The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  Or maybe contempt.

  “I presume, Carlos, that you factored Abuela into your reasoning?”

  Contempt. No question about it. He only calls me “Carlos” when he’s really angry, or disgusted, with me.

  “I spoke with her an hour or so ago. I told her I had to hold a meeting there and asked her to stay away.”

  Fernando didn’t reply.

  “You can’t see the runway from the highway,” Castillo said. “No one will know anyone unusual’s there. And there will be Secret Service agents waiting for us.”

  Fernando glowered at him but said nothing.

  “And one of the things you’re going to do in San Antonio is make sure no one goes to the ranch.”

  “For how long?” Fernando asked, icily.

  “For as long as it takes,” Castillo said. “Fernando, we don’t know who these people are, but we have to presume they have access to credit card databases, hotel registries, all of that sort of thing. Christ, Howard Kennedy even knew where I was when I used my cell phone! The minute Munz’s family used a credit card, checked into a hotel, these bastards would know it. At the ranch, they won’t use credit cards. And when they talk to Colonel Munz, they’ll do it over the Secret Service communications system or a Delta Force radio. No one’s going to locate them because they’ll be invisible. If you can think of a better place I can put them, tell me.”

  Fernando, shaking his head, threw up both hands in a gesture of resignation.

  “I don’t like it, Carlos.”

  Castillo looked at his wristwatch.

  “It’s now eleven minutes after eight,” he said. “If all goes the way we hope, the following things are going to happen: In the next couple of minutes, we’ll hear from Solez, reporting that he met Artigas at the Buquebus terminal. Next—I’m guessing about eight-thirty—we’ll hear from Yung that Señora Munz and the girls are in a taxi at Unicenter and headed for the terminal. Forty-five minutes or so after that—at 2115—we should hear from Artigas that they arrived all right and are in the process of getting on the boat. Fifteen minutes after that, we should hear that the boat has sailed. And three and a half hours—give or take—after that, we should hear from Yung and Artigas that they’re in Montevideo and on their way to the Belmont House Hotel in Carrasco. When that happens, we can go to bed.”

  “Where, Charley?” Torine asked.

  “You, me, and Fernando in the Four Seasons. There’s no way we can get Max in there, Billy, which means you and Sándor will stay here.”

  “There’s only one guest room,” Sieno said. “But it has two double beds.”

  “Max has been in the best hotels in Europe,” Kocian said. It was a challenge.

  “And I bet a lot of people talked about that, didn’t they?” Castillo said, evenly. “The subject is not open for debate.”

  “And what am I to be fed?” Kocian asked.

  “I was just thinking about that,” Castillo said. “Obviously, we can’t go to a restaurant. What about takeout? What’s the name of that steak place by the embassy?”

  “The Rio Alba,” Sieno furnished.

  “What about calling them after Santini checks in and get them to make half a dozen large lomos and a salad to match, plus papas Provençal, and then have Santini and Solez pick it up on their way here? It’s almost on their way.”

  “Good idea,” Torine said.

  “Lomo?” Kocian asked, dubiously. Then, in Hungarian, added, “Some native dish, presumably? And what in God’s name are papas whatever you said?”

  “And ask for some bones for Max,” Castillo said, ignoring him. “And a couple of bottles of wine.”

  “Is the wine drinkable in this country?” Kocian asked.

  “I think you will find it entirely satisfactory, Úr Kocian,” Sieno said, in Hungarian. “And the beef is the best in the world. A lomo is filet mignon. The ones from Rio Alba weigh half a kilo. Papas Provençal are pommes frites with parsley, etcetera.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you speak Hungarian?” Kocian demanded.

  “I thought everybody did,” Sieno said, straight-faced. “I know the colonel does.”

  Kocian saw the smile on Sándor Tor’s face.

  “You find this amusing, do you, Sándor?” Kocian demanded.

  “I think everybody does, Úr Kocian,” Torreplied.

  Castillo’s cellular vibrated.

  “¿Hola?”

  “I just gave those papers to Artigas,” Tony Santini announced without preliminaries. “Want us to stick around until the bus leaves?”

  “I don’t think so, Tony,” Castillo replied after a moment. “I’m afraid you might be recognized. And when Yung gets there, he’s obviously not an Argentine. Solez and Artigas can pass. So tell Solez to stick around and then take a cab here.”

  “I was thinking of giving Artigas my car,” Santini said. “That’d give them wheels when they get there. And it’s an embassy car with a radio and CD plates, so no trouble getting it…”

  “Good idea.”

  “Anything else you want me to do?”

  “Take a cab to Rio Alba and pick up our supper,” Castillo said. “Paul’s about to order it.”

  “That’s one of your better ideas, Charley.”

  “According to Napoleon, an army moves on its stomach. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

  Santini chuckled.

  “Tell Paul to order me a large bife chorizo,” Santini said and broke the connection.

  Sieno got the Rio Alba on the telephone and placed the order.

  “So now all we have to do is wait, right?” Torine asked when he saw Sieno hang up.

  “So that nobody falls asleep while we’re waiting,” Castillo said, “I thought we’d talk about briefcase-sized nuclear bombs.”

  Torine looked at him with a puzzled look on his face.

  “Why do I have this odd feeling that you’re serious?” he asked.

  “I am,” Castillo said.

  “What’s that about?”

  “Jack Britton heard from an undercover counterterrorism cop that the same people who were involved in stealing the 727 have bought a hundred-odd-acre farm outside Philadelphia. On the farm are some old iron mines. They are stocking them with food and intend to use them as shelters when someone sets off a briefcase-sized nuke in Philadelphia.”

  “How reliable is Britton’s source?” Torine asked, incredulously. “That sounds awfully far-fetched, Charley.”

  “I know. But it can’t be ignored.”

  “Britton believes this?” Fernando asked.

  “Britton thinks it can’t be ignored,” Castillo said. “He’s up there now with some Secret Service guys and some state cops he knows, looking around. I’m going there from Midland, on my way to Washington. So let’s talk about nukes. You went to nuke school, right, Jake?”

  “In my youth, I flew B-29s,” Torine said. “I don’t know how many nuke schools I’ve been to. But no nuke I ever heard about would fit in a briefcase.”

  “Briefcase, no,” Sieno said, matter-of-factly. “Suitcase, yes. There are some people in the agency who believe an agent named Sunev—”

  “Who?” Castillo asked.

  “Sunev,” Sieno repeated. “A Russian defector. I forget his first name, if I ever knew it.”

  “KGB Colonel Pyotr Sunev, by chance?” Kocian asked, politely.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Sieno said.

  “You know about this guy, Billy?” Castillo asked.

  “His name came up several times. He’s a friend of your good friend Mr. Pevsner.”

  “I’ll want to hear about that, Billy, but first I want to know what the agency believes about what this guy said.”

  “Sunev testified before a congressional committee—I saw the tapes a half dozen times; he wore a black bag over his head so he couldn’t be recognized—five, six years ago. He said that during the Cold War, he’d been assigned—he was a spook at the Soviet mission to the UN—to find drops across the country for weapon
s, including SADMs and the communications equipment necessary to make them go off. He was a little vague about whether he’d actually set up the drops or where they were.”

  “And the agency believes this guy?” Torine said.

  “What’s a SADM?” Fernando Lopez interrupted.

  “Nuclear suitcase,” Sieno said. “The Russians call them ‘Special Atomic Demolition Munitions.’”

  “Okay, let’s go to basics,” Castillo said. “What does a SADM look like?”

  “The Pu-239 looks like a suitcase,” Sieno said. “It’s about two feet wide, sixteen inches high, and eight inches deep. A small suitcase, but larger than a briefcase.” He demonstrated with his hands, then went on: “There’s another one—I forget the nomenclature—that comes in two pieces, each about the size of a footlocker. It produces a ten-to twenty-kiloton explosion. The little one probably has a three-to five-kiloton bang.”

  “And the agency believes this guy hid these weapons in the States?” Torine asked.

  “He didn’t say he hid them, Colonel,” Sieno said. “He’s a slippery bastard. he said he’d, quote, been assigned to find drops for them, unquote. Some people in the agency believe that.”

  “Does anybody at the agency believe that nukes are hidden in the States?” Castillo asked.

  “Some do,” Sieno said.

  “Where is this guy now?” Castillo asked. “I think I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Probably in Moscow,” Sieno said. “The agency went through the whole business of getting him a new identity—he became a Latvian, teaching Eastern European history at Grinnell—then, one bright early spring day in 2000, he and his family disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Castillo asked. “Weren’t they sitting on him?”

  “Not tight enough, apparently,” Sieno said.

  “Perhaps,” Kocian said, “on hearing that his dear friend Vladimir was about to become president of Russia, he was overcome with nostalgia for Mother Russia and simply had to go home.”

  “He knew Putin?” Castillo asked.

  Kocian nodded. “They were stationed in Dresden in the KGB together. And Putin was sworn in on 7 May 2000.”

  “What else do you know about this guy, Billy?” Castillo asked.

  “Know? I don’t know enough to print anything. But I do know that Colonel Sunev—not under that name, of course—was in Paris, Vienna, Budapest, and Baghdad, and some other places, starting right after Mr. Sieno tells us he disappeared, and as recently as six months ago. And that he knew Mr. Lorimer of the UN, which I find fascinating. And is a good friend—I told you—of Pevsner.”

  “What was he doing in the States, testifying before a congressional committee?”

  “I’m only a simple journalist, not an intelligence officer,” Kocian said, “but I think they call that ‘disinformation.’”

  “To what end, Billy?” Castillo asked.

  “You will recall, Karlchen, that at that time there was a great deal of concern about Soviet nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands? That they would be stolen from depots because there was no more money to pay the guards?”

  “I remember that,” Torine said. “It scared me.”

  “Nothing personal, of course, Colonel, but if it wasn’t so dangerous, I would be amused by American naïveté,” Kocian said.

  “Watch it, Billy!” Castillo snapped.

  Kocian shook his head and went on: “This loss of ex-Soviet, now Russian Federation, nuclear weapons could be prevented if the United States came up with the money—this is a simplification, of course—to bring the guards back on the payroll. I think you actually gave them several billions of dollars to do just that.

  “To convince your Congress of the danger, Russian ‘defectors’—Sunev was one of maybe two dozen—‘escaped’ to the United States and ‘told all.’ Russia was no longer the enemy. Russia was now a friend. The Muslims were the enemy. They were liable to detonate nuclear weapons stolen—”

  “Or bought with drug money,” Sieno said, sarcastically.

  “Right,” Kocian said.

  “What?” Castillo asked.

  Sieno said, “There were stories—widely circulated—that the Russian Mafia bought a bunch of nukes from former KGB guys in Chechnya. Or at least bought KGB connivance, depending on which story you were listening to, so the Mafia could steal them themselves and then sold them to bin Laden for thirty million U.S., cash, and two tons of high-grade heroin from his laboratories in Afghanistan…worth seven hundred million on the street.”

  “Did you believe this story, Mr. Sieno?” Kocian asked.

  “I had a lot of trouble with it,” Sieno said, carefully, after a moment.

  “Why?” Kocian asked.

  Sieno almost visibly formed his thoughts before he replied, “You know that George Tenet said that the purge of the KGB when the Soviet Union came apart was, quote, pure window dressing, unquote?”

  “I didn’t know that,” Kocian said. “Well, I suppose the former head of your CIA had to be right about something.”

  Castillo glared at him. Sieno ignored him.

  “All they did was change the name from Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti to Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti,” Sieno said, bitterly.

  Castillo thought, His Russian pronunciation of that was perfect.

  “And put Mr. Putin in charge?” Kocian asked, innocently. “So things could go on as before?”

  In Russian, Castillo asked, “How good is your Russian, Paul?”

  “Not quite as good as yours, Colonel, but not bad,” Sieno replied, in Russian.

  “And what is a nice Italian boy like you who speaks Russian like a Muscovite doing eavesdropping on the Cubans in Argentina?”

  “Counting the days until I get my pension,” Sieno said.

  “You were a bad boy in Moscow?” Castillo asked.

  Sieno hesitated for a moment before he answered.

  “Not exactly a bad boy,” he said. “But I was one of the major reasons Tenet said what he did. And there were a lot of people between me and the DCI who didn’t want him to hear any more of that from me. So they brought me back to Langley from Moscow and told me—I should say, implied with credible deniability—that I had two choices. Option one, I could go to Buenos Aires as deputy station chief and they would arrange for Susanna to be here and we could double-dip and, as long as I kept my mouth shut, I could look forward to saving a lot of money for my retirement. Or, option two, I could stay in Washington and leak what I knew and they would guarantee that I’d be fired for cause. And, of course, lose my pension and my reputation.”

  “Jesus!” Torine said.

  “And being the moral coward that I am, I took option one,” Sieno said.

  “So why are you telling us this now?”

  “You won’t like the answer,” Sieno said.

  “Try me,” Castillo said.

  “You shamed me, Colonel,” Sieno said. He pointed at Munz. “And so did you, mi Coronel.”

  “What do you mean ‘shamed’?” Castillo asked.

  “When this whole thing started—the night Masterson got away from Munz and me…”

  “You’re losing me, Paul,” Torine said. “Masterson ‘got away from you’?”

  “When these bastards snatched Mr. Masterson, Alex Darby assigned me to sit on him and the kids at their house. So Alfredo and I did just that. We sat in a car outside his house. And Masterson went over the fence in the backyard, walked to the train station, took a train downtown to meet the bad guys, and they blew him away. He’s dead because I fucked up, in other words…”

  “I don’t believe that, Paul, and neither does the ambassador or Alex Darby,” Castillo said.

  “Let me finish, please, Colonel,” Sieno said. “Bottom line is, if I’d done my job right Masterson would not have climbed the fence and gotten on that train. I took this personally. I was going to find out who did it and get back at them. Then you showed up, Colonel, and you were in charge and I didn’t like that at all. A
t one time, I’d been a pretty good clandestine service field officer and Alex Darby knew that, and here is some Army major with friends in high places about to call all the shots. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d seen that happen.

  “So I went to Darby—who is one of the really good guys—and asked him what the hell was going on. He told me that you were the best special operator he’d ever known, that he’d seen you operate in Iraq and Afghanistan and knew what you had done about getting that stolen 727 back. And that since my ego was involved, and this was very important, he was going to keep me out of whatever you were going to do. He didn’t want me getting in your way.”

  He took a breath, then went on: “I wouldn’t have taken that from anybody but Alex Darby. But I’ve seen him operate. So I went along. And sure enough, he was right. You found that bastard Lorimer when nobody else could. You set up and pulled off that snatch operation in Uruguay in less time than I could believe, and—”

  “That was not a complete success,” Castillo said. “Lorimer and one of my guys died. Alfredo took a bullet…”

  “And you took out a Spetsnaz assault team to the last man. That doesn’t happen often. They’re good.”

  “You’re sure they were Spetsnaz?” Castillo asked.

  “Either Spetsnaz or Stasi or somebody else, maybe even Cubans, trained by—more important, controlled and financed by—the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. Who else but the FSB, Colonel? It’s time you started calling a spade a spade. You can’t talk about missing or stolen Russian nukes and leave them out of the discussion.”

  “You said I shamed you. That Alfredo and I shamed you. What’s that all about?”

  “Colonel, you did what you thought was the right thing to do—and so did you, Alfredo—without thinking of the consequences to yourself. I used to be that way before the bastards at Langley finally ground me down. That was shaming. So I decided to get off the sidelines.”

  “Well,” Kocian said, “that makes it two of us in this room who know the KSB is behind all of this. It’s nice not to be alone anymore.”

  “Three of us, Úr Kocian,” Sándor Tor said.

  When Castillo looked at Tor, he went on: “I suspected after the incident on the Szabadság híd that your assailants were ex-Stasi—”