Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  What’s that all about?

  How long is this history lecture going to last?

  Where the hell is she going with this?

  She went there immediately.

  “And so, Colonel Castillo, what we now call the SVR was born.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Over the years, it has been known by different names, of course. And it actually didn’t have a name of its own, other than the Oprichina, a state within a state, until Tsar Nicholas the First. After Nicholas put down the Decembrist Revolution in 1825, he reorganized the trusted elements of the Oprichina into what he called the Third Section.”

  Castillo looked at her but said nothing. He saw that Davidson was also now looking at her in what could be either confusion or curiosity.

  “That reincarnation of the Oprichina lasted until 1917, when the Soviets renamed it the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution and Sabotage—acronym CHEKA.”

  “That sounds as if you’re saying that the Tsar’s secret police just changed sides, became Communists,” Castillo said.

  It was his first real comment during the long history lesson.

  “You’re saying two things, you realize,” Svetlana said. “That the Oprichina changed sides is one, that the Oprichina became Communist is another. They never change sides. They may work for a different master, but they never become anything other than what they were, members of the Oprichina.”

  With a hint of annoyance in his voice, Castillo said, “Svetlana, the first head of the CHEKA—Dzerzhinsky—was a lifelong revolutionary, a Communist. He spent most of his life in one Tsarist jail or another before the Communist revolution.”

  “Challenge your sure and certain knowledge of this with these facts, Colonel,” Svetlana said. “Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky was born on the family’s estate in western Belarus. The Dziarzhynava family was of the original one thousand families in Ivan’s Oprichina. The estate was never confiscated by the Bolsheviks or the Mensheviks or the Communists after they took power. The family owns it to this day.

  “The Tsar’s Imperial Prisons were controlled by the Third Section. How well one fared in them—or whether one was actually in a prison, or was just on the roster—depended on how well one was regarded by the Oprichina. The fact that the history books paint the tale of this heroic revolutionary languishing, starved and beaten, for years in a Tsarist prison cell doesn’t make it true.”

  She lit another cigarette, considered her thoughts, then went on:

  “And don’t you think it a little odd that Lenin appointed Dzerzhinsky to head the CHEKA and kept him there when there were so many deserving and reasonably talented Communists close to him?”

  Castillo said what he was thinking: “I’m going to have to think about this.”

  She nodded as if she expected that would be his reply.

  “The CHEKA was reorganized after the counterrevolution of 1922 as the GPU, which was renamed later the OGPU. A man named Yaakov Peters was named to head it. By Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, who was minister of the interior, which controlled the OGPU.

  “Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack in 1926. And there were constant reorganizations and renaming after that. In ’34, the OGPU became the NKVD. In ’43, the NKGB—People’s Commissariat for State Security—was split off from the NKVD. And in ’46, after the Great War, it became the MGB, Ministry of State Security.”

  “And you are suggesting, are you, that this state within a state . . .”

  “The Oprichina,” she furnished.

  “. . . the Oprichina was in charge of everything? Only the names changed and the Oprichina walked through the raindrops of the purges they had over there at least once a year?”

  “You’re putting together things that don’t belong together,” she said. “Yes, the Oprichina remained—remains—in charge. No, not all the oprichniki managed to live through all the purges. Enough did, of course, in order to maintain the Oprichina and learn from the mistakes made.”

  “You’re saying the Oprichina exists today?” Castillo said.

  “Of course it does. Russia is under an oprichnik.”

  “Putin?”

  “Who else?”

  “And you and your brother were—are—oprichniki?”

  “And my husband is.”

  “I’m a little confused, Svetlana. From what I understand, the intelligence services live very well in Russia. And from what you’ve just told me, you and your brother and your husband are members of this state within a state that lives very, very well.”

  She nodded.

  “So then why did you defect?”

  She replied by asking a question.

  “What do you really know about Vladimir Putin?”

  Plenty—far more than you think I do.

  “That, for example,” he replied somewhat defensively, “while Putin’s grandfather might really have been Stalin’s cook during the Second World War, he was also a political commissar in the Red Army. Including, among other places, Stalingrad.”

  I said that because her attitude pisses me off.

  What I should’ve said was, “Very little.” And the look in Jack’s eyes confirms that I should have.

  She smiled. “So you have read a little about my country?”

  She’s trying to make me mad. And succeeding.

  “Colonel, you had best stop thinking about Russia as your country,” Castillo said. And then his mouth ran away with him. “But since you seem so curious about Mr. Putin, I know that his father was not foreman in a locomotive factory, or whatever the official bio has him doing, but was at least a colonel in the KGB.”

  “Actually, a general. I’m impressed.”

  “Charley, why don’t we call this off for tonight?” Davidson asked. “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat.”

  Meaning, of course, that you think I’m about to lose it.

  And my behavior suggests that I am.

  What the hell is the matter with me?

  “Yeah, me, too. It’s been a very long day. Couple of days,” Castillo said, then stood.

  Svetlana said: “You said your question is, ‘Why did we defect?’ I am about to tell you.”

  “Okay, tell me,” Castillo said more than a little sharply, and sat down.

  “Because we came to the conclusion that sooner or later, Mr. Putin was going to get around to purifying us. We know too much. We have one family member who has, if not defected, done the next thing to it.”

  “Really?” Castillo asked sarcastically.

  “Really,” she said. “I don’t think Putin would throw us to starving dogs or off the Kremlin wall, but keeping us on drugs in a mental hospital for the rest of our lives seemed a distinct possibility.”

  Castillo looked into her eyes.

  I’ll be damned if I don’t believe her.

  Svetlana smiled wanly and shrugged. “I told you that you weren’t going to believe me.”

  “And why did you want to come here?” Castillo asked.

  “We have a relative here, who saw what was going to happen long before we did. And got out in the chaos, when the Soviet Union was falling apart.”

  “And he’s here?”

  “Somewhere here. I don’t know exactly where. I was hoping, frankly, that you’d help me find him. His name is Aleksandr Pevsner. His mother and my mother were sisters.”

  Castillo was quiet a long moment, hoping that he appeared to be in thought, not caught off guard.

  “I’ve heard the name, of course,” he finally said as he stood up. “The last I heard, there were thirteen Interpol warrants out for him.”

  He motioned for her to go to the door.

  “Agent Britton will take you to your room, Colonel. If you need anything, ask her. Breakfast will be served at seven-thirty. I expect you and your brother to be there.”

  She ground out her cigarette, stood, and walked through the door to the bedroom without saying anything.

  Davidson followed h
er, and Castillo heard murmured conversation between Davidson and Sandra Britton, and then the sound of the door closing.

  Davidson came back into the office.

  “Thanks, Jack,” Castillo said.

  “For what?”

  “You know damned well for what.”

  “Okay. Then you’re welcome,” Davidson said, then added, “Pevsner!”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “That would explain why they came to you in Germany,” Davidson said. “They know you know him.”

  “I don’t think so. If they were in touch with Pevsner, and he wanted to get them out, he would have sent planes and people. Alex is very good at that sort of thing.”

  “What did you think of that state-within-a-state business she fed us?”

  “It may be proof that I was in no shape to interrogate anybody, much less a pro like that one. I think it’s probably true.”

  “Me, too. You never heard anything like that before?”

  “That the SVR is a separate class within Russian society, sure. Not that it goes back to Ivan the Terrible with the same people.”

  “I always forget not to look in the mirror when I’m thinking about the Russians,” Davidson confessed. “Maybe because I’m a half, two-thirds, a bunch of Russian myself. Those Russians are not like our Russians. I should write that on the palm of my hand.”

  “How’d you do with those account numbers?”

  “It worked the way she said it would. But no names.” He paused. “Christ, her face when you told her we had the chip. If looks could kill, in other words. I almost felt sorry for her.”

  “Feeling sorry for Little Red Under Britches would be very dangerous.”

  Davidson started to speak, stopped, and then went on: “I’m glad you said that, Charley. Otherwise, Colonel, sir, I would have had to say it to you, and sometimes you are not as grateful of my wise counsel as you should be.”

  Castillo gave him the finger.

  “Come on, let’s go out to the quincho and see how the professionals did with the colonel. And get those account numbers to Two-Gun and Mrs. Sanders, to see what they make of them.”

  “I don’t suppose we could stop in the living room and have a little taste on the way, could we? Trying to read that dame wore me out.”

  “Every once in a great while, Sergeant Major, you have a great idea.”

  [THREE]

  “First impressions,” Edgar Delchamps said. “Berezovsky is what he says he is, and you don’t get to be the Berlin rezident unless you are very, very good. It’s almost as important as a posting to Washington or the UN.

  “Second, I have the feeling he’s not used to being on the receiving end of being scared, which both supports the previous impression and may explain why, I think, operative word think, he has been telling us the truth, and will continue to do so. We didn’t get into many specifics. I want to do that tomorrow, after I have a chance to ask some questions to verify the unimportant stuff he gave us.” He paused thoughtfully, then waved at Alex Darby. “Alex?”

  “I agree. I wanted to get more into why they defected, but there wasn’t the chance.”

  “According to Little Red Under Britches,” Castillo said, “they were afraid of getting thrown out with the bathwater when Putin inevitably cleans house.”

  Castillo raised his eyebrows, asking for Delchamps’s and Darby’s reaction to that.

  “Credible,” Darby said, and Delchamps nodded his agreement.

  “Did Aleksandr Pevsner’s name come up?”

  Darby and Delchamps shook their heads.

  “All we know about him,” Castillo said to ensure everyone had the same story, “is that there are fourteen Interpol warrants out for him.”

  Everybody nodded their understanding.

  “What did she have to say about Pevsner?” Delchamps asked.

  “They’re cousins. His mother and theirs are sisters. He was an oprichniki who got out—”

  “A what?” Delchamps said.

  “An oprichniki is a member of the Oprichina, the secret police state-within-the-state that goes back to Ivan the Terrible. She gave us quite a history lesson. And Jack and I think it’s probably true.”

  “Wow!” Darby said.

  “Anyway, she says Pevsner got out when everything was upgefukt when the Soviet Union was coming apart—”

  “A lot of them got out when that happened,” Delchamps offered. “It explains why the Russian mafia suddenly became so successful: Three-quarters of them are ex-KGB.”

  Castillo nodded. “—and that he’s here. She doesn’t know where.”

  “At noon he was in Bariloche,” Alfredo Munz offered. “And there was no indication that he planned to go anywhere.”

  Alfredo, my friend, Castillo thought, you have just earned your OOA salary for the rest of this year—and for six months of next year.

  And wasn’t I smart to put you on the payroll?

  “Alfredo, I’m thinking I may have to go there. Do you think Duffy can arrange for me to borrow his friend’s Aero Commander again?”

  “Probably,” Munz said. “You can ask him in the morning when he comes here?”

  “ ‘When he comes here’?” Castillo parroted incredulously.

  “I thought it better to tell him you were here than for him to find out himself then think you were trying to keep something from him. Which would have destroyed his current—if fragile—belief that you are a wonderful human being.”

  And wasn’t I stupid not to realize that the former head of SIDE was not going to ask anybody’s advice—or permission—before doing what he thought was obviously the appropriate thing to do?

  “What time’s he coming?”

  “I invited him for breakfast,” Munz said.

  “You tell him who’s here?”

  Munz shook his head. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about that.”

  “Well, see if you can get in touch with him and convince him that we don’t need any help in dealing with our guests.”

  Munz nodded.

  “Prefacing this by saying I don’t think any of them are going to try to escape—operative words don’t think—how do we keep our chickens in the coop overnight?” Castillo asked. He looked at Sergeant Kensington. “Bob?”

  “I just checked the motion sensors, Colonel. A-OK. I also took a look at the house from the driveway. Maybe the colonel and the lady could get into the drive—where they would set off the sensors—by making a rope from sheets. But I don’t think Sof’ya or her mother could climb down a rope.

  “So we leave the floodlights on in the backyard. The guy on the radio—and, by the way, I checked out Mr. and Mrs. Britton on the AFC—would see anyone out there, and then they’d have to get over the fence.

  “What I would suggest, Colonel, is that we station one guy in the foyer of the house, have another guy wandering around, and someone on the radio. And then change the team around, so the guy on the radio could get a little sleep. So I see it as me, the Brittons, and somebody else.”

  Castillo had used the military technique of soliciting opinions starting with the junior member. As he was trying to decide who would be the least pissed off by being selected as the next-to-junior member, Tony Santini jumped in and answered the question for him.

  “Let Sandra get some sleep,” Santini said, “so she can deal with the women tomorrow. I’ll take her place.”

  Castillo looked around and saw that the suggestion met everyone’s approval.

  “Anybody else?” he asked.

  There were no takers.

  “Okay. That’s it. I’m off to bed. Breakfast at half past seven.”

  [FOUR]

  Stripped to his T-shirt and shorts, Castillo walked into the bathroom of the master suite—everything but the doors and ceiling was either marble or mirrors—carrying his toilet kit and a clean set of underwear.

  He laid the toilet kit on the marble, twin-basin sink, then pulled his T-shirt off, balled it up, and took a basketball shot at t
he wicker laundry basket against the wall.

  “Three-pointer!” he said, then pulled off his shorts. They dropped to the floor. He put one hand on the sink to steady himself, then kicked the shorts into the air and grabbed them. He balled them up and took another shot at the laundry basket.

  “Shit,” he said, and walked to the basket to pick them up.

  As he dropped the shorts into the laundry basket, he noticed a door. He had seen it before, of course. The architect who had designed the house had taken into consideration the possibility that the occupants of the master suite would reproduce. Thus, the room next door, the smallest of the three on the floor, could serve as the nursery. It certainly wasn’t being put to that use now, but the fact remained that there was a door leading to it from the master-suite bathroom so that Momma could rush to soothe a squealing baby.

  Without really thinking about it, he tried the handle. The door was locked, and there was no key. But his curiosity having gone this far, he bent over and looked through the keyhole. He could see nothing.

  He walked to the glass-walled shower and turned on the water. He sniffed his armpit. It didn’t exactly exude the fragrance of a flower shop, but he decided it didn’t smell as foul as it could—probably should—have considering that the last shower he’d had was at das Haus im Wald, some twelve thousand kilometers away and God Only Knows how many hours before.

  When the water had reached a satisfactory temperature, he stepped under it and just stood there.

  A forbidden question crept into his mind: I wonder what Svetlana looks like in the shower starker? I’ve already been blessed with the sight of those marvelous nipples erect on those marvelous breasts—

  He forced the image from his mind and started with the soap.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I’m too old to be behaving like a seventeen-year-old suffering from raging hormones.

  And I should be smart enough to realize this is one situation where I cannot, absolutely cannot, let a stiff dick take control of the brain.

  When he decided his rigorous shower had cleansed him as well as he could be cleansed, he sucked in his breath and turned off just the hot-water faucet.

  When he was actually shivering, he turned off the cold water, opened the shower door, and reached for a towel.