The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel

by W. E. B. Griffin; William E. Butterworth; IV

  Leverette then picked up the bottle of absinthe, and ran it very quickly over the lines of glasses in one motion. This put perhaps a teaspoon of the absinthe in each glass.

  Lester then picked up each glass, swirled the absinthe around, and then dumped the absinthe into the sink.

  Leverette picked up the champagne cooler. Lester picked up a silver strainer and held it to the lip of the champagne cooler to hold back the ice cubes as Leverette poured the chilled liquid content of the cooler into the glasses.

  “There is a slight excess,” Leverette announced as he looked into the cooler. “Stick this in the fridge, Lester. ‘Waste not, want not,’ as my saintly mother was always saying.”

  Leverette then picked up handfuls of the lemon twists and squeezed them in his massive hands, which added not more than two drops of the essence into each glass.

  “Finished!” he announced triumphantly.

  He handed one to Castillo and another to Pevsner. He handed a third to Sweaty, and took a fourth with him as he walked to the couch.

  He raised his glass to Pevsner, took an appreciative sip, and then asked, “And what do you think, Mr. Pevsner?”

  Pevsner sipped his cocktail.

  “Unusual,” Pevsner said. “But very good.”

  “I will pretend that I don’t know the only reason you said that is because you knew I would tear off both of your arms and one leg if you hadn’t, and will accept that as a compliment.”

  “You’re insane,” Pevsner said with a smile.

  “Genius is often mistakenly identified as insanity,” Leverette said. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that. Now, shall we deal with our problem?”

  He came to attention, gestured at Castillo, and gave the Nazi salute.

  “Mein Führer, you have the floor.”

  Pevsner’s eyes rolled in disbelief.

  Castillo rose from his chair, walked to the bar, and leaned his back against it.

  “Two-Gun,” he began, “I think you’d better take notes.”

  Yung gave him a thumbs-up, then reached for his laptop computer.

  “To bring everybody up to speed,” Castillo began, “let’s start with what we do know. First, somebody sent Colonel Hamilton a barrel of Congo-X. Then, in Budapest, Colonel Vladlen Solomatin of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki handed Eric Kocian a letter asking him to get it to Tom Barlow. The letter said, in essence, ‘Come home. All is forgiven.’ I think it’s likely the two actions are related.”

  “About as likely as the sun will come up tomorrow,” Svetlana said.

  She waited for a chuckle. When she didn’t get one, she looked at Castillo.

  “We won’t know,” Castillo said, “about the sun rising until tomorrow morning, will we, Svet? Until then, it’s just likely that it will. And the way this works, Svet, is that no one offers an opinion, clever or otherwise, until I ask for it. Got it?”

  Her face colored and her eyes flared angrily, but she didn’t reply.

  Well, Commander Casanova, guess who’s not going to get laid tonight?

  Castillo took a sip of his drink, then went on: “Let’s start with the Congo-X. Where did it come from? That raises the question, ‘Did we destroy it all in the attacks on the Fish Farm or not?’ Colin?”

  “Sir, I respectfully suggest Colonel Torine can answer that better than I can,” Leverette said.

  “Jake?” Castillo asked.

  Torine nodded. “Charley, you know as well as I do, except for nukes, there is no such thing as total destruction of anything by high explosive or incendiary saturation bombing. The question then becomes: ‘How much was not destroyed? ’ And I suggest Colin can answer that better than I can. He (a) was there, and (b) he’s done a lot of damage assessment.”

  Castillo motioned with his hand toward Leverette.

  “The Fish Farm was a collection of concrete block buildings, none of them over three stories, most of them just one,” Leverette said. “The few I got into had basements, and I saw a half-dozen buried and half-buried steel-door revetments—like ammo bunkers. Let’s say the bombs and the incendiaries took out ninety-five percent of everything.”

  “Jake?” Castillo said.

  Torine nodded his agreement. “Leaving five percent,” he said.

  “Until we run into a stone wall, let’s try this scenario,” Castillo said. “Five percent of the Congo-X in barrels survived the bombing. Let’s say that’s six barrels. Two of them got to the States. How and by what means? Tom?”

  “I’m sure one of the first things Sirinov did after the bombing—”

  Alex Darby interrupted: “General Yakov Sirinov, who runs the SVR for Putin?”

  Barlow nodded, and went on: “What he did was send in a Vympel Spetsnaz team for damage assessment and to see if anyone was still alive.”

  Castillo said, “Can we presume (a) the Spetsnaz made it into the Fish Farm, and (b) while they were there found—more important, took control of—the six barrels of Congo-X?”

  “If Tom is talking about Spetsgruppa V,” Leverette said, and looked at Barlow.

  Barlow nodded. He said, “Also known as the Vega Group of KGB Directorate B.”

  “The Russian Delta Force, Charley,” Leverette said. “They’re damned good.”

  “It is because they are so good that they were selected to provide security for the Congo operation,” Barlow said. “I was surprised that you didn’t encounter at least one or two of them, Uncle Remus, when you were there.”

  Leverette met his eyes for a moment.

  “Quickly changing the subject,” Leverette said, making it clear there had been a confrontation with at least one or two Spetsnaz special operators and that they had lost. “So they found the six barrels of Congo-X. What did they do with it?”

  “This is conjecture,” Barlow said, “based on my knowledge of how Sirinov’s mind works. The Spetsnaz were parachuted onto the site from a great height, probably from a specially adapted Ilyushin Il-96 passenger transport on a flight path duly reported to aviation authorities. The parachutists would not have opened their canopies until they were quite close to the ground, so they would appear only momentarily, if at all, on radar screens.”

  “That’s what we call HALO,” Castillo said. “High-altitude, low opening.”

  “Copyright, Billy Waugh,” Leverette said.

  Castillo, Torine, and Peg-Leg Lorimer chuckled or smiled or both.

  “Excuse me?” Barlow said.

  “The first guy to do that was Billy Waugh, a friend of ours,” Leverette explained.

  Castillo said, “Okay, back to the question of now that Spetsnaz has six beer barrels full of Congo-X, what do they do with it?”

  “They would have to truck it out,” Barlow said. “But since—using Uncle Remus’s ninety-five percent destruction factor—there would be no trucks, at least not as many as would be needed, left at the Fish Farm, I don’t know how they could have done that.”

  “They leave the Fish Farm area and steal some trucks,” Castillo said. “And then truck it out. But where to?”

  “Any field where a Tupolev Tu-934A can get in,” Jake Torine said. “And that wouldn’t have to be much of a field.”

  “You know about the Tu-934, Jake?” Tom asked.

  “I’ve never seen one but, oh yeah, I know about it,” Torine said.

  “I don’t,” Castillo said.

  “Ugly bird,” Torine said. “Can carry about as much as a Caribou. Cruises at about Mach point nine. Helluva range, midair refuelable, and it’s state-of-the-Russian-art stealth. And it can land and take off from a polo field. The story I get is that the agency will pay a hundred twenty-five million for one of them.”

  “You do know about it,” Barlow said, raising his drink in a toast, demonstrating he was clearly impressed.

  Torine returned the gesture, and they both sipped their Sazeracs.

  “Okay, picking up the scenario,” Castillo said. “The Spetsnaz load their six barrels of Congo-X onto their stolen trucks and drive it
to some dirt runway in the middle of Africa, and then load it and themselves onto this ... what was it?”

  “Tupolev Tu-934A,” Torine furnished.

  “... which then takes off and flies at Mach point nine to where? To Russia?” Castillo pursued.

  “No. They don’t want Congo-X in Russia. They know how dangerous it is,” Svetlana said. “They remember Chernobyl. That’s why the Fish Farm was in the Congo.”

  “Could this airplane make it across the Atlantic?”

  “Sure. With an en-route refueling, it could fly anywhere,” Torine said.

  “Where’s anywhere? Cuba? Mexico?”

  “Distance-wise, sure,” Barlow said. “But politically ...”

  “They’d spot it on radar, right?” Castillo said.

  “Charley, it has stealth technology,” Torine said. “And even if it didn’t, it could fly under the radar.”

  “So why not Cuba, Tom?” Castillo asked.

  “The Castro brothers would be too expensive,” Barlow said. “Both in terms of cash and letting them in on the secret. More the latter. Sirinov doesn’t like to be obligated to anybody.”

  “Then right into Mexico,” Edgar Delchamps said. “Getting it across the border into the States would be easy.”

  “I think we could say getting it across the border was easy,” Castillo said. “But I have a gut feeling Mexico is not—was not—the final stop.”

  Alex Darby then said, “Drop off the Congo-X and enough people to get two barrels of this stuff into the States via Mexico, then fly the rest of it on to ... where?”

  “Venezuela,” Delchamps suggested. “Hugo Chávez is in love with Communism, and has yet to be burned by the Russians, as the Castros were burned. And, God knows, Fat Little Hugo is no rocket scientist. Sirinov could easily have put him in his pocket.”

  Barlow pointed at Delchamps, and said, “You’re on it, Edgar.”

  “Okay, then. Now what?” Leverette said. “We’ve located the Congo-X in Venezuela. What do we do about it?”

  “We start to prove—or disprove—the scenario,” Castillo said. “First step in that will be when we get from Aloysius the intel he’s going to get from the DCI.”

  “You don’t know that’s who’s giving him the intel he’s promised to send, my darling,” Svet said.

  Castillo, at the last split second, kept himself from saying something loving and kind—for example, What part of “Don’t offer a goddamn opinion unless I ask for it” didn’t you understand, my precious?

  Instead, he said: “Who else could it be?”

  Svetlana replied, “The value of the intel we get from Casey is only as reliable as the source, and we don’t know it’s coming from the CIA, do we? So I suggest we take what Casey sends us with a grain of salt.”

  “She got you, Ace,” Delchamps said. “Listen to your consigliere.”

  “Yeah, she did,” Castillo admitted. “Okay, Sweaty: Give us your take on the ‘Come home, all is forgiven’ letter from Cousin Vladlen.”

  “You haven’t figured that out? It is meant to let your government off the hook, my darling. It’ll come out that we’ve returned to Russia—”

  Castillo interrupted, “What do you mean, ‘we’ve returned to Russia’?”

  “You asked me a question: Let me finish answering it,” Svetlana said. “Maybe I should have said if we return to Russia and it comes out—and it would—then your government couldn’t be accused of cruelly and heartlessly sending us home to the prison on Lubyanka Square. Your press will get that letter. It says ‘All is forgiven.’ Your government can then say all they did when they loaded us aboard an Aeroflot airplane was help us go home to our loving family.”

  “Score another one for Sweaty,” Delchamps said.

  “The U.S. government is not going to put you on an Aeroflot plane,” Castillo said.

  “You better hope, Ace,” Delchamps said.

  “Over my dead body,” Castillo said.

  “Thank you, my darling,” Svetlana said. “I will pray that it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Me, too,” Tom Barlow said. “May I offer a suggestion, Charley?”

  “Sure.”

  “Before we get whatever Casey is going to send us, why don’t we all, independently, try to find fault with our scenario?”

  Castillo nodded. “Sure. Good idea.”

  “And while we’re all doing that, independently come up with a scenario on how to deal with this?”

  “Another good idea,” Castillo said.

  “Are we going to try to grab this stuff in Venezuela?” Lorimer asked.

  “What I would like to do is grab that Tupolev Tu-934A in Venezuela,” Torine said.

  Everyone was quiet for a long moment.

  Then Pevsner said: “I’ll check, but I think everybody’s rooms should be ready by now. Shall we meet here in, say, an hour and have another of Leverette’s cocktails and then dinner?”

  [ONE]

  Claudio’s Shell Super Service Station

  State Highways 203 and 304

  Centreville, Maryland

  0730 7 February 2007

  There was nothing unusual about the GMC Yukon XL that turned off State Highway 304 into the gas station. Indeed, there were two near twins—three, if one wished to count a Chevrolet Suburban—already at the pump islands.

  The driver of the arriving Yukon pulled up beside one of the pumps, got out, and fed the pump a credit card. Other doors opened and three men—all dressed in plaid woolen jackets—got out and walked quickly toward the men’s room, suggesting to a casual witness that it had been a long time between pit stops.

  A Chrysler Grand Caravan turned off State Highway 203 and drove right up to the men’s room door. The van’s sliding door opened and three men—also in plaid woolen jackets and also apparently feeling the urgent call of nature—hurried into the restroom.

  A minute or so later, the first of the men came out of the restroom, and got into either the Yukon or the Grand Caravan. In two minutes everybody was out of the men’s room. The Caravan backed up and stopped at a pump. The Yukon driver walked quickly to the men’s room.

  By the time he came out, the driver of the Caravan had topped off his tank and returned to the wheel. By the time the Yukon driver got behind his wheel, the Caravan was out of the station. Ninety seconds later, so was the Yukon.

  If anyone had been watching it was unlikely that they would have noticed that one of the men who had gone to the restroom from the Yukon had gotten into the Grand Caravan when he came out and that one of the Caravan passengers had gone to the Yukon when he came out of the men’s room.

  The man in the front passenger seat of the Grand Caravan turned and offered the man who had just gotten in a silver flask.

  “What is it they say about ‘beware of Russians passing the bottle’?” A. Franklin Lammelle, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, asked. “And it’s a little early for vodka, even for me.”

  “It’s not vodka, Frank. It’s Rémy Martin,” Cultural Counselor Sergei Murov of the Washington embassy of the Russian Federation replied.

  “In that case, Sergei, I will have a little taste,” Lammelle said, and reached for the flask. He held it up in a toast, and said, “Here’s to Winston Churchill, who always began his day with a taste of fine cognac.”

  Both men were stocky, in their midforties, fair-skinned, and wore small, rimless spectacles. Murov had a little more remaining hair than Lammelle. They could have been cousins.

  Murov was the SVR’s Washington rezident. Lammelle knew this, and Murov knew that Lammelle had known that since the Russians had proposed Murov to be their embassy’s cultural counselor.

  Ten minutes later, the convoy turned onto Piney Point Farm Lane. A quarter of a mile down the lane, ten-foot-high chainlink fences became visible behind the vegetation on both sides of the road. On the fencing, at fifty-foot intervals, there were signs: PRIVATE PROPERTY! TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED!

  Finally, the Caravan came to
the first of two chainlink fence gates across the road. Outside the outer gate there was a black Ford sedan with MARYLAND STATE POLICE lettered on the body. Two state troopers in two-tone brown uniforms sat in the front seats. When the Caravan came a stop, one got out of the passenger door and carefully examined the minivan, but made no attempt to do anything else. The three SUV’s parked on either side of the lane.

  The outer gate swung open, and a man in a police-type private security guard uniform inside the second gate motioned for the Caravan to advance. When the van had done so, the outer gate closed behind it. The security guard came from behind the second gate, walked to the Caravan, and opened the sliding door.

  When he was satisfied that there was no one in the vehicle determined to trespass on what—like the Russian embassy itself—was legally as much the territory of the Russian Federation as was the Lubyanka Square headquarters of the KGB in downtown Moscow, he signaled for the interior gate to be opened.

  Frank Lammelle knew a great deal about what was known as the “Russian dacha on the Eastern Shore.” Some of what he knew, he had known for as long as he had been in the CIA. Back in the bad old days when Russia had been the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, young Frank Lammelle of the Clandestine Service had thought it was ironic that the ambassador of the USSR spent his weekends in a house built by John J. Raskob, almost a caricature of a capitalist. Raskob had been simultaneously vice president of General Motors and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company—which owned forty-three percent of GM—and had ordered the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City with the mandate to the architect that it be taller than the Chrysler Building.

  Raskob’s three-floor brick mansion had not been quite large enough to house him and his thirteen children, so he had built another one just about as large for them and his guests, who included such people as Walter Chrysler, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison.

  The Soviet government had bought both houses from Raskob’s heirs in 1972 and later enlarged the estate by swapping land the Americans wanted in Moscow for land adjacent to the Maryland property.