Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  He laid his index finger just below his eyeball.

  “From at least fifteen meters with his pistol. Bradley is a very interesting young man.”

  “Why did Komogorov want you removed?” Svetlana asked. She didn’t seem surprised to learn of Bradley’s skill as a pistoleer.

  “We’ll get into that later. Let me continue,” Pevsner said. “So, Svet, you may trust János completely.”

  Svetlana nodded.

  “Now we turn to Alfredo, which shames me,” Pevsner said. “He was advising me. Not about any of my business enterprises, but how best I could disappear in Argentina, how best I could protect Anna and the children, things of that nature. I repaid his faithful service, when others were betraying me, by suspecting Alfredo was among them. Charley was a far better judge of character than I; he knew Alfredo was incapable of what I suspected. Charley also knew what I was capable of when someone threatened my family, that I believed what the Old Testament tells us in Exodus, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ rather than in turning the other cheek.

  “Charley sent Alfredo’s wife and children to his grandmother in the United States to protect them from me. And Alfredo went to work with Charley. And when the time came, when Alfredo had every right in God’s world to apply what it says in Exodus to me, he instead turned to Saint Matthew and turned the other cheek.”

  Castillo was having irreverent thoughts: While this theological lecture by the Reverend Pevsner is certainly interesting—and Svetlana is swallowing it whole as if he just carried it down from Mount Sinai carved in stone—the truth is if Alfredo could have got a shot at you when your thugs were following him around, he damn sure would have taken it. And then, when you found out he was really a good guy after all and called off your bad guys, he didn’t whack you because (a) he doesn’t like killing people unless he has to, and (b) it would have caused more trouble than the satisfaction would have been worth.

  Or am I the only near heathen around here? Is Alfredo a Christian in the closet? “As a good Christian, Aleksandr, I forgive you. Go and sin no more”?

  Or am I committing the sin of looking in the mirror? Just because I have trouble believing a lot of the things I’ve heard in church doesn’t mean that Alfredo does. And Svetlana and Aleksandr sound like they’re perfectly serious.

  Jesus, what did she say when I wisecracked that I wasn’t a Christian in good standing?

  “I’ll fix that” is what she said.

  Jesus Christ!

  “Have you been able to find forgiveness for me in your heart, Alfredo?” Pevsner asked.

  “Of course,” Munz said. “You thought you were protecting your family, and I knew how you felt about that.”

  “And will you come back to work for me?”

  “No.”

  “You can name your salary.”

  “This isn’t about money, and you know it. Or should. And anyway, it’s moot. I work for Colonel Castillo.”

  “And there is some reason you can’t work for both of us?”

  Munz chuckled.

  “Yes, there is, and you probably know it as well as I do,” Munz said, and then went on to quote effortlessly: “Saint Matthew, Chapter Six, Verse Twenty-four, ‘No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ That’s from the King James Bible. But there’s not much difference between that and other versions of Holy Scripture.”

  I will be damned.

  You have been looking in the mirror, stupid!

  “You’re right of course,” Pevsner said after a moment. “But that’s going to cause a problem.”

  “How so?” Munz asked.

  “I was about to tell János to contact everybody and tell them that you are back, and that you speak with my voice.”

  Munz considered that quickly and replied. “If it’s all right with Colonel Castillo, that’s probably a good idea.”

  “How so, Alfredo?” Castillo asked.

  Pevsner answered for him: “Before the Buenos Aires rezident learns that you have brought Dmitri and Svetlana here, we’re going to have to move Dmitri out of your safe house. The Cubans do most of the work for him, for the obvious reasons—and we’ve seen the proof—and while they might not know specific details, the Cubans know the Americans have something, most likely a safe house, in Mayerling Country Club, and if the Cubans know, the rezident knows.”

  Munz nodded his agreement.

  And the Central Intelligence Agency, which will also shortly be looking for Berezovsky and family, also knows about Nuestra Pequeña Casa.

  “Move them where?” Castillo asked. “Here?”

  “No,” Munz said. “I think the thing to do is for Alek and his family to stay here. So far as I know, the rezident doesn’t know anything more than that Alek has a place in Bariloche, but they don’t know which one.”

  “There’s more than one?” Castillo asked.

  Pevsner nodded. “Plus two more that might be suitable in San Martín de los Andres, which is several hours by car and forty minutes in the helicopter,” he said. “One of them, come to think of it, is a fly-fishing estancia. When the fish are not in season, we have paying guests, who find it a beautiful, romantic, out-of-the-way place just to get away.”

  Munz nodded his agreement.

  There’s that word “romantic” again. Is there an implication that the Reverend Pevsner approves of our sinful relationship? Munz’s nod, I think, means simply it would be a good place to hide.

  “And there is the second place in the Buena Vista Country Club in Pilar, and then of course the place at the Polo & Golf,” Munz said. “I’m sure the Cubans will have an eye on the big house.”

  “I miss that house,” Pevsner said, then turned to Castillo. “Well, Charley, you can see why I need Alfredo’s advice and why his speaking with my authority is more than useful, absolutely necessary. Are you willing to take the chance that there are exceptions to what Saint Matthew said, and this is one of them?”

  “Why is there any question at all?” Svetlana began. “We’re all—”

  “He was asking me,” Castillo interrupted.

  She flashed him a look that was more anger than hurt.

  “Far be it from me to challenge Saint Matthew,” Castillo said. “Would this be satisfactory? Alfredo will advise you, and speak with your voice, with the clear understanding that he has only one master, me?”

  “I thought that was understood,” Svetlana said.

  Castillo gave her a look he hoped she would interpret as saying, You are pissing me off.

  “Well?” Castillo said. “Alek?”

  “Understood and agreed to,” Pevsner said.

  “Okay, Alfredo, let’s hear your advice.”

  “As soon as we can, move Colonel Berezovsky to the small house in Buena Vista. Preferably in something that won’t attract much attention. Alek, where is the Coto supermarket delivery truck?”

  “In the garage,” Pevsner said. “János?”

  “It’s there. But the battery may be dead.”

  “When you get on the phone, make sure it is not dead.”

  János nodded.

  “If that doesn’t work,” Munz went on, “Darby can arrange a black embassy car.”

  “Delchamps and Darby will go with him?” Castillo asked.

  “Of course.”

  “And what about the radio?”

  “Leave the radio with Davidson,” Munz said. “If they’re watching Nuestra Pequeña Casa, a sudden mass exit of people and lack of activity—”

  “What radio?” Svetlana asked.

  “If I wanted you to know, I would have told you,” Castillo said.

  Pevsner chuckled.

  “This man may be good for you, Svetlana,” he said. “You do not cow him.”

  “I think it would be a very good idea to let Colonel Berezovsky talk to both Alek and Svetlana,” Castillo said.

  “Yes,” Pevsne
r said. “For both personal reasons and so that he can stop dancing with Darby and Delchamps.”

  “If they are watching Charley’s house and this one, there will be telephone taps,” Svetlana said disgustedly.

  “Thank you for sharing that with us, Colonel,” Castillo said. Then he put his index finger over his lips and said, “Sssshhh.”

  János and Munz tried not to smile. Pevsner laughed out loud.

  “János, what has Bradley done with the radio?” Castillo asked.

  János pointed to the window.

  “It’s up?” Castillo asked, surprised.

  “He had it up last night, right after you went to bed.”

  “Go get him and it, please,” Castillo said.

  János left the room.

  “I would like to know about the radio,” Svetlana said.

  “So you said,” Castillo said.

  “I am a podpolkovnik of the SVR!” Svetlana announced angrily. “I will not be treated as a foolish woman!”

  “You were a podpolkovnik of the SVR,” Pevsner said, rather unpleasantly. “And from your behavior, I’d say you just proved you are a foolish woman.”

  “That is between Charley and me. None of your business.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Svet,” Pevsner said. “What I meant is that only a foolish woman loses her temper when there is nothing whatever she can do about what has angered her. And I know very well that when Friend Charley decides to tease you, there is nothing you can do but smile.”

  Corporal Lester Bradley entered the room carrying the handset of the AFC radio.

  “I can run the secure cable if you would like, sir,” he said. “But I rather doubt if there are intercept devices within the hundred-meter possible intercept range. And, of course, Class One encryption is active. In my opinion, sir, the secure cable is unnecessary.”

  “Your opinion is good enough for me, Lester,” Castillo said. “But before I get Delchamps on the radio . . . You may have noticed a certain change in the relationship between myself and Colonel Alekseeva?”

  “No, sir. I have not. Is there something I should know?”

  “May I speak?” Munz said.

  “You don’t have to ask, Alfredo.”

  “I was thinking just then about what Davidson said when you sent Bradley to the Delta camp at Fort Bragg to hide him. Do you recall what he said?”

  “He said trying to hide Lester at Camp Mackall was like trying to hide a giraffe on the White House lawn.”

  Pevsner smiled broadly.

  “Am I being called a giraffe?” Svetlana asked suspiciously.

  Pevsner put his index finger in front of his lips and made a shushing sound.

  “I take your point,” Castillo said. “So let’s get it out in the open. I can’t explain what happened between us. Bottom line, it did. I can’t even work up much guilt for doing what everybody in this room, everybody I know in our line of work, will regard at least as goddamn foolish, and—with absolute justification—as gross dereliction of duty, not to mention conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Bottom line here: I will try to carry out my duties to the best of my ability, and believe I can. And I realize I really don’t give a good goddamn what anybody thinks about it; all I care about is what Svetlana thinks about me.”

  “Oh, my Charley,” Svetlana said, and got out of her chair and went to kiss him.

  “Obviously, the others are going to find out,” Castillo said a moment later. “The later they do, the better. I’ll cross those bridges when I get to them.”

  “If I may say so, sir,” Bradley said, “I have seen nothing in your behavior toward Colonel Alekseeva, or in hers toward you, that in any way suggests any impropriety of any kind on the part of either party.”

  “That sums it up pretty well for me, too, Charley,” Munz said. “Anything else?”

  Castillo shook his head. He didn’t trust his voice to speak.

  “Lester, call the safe house, and get Mr. Darby on there, please,” Munz ordered.

  “I was wondering when you were going to check in, Ace,” Edgar Delchamps’s voice came over the AFC handset loudspeaker perhaps thirty seconds later. “Your pal the ambassador has been looking for you.”

  “Ambassador Silvio? Oh, shit. What did he want?”

  Juan Manuel Silvio was the American ambassador to Argentina. He had courageously risked his career to help Castillo in the past, doing things an ambassador just should not do. Castillo did not want to involve him in the current situation.

  “No. The one who doesn’t like you. Montvale. That ambassador.”

  “What did that ambassador want?”

  “Aside from talking to you, do you mean?” Delchamps asked, then went on: “Well, he wanted to know where you were.”

  “And?”

  “And I told him you were off in the Andes with a redhead studying geological formations, and would return after the New Year’s holiday. I may have given him the impression I suspected you were going to try to hide the salami in the redhead.”

  Svetlana’s face showed that it had taken her five seconds to take Delchamps’s meaning. Then it showed indignation, perhaps even outrage. Then it colored.

  “And his response?”

  “Something to the effect that if you had been able to keep your salami in your pants in the past you wouldn’t be in the trouble you’re in now. No. Actually, what he said was ‘We wouldn’t be in the trouble we’re in now.’”

  “Did he say what trouble that was?”

  “He alluded to a preposterous notion apparently held by the agency’s Vienna station chief—which she has apparently relayed officially to the DCI—and unofficially to a former co-worker at the CIA, one Mrs. Patricia Davies Wilson, who in turn just happened to mention it in passing to C. Harry Whelan, Jr., of The Washington Post.”

  “Did he say what this preposterous notion was?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did. He said that a Miss Dillworth—she’s the Vienna station chief—has somehow gotten the preposterous idea that you swooped into Vienna and snatched away two very important Russians she had labored hard and long upon to change sides and who were about to do so.

  “The ambassador said he found this impossible to believe—even of you—especially inasmuch as you had an arrangement with him to tell him whenever you were going to do something out of the ordinary, but he would like to have a little chat with you as soon as possible to straighten the matter out.”

  “Well, I guess I’d better call him in the next day or two. How are you and Alex doing with Polkovnik Berezovsky?”

  “In Russian, huh? Can I infer from that your relations with Podpolkovnik Alekseeva have been going well?”

  “Answer the question, Edgar.”

  “Not well. He’s one tough sonofabitch, Charley. And we’re running out of time.”

  “Well, don’t break out the ice water and the bright lights just yet. Get him on the radio.”

  “Really? You got something out of Red Underpants we can use on him?”

  “Get him on the horn, and make sure everybody else can hear.”

  “The way you said that sounds like maybe I didn’t have to put an edge on my hari-kiri sword after all; maybe I won’t have to commit seppuku.”

  Castillo happened to glance at Svetlana. She was glaring at him.

  “Sit there, Colonel, and just talk in a normal voice. Okay, Ace, we’re all gathered here to witness the miracle.”

  “Colonel Berezovsky, can you hear me?” Castillo asked.

  “I can hear you.”

  Castillo gestured to Aleksandr Pevsner.

  “God has mercifully answered our prayers, Dmitri,” Pevsner said. “Our mothers are smiling down on us from heaven. Thanks be to God, you are safely out of hell on earth.”

  And we will now sing Hymn Number One One Four, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

  Castillo was immediately sorry when he heard Berezovsky finally manage to ask, in a choked voice, “Aleksandr?”
/>
  And even worse when he saw that Pevsner couldn’t find his voice, either.

  I hate to tell you, Edgar, but right now neither of them looks like a tough sonofabitch to me.

  “Pity you’re not here, Tom Barlow, ol’ buddy. You could help us decorate the Novogodnaya Yolka.”

  That earned him another icy glare from Svetlana.

  Pevsner found his voice.

  “Dmitri, the situation has changed greatly. Listen to me carefully. Do whatever Mr. Darby—or any of Charley Castillo’s people—tells you to do. Tell them anything they want to know. Do what they say.”

  “You know this man Castillo?”

  “He is the next thing to family,” Pevsner said. “He is family, if you ask Anna.”

  “Or me, Dmitri,” Svetlana said. “So far as I am concerned, before God and the world, he is family.”

  “Has he met Alfredo?” Pevsner asked Castillo, who nodded.

  “Dmitri, Colonel Munz is not only my friend, but he speaks with my voice,” Pevsner said. “We’re going to move you from where you are to a safer place. Alfredo will explain.”

  Munz then addressed Darby. “Alex?”

  “Here, Alfredo.”

  “There is a second safe house at the Buena Vista Country Club. Colonel Castillo wants you to go there—you and Delchamps; everybody else stays at Nuestra Pequeña Casa—with Colonel Berezovsky and his family. Within the hour, a Coto supermarket delivery truck will come there and back up to the front door. Load everybody in it.”

  “Whose truck?”

  “Pevsner’s, and the men in it will be his. We’ve got another place at the Golf and Polo Country Club as a backup.”

  “This is Charley’s idea?” Darby asked dubiously.

  “Until something better can be worked out, yeah,” Castillo said. “By the time I get back to Buenos Aires—”