“Funny, I would never have taken you for a trout fisherman,” Charley Castillo greeted him.
Castillo was wearing a yellow polo shirt, khaki trousers, a battered Stetson hat, and even more battered Western boots.
“Ha-ha,” Delchamps responded.
Delchamps pointed to the helicopter and raised his eyebrows.
“Our host’s,” Castillo said. “Alek loans it to me from time to time, when I have something important to do, like going fishing.”
Alex Darby came out of the airplane next, followed by Liam Duffy, and finally a man wearing a Gendarmería Nacional uniform and pilot’s wings.
Darby and Castillo shook hands. Liam Duffy wrapped his arm around Castillo’s shoulders and hugged him.
“Ace, your pal Alek wouldn’t happen to be here, would he?” Delchamps asked.
“As a matter of fact, he is.”
“Why do I think Alek is not here to fish?” Delchamps said.
“Because in a previous life, you were trained to be suspicious,” Castillo replied. “You’re going to have to adjust to our changed circumstances.” When he saw the look on Delchamps’s face, he went on: “But since you ask, at a few minutes after seven this morning, Alek and I were out on the beautiful Río Chimehuín catching our breakfast.”
“Then Pevsner doesn’t know about the letter?”
“Charley,” Liam Duffy interrupted, nodding at the pilot. “We’re going to have to get Primer Alférez Sanchez to the airport.”
Primer Alférez, Alférez Sanchez, who had piloted the Aero Commander, was the equivalent of first lieutenant in the gendarmería. And Castillo saw his unhappy look.
He’s thinking, “I’m being gotten rid of so I won’t learn what’s going on here.”
And he’s right to be pissed. Liam could have handled that better; the last thing we want is a pilot who knows more than he should harboring a grudge.
Duffy’s sometimes the sort of commander whose officers loathe him.
“Sanchez, what did you think of the new avionics in that old bird?” Castillo asked, switching to Spanish, and smiling at the pilot.
“Fantastic!” the pilot replied. “All I had to do was take it off and land it. The navigation was entirely automatic, and when I dropped out of the cloud cover, I was lined up with the runway.”
“We’re working on that,” Castillo said. “The idea is to eliminate pilots like you and me.”
“I’m not sure I’d like that, señor.”
“As I was just telling my friend here, one has to adjust to changed circumstances. I’m sorry there’s no time to offer you a drink, but Aerolíneas Argentinas waits for no man, and if you don’t get to the San Martín de los Andes airport in the next forty-five minutes ...”
“I understand, señor,” the pilot said, and then came to attention. “With your permission, mí comandante?”
Duffy nodded. The pilot saluted and Duffy returned it.
“Sanchez,” Castillo said, “don’t tell anyone about the avionics.”
“El comandante made that clear on the way here, señor.”
Delchamps waited until the pilot had left the hangar, and then said, “Tell me about the changed circumstances, Ace.”
“I hardly know where to start,” Castillo said.
“Try starting with telling me whether or not Pevsner has seen Solomatin’s letter.”
“Gladly,” Castillo said. “Okay, starting at the beginning: Alek’s man went on the net as scheduled at oh-four-twenty hundred Zulu.”
“‘Alek’s man went on the net’? Our net?”
“I thought you knew that all of us are retired and have fallen off the face of the earth. We now have people to do things like going on the net at one-twenty in the morning.”
Delchamps and Darby both shook their heads. This was unexpected.
“So Alek’s guy,” Castillo went on, “went on the net at oh-one-twenty local time. At oh-one-twenty-two, Colonel V. N. Solomatin’s letter came through, five by five. At oh-one-twenty-five, Alek telephoned me here, waking me from the sleep of the innocent, to tell me he had a letter from Cousin Vladlen and that he wanted me to see it as soon as possible.”
“Paul Sieno told me Kocian wanted to get the letter to you without anyone else seeing it.”
“Don’t anyone let Alek know you’re surprised that he has seen it. We now have no secrets from Alek.”
“Jesus Christ!” Delchamps said.
“So I told him that I’d fire up”—Castillo pointed to the Bell Ranger—“at first light, go pick him up, and he could show me Cousin Vladlen’s letter. Or, better yet, bring him back here and he could have breakfast with Sweaty and me, we’d all read Cousin Vladlen’s letter, and then go fishing to kill the time until you, Darby, and Duffy got here. Since that was the best idea he’d heard so far this week, Alek said that was fine, and he’d bring Tom Barlow along, since the letter was addressed to him in the first place.”
“So Colonel Berezovsky is here, too?” Darby asked. “I wondered where he was.”
“Aside from my belief that Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky has also fallen off the face of the earth,” Castillo said, “I have no idea where he might be. Tom Barlow, however, is at the San Joaquín Lodge.”
“And Sweaty has seen the letter, no doubt?”
“Certainly, Sweaty has seen it. How could I possibly not show it to her? Alek would have anyway.”
Delchamps shook his head in resignation.
“Okay. Can we go now?”
“You don’t want to know what else has happened?” Castillo asked.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Well, we had another offer of employment from those people in Las Vegas,” Castillo said.
“To do what?”
“It seems that someone sent Colonel Hamilton a rubber beer barrel full of whatever it was Hamilton brought out of the Congo ...”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Darby exclaimed.
“... and they wanted us to find out who did it and why.”
“And?” Delchamps asked.
“I told them, sorry, we have all fallen off the face of the earth.”
“What the hell is that all about?” Darby asked.
“It’s none of our business,” Castillo said.
“They were supposed to have destroyed everything in a twenty-mile area around that place in the Congo,” Darby said.
“So they said,” Castillo said.
“You think there’s some sort of connection between that and Solomatin’s letter?” Darby asked.
“I don’t know, but you can count on Alek asking you that question.”
He gestured toward an open rear door of the hangar. Two shiny olive-drab Land Rovers sat there.
“I think we can all get in one of those, can’t we?” Castillo asked.
[TWO]
The Lodge at Estancia San Joaquín was a single-story stone masonry building on a small rise perhaps fifty feet above and one hundred yards from the Chimehuín River.
It had been designed to comfortably house, feed, and entertain trout fishermen from all over the world, never more than eight at a time, usually four or five, who were charged three thousand dollars a day. The furniture was simple and massive. The chairs and armchairs were generously padded with foam-filled leather cushions.
The wide windows of the great room offered a view of the Chimehuín River and the snow-capped Andes mountains. There was a well-stocked bar, a deer head with an enormous rack above the fireplace, a billiards table, a full bookcase, and two fifty-six-inch flat-screen televisions mounted so one of them was visible from anywhere in the room.
There were four people in the great room—plus a bartender and a maid—when Castillo and the others walked in: Tom Barlow, his sister Susan, and Aleksandr Pevsner, a tall, dark-haired man—like Castillo and Barlow in his late thirties—whose eyes were large, blue, and extraordinarily bright. The fourth man was János, Pevsner’s hulking bodyguard, of whom it was said that he was never farther away from Pevsner
than was Max from Castillo.
There were fourteen Interpol warrants out for the arrest of Pevsner under his own name and the seven other identities he was known to use.
Barlow was dressed like Castillo, in khaki trousers and a polo shirt. Pevsner was similarly clothed, except that his polo shirt was silk and his trousers were fine linen. The men were at the billiards table.
Susan, who was leaning over a coffee table, fork poised to spear an oyster, was dressed like Castillo and her brother, except her polo shirt was linen and her khakis were shorts. Short shorts. Her clothing and posture left virtually nothing to the imagination about her bosom, legs, and the contours of her derriere.
“Funny,” Edgar Delchamps said, “I would never have taken Sweaty for a fisherman.”
Susan/Sweaty looked up from the platter of oysters, popped one in her mouth, smiled at Delchamps, and gave him the finger.
It was a gesture she had learned from Castillo and subsequently had used, with relish, frequently.
Pevsner carefully laid his cue on the billiards table, then walked to Delchamps, Darby, and Duffy, and wordlessly shook their hands. Tom Barlow waved at them.
“I’m sure you’re hungry,” Pevsner said. “I can have them prepare supper for you now. Or, if you’d rather, there’s oysters and cold lobster to—what is it Charley says?—munch on to hold you until dinner.”
“How the hell do you get oysters and lobster in the middle of Patagonia?” Darby said as he walked to the coffee table to examine what was on display.
“I have a small seafood business in Chile,” Pevsner said.
That triggered a tidal wave of doubt and concern in Castillo, surprising him both by its intensity and the speed with which it hit him and then grew.
It started with his reaction to Pevsner’s saying he had a “small seafood business in Chile.”
A small seafood business, my ass, Castillo had thought sarcastically. It’s called Cancún Provisions, Limited, and it flies a Boeing 777-200LR full of seafood to Cancún every other day. The 777 is owned by Peruaire. And you own that, too.
Was that natural modesty, Alek, or was the modesty a Pavlovian reflex of a former KGB colonel?
“Say as little as possible; deflect attention.”
How much can I really trust Comrade Polkovnik Pevsner?
Right now he tells me I’m family. In love—intending to marry—his cousin Susan, formerly Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva of the SVR.
But how long will that last if whatever the hell is going on here threatens his wife and children or his way of life?
Most of the charges laid against him are bullshit.
But, on the other hand, I know he supervised the beating to death with an angle iron a man who betrayed him. Or used the angle iron himself. Probably the latter.
My friend Alek is not a nice man.
Edgar Delchamps neither likes nor trusts Alek, and has told me so bluntly. And I know I can trust Delchamps. He’s been dealing with Russian spooks—successfully dealing with them—for nearly as long as I am old.
Castillo was as suddenly brought out of his unpleasant reverie as quickly as he had entered it.
There were soft fingers on his cheeks, the scent of perfume in his nostrils, and light blue eyes intently searching his.
“My darling,” Sweaty asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“You look like you’d seen a ghost!”
He shook his head, said, “I’m fine, baby.” He put his hand on her back and felt her warmth though the linen shirt.
Sweaty rose on her toes and kissed him on the lips with great tenderness.
Edgar Delchamps’s face showed signs of amused scorn.
Castillo gave him the finger with the hand that had been against Sweaty’s back, and announced, “I need a drink.”
He mimed to the bartender what he wanted. The bartender, a shaven-headed, barrel-chested man in his thirties, nodded and reached for a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon. Castillo knew that the crisp white bartender’s jacket concealed a Micro Uzi submachine gun.
The bartender was one of the nearly one hundred ex-members of the KGB or the SVR whom Pevsner had brought out of Russia to work for him. And from the looks of him, the bartender was probably ex-Spetsnaz.
There was the snap of fingers.
The bartender looked at Pevsner, who held up two fingers, and then pointed to two armchairs by the coffee table. The bartender nodded.
Pevsner waved Castillo toward the armchairs. Sweaty steered Castillo away from the armchair and to the couch and then sat beside him. Pevsner’s face showed much the same amused scorn as Delchamps’s face had. Castillo reacted by leaning over to Sweaty and kissing her.
Max walked to the coffee table, sniffed, decided he would pass on the seafood, and went and lay at Castillo’s feet.
The bartender served the bourbon to Pevsner and Castillo, then looked to the others for orders. Sweaty shook her head. Delchamps ordered, in Russian, Scotch whisky on the rocks, two chunks only, and a glass of water on the side.
How did he know he’s Russian?
Was that a way to find out?
The bartender looked at Darby and Duffy, and in English said, “What may I get for you, gentlemen?”
Pevsner looked genuinely amused, and he even made a little joke when everyone had their drinks and had taken seats around the plates of cold lobster chunks and oysters laid out on the coffee table.
“Well,” Pevsner said. “Now that we’re all here, whatever shall we chat about?”
Tom Barlow took the chair Pevsner had wanted Castillo to sit in, bringing with him an ice-covered bottle of vodka and a frozen glass.
“My call?” Delchamps asked.
Pevsner gestured for him to go on.
“Is that letter genuine?” Delchamps asked. “Is it really from Cousin Vladlen, or did Solomatin just sign what somebody put in front of him?”
“That’s two questions, Edgar,” Tom Barlow said. “Yes, I think the letter is genuine. And I think Cousin Vladlen wrote it. But he would have signed anything put in front of him by General Sirinov. Cousin Vladlen has built his career by doing whatever he is told to do.”
“I know people like that in the agency,” Delchamps said, smiling. “Is he really your cousin?”
“His father is our mother’s brother,” Barlow said, pointing at Sweaty.
“How come Cousin Vladlen didn’t get burned when you and Sweaty took off?”
“General Sirinov may have believed him when he said he had no hint what Svetlana and I were planning. Vladlen’s a respected oprichnik.”
“A what?” Darby asked.
“That’s right,” Castillo said. “You weren’t here for this history lesson, were you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Darby said.
“An ‘oprichnik’ is a member of the Oprichnina, the secret police state-within-the-state that goes back to Ivan the Terrible,” Castillo said, and looked at Sweaty. “Did I get that right, sweetheart? Do I get a gold star to take home to Mommy?”
She smiled and shook her head resignedly.
“I’ll explain it to you later, Alex,” Castillo said.
“Tell me about General Sirinov,” Delchamps said.
“General Yakov Sirinov runs the FSB and the SVR for Putin,” Pevsner said.
“Putin as in Prime Minister Putin?”
“As in Prime Minister Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, formerly president of the Russian Federation, and before that, polkovnik of the KGB, and before that ...”
“Oh, that Putin,” Delchamps said.
Castillo and Barlow chuckled.
“You think Putin’s personally involved in this?” Castillo asked.
“Up to the nipples of his underdeveloped chest,” Pevsner said.
“I’m getting the feeling you don’t like him much,” Delchamps said.
Pevsner chuckled.
“Is anyone interested in the possible scenario I’ve come up with?�
�� Pevsner then said.
“Does a bear shit in the forest?” Delchamps asked in Russian.
“There’s a lady present, Edgar,” Castillo said.
“She’s not a lady, she’s an SVR podpolkovnik,” Delchamps said.
Sweaty gave him the finger.
“A former lieutenant colonel of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki,” she corrected him. “Which has nothing to do with whether or not I’m a lady.”
“I hate to tell you this, Sweaty, but it’s a stretch to think of anyone—how do I put this delicately?—consorting with Ace here as being a lady.”
Sweaty and Castillo both gave him the finger.
“Anyway,” Delchamps said, “according to that letter, ‘all is forgiven, come home.’ That sounds as if someone still thinks of you as an SVR podpolkovnik in good standing.”
“Alek, do they really think anyone is going to believe that letter?” Castillo asked. “That Tom and Sweaty are going to be ‘welcomed home as loyal Russians’?”
“I am a loyal Russian,” Svetlana said. “But loyal to Russia, not to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”
“That—loyalty, loyalty to Russia, or even loyalty to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin personally—may be at the bottom of this,” Pevsner said.
“What do you mean?”
“Putin wants Dmitri and Svetlana to come home.”
“Is he stupid enough to think they’d be stupid enough to go back?” Castillo asked.
“No one who knows him—and I know Vladimir Vladimirovich very well—has ever suggested he’s stupid,” Pevsner replied. “And Dmitri ... Tom ... knows him even better than I do.”
“I hate to use the word ‘genius,’” Tom Barlow said, “but ...”
“How about ‘evil genius’?” Svetlana suggested.
“Why not?” Barlow said chuckling.
“So what is the evil genius up to?” Castillo asked.
“I wonder if you understand, Charley—at least as well as Edgar and Alek do—how important it is for the FSB and the SVR to appear both to the people and, more important, to its own members as all-powerful and without fault.”
Castillo’s temper flared.
But when he spoke, his voice was low and soft. Those who knew him knew that meant he was really angry.
The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Page 18