Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  Castillo slipped out of his sandals and ran, laughing, to the pool and dove in.

  He swam to the circling dogs and caught in his hand the one that was free. The pup struggled to regain its freedom, but Castillo managed to get it to the decking of the pool, where he set it at Sof’ya’s feet.

  “The other one, the other one!” she screamed. “He’s going to eat it!”

  “Max!” Castillo called. “Come!”

  But Max kept circling.

  With some difficulty—he was now almost helpless with laughter—Castillo went after Max. Max saw him coming and swam away from him to the wrong—the deep—end of the pool.

  There he tried to climb out and failed. All he could do was get his paws on the edge of the pool—and slide back in.

  Before Castillo could reach him, Sof’ya ran to the pool’s edge there and tried to convince Max to give up the puppy. When that failed, she reached over and grabbed a handful of Max’s fur, trying to pull him out.

  Max’s paws again slipped on the poolside tiles. This time he slid backward into the water with two results: He took Sof’ya with him and, when his head went underwater, he let go of the puppy.

  Castillo was by then at the scene. He grabbed the now-yapping puppy and put it on the pool deck. Max reached the surface, saw the puppy, and tried again to climb out of the pool.

  The puppy ran to pool edge and started yapping indignantly at its father.

  Castillo knew Max would not hurt the pup. Sof’ya did not know Max as well as Castillo did.

  “He’s going to eat him! Oh, God! He’s going to eat him!”

  Castillo grabbed Sof’ya so that he could hoist her out of the pool. He didn’t know how well she could swim—if at all—and she was still wearing her heavy European winter clothing.

  She struggled.

  At that point, reinforcements arrived. Or, more accurately, erupted from the water next to Castillo.

  “What are you doing to her, you sonofabitch?” Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vnezhney Razvedki demanded, furiously indignant.

  Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo of the Office of Organizational Analysis instantly took his hands off Miss Sof’ya Berezovsky, which caused her to go under the water again, which frightened her, and caused her to struggle rather violently when she felt her aunt’s hands on her.

  Castillo climbed agilely out of the pool, then got to his feet and surveyed the pool.

  Max, apparently having finally realized that he was not going to be able to get out of the pool at the deep end, now was swimming furiously to the shallow end of the pool, where he could walk out using the wide steps there.

  Svetlana, without much success, was trying to calm Sof’ya, who was still concerned about Max eating one or both of the pups, which now yapped a chorus. Finally, Svetlana succeeded to the point where she could move Sof’ya close enough to poolside so that Castillo could bend over, or kneel, and give Sof’ya his hand and haul her out and safely onto the deck.

  But when Castillo bent over to offer his hand, he became distracted—and nearly fell back into the pool.

  There was, of course, a very good reason for his losing his balance. And it was a sight he would not soon forget:

  Although Colonel Alekseeva at the moment was wholly unaware of her problem, the fact was that when she had been struggling with Sof’ya, the strap of the top to her two-piece swimsuit had snapped, and said strap had slipped from her neck, and the top itself had fallen from her breasts.

  This caused the exposure to Castillo’s instantly bedazzled eyes of the most perfect naked bosom—in every respect, including erect nipples—he had ever seen, and the number of those he had seen at one time or another over the course of his life was legion.

  He was frozen for a moment, but somehow—miraculously—then reached down and coolly hauled Sof’ya from the pool. He turned her over to the housekeeper, who was hovering with concern nearby.

  Then he returned his attention to the pool.

  With a little bit of luck, she’ll want me to give her a hand out of the pool.

  Luck, alas, was no longer to be with him.

  Colonel Alekseeva saw Colonel Castillo standing above her, saw where he was looking, looked herself, and in one swift motion, modestly clapped her hands over her bosom and slipped under the water, there to attempt reaffixing her garment.

  Castillo heard footsteps approaching.

  “You’re going to have to teach me how to do that, Ace,” Edgar Delchamps said behind him, a laugh in his tone. “Talk about absolutely destroying the self-confidence of the prisoner about to be interrogated!”

  Castillo turned to glare at him but found Delchamps walking quickly to Sof’ya, who was sitting on the grass crying and clutching both of the soaking-wet pups to her.

  “You know what that means, don’t you, Sof’ya?” Delchamps asked her in a kind and gentle voice that Castillo had never heard from him.

  She shook her head, not understanding the question.

  “In the United States, we have a rule. When a puppy is in danger and someone rescues him, that person then owns him.”

  “Really?”

  “Which of the pups did you rescue?” Delchamps asked.

  With no hesitation at all, Sof’ya hoisted one.

  “This little girl,” she said. “I call her ‘Marina.’”

  “Well, Marina now belongs to you,” Delchamps said. “That means, you understand, that you now will be responsible for seeing that she has enough to eat, things like that. You think you can do that?”

  Sof’ya happily nodded.

  On one hand, Castillo thought, Delchamps may have finally found the out he was looking for after running off at the mouth and announcing he wanted one of Mädchen’s pups. How the hell was he going to care for a puppy?

  On the other hand, truth being stranger than fiction, a human heart may actually be beating under the old dinosaur’s hide.

  Delchamps gently took the other pup, the last one, from Sof’ya and walked to Castillo.

  As if he had been reading Castillo’s mind, he said, “In the trade, that’s known as establishing the good-guy/bad-guy relationship. Guess who’s the good guy, Ace? The guy who gave the kid a puppy, or the bastard who tore Auntie’s bathing suit from her shoulders and then stared shamelessly at her boobs?”

  He handed the pup to Castillo. Castillo took it, shook his head but didn’t reply, and returned his attention to the pool.

  Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva had reached the shallow end and was now wading through the last several feet, trying without success to repair the broken strap with one hand as she held the suit top with the other.

  Max, who had been lying on the tiles recuperating from his ordeal, stood up and eyed her curiously.

  As Svetlana marched past him, he shook to free himself of the water in his fur. The fur of a Bouvier des Flandres holds an astonishing amount of water.

  As Svetlana jumped out of the way, the right side of her bathing suit bottom slipped off her right buttock and bunched up in the valley between the opposing buttocks, exposing to view a pink, fleshy orb that put into the shadows all other orbs Castillo had seen here and there in his lifetime.

  She pushed and pulled the cloth back into place while marching with what dignity she could muster toward the house.

  Castillo felt a stirring in his groin.

  Down, boy, down!

  If there was ever a really off-limits female, there it is, walking on those lovely long legs into the house!

  VII

  [ONE]

  Nuestra Pequeña Casa

  Mayerling Country Club

  Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

  1905 29 December 2005

  Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky was the first of the Russians to appear. He was wearing baggy swimming trunks, a knit shirt embroidered with a Ralph Lauren polo player insignia, and rubber sandals, and he had a towel draped around his neck.

  Castillo, who was standing at the parrilla turni
ng bifes de chorizo, saw Sof’ya holding the puppy and running happily toward her father, obviously intending to tell him that the dog was now hers.

  Berezovsky, without breaking stride, held out his hand to her in a stop signal. Shedding the shirt and the towel en route, he took the steps into the shallow end of the pool, waded toward the deep end until he judged it deep enough for swimming, then flopped onto his belly and swam using a breaststroke with his head out of the water to the far end of the pool. There, he stopped, hung on to the side of the pool for several seconds, then flopped back into the water and breaststroked—with his head held high again—back to the shallow end. And, there, he stood, waded until he reached the end of the pool, and got out.

  Castillo saw that Berezovsky had managed his swim without getting his hair wet.

  The Russian walked to where he had dropped the towel and Sof’ya was now standing. He picked up the towel and dried himself methodically as Sof’ya explained what had happened and tried to hand him the dog.

  When he had finally dried himself to his satisfaction, he rolled up the towel, held it between his knees, put the polo shirt back on, draped the towel around his neck, and took the dog.

  Berezovsky looked thoughtfully across the pool at Castillo.

  He’s wondering what we’re up to, Castillo thought.

  In his circumstances, I’d do the same damn thing.

  And by now, of course, in addition to wondering what’s going to happen to him and his family, he’s almost certainly wondering if defecting was really such a good idea in the first place.

  Castillo turned to the parrilla, stuck an enormous fork into a two-pound bife de chorizo—New York strip steak—then held it over his head, signaling Berezovsky to come over.

  Still carrying the pup, Berezovsky did so, with Sof’ya at his side.

  “My Sof’ya tells me she has been given this animal,” he said, making it a question.

  “And now she wants me to cook it for her on here?” Castillo asked.

  “No!” Sof’ya said, but laughed.

  Berezovsky handed her the puppy.

  “Why?” he asked simply.

  “I guess Mr. Delchamps thought she should have it,” Castillo said. “This has to be tough on her, Colonel.”

  Berezovsky nodded. Castillo couldn’t read it.

  “Are the women about ready?” Castillo said. “The food is.”

  He picked up another bife de chorizo to illustrate his point.

  “Sof’ya, go tell your mother that supper is ready. And Auntie Svetlana, too.”

  The girl ran off with her puppy.

  “The beef here is the best in the world,” Castillo said.

  “So I have been told,” Berezovsky said.

  “It goes down very well with wine,” Castillo said, pointing to an uncorked bottle of Saint Felicien Cabernet Sauvignon and some long-stemmed wineglasses sitting beside an open cardboard case of the wine. “You’re welcome to help yourself, but you might want to keep in mind that right after we have our supper, we’re going to have the first of our conversations.”

  Berezovsky met his eyes, considered what he had said, then said, “Thank you,” and headed for the wine.

  I wonder if the “thank you” was for the warning or the wine?

  Berezovsky poured wine—a lot of it—into two of the large wineglasses, half filling them and half emptying the bottle, then walked to Castillo at the parrilla and offered him one.

  “I started early,” Castillo said. He pointed to his now nearly empty glass at the end of the grill.

  Berezovsky thrust the glass he held at Castillo again and smiled.

  Okay. I get it. You think I have grape juice in my glass.

  Then you will drink the real stuff, get plastered and loose-lipped, and I will be absolutely sober and able to take advantage of your naïve trust.

  Castillo took the glass Berezovsky held out to him.

  “Chug-a-lug?” Castillo asked.

  “‘Chug-a-lug’?” Berezovsky parroted.

  I don’t think, Tom Barlow, ol’ buddy, that you have a clue what that means.

  Castillo raised the glass to his lips and drained it.

  Berezovsky’s eyes showed his surprise, but he rose to the challenge and also drained his glass.

  Castillo immediately refilled the glasses, but set his down and began to flip the steaks on the grill.

  If I chug-a-lug again, I’ll probably fall down and begin to sing bawdy songs, or in some other manner manifest behavior unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, such as myself.

  Why the hell did I do that?

  One of the maids appeared with several large serving platters.

  “The bife de chorizo is done,” Castillo announced. “Please put it on the table.” He turned to Berezovsky. “It’s hot, grilling the steaks. I’m going to cool off until the women get here.”

  He walked to the deep end of the pool, dove in, swam underwater to the shallow end, turned, and swam back. Then he turned to repeat the process. When he came up for air at the shallow end of the pool, he saw the women—Sandra Britton, Lora and Sof’ya Berezovsky, and Svetlana Alekseeva—walking together from the house toward the quincho.

  They were all dressed very much alike, in brightly colored cotton skirts and white blouses, and chatting and laughing among themselves.

  If it wasn’t for Jack Britton walking behind them with that Uzi held at his side, they’d look like members of the Midland Junior League headed for lunch at the Petroleum Club pool.

  Jesus, she’s really good-looking!

  He turned and swam to the deep end of the pool, considered his situation for a moment, and turned again.

  By the time Castillo climbed out of the pool, he had completed three more laps, and by the time he took his seat at the big table in the quincho, everybody had already been served and had started to eat.

  [TWO]

  The housekeeper, Svetlana Alekseeva, and Jack Davidson all came into Castillo’s office together. The housekeeper carried a tray with three mugs and a large thermos of coffee. There was no cream or sugar, and Castillo idly wondered whether that was an oversight or because the housekeeper had heard Svetlana refuse both after supper.

  Probably the latter, Castillo decided. The housekeeper was more than she seemed to be. She had worked—at exactly what, Castillo didn’t know—for Alfredo Munz when El Coronel Munz had been head of SIDE, Argentina’s version of the CIA and FBI rolled into one. Munz had vouched for them when Darby and the Sienos had been staffing Nuestra Pequeña Casa, and that was good enough for Castillo.

  Davidson carried two small recording devices; a large ashtray; a box of wooden matches; a portable leather cigar humidor (he was as addicted to the filthy weed as was Castillo); what looked like a laptop computer but was actually much more, as was its twin—Castillo’s—already on the table; a legal pad; a box of fine-point felt-tip pens; and a small notebook.

  Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva brought only her purse with her. When Castillo had waved her into one of the upholstered captain’s chairs at the table, she instead went to his desk and began to unload the purse. Out came a package of Marlboro cigarettes, a disposable lighter, two ballpoint pens, a notebook, a small package of Kleenex, a small bottle of perfume, and a plastic bottle filled with blue gunk. The last item so interested Castillo that he picked it up and read the label. It was Argentine sunscreen lotion with aloe.

  “The last time we did this, Charley,” Davidson said in Pashtu as he arranged his toys on the table, “neither the prisoner nor the surroundings were nearly as nice, were they?”

  Castillo chuckled, as the image of that last time—a really bad guy in a crude stone building that was more of a hut than a building—popped into his mind.

  “What was that, Pashtu?” Svetlana asked, but it was more of a statement.

  If you know what it was, Castillo thought, you probably understand it, so there goes our private code.

  And we won’t be able to fall back on alternatives A and B, e
ither. We know you speak Russian and Hungarian.

  But why did you ask? Why give that up?

  Castillo ignored her question. Instead, he said: “Before we get into the fingernail-pulling and waterboarding aspects of this, Svetlana, let me tell you what’s going to happen tonight.”

  She nodded, just once, and did not smile.

  “As we speak, your identification and other information we took are being processed in Washington. When we get that back, we can clear up any inconsistencies there may be.”

  She nodded again.

  “For now, to get started, let’s clear up a few minor things. First, why don’t you identify these account numbers for us?”

  He gestured with his index finger, took a sheet of paper that had been stuck into the legal pad, and slid it across the table to Svetlana.

  She glanced at it quickly, then looked into Castillo’s eyes, not quite able to conceal her surprise and discomfort.

  Gotcha, sweetheart!

  “That’s a printout from the chip Mr. Darby found in the lining of your purse,” Castillo said. “Probably the guts of one of those things . . .”

  He looked at Davidson, who furnished, “Flash drives, Charley.”

  “. . . those flash drives you stick in a computer’s USB slot,” Castillo finished.

  There was no expression on her face, but her eyes showed that she had just been kicked in the stomach.

  “Sergeant Kensington,” Castillo continued, “who’s really good at that sort of thing, had a hell of a time reading it, but finally managed it. Darby thinks they’re bank account numbers. Maybe encoded somehow. Anyway, we sent them to Two-Gun Yung in Vienna. . . . Oh, that’s right. You never met Two-Gun, did you? Two-Gun is our money guy. He’s just about as good at finding hidden money as Kensington is at fooling around with computers.”

  Svetlana continued to meet his eyes, as if hoping to read something in them, but didn’t say anything.

  Castillo went on: “In the belief that (a) the list may be encrypted and (b) if encrypted then done so more or less simply, I’ve sent it to our in-house cryptography lady. If I’m right about (a) and (b), she should be able to quickly crack it. If she can’t—and/or if Two-Gun can’t immediately determine what they are, I’ve told our cryptologist to take the numbers to Fort Meade—the National Security Agency’s at Fort Meade, Maryland; she worked there for years—where they have, honest to God, acres and acres of computers that can eventually crack anything.