to speak . . . But there’s nothing we can do about that. And insofar as being attacked after we recover the choppers, that would be an unprovoked attack on a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters, which is an act of war. I don’t think they would do that. And of course we’re able to defend ourselves pretty well.”
“Thank you, sir. Colonel Kingsolving?”
“Charley, the only question in my mind concerns the UH-60 you stole from the Mexican cops. What are you going to do about that? Torch it?”
“Well, sir, first, I didn’t steal it. I bought it.”
“You bought it? You going to tell me about that?”
Castillo told him.
“Unbelievable!” Kingsolving said. “But back to my question: What are you going to do with it, torch it?”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do with it,” Castillo said. “I’d like to fly it back out to the Bataan. And then the first time the Bataan goes to its homeport . . . Where is that, Captain Lowe?”
“Norfolk. And as soon as we finish this operation—this is day fifty-six of a sixty-day deployment—we’ll be headed there ‘at fastest speed consistent with available fuel.’”
“Then the first thing Captain Lowe does when he docks the Bataan at Norfolk will be to lower the Mexican UH-60 onto the wharf while the Mexican ambassador and the State Department idiots who sold it for a tenth of its value to the Mexicans watch. They then—did I mention that our own Roscoe J. Danton will be there, as will the ever-vigilant cameras of Wolf News?—they will attempt to explain how that particular UH-60, after having died a hero’s death in Mexico’s unrelenting war against the drug cartels, was resurrected.”
“That’d work, Charley,” Danton said. “And I’m so personally pissed as a taxpayer about that bullshit that I will even arrange for C. Harry Whelan, that sonofabitch, to be there with me.”
“Then why not do it?” Kingsolving asked.
“One small problem, sir. Who would fly it out to the Bataan? Jake and I’ll be flying the Tu-934A back to the land of the free and home of the brave with only a fuel stop at Drug Cartel International.”
“I’ll fly it,” Kingsolving said.
“Sir, I have painful memories of standing tall before you while you lectured at length on the inadvisability of flying UH-60 aircraft without a co-pilot. I seem to remember you telling me with some emphasis that anyone who did so was an idiot.”
“Charley, if I went in with you on the Mexican UH-60, and then flew it back out here, that means we would have to land only one of the 160th choppers in there to take your Spetsnaz back to the Bataan. That would reduce the danger that one of my guys would dump one of ours at La Orchila, causing God only knows what consequential collateral political damage.”
“You don’t see any risk like when your guys take out the commo building?”
“As I understand your plan, Colonel, the idea is for my guys to hit the commo building in the dark, so they will never learn what happened to them, or who did it.”
Castillo was silent for a moment.
Next came dissension in the ranks of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment pilots.
Four of the Night Stalkers, just about simultaneously, spoke without permission. They all said about the same thing: “Colonel, let me fly that fucking Mexican chopper.”
To which Colonel Kingsolving replied, “Zip your lips, or nobody gets to go.”
There was another period of silence.
“Vis-à-vis my counseling you on the inadvisability of flying UH-60 aircraft without a co-pilot, Colonel,” Kingsolving said, “I meant every word of it. But there is an old military axiom that I’m really surprised you did not learn at our beloved alma mater. To wit: When you are the senior officer, you are, in certain circumstances, permitted to say, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’
“I’m going to fly that Mexican UH-60 back and forth to the island of La Orchila, Charley. Period.”
“There goes your star, you realize.”
“That thought did run through my mind, frankly. But what the hell. If they made me a general, they’d say I was too valuable to fly myself anywhere, with or without a co-pilot. And I don’t want to fly a desk in the Pentagon.”
Then he looked at Captain Lowe.
“I think we’re through here, Captain. Is the Navy planning on feeding us lunch?”
[FIVE]
The USS Bataan (LHD 5)
The Caribbean Sea
2055 12 February 2007
Former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva was not in sight when Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo entered the stateroom.
He was not really surprised. She had not spoken a word to him at lunch, then had spent the entire afternoon with the Spetsnaz somewhere below deck, presumably checking their equipment and seeing to it they understood their roles in the operation.
They had had a conversation of sorts at dinner.
“May I please have the butter?” she had asked him.
“Of course,” he had said. “My pleasure.”
“Thank you,” she had said, ending their conversation.
Now, alone in the stateroom, Castillo decided that she had run down the old chief and told him she had changed her mind about sharing his quarters. Earlier, Captain Lowe had shown him the Bataan’s sick bay—actually a small, fully equipped hospital—and while doing so, Castillo had noticed there were sleeping quarters for nurses.
She’s probably in one of those.
He took off his Walmart battle dress, and lay down on the lower of the two bunks the room offered.
I’ll take a shower at 0230, he decided, not now.
Taking one then will wake me up.
He closed his eyes.
“If you think we’re going to make love without you taking a shower, think again,” former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva announced not sixty seconds later.
He opened his eyes. She was standing beside the bunk bed wearing a thin cotton bathrobe.
“Am I permitted to say I’m a little surprised?” Charley asked, after having regained his breath perhaps ten minutes later.
“In eight hours, the Venezuelans may have the both of us stretched out on a wooden table, the way your Green Berets stretched out Che Guevara,” Svetlana said. “I did not want to spend all eternity knowing that I had had the chance to spend my last hours making love with you, and threw it away.”
“Good thinking,” he said.
“Right now, I don’t like you very much—how dare you talk to me the way you did?—but I love you.”
He had a wildly tangential thought. “Where’s Max?”
She pointed.
Max was lying with his head between his paws on the stateroom’s small desk, nearly covering it, and looking at them.
“How long’s he been there?” Charley asked.
“He was sleeping under the bunk. But you were making so much noise, I guess you woke him up.”