[FIVE]
0200 12 January 2006
"Otto Gorner for Colonel Castillo, Data Transmission Not Encrypted," the sultry voice of the AFC announced.
Davidson pushed the VOICE TRANSMIT button.
"John Davidson. Colonel Castillo available in five minutes."
"Hold one, Sergeant Davidson," the voice said, then twenty seconds later added: "Not Encrypted Data Transmission begins. Pass to Colonel Castillo when available."
Davidson hadn't even reached the printer when it started to whir and the voice--which, or who, Davidson very privately had begun to think of as "Sexy Susan"--announced: "Not Encrypted Data Transmission complete."
Three seconds later a hard copy of the data came out of the printer.
Davidson read it, then began to push keys on the printer keyboard.
The printer monitor showed what he'd typed: TRANSLATE GERMAN TO ENGLISH DRAFT.
The translation began to appear on the printer monitor.
Davidson studied it, made a few minor corrections--the AFC translator was good but not perfect--then typed, FILE AS GORNER 0203 12 JAN PRINT 3 COPIES."
The printer began to spit out the three copies.
Davidson stapled the German original and the translation together, then said, "Sorry, Casanova, duty calls," and walked out of the library.
Svetlana answered his knock in a few seconds.
"He's asleep," she said.
Davidson held out the papers.
"Sweaty, I think he'd want to see this."
She took them from him, stepped into the corridor where there was enough light to read, then scanned both versions, and sighed. "Dmitri was afraid of something like this would happen. I will wake Carlos."
Davidson went back to the library.
Castillo, wearing his West Point bathrobe, came in almost immediately behind him.
"Goddamn that Edgar Delchamps!"
"You're not really surprised, are you, Charley?"
"Pissed is the word that comes to mind. At Delchamps, and at me for not seeing this coming."
Dmitri and Svetlana came into the library. Berezovsky was wrapped in a terry-cloth bathrobe.
"Have a look at social notes from all over," Castillo said, gesturing to the papers.
"Svetlana told me," Berezovsky said.
"Read it," Castillo said, "then give me the benefit of your thinking, please."
Berezovsky took one of the copies of the translation, and his eyes fell to it.
TAGES ZEITUNG VIENNA
0900 12 Jan
Immediate
For All Tages Zeitung Newspapers
TAG: RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT FOUND
MURDERED OUTSIDE U.S. EMBASSY
By Wilhelm Dusse
Staff Writer/Tages Zeitung Vienna
The body of Kirill Demidov, cultural attache of the Russian embassy, was found early this morning in the passenger seat of a taxicab near the United States of America embassy at Boltzmanngasse 16. He apparently had been strangled to death.
Mr. Demidov's body was found by a U.S. Marine guard as he walked to the embassy to begin his duty day.
"I thought it was funny for somebody to be sitting in the back of a cab with no driver, so I took a look, and when I'd seen what it was I went inside the embassy and called the cops," Staff Sergeant James L. Hanrahan told this reporter before the interview was interrupted by an officer of the embassy, who took Sergeant Hanrahan away and announced the U.S. embassy would have no comment.
Mr. Demidov's body was still sitting erect in the taxicab when this reporter arrived at the scene shortly before officials of the Russian embassy then arrived and, claiming diplomatic privilege, had the body removed to an undisclosed location by ambulance.
Vienna police officials said that the taxicab had been stolen from its garage earlier last evening, and that the police had been looking for it. They also reported that there had been a "metal noose" around Mr. Demidov's body, with which he had apparently been strangled.
It is known that Mr. Demidov had earlier been at the Kunsthistorisches Museum at ceremonies marking the closing of the exhibit of the Bartolomeo Rastrelli's wax statue of Russian Tsar Peter the First, which had been on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
STORY OPEN MORE TO FOLLOW
"Let me make a wild guess, Dmitri," Castillo said. "Demidov was the Vienna rezident?"
Berezovsky nodded.
"Who sent us this? Darby?" Castillo asked.
"Otto Gorner," Davidson said.
"Well, then let's see what else Otto knows. For all we know, Edgar may be as pure as the driven snow in this. Demidov may have been done in by his homosexual lover; there's been a lot of that going on."
Davidson laughed.
Castillo went to the radio. "C .G. Castillo. Otto Gorner. Encryption Level One."
"Hold one, Colonel. I will attempt to make the connection."
"Sweaty, she sounds a lot like you. Ever notice?" Davidson asked. "I've started to think of her as 'Sexy Susan.' "
Svetlana gave him the finger.
"Well, Karl," Otto Gorner's voice came over the speakerphone, "what are you doing up in the middle of the night?"
"Reading the newspaper. What else have you got?"
"I just got off the phone with Willi Dusse. Two little tidbits that probably don't mean anything "
"What, Otto?"
"An unnamed source in the Vienna police, whose name Willi always spells correctly, with two s's, said that while they were waiting for the police heavyweights and the Russians to show up, he happened to notice that the victim's face was not contorted and blue, as is common in strangulations, and that what he described as the 'metal noose' was not embedded in the victim's neck, but just sort of hanging there. He did notice, however, that there was a mark on the neck, below the ear, that could perhaps have been made with a needle.
"Willi thinks it's possible the victim did not die of strangulation, but of some other cause. But we'll never know, as any autopsy will be conducted in Moscow."
"That's interesting. They have any idea who did this to Mr. Demidov?"
"Not according to Willi. Willi was told, however, that the taxi was wiped clean; no fingerprints. Suggesting, possibly, that this terrible act was done by someone who knew what he was doing."
"That's all? What's the second little tidbit?"
"Well, one little thing, which probably means absolutely nothing. As the police wrecker was hauling the taxicab away, Willi's friend noticed a calling card at the curbside. It could have simply been dropped there prior to all this, but it also could have been in the taxi and dislodged when the police initially examined the cadaver."
"What was the name on the calling card?"
"It was an American diplomat's, a woman named Eleanor Dillworth. She's the consul."
"Oh, I do love a man who can really hold a grudge," Davidson said.
"Goddamn it," Castillo said.
"That mean something to you, Karl?" Gorner asked.
Castillo avoided the question. "Otto, please send me whatever else your man Dusse comes up with, will you?"
"Of course, Karl."
"Does Darby know about this?"
"I showed it to him when it came in. He's just about finished here, he said, and is moving to Budapest."
"Is he there now?"
"No. Alex said he was going to his hotel to pack."
"If you see him, have him call me, please."
"I suppose if you knew anything about those two Russian defectors, you'd tell me, right?"
"Absolutely."
"You don't suppose somebody stuck needles in their necks, do you? Or hung a garrote around their necks and they just haven't found the bodies yet? That's a story I'd love to write myself. And give to Friedler's widow."
"I'm going back to bed, Otto," Castillo said. "End transmission."
Berezovsky then said, "Carlos, you seem to be genuinely surprised by this."
'"And you're not?"
Berezovsk
y didn't immediately reply.
"You knew about this?" Castillo asked, then thought: Of course you did! "You knew Edgar was going to whack this guy and you didn't tell me?"
"Why do you think he did this?" Berezovsky asked.
Castillo said: "He wants to go out in style, be remembered when the other dinosaurs gather as the dinosaur who whacked the Vienna rezident the week before he retired."
Berezovsky shook his head.
"No?" Castillo snapped. "Then, damn you, why?"
"We talked--" Berezovsky began.
Castillo saw Svetlana nodding in agreement.
"We being who?" Castillo interrupted. "You, Delchamps, and who else? You, Svet?"
"Yes, my Carlos. Me, too," she said.
"Anybody else?" Castillo flared. "Lester, maybe? Aloysius?"
Davidson raised his hand.
"Oh, Jesus H. Christ!" Castillo exclaimed.
"Don't blaspheme," Svetlana said.
"You're pissed because I am 'taking the Lord's name in vain,' but it's all right for you and everybody else to sit around planning to whack people? Jesus H. Christ in spades!"
Berezovsky calmly went on: "What we talked about--Darby, too--Carlos, was how to stop the killing."
Castillo could not believe what he was hearing. "You mean, by whacking this guy in Vienna, then leaving the CIA station chief's calling card? I'll bet when that Marine opened the cab door, that calling card was pinned to Demidov's lapel with a rose."
"We didn't get into how anything was to be done, Charley," Davidson said. "Just agreed that it had to be done."
"Et tu, Brutus? Jesus Christ, Jack. Nobody was interested in what I might have to say?"
"I told them what you would say, Charley. 'No.' Was I right?"
"You know fucking well that's what I would have said."
"But Dmitri and Edgar and Sweaty were right, too," Davidson said.
"How the hell do you figure that?"
"My Carlos, hear out Dmitri," Svetlana said, then added, "Please, my darling."
"I'm all ears," Castillo said after a moment, and gestured impatiently for him to explain.
Berezovsky nodded. "Carlos, it is said that the Germans and the Russians are very much alike; that's why the wars between us kill so many millions--"
"What I draw from that philosophical observation is: 'So what?' " Castillo interrupted.
"--That we are either on our knees before our enemies when we believe we cannot win a conflict, or tearing at their throats when we think we can triumph. The only time there is peace between us is when both sides realize that the price of hurting the other is being yourself hurt."
"There is a point to this, right? And you're going to get to it soon?"
"When it was the U.S. versus the U.S.S.R., this concept was called 'Mutual Assured Destruction,'" Berezovsky went on. "And thus there was no exchange of nuclear weapons."
"Where are you going with this?"
You know where he's going with it, stupid!
Berezovsky started to say something. Castillo silenced him with an upraised hand, and said, "We have to take out some of their people, preferably the ones who whacked some of ours, to teach them there's a price to pay?"
"Otherwise, this won't stop," Davidson said.
"Knowing something of how Putin's mind works," Berezovsky picked up, "I can tell you he is going to evaluate the five assassinations we know about--and I'm sure there were more--and decide, depending on the speed and ferocity of the reaction to them, whether he should pull in his horns or see how much more he can get away with before the enemy charges a price he doesn't wish to pay."
"Some of this is personal for me, Charley," Davidson said. "I really don't want to spend the rest of my life--on whatever sunny beach I find myself in retirement--looking over my shoulder."
"Nor I," Berezovsky said.
Svetlana didn't say anything out loud, but her eyes also said, Nor I.
And neither do I, goddamn it.
Sexy Susan said, "CWO Leverette for Corporal Bradley, Class One Encryption."
"C. G. Castillo."
"It's okay, sweetheart," Leverette's voice said, "I'll talk to him."
"Go ahead, gentlemen," Sexy Susan said.
"You're watching the radio in the middle of the night, are you, Colonel? What did she do, kick you out of bed?"
"I understand you've already displeased Colonel Hamilton. You sure you want to do that with me, too, Mr. Leverette?"
"Negative."
"I didn't expect to hear from you for another twenty-four hours or so."
"As I just explained to Colonel Hamilton, sir, I meant that forty-eight-hour period to mean the longest time we might be gone."
"He's there with you?"
"Good morning, Colonel Castillo," Hamilton said.
"Good morning, sir."
"Mr. Leverette has assured me that our little problem was a communications breakdown."
"I felt sure it was something like that, sir."
"Some good news and some bad, Colonel," Leverette said.
"Good first. I've just had some bad."
"As we speak, Phineas is taking the vehicles and a dozen shooters across the bridge. I found several Congolese officials who became very sympathetic to our desire to collect small fauna for the Fayetteville Zoo after I gave them a great deal of money."
"Only a dozen shooters?"
"I'll explain that when I get to the bad news. These same officials were also kind enough to rent me four outboard motorboats--not bad ones, with 150-horsepower Yamahas; they told me they stole them from the UN--at a price I would say is only four or five times what they're worth, even in this neck of the woods. And further, to show us the place where the boats will be hidden from sight until--and I hope this never happens--it is necessary to launch them as an alternative method of leaving the Congo.
"It is my intention to use four of the shooters as guards on the fleet while the rest of us try to catch parrots--"
"Parrots?"
"--and whatever else we might happen across. Yeah, parrots. Our new friends are in the wild livestock business. They offered us everything up to and including gorillas. We settled on parrots."
"The Congo African Grey Parrot," Hamilton furnished, "Psittacus erithacus erithacus, is regarded as the most intelligent of the species. They bring anywhere from a thousand dollars to several times that much in Washington."
"As I said," Leverette went on, "our new friends somehow got the idea we're trying to catch and illegally export African Grey Parrots. They said the birds may be found in large numbers along the Ngayu River, on both sides of National Route 25.
"They also said--I'm not sure if this is bad news or good news--that we should be very careful not to go past kilometer marker 125 on Route 25, because beyond that is where the Arabs and the bad water are.
"I asked them what the Arabs are doing in that area, and they said they didn't know, possibly poaching elephants for their ivory, or maybe engaged in the slave trade, but the bottom line being that very few people who go deep into that area are ever seen alive again.
"The bodies of those who do venture too far, my new friends told me, are often found on the shoulders of Route 25, as far west as Kilometer 120. And I mean bodies--none are buried. Seems that some missionaries--I didn't know until they told me that there were Congolese missionaries, black guys, who didn't take off when the Belgians and Germans and French were mostly run out of this paradise--did try burying the dead, then suddenly came down sick and died very unpleasantly. As did large numbers of various carnivores that thought they'd found free lunch on the roadside."
"Jesus!" Castillo said.
"Amen, brother. And, to round off this National Geographic lecture on the fascinating Congo, there are no fish in the crystal-clear waters of that stretch of the scenic Ngayu River. Sometimes, in the past, there were fish kills, but no longer. Suggesting, perhaps, one fish kill too many--"
"All of this, as you can well imagine, Castillo," Colonel Hamilton
said, "has rather whetted my curiosity."
"--So, as soon as I hear from DeWitt that the shooters and the pickups are across the border, Colonel Hamilton and I are going to join them. We will drop four shooters at the boats, with one truck, to ensure our new friends don't rent them to other parrot hunters.
"The rest of the scientific expedition will then drive up Route 25, which we pick up in Kisangani, to Kilometer 120. There, we'll split into three groups. Colonel Hamilton said he can learn a lot from the bodies and--presuming, of course, that our new friends have been telling the truth--the water in the Ngayu. The other two will reconnoiter the area beyond Kilometer 125.
"This time, Charley, when I say we'll be back in seventy-two hours, that's conservative."
Castillo said, "Same question: Why are you not taking the other team?"
"I'm going with my gut, Charley. The fewer of us the better. Less chance of detection."
"Your call, Uncle Remus," Castillo said.
Hamilton cleared his throat. "I thought you and I had discussed that unfortunate appellation, Colonel Castillo."
Go fuck yourself, Hamilton.
"Yes, sir, we have. It won't happen again, sir."
"Charley, don't call us. We'll call you. I don't want some raghead with an RPG and a Kalashnikov wondering who the broad with the sexy voice is."
"Isn't there a way to disable the audio function of the radio?" Colonel Hamilton asked.
"It doesn't always work, sir. Watch your back, Colin."
Of course the voice can be shut off.
Uncle Remus is telling me (a) he doesn't want to have one of the shooters wasting time sitting around the bush with an earpiece waiting for a call, and (b) more important, that he doesn't want soon-to-be-retired Lieutenant Colonel Castillo looking over his shoulder and offering unsolicited advice.
What Uncle Remus is saying loud and clear: "Butt out, Charley, and let us do our thing."
"See you when I see you, Charley. Leverette out."
Castillo turned to Davidson. "Jack, is there a countdown function?"
"Seventy-two hours?"
Black Ops (Presidential Agent) Page 52
