Black Ops (Presidential Agent)

by W. E. B Griffin

  Duffy considered that, then said: "Colonel, forgive me, but that"--the door opened and Svetlana walked in--"is incredible."

  As she walked toward Castillo, all eyes on her, he thought: I should have known that she was not going to be a good little girl and stay in the bar.

  "Don't let me interrupt," she said, sitting on the arm of Castillo's chair. "What's incredible?"

  Duffy was visibly surprised but quickly recovered.

  "You must be Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva," he said, then asked in heavy macho-laden sarcasm, "Are there many female officers of your rank in the Russian secret police?"

  "My name is Susan Barlow, Comandante. I'm Tom's sister. I really don't know what you're talking about."

  Screw it, Castillo thought. I can play, too.

  "Now I'm curious, Liam," Castillo said. "How many senior female officers are there in the gendarmeria? I didn't know you had any."

  "Carlos," Duffy said. "You're not going to deny that this woman is the Russian defector?"

  "Carlos?" Svetlana asked. "Why did you call Colonel Castillo 'Carlos,' Comandante?"

  He looked at her incredulously, then sarcastically snapped: "Because that's his name, Colonel."

  "I didn't know that," she said in what was almost a purr. "Carlos is much nicer than Charley. Hello, there, Carlos!"

  Castillo could not resist smiling at Svet. This visibly confused Duffy and visibly annoyed Munz.

  "Please go on, Alfredo," Svetlana said. "I didn't mean to interrupt. You were saying something was incredible. No. The comandante was saying that."

  Yes, you did mean to interrupt, baby.

  You decided to confuse Duffy.

  Knock him off balance, knock some of that self-righteous confidence out of him, make the point that he's not as important as he would like to think he is.

  "If everyone is through being clever," Munz said, quietly furious, "may I get on with this?"

  "Susan," Castillo said, "Comandante Duffy finds incredible the notion of a chemical laboratory in the Congo and the whole idea of poisoning the water supplies of major American cities."

  "Yes, I do," Duffy said firmly.

  Svetlana smiled. "So did I, Comandante, when I first heard about it. You do have to expand your mind even to begin accepting it."

  " 'Expand your mind'?" Duffy parroted.

  "Consider this, Comandante," Svetlana said. "The day before Hiroshima, how many people could have accepted that the Americans had developed an incredible bomb with the explosive power of thousands of tons of dynamite? Or, on the tenth of September, how incredible would it have been to hear that the next day two one-hundred-story buildings would be taken down by religious zealots flying passenger airliners into them?"

  Duffy thought about that a moment. "I take your point, Colonel. Which is not to say that I suddenly believe this Congo thing."

  Castillo met Munz's eyes, then Berezovsky's.

  They heard it, too.

  Duffy called her "Colonel"--and without a hint of sarcasm or condescension.

  What comes next is the truth. . . .

  "Then," Svetlana went on, "you have to ask yourself why we would make up something such as this."

  Duffy began to argue: "If there was anything to this at all, certainly the CIA must have some idea--"

  "As of a few hours ago, Liam," Castillo interrupted, "the CIA sees no threat in the Congo operation. Specifically, the CIA believes that what's there is nothing more than a fish farm."

  "How do we know they're wrong?" Duffy asked reasonably.

  Operative words, "How do we know?"

  We've got him.

  Except, of course, when he asks, "What has this to do with Argentina? It's none of Argentina's business."

  "We know, Comandante," Berezovsky offered, "because of the Marburg Group. Those businessmen--ones who can be cheated and manipulated because of their dishonesty--were my responsibility when I was the Berlin rezident."

  Duffy looked at him, waiting for him to go on.

  "The laboratory in the Congo," Berezovsky explained, "requires not only chemicals unavailable in Iran--or anywhere else in the Arab world--but, of course, the laboratory equipment, centrifuges, that sort of thing, with which to manipulate these chemicals. Also unavailable anywhere else in the Arab world. It has been credibly suggested that one of the reasons why the Muslims hate the West is that they are scientifically four hundred years behind the West.

  "What the laboratory in the Congo needs is available only in three places-- six if you include Russia, China, and India and refer in the latter countries only to the raw chemicals.

  "Conversely, everything is available in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. The United States and Great Britain, especially after both rejected chemical and biological warfare, pay very close attention to their stocks of chemicals and to the allied processing equipment.

  "They don't want anyone else developing stocks of chemical and biological weapons now that they have destroyed their own stocks.

  "Germany's chemical and biological warfare capability died when they lost the Great War, but the chemicals and processing equipment are available in Germany and used for medical purposes."

  He paused, then asked, "Can you see where I'm going with this, Comandante?"

  Duffy nodded. "I think so."

  "Enter the SVR," Berezovsky went on. "The Foreign Intelligence Service knew which German businessmen had profited handsomely from the sale of medicine, medical chemicals, and medical equipment at grossly inflated prices when the oil-for-food program was in full swing--"

  "You knew?" Duffy interrupted. "How?"

  "It was our business to know. We had assets at every step." Berezovsky paused, then went on: "It became in our interest to see that the Congo operation had what it needed. So we went--in the case of the Marburg Group, I went--to see these dishonest businessmen. I told them there was more money to be made by acquiring certain chemicals and laboratory equipment--in some cases, manufacturing the equipment themselves--and shipping it quietly to a transfer point, often in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, but in other places as well."

  "And they were willing to do this?"

  "Of course they were. They saw another golden opportunity to make a great deal of money without a tax liability. But then, when they were not paid, they of course came to realize, in that charming American phrase, that 'there is no such thing as a free lunch.' "

  "You didn't pay them?" Duffy asked.

  "Of course not," Berezovsky said. "All we had to do was tell them that if they made any trouble, the German government would learn not only of their involvement in the oil-for-food business but also of their involvement in shipping chemicals and equipment without the proper licenses. And, of course, evading taxes. The SVR decided it needed the money the Iranians paid for all this materiel more than these already-rich-by-dishonest-means German businessmen."

  "And none of them went to their government?"

  "Of course, we considered that scenario," Berezovsky said. "We fed a journalist from the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain enough information to attract his interest toward one of the smaller players. We knew they would learn of his interest."

  " 'We' being defined here as General Sirinov," Susan said. "He prides himself in taking a personal hand in the more interesting operations. Feeding that information to Herr Freidler was the general's idea. We didn't think it was necessary and told him so. He didn't pay any attention to our recommendation, and ordered that it be done. And it turned out badly. Friedler was getting too close to the heart of the operation--not just to the man we'd pointed him to."

  "And he had to be eliminated?" Castillo asked, but it was a statement.

  Susan met his eyes. "Yes, and that, too, was General Sirinov's decision."

  "Now that I've had time to think about it," Berezovsky said, "what I think happened was that Sirinov--possibly, probably, we have to consider this, Susan--at the recommendation of Evgeny, who has always been prone to think of termination as the best
solution to any problem--"

  Castillo's mouth ran away with him. He blurted in Russian: "You're talking about her Evgeny?"

  Berezovsky nodded.

  "He hasn't been my anything for years, Carlos," Svetlana replied, also in Russian. "I thought I had made that quite clear."

  "I was talking about Colonel Evgeny Alekseeva," Berezovsky continued in Russian, smiling, "who belongs to Directorate S. What I was suggesting was that General Sirinov concluded--possibly on the advice of Colonel Alekseeva--that Herr Friedler had become a threat and had to be terminated. Then, with that decision made--and here is where it sounds like Evgeny--it was decided that it would also make sense to eliminate the policeman in Philadelphia."

  "Why?" Castillo asked.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Duffy was uncomfortable not understanding the conversation.

  "Because Sirinov knows--"

  "I don't want to leave Comandante Duffy out of this," Castillo interrupted Berezovsky. "Can we speak English?"

  "You're the one, Carlos, who started speaking Russian," Susan said in English.

  "Sorry," Castillo said.

  "I didn't understand a word, of course," Lee-Watson said. "But it's a melodic language, isn't it? I thought it would be more guttural, like German."

  "What we were talking about, Comandante," Berezovsky said in his American English, "was the possibility that when he prepared the list of people who were ultimately attacked, General Sirinov was very likely getting advice from an SVR colonel attached to Directorate S, which General Sirinov runs. A man named Evgeny Alekseeva, whom both my sister and I know well.

  "What I was suggesting was that once the decision to eliminate Herr Friedler had been made, Alekseeva encouraged him to also eliminate the policeman in Philadelphia."

  "I heard that much," Duffy said.

  "Why?" Castillo asked again.

  "Because he knows that those black people in Philadelphia are being funded by oil-for-food money. And Sirinov probably heard that the policeman now works for you. That could also explain your presence on his list."

  "I dunno, Tom," Castillo said dubiously. "That seems stretching. And when they tried to whack Britton, he wasn't working for me; he was on the Vice President's Protection Detail."

  "I could be wrong, of course, but let me run the scenario out. We're working pretty much in the dark. I'm trying to put things together. My theory is that the decision to eliminate two people opened the door to eliminating the others. We don't know that Sirinov knew that we--Svetlana and I--had been in touch with the Kuhls. There were only two meetings with them, and I'd be surprised if we were detected.

  "But the SVR has known about them for a long time. I can see Evgeny reasoning that this would be a good time to terminate them on general principles."

  "Nice guy, Susan," Castillo said.

  Berezovsky said: "Colonel--or may I also call you 'Carlos'?--he is ambitious and quite ruthless, something I strongly suggest you keep in mind. And he has an agenda."

  "An agenda?"

  "Do we have to get into this?" Susan asked.

  "I think we should," Berezovsky said simply. He met her eyes for a moment, waited until, just perceptibly, she nodded, and then went on: "Evgeny was shamed by the breakup of the Soviet Union. By the near dissolution of the KGB. By what he regarded as the shameful behavior of Aleksandr--and there were others like Aleksandr--who not only left their successful careers in the KGB but left Russia to become very rich.

  "He was determined to stay; to be faithful to the Motherland; to do what he could to restore the Soviet Union--he never really accepted the words 'Russian Federation'--to what he thought of as its former greatness. And, of course, the KGB to its former, now greatly diminished, power.

  "He was not alone. There were thousands like him, ranging from privates in the border patrol to highly placed KGB officers. Colonel Vladimir Putin, for example. They flocked to the 'new' SVR. It wasn't what it once was--many of the brightest officers had left--but it could form the nucleus of what Putin and the others were determined would be an even better, stronger organization than the KGB had ever been.

  "And they immediately set out to do so.

  "Just about everyone who had remained loyal and was not a certified moron was promoted. I was reminded of Hitler after France fell, when he made field marshals of all those generals. Among those promoted before his time was Evgeny Alekseeva, first to lieutenant colonel and then, after his wife was promoted to lieutenant colonel, to colonel.

  "I was not promoted, and as I was not certifiably stupid, I suspected that this was because Putin didn't like me very much. I had once been his commanding officer, and my reports on him were not flattering. But I had too many friends for Vladimir to ship me off for psychological evaluation, as happened to others. I think he was hinting that I might do well to join Aleksandr wherever he might be.

  "I therefore resisted as well as I could any foreign assignments when they were proposed to me. The result of that, of course, was I was given the assignment--one I think I would have killed for, literally--as rezident in Berlin.

  "Meanwhile, Evgeny was having domestic problems. His wife wanted a divorce. In the new SVR as well as in the old KGB, an officer is supposed to control his wife. Divorce was and is frowned upon. If she left him--much less divorced him--his career would have been severely hurt."

  "And he didn't have any proof that she had ever been unfaithful to him," Svetlana said. "Because she had never been unfaithful. If he had been able to even credibly allege that she had been in someone else's bed, that would have solved the problem. He just would have killed her, and that would have been the end of the problem."

  Castillo looked up at her on the arm of his chair and thought: If you think that speaking in the third person, Simply Susan, my love, is going to disabuse Duffy of his suspicion that Dmitri is talking about you, have another think.

  That cow was out of the barn a long time ago.

  "So," Berezovsky went on, "they acted as if nothing was wrong, continued to live together. Then Evgeny, who has always disliked me, had one of his inspirations. Who better to watch the Berlin rezident than the rezident's sister--who happened to be Evgeny's own wife?"

  Did I mention the cow being out of the barn?

  "It was no secret that I could not stand him, and that I had told my sister that she would be a fool to marry him. So far as they knew, she was Evgeny's loyal, faithful wife, who hadn't spoken to me or my family since we failed to show up for their wedding."

  "Causing her great embarrassment," Svetlana chimed in. "Women don't forget insults like that."

  "So Evgeny's wife was appointed the rezident in Copenhagen," Berezovsky said. "Which of course gave us the opportunity to defect that we took. I detect the hand of God in that."

  "Excuse me?" Duffy blurted.

  Castillo saw the look on Duffy's face.

  Write this down, Liam, because there will be a quiz:

  All Communists are godless, but not all Russians--not even all senior SVR officers--are Communists. Some of the latter are almost as devout as the Pope.

  "There had to be divine intervention," Berezovsky said. "It was all too much for coincidence, a series of coincidences. There was my assignment to Berlin, which placed me in contact with the Marburg Group. Then Svetlana being sent to watch me, and her seeing Charley's photograph in the Tages Zeitung and"--he stopped and looked at Castillo--"her convincing me that eliminating you would be counterproductive. And, finally, you being on the 'Bartok Bela.' "

  "The what?" Duffy asked.

  "The train to Vienna from Marburg," Berezovsky explained. "My sister and I were on our way to Vienna to defect. Charley . . ."

  "Carlos," Svetlana corrected.

  " . . . was on the train. He had his airplane; he could have flown to Vienna--he should have flown to Vienna. But he was on the train. If he hadn't been on the train, to save us from that incompetent CIA station chief in Vienna, Svetlana and I would have been arrested in Vienna. Our Lo
rd and Savior put Carlos on that train."

  Castillo looked between Duffy and Berezovsky, and thought:

  Actually, Billy Kocian put me on that train--"The dogs have suffered enough from the miracle of travel by air," he said.

  If you want to chalk it up to divine intervention, Dmitri . . .

  But why the hell not?

  He's right. There were a lot of odd coincidences.

  I expected to meet him in either Vienna or Budapest. If we had flown to Schwechat, the SVR would've bagged both of them in the West Bahnhof.

  And I never would have seen him or Svetlana again.

  She wouldn't be sitting here on the arm of my chair, her fingers playing with the hair on my neck.

  Was there more to Jack and me being on the train than Billy's concern for the puppies? To this entire sequence of events?

  Jesus Christ! Am I starting to believe him?

  "Are you a Christian, Comandante?" Berezovsky asked.

  "I'm Roman Catholic," Duffy replied.

  "My father's brother was a priest," Berezovsky said. "He taught me there were only two kinds of sins. One commits a sin. Or one fails to do what he knows he is called upon to do--the sin of omission. In this case, I know what the Lord is calling upon me to do: help Carlos deal with the chemical factory. I am going to resist the temptation of sin, as I had planned to do."

  "Excuse me?" Duffy asked.

  Uh-oh!

  Has the Reverend Berezovsky gone too far?

  Duffy sounds like he smells a rat.

  "On the long flight here, I decided that what I was going to do was tell Carlos what I knew of the chemical factory. That would be payment enough for getting us safely out of Vienna. Then I would simply disappear to begin a new life with my family. But then, and I see the Lord's hand in this, too--"