Black Ops (Presidential Agent)

by W. E. B Griffin

  Castillo nodded. "Put it on all of them."

  Davidson tapped keys.

  In the upper left-hand corner of all the monitors, a line of numbers appeared: 72:00:00. Which a second later turned to: 71:59:59.

  [SIX]

  0615 12 January 2006

  When Castillo, in his bathrobe, walked into the library and sat down at the table, the countdown on the monitors read 68:20:25 and continued declining.

  "Les, if you can find my--and Jack's--laptops in all this crap, how about putting the countdown on them?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Bradley had come to his room and said Susanna Sieno wanted to talk to him.

  "C. G. Castillo."

  "Mrs. Sieno," Sexy Susan said, "I have Colonel Castillo for you. Encryption Level One."

  "Hey, Susanna. How's the temperature down there? It's ten above zero here."

  "Is Svetlana with you?"

  "No. You want her?"

  "No, I don't," Susanna said.

  While Castillo was trying to interpret the meaning of that, three seconds later Sexy Susan said, "Not Encrypted Data Transmission complete."

  Castillo went to the printer as it spit out a sheet of paper.

  "The morning newspaper was just delivered," Susanna Sieno said. "Read that. There's more. Alfredo heard about this around midnight, and has been working on it since. He just came here."

  Castillo glanced at one of the monitors and saw that "here," according to a flashing lightning bolt and a three-dimensional image, was Nuestra Pequena Casa in the Mayerling Country Club in Pilar.

  The printout he held in his hand was a scan of part of the front page of The Buenos Aires Herald:

  RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS MURDERED NEAR EZEIZA AIR TERMINAL

  From Staff Reports

  Officers of the Gendarmeria Nacional discovered shortly before midnight the bodies of two Russian diplomats, later identified as Lavrenti Tarasov and Evgeny Alekseeva, in an automobile of the Russian embassy parked just off the Autopista Ricchieri approximately two kilometers from the airport entrance.

  According to a spokesman for the Russian embassy, Tarasov--the commercial attache in the Russian embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay--was apparently taking Alekseeva to the airport, where Alekseeva had reservations on the 10:35 p.m. Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany. Both had been in Argentina participating in a diplomatic conference.

  Comandante Liam Duffy of the gendarmeria, the first senior police official on the scene, told The Herald that "at first glance, pending full investigation" it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, that the diplomats were mistaken for drug dealers.

  "From the condition of the cadavers," Duffy said, "it would appear that they were fatally shot with shotguns, this after both had been wounded several times with a small-caliber weapon, probably a .22, in the knees and groin areas. Inflicting this type of excruciatingly painful, but not immediately lethal, wound is almost a trademark of the [drug criminals] to get their fellow scum to talk."

  The murders recalled the still-unsolved murder of the U.S. diplomat J. Winslow Masterson, who was found shot to death on Avenida Tomas Edison in late July of last year.

  Comandante Duffy said that while the most thorough investigation would be conducted, he had "to say in candor" that he doubted very much that it would be any more successful than the investigation into the Masterson murder had been.

  "When these faceless, cowardly rats of drug dealers go back into the sewers, only good luck ever sees them get what they so richly deserve," Duffy said.

  Alfredo Munz, despite what Susanna had said, didn't have much to add to what was in the Herald story, except to put in words what had been pretty obvious as soon as Castillo had read the story: that Duffy had learned that Alekseeva was going back to Europe, which meant that Tarasov was going back to Paraguay, and Duffy just wasn't going to let that happen.

  Castillo told him thanks and broke the connection.

  How the hell am I going to handle this?

  "Les, print some copies of that story and pass them around, please," he said, then he pushed himself out of his chair and headed for his bedroom.

  "Svetlana, sweetheart."

  She opened her eyes and stretched.

  "I've got some bad news, baby."

  She sat up.

  "Duffy went off the deep--"

  "Is that it?" She snatched the story out of his hand before he had a chance to reply.

  After a moment, she said softly but matter-of-factly: "And so I am now the Widow Alekseeva."

  Castillo didn't say anything.

  She swung her legs out of bed.

  "Pray with me, my darling," she said as she knelt next to the bed. She saw the look on his face. "Please, my Carlos."

  She bent her head and put her hands together.

  Shit!

  Castillo, more than a little awkwardly, knelt beside her and put his palms together.

  He glanced at Svetlana. Her lips were moving, but no sound was coming out of her mouth. Twice she crossed herself.

  So what am I supposed to pray for?

  "Thank you, God, for letting Duffy take out my lover's husband"?

  Or, "God, I hope you didn't make him suffer too long between Duffy shooting .22-rounds in his balls and finishing him off with the shotgun"?

  Damn, I am indeed a prick.

  Oh, Jesus, why didn't I think of this before? "Dear God, please make this as easy as possible on Svetlana. She's really a good woman, a good Christian, and she's going to blame herself for this. If you want to punish anybody, punish me for not being able to get that cold-blooded Irish bastard to back off.

  "Let her really be pissed at me, just so long as she doesn't blame herself. She's sure as hell going to get into the sin thing, because we've been sharing a bed while she was still married, and will decide that this is her punishment.

  "Well, lay that on me, too. She didn't rape me. It just happened. I take full responsibility. Let her be really pissed at me. I probably deserve it, and after a while, maybe she'll come around. Just make this easy on her.

  "I'll even take the blame for the other Russian Delchamps whacked in Vienna. I should have seen that coming and stopped it.

  "Just be good to Svetlana, Lord. Amen."

  Svetlana stopped praying and got to her feet. More than a little awkwardly, Castillo stood, too. She touched his face and kissed him.

  He held her.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "Don't be silly."

  "What did you pray for?"

  "Evgeny's soul," he lied.

  Where the fuck did that come from?

  On top of everything else, I'm lying through my teeth.

  Add that to my demerits list, God.

  "Me, too," she said. "But mostly I prayed for us."

  "For us?"

  "Evgeny knew the rules."

  "Excuse me?"

  "He knew them, and I know them, and you know them. I prayed to God to excuse us from them, my Carlos."

  What the hell is she talking about?

  "Saint Matthew," she went on as if reading his mind. "When the Romans came to arrest Jesus Christ, Simon Peter drew his sword to protect him. Our Lord told him to put it away. 'For all those who take up the sword perish by the sword.' You never heard that?"

  "Now that you mention it . . ."

  "I prayed to God that he will excuse you and me from that, my darling. It might not hurt if you did the same thing."

  She kissed him quickly on the lips, then gently pushed away from him. She announced, "I'm going to have a shower. You want to go first, or after? Or . . . ?"

  "Or," he said, and followed her into the bathroom, shedding his West Point bathrobe en route.

  [SEVEN]

  2130 12 January 2006

  "Major Miller for Colonel Castillo," Sexy Susan announced.

  Castillo looked up at the monitors from the playing cards he held. The countdown timer read 53:05:50, and there was a flashing lightning bolt above a picture of the house in Ale
xandria.

  He looked across the table at Dmitri Berezovsky and Aloysius Casey, then back at his hand: two aces, two sevens, and a nine.

  "I think you're bluffing, Aloysius," he said, picking up chips and tossing them in the pile at the center of the table. "Your two dollars and two more." Then a little more loudly and officially he said, "C. G. Castillo."

  Sexy Susan said, "I have Colonel Castillo for you, Major Miller."

  "How they hanging, Gimpy?"

  "Montvale's looking for you, Charley."

  "So, what else is new?"

  "He just called here on the White House secure phone. He asked me if I knew where you were."

  "To which you responded?"

  "That you were at the moment out of touch. And then he said, 'Where is he, and don't tell me you don't know,' to which I cleverly responded, 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to say exactly that, Mr. Ambassador, sir.' "

  "Why do I think that didn't end your little chat?"

  "He said it was urgent that he speak to you, and please have you call him; he has to talk to you about Vienna."

  "If I call him, since the sonofabitch owns the wiretappers in Fort Meade, he will know where I am. Let me think about it, Dick. I'll call you back."

  "Figure something out, Charley. Or he will change that 'locate but do not detain' on you to 'put the bastard in chains.'"

  "How do we know he already hasn't?"

  "As of three minutes ago--according to Inspector Doherty; I called him before I called you--they haven't. Doherty said this was probably because they need something called a warrant before they can throw you on the ground and slap on the handcuffs."

  "At the risk of repeating myself, let me think about it. I'll call you back. Castillo out."

  Aloysius Casey put down his cards, faceup. "All I have is three jacks and a pair of fours," he said, mock innocently. "What do they call that, a full house?"

  As he pulled the money in the center of the table to him, he said, "You want to talk to this Montvale guy, Charley?"

  "I don't want to, but I would if I could figure out how to do it without having him find out where I am."

  "Ask and you shall receive." He turned toward the AFC radio. "White House, via the Venetian."

  "Right away, Dr. Casey," Sexy Susan said.

  "What this does is activate a cellular in a suite we keep at the Venetian," Casey said. "Not encrypted--I'm working on that--but what it does is tell the phone company--and Meade, Langley, anyone who's curious--that the call is being made on a cellular in Vegas. That's all. I don't know how many rooms there are in the Venetian, a couple of thousand, anyway . . ."

  "You are a genius, sir."

  "White House."

  "Colonel Castillo for Ambassador Montvale."

  "On a regular line?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Ambassador Montvale's line."

  "Lieutenant Colonel Castillo for Ambassador Montvale," Sexy Susan announced. "The line is not secure."

  "It's Castillo," they heard Truman C. Ellsworth, Montvale's deputy, say.

  "On the White House line?" Montvale then said, and then the director of National Intelligence came on the line. "Good evening, Colonel Castillo."

  "Burning the late-night oil, are you, Mr. Ambassador?"

  "Where are you, Charley? We've been looking all over for you."

  "So I have been led to believe by Major Miller."

  "He told me he didn't know where you are."

  "Did he? Well, I don't always tell him where I am."

  "Are you aware of what happened in Vienna this morning?"

  "What?"

  "The Austrian foreign minister called the American ambassador and asked him if, in the spirit of international mutual cooperation, he would be willing to have Miss Eleanor Dillworth, his consul, answer a few questions the police had for her."

  "That's the same lady who accused me of stealing some Russians from her? What did she do, go further off the deep end? What did the Viennese cops think she did?"

  "You're not going to make me lose my temper, Castillo, so you can knock it off."

  "Yes, sir. I'm deeply sorry, sir."

  Castillo saw Casey shaking his head, but he was smiling.

  "What the police wanted to know was if she could shed some light on why her business card was found on the chest of a man by the name of Kirill Demidov. He was found sitting with a garrote around his neck in a taxi just down the street from the American embassy."

  "I just can't believe that Miss Dillworth could have anything to do with anything like that, even if the bastard was the Russian rezident who ordered the garroting of the Kuhls."

  "Who told you that?" Montvale snapped.

  "I have some Russian friends, you know. They tell me all kinds of interesting things."

  They heard Ellsworth trying to mask his voice in the background, then Montvale said into the phone, "What the hell are you doing in Las Vegas?"

  Casey smiled again and gave Castillo a thumbs-up.

  "Who told you I was in Las Vegas?"

  "I'm beginning to think Miss Dillworth and a growing number of other people, including General McNab, are right."

  "About what?"

  "That you really have lost it."

  "No. That's just a story you cooked up to convince C. Harry Whelan, Jr., of The Washington Post that a fruitcake like me could not possibly have stolen two Russian defectors from her, as Miss Dillworth alleges. Remember?"

  "I think I should tell you that Miss Dillworth has told the Vienna police, the State Department, and of course Mr. Whelan, that if they are looking for the persons responsible for the Demidov murder, they should start with you and your crony Mr. Edgar Delchamps."

  "Is that what they call loyalty to your co-workers? I thought agency types never ratted on one another."

  "I don't suppose you know where that dinosaur is, do you?"

  "He could be in Budapest, I suppose--"

  "Budapest?"

  "--Or Buenos Aires. Or just about any place in between."

  "He's not with you in Las Vegas?"

  "I never said I was in Vegas. You did."

  "Wherever you are, the FBI will inevitably find you."

  "I'll bet there'll be a lot of volunteers to look for me in Las Vegas. Who did you say told you I was here--I mean, there?"

  Casey and Berezovsky grinned widely.

  "All right, Castillo, enough. I have told the DCI I want a separate investigation of the allegations your Russian friends have made about a secret factory in the Congo. You have accomplished that much, if they are not making a fool of you. And now, it seems to me, it's time for you to put up or shut up."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Berezovsky and Alekseeva should step forward and tell the agency what they know."

  "That's unlikely. They trust the agency a little less than even I do."

  "Charley, I don't care where in the world you have them hidden. You tell me where, and I'll have a plane there in a matter of hours."

  "Which will transport them to one of those nice houses the agency has in Maryland? I don't think so, Mr. Ambassador. But I'll tell you what I will do: In a couple of days, when I get it all together, I will send you everything they have told me about what the agency thinks is a harmless fish farm. Plus what I've managed to dig up myself."

  Montvale didn't reply for a long moment.

  "I'm surprised. I thought there was nothing you could do that would surprise me. But I should have thought that you would be doing something like this."

  "Something like what?"

  "You still want to go over there yourself, don't you, John Wayne? Jump on your goddamn horse and gallop off to fight the fucking Indians. You think if you can put before the President enough of your bullshit, mixed with the bullshit your fucking Russian friends are feeding you, the President will say, 'Sure, hotshot. Go over there and show up the agency. Have Montvale set it up.' All the while ignoring whatever damage you can do to the President if you fuck it up--when you fuck it
up."

  "I thought you weren't going to lose your temper."

  "Mark my fucking words, Castillo, you will go to Africa and embarrass the President and the country and me over my dead body. You will not have access to any assets over which I have control--"

  "Well, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, Mr. Ambassador," Castillo said. "Break it down, White House." When he heard the click, he said, "Castillo out."

  "In about a minute," Casey said, "I suspect a cell phone will start to ring in the Venetian. No one will hear it, because the ringer's been muted. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if, shortly thereafter, lots of gun-toting guys in bad suits with emission detectors in their ears will start prowling the miles of Venetian corridors. That won't work, as I thought of that and came up with a fix. But was that smart, Charley?"

  Castillo looked at him but said nothing.

  "Thank you, Carlos," Berezovsky said.

  "For what? I told you I'd never turn you over to the agency, and that was before--"

  "Before Cupid's arrow struck? No. Thank you for not backing down from that assault. You reminded me of David and Goliath."

  Castillo pointed his finger at him. "You shut up." Then he pointed at Casey. "And you deal."

  Dona Alicia and Svetlana came into the library fifteen minutes later. They had been watching an old Paul Newman movie on television in the ranch house's main living room. They joined the game.

  When they quit playing--just before midnight, when Lester Bradley came in for his watch duty with the AFC--Dona Alicia had won almost twenty dollars and Sweaty had shown that she was a lousy loser by twice throwing her cards angrily on the table and uttering thirty-second recitations of Russian expletives that Castillo was glad Dona Alicia didn't understand. As Castillo stood, he noted on the monitors that the countdown read 50:45:15.

  [EIGHT]

  0900 13 January 2006

  Castillo walked into the library carrying a mug of coffee.

  Davidson shook his head and said, "Not a fucking peep, Charley."

  Castillo sat at the table.

  "I think what you were supposed to say was, 'Good morning, sir. I hope the colonel slept well. I beg to report there have been no reports from any of the reconnaissance parties, sir.' "

  Davidson gave him the finger. "Uncle Remus said seventy-two hours, Colonel, sir."