Black Ops (Presidential Agent)

by W. E. B Griffin

"He told me what he wants to do is to have a little chat, mano a mano, with you."

  "About what?"

  "Why don't we get into that when you've finished telling us about the ambassador? Starting at the beginning and leaving nothing out."

  "Fair enough," Castillo said, and began: "When I parked at Jorge Newbery, there was a Presidential Flight Gulfstream on the tarmac. The pilot told me not only that it had carried Montvale down here, but that Montvale had blown his stack when Ambassador Silvio told him he had no idea where I was.

  "So I went looking for him. I found him in the Rio Alba and then we went to the embassy for a little chat. . . ."

  It took Castillo about five minutes to bring everybody up to speed.

  "Okay. That's about it. Anybody?"

  Colonel Jake Torine shook his head in wonder. He--and everyone else-- had just heard that he was being sent to the Nebraska Avenue Complex, where--aided and abetted by Mrs. Agnes Forbison, their very own expert on all things bureaucratic--he was to be prepared to convince Mr. C. Harry Whelan of The Washington Post that the Office of Organizational Analysis was in fact what its name suggested, just one more small governmental agency charged with analyzing government organization, in this case that of the Department of Homeland Security.

  Castillo looked at Torine. "Jake?"

  "Why do I think you have a hidden agenda here, Charley?"

  "Because by nature you are simply unable to trust your fellow man?"

  "How about because I have been around the block with you too many times, ol' buddy."

  "Did I forget to mention that I hope you and Sparkman will be able to tear yourself away from your analytic duties for a few hours so that you might consider the problems of getting whatever materiel and men into the Democratic Republic of the Congo in complete secrecy so they can take out a chemical laboratory/factory?"

  "No, I guess that slipped your mind," Torine said.

  "And of course once they have accomplished that little task, to get them out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as unobtrusively as they entered?"

  "That presumes that you will be allowed to use the Delta Force 727."

  Castillo nodded. "And some people from Delta Force. Uncle Remus comes to mind."

  Chief Warrant Officer Five Colin Leverette, a legendary Delta Force special operator, was an enormous, very black man who was called "Uncle Remus" by his close friends--and only by his close friends--in the special operations community.

  "From what you have told us of your little chat with Ambassador Montvale, are you sure that's going to happen?"

  "No," Castillo said simply.

  "Then what, Charley?"

  "I haven't quite figured that out."

  "Wonderful!"

  "If you're uncomfortable with this, Jake, don't do it. Just con C. Harry Whelan and leave it at that."

  "Every time you lead me around the block, I'm uncomfortable," Torine said. "But I always go, and you know that."

  "That was before," Castillo said, "when you were able to con yourself into thinking I wasn't really crazy."

  "Not without difficulty," Torine said, chuckling.

  "I've got something to tell you that will probably make you conclude I have finally really gone over the edge."

  "Frankly, Charley, that wouldn't be hard."

  "I'm emotionally involved with Svetlana Alekseeva," Castillo said.

  Torine looked at him intensely, his eyes wary, but otherwise there was no expression on his face at all.

  "To prevent any possible misinterpretation of that, Jake, let me rephrase: I am in love with her, and that emotion, I believe, is reciprocated."

  "I'm really glad to hear you say that, Ace," Delchamps said.

  Castillo instantly decided he had not correctly heard what Delchamps had said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "If you had said anything but almost exactly that, we would have had, added to our other burdens, the problem of protecting you from the lady's big brother. In my brief association with him, I have learned he is one smart, tough sonofabitch, and protecting you from him might not have been possible."

  Castillo thought he saw a look of disbelief in Susanna Sieno's eyes, then wondered if it was disbelief or contempt.

  Paul Sieno and Sparkman had their eyes fixed on the floor.

  "Charley," Torine said finally, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to tell Montvale about this."

  Castillo shook his head.

  There was another long pause before Torine went on: "Insofar as reciprocity is concerned, would this explain Colonel Berezovsky's otherwise baffling sudden change of attitude?"

  Castillo first noticed the near-stilted formality of Torine's question, then realized: He's thinking out loud. Not as good ol' Jake, but as Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF, a senior officer subconsciously doing a staff study of a serious problem and, specifically, right now, doing the Factors Bearing on the Problem part of the study.

  "Pevsner told him that I was almost family. . . ."

  "Supported," Torine went on, "by Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva's statement, which I thought was odd: 'So far as I am concerned, before God and the world, he is family.' "

  "That's what she said," Castillo agreed.

  Delchamps put in: "If I'm to believe Polkovnik Berezovsky--and truth being stranger than fiction, I do--the whole family, including the infamous Aleksandr Pevsner, is deeply religious folk with quote family values unquote that would satisfy the most pious Southern Baptist. Make that Presbyterian; they do like their booze."

  He looked at Alex Darby.

  "That's my take," Darby said, nodding gently.

  Susanna Sieno looked like she was going to say something but changed her mind.

  "Following which," Torine went on almost as if he was in a daze and hadn't heard Delchamps, "Colonel Berezovsky began not only to answer questions he had previously answered evasively and ambiguously--if at all--and began not only to answer such questions fully, but also to volunteer intelligence bearing on the questions."

  "One explanation for the change in attitude," Susanna Sieno said more than a little sarcastically, "might be Charley repeating his offer of two million dollars for the information."

  Delchamps looked at her coldly but didn't challenge her.

  He respects her, Castillo thought.

  Susanna may look like a sweet young housewife in a laundry detergent advertisement, but she's a good spook who has more than paid her dues in the agency's Clandestine Services.

  "No, Susanna, that wasn't his motivation," Castillo said. "They asked me for two million on the train to establish a credible motive for their defection. But they don't need money. They brought out with them--it's in various banks around the world--far more than two million. So much money I have trouble believing how much."

  Torine, deep in thought, looked out the quincho's doors.

  "That is the belief of their interrogator," he went on in the military bureaucrat cant of the staff study, which sounded even more stilted when spoken. "Inevitably raising the question of the soundness of the interrogator's judgment, inasmuch as the interrogator in his admission of romantic involvement has also admitted he has abandoned the professional code he has followed throughout his adult life."

  Torine stopped and tapped his fingertips together for a good thirty seconds.

  Then he raised his eyes to Castillo's. "So, you see, Colonel, the dilemma into which you have thrust me?"

  "Jake, you say the word and I'll get on Montvale's airplane. If you tell me you think I can't . . ."

  He stopped when Torine held up his hand.

  "--said dilemma makes me seriously consider that you may have in fact lost your fucking mind."

  Jack Davidson chuckled.

  "So you think I should get on Montvale's airplane?"

  "No, that's not what I said. Or mean. I just think you should keep in mind that you're not acting rationally."

  "That's . . ." Susanna Sieno started and then stopped.

  "Go on, Susanna," Castil
lo said, gesturing. "Let's hear it."

  She met his eyes for a moment, shrugged, then went on: "What I was about to say, Charley, was that that's something of an understatement."

  "Guilty," Castillo said. "That thought has occurred to me."

  "And you still think you're in love?"

  He nodded.

  "In that case, maybe I should just shut up."

  "I wish you wouldn't," Castillo said. "Let's get it all out."

  She considered that a moment, shrugged again, then said: "Here're a couple of things to consider. Charley. . . . Oh, hell, I was about to say that Svetlana is at least as good a spook as I am, maybe even as good as you are. But you've considered that, I'm sure. Anyway, given that, if I were in her shoes, snaring somebody like you by whatever means--certainly including spreading my legs--would be a no-brainer."

  "Jesus Christ, honey!" Paul Sieno exclaimed.

  "Stop thinking like a husband, Paul," Susanna said.

  "And," Jack Britton said, "since we're all running at the mouth, Charley, you were on the rebound after Betty Schneider dumped you, ripe to get plucked by any female, and certainly by a really good-looking, smart one with every reason to have a 'protect my ass' agenda."

  "Betty dumped him?" Sandra Britton asked, surprised. "You never told me about that!"

  "I didn't think it was any of our business," Britton said.

  "How'd you hear about that?" Castillo asked.

  "I heard Agnes and Joel Isaacson talking," Britton said.

  Castillo shrugged. "She did dump me. What she said was that she didn't want to be married to a guy who instead of coming home for supper would leave a voice mail that he was off to Timbuktu. But what I really think it was is that being with me would interfere with her new Secret Service career; that what she really wanted to do was be more of a hotshot cop than her brother. And I really don't think I was on the rebound."

  Britton's face showed he didn't believe that at all.

  "The flaw in your argument, Susie," Alex Darby said, "is that none of the Russians need Charley now. If she had, to use your apt if indelicate phraseology, spread her legs before he brought them here . . ."

  "We don't know when or where that happened," Susanna said, and looked at Castillo.

  He was on the verge of telling her that it was none of her goddamn business when he had first been intimate with Svetlana, but then realized that, in fact, it was.

  Castillo made a grand gesture with his right index finger, poking the felt of the table. "Here, the first night."

  There was a resounding silence.

  "On the pool table?" Sandra Britton blurted. "Charley!"

  "No, I mean in Argentina, not before."

  "Right after her swimsuit top 'accidentally' came off, right?" Susanna said, undeterred.

  Castillo nodded.

  "That was an accident," Sandra said. "I saw what happened."

  "Well, she really covered herself up just as fast as she could, I'll say that for her. Top and bottom," Susanna said.

  Castillo's memory bank kicked in, and he had a clear image of Svetlana adjusting her bathing suit back over her exposed buttock.

  "If I didn't know better, Susie," Darby said, "I'd suspect you don't like Podpolkovnik Alekseeva very much."

  "That's the point, you asshole," Susanna snapped. "She is a podpolkovnik of the FSB--"

  "Was a podpolkovnik of the SVR," Delchamps corrected her without thinking.

  "Et tu, Edgar?" Susanna said, thickly sarcastic. "You're into this true-love-at-first-sight bullshit?"

  "Well, what the hell's wrong with that?" Sandra challenged. "It happens."

  "Bullshit!" Susanna said.

  "I don't know about you people," Sandra snapped back. "But it does happen to certain cops and schoolteachers. Tell her, Jack."

  "Guilty," Britton said.

  "Oh, for Christ's sake!" Susanna said disgustedly.

  Darby said: "What I started to say, Susie, what seems an hour or so ago, before we got into the romantic aspects of all this, is the flaw in your argument is that the Russians don't need Charley anymore."

  "Meaning what?" Susanna challenged.

  "Well, for example, we weren't at the second safe house thirty minutes when the Russians came in, bearing gifts."

  "Like what?"

  "Passports and national identity cards for everybody--Argentine, Uruguayan, Paraguayan, South African, Mexican."

  "All good forgeries, I'm sure," Susanna said, her tone making clear her contempt for counterfeit passports, which everybody knew were good only until immigration authorities could run them through a computer database.

  Darby took two passports and two national identity cards from a zip-top plastic bag and handed one set to Susanna and the other to Castillo. "These are genuine. I have an asset in Argentine immigration and he checked them for me."

  Castillo found himself looking at photographs of Svetlana looking at him through the sealed thick plastic of a Uruguayan national identity card and passport identifying her as Susanna Barlow, born in Warsaw, Poland, and now a naturalized citizen living in Maldonado, Uruguay. He remembered from somewhere that Maldonado was just north of the seaside resort town of Punta del Este.

  "What's the name on yours, Susanna?" Castillo asked as he extended the documents to her.

  She didn't reply. She simply handed him the set of documents Darby had given to her. When Castillo examined them, Svetlana's photo--the same one as on the Uruguayan documents--was on both an Argentine passport and a national identity card identifying her as Susanna Barlow, born in Warsaw, Poland, and now a naturalized citizen living in Rosario.

  Delchamps said: "The Paraguayan, South African, and Mexican documents may be fake, but I don't think so. As soon as I can, I'll check them."

  Susanna looked at him but didn't say anything.

  "What's interesting here, Susanna," Delchamps went on, "aside from Svetlana's new first name, I mean, is that when I told Berezovsky I was going to meet Charley here and I thought Svetlana would be with him--" He stopped and turned to Castillo. "Where is she, by the way?"

  "At yet another of Pevsner's safe houses, in the Pilar Golf and Polo Club. Munz and Lester are with her," Castillo furnished.

  Delchamps nodded, then turned his attention back to Susanna: "Berezovsky just handed me this stuff and asked me to give it to her. I don't think he would have done that if he planned to take off."

  "Who is Berezovsky now?" Castillo asked.

  "'Thomas Barlow,' who else? Born in Manchester, England," Delchamps answered.

  "The Russians also showed up with a little walking around money," Darby said. "One hundred thousand dollars of it, fresh from the Federal Reserve. Still in the plastic wrapping. It makes up a package about this big." He demonstrated with his left hand, fingers and thumb extended in what could have been the mimicking of a bear claw. "And it was the real thing, too, Susie. Nice, crisp, spendable hundred-dollar bills."

  He waited until she reacted. All he got was a sort of so what shrug, but it was enough for him to go on.

  "All of which leads Edgar and me to believe that if all they--especially she--wanted out of Charley was getting them here from Vienna and a little help until they got settled--or disappeared--that that time has passed. Berezovsky is still singing like a canary and--"

  "And Charley is still alive," Delchamps said. "Taking Charley out when he was in Bariloche would have been the smart thing for them to do, covering their tracks, and it is a given that both Pevsner and Berezovsky are very good at doing that sort of thing and lose no sleep whatever when they do it."

  "So what are you saying?" Tony Santini asked.

  "I can't wait to see the look on Susanna's face when I say this," Delchamps said. "I believe, and so does Brother Darby, that (a) Polkovnik Berezovsky and Podpolkovnik Alekseeva risked all to get out of Russia because--subpara lowercase i--they came to believe that Vladimir Putin was about to resurrect the bad old days of the Soviet Union and they wanted nothing to do with that . . ."r />
  "I don't believe I'm hearing this," Susanna Sieno said.

  ". . . and--(a) subpara lowercase ii--they suspected that because Brother Putin, himself a member in good standing of the Oprichina--you'll recall his father was Stalin's cook--knows all about what a threat heavy-duty oprichniki would pose to his regime, they stood a very good chance of spending the rest of their lives in a mental hospital with their veins full of happy juice, said mental hospitals having replaced the gulag in the new and wonderful Russian Federation as depositories for potential troublemakers."

  "You're telling me that you and Alex"--she looked between them--"believe those ludicrous yarns about a state within a state?"

  "With all my innocent trusting heart, Susie," Darby said, putting his right hand to his chest. "But then again, you have to remember that throughout my long career in the Clandestine Services I earned the reputation of always being the guy who believed everything he was told."

  "If I may go on?" Delchamps said. "Darby and I also believe that (b) the Berezovskys, the Pevsners, and at least Charley's new friend Svetlana are Christians who take it seriously--we're not so sure of the lady's husband, he's one mean sonofabitch who may well be a godless Communist. . . ."

  "She's married?" Susanna asked, shaking her head.

  "To Polkovnik Evgeny Alekseeva of the SVR," Delchamps confirmed, "who at last report was scouring the streets of Vienna in high hopes of finding his wife, who he no doubt then hopes to kill in the most painful way he can think of."

  "Oh, Charley!" Sandra Britton said.

  "Once again, if I may go on?" Delchamps said. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes! (b): are Christians who take it seriously, and for that reason--subpara lowercase i--regard the poisoning of a couple of million innocent women and children as un-Christian and are therefore willing to help Charley take out whatever the hell those bastards have in the Congo, about which Berezovsky apparently knows a hell of a lot.

  "Subpara lowercase ii, would be deeply offended if Our Leader--known to the Secret Service as 'Don Juan'--as I really expected to hear just now when he returned to our little nest--had been pleasuring Podpolkovnik Alekseeva simply to get her to talk--or simply for fun--rather than as a manifestation of his intention to marry the lady when that is possible, and thereafter to walk hand in hand and in the fear of God in the bonds of holy matrimony until death do them part. Amen." He paused. "Getting the picture, Susanna?"