When Castillo and the others walked into the penthouse, the tiled area around the swimming pool was being converted by the resort staff—under the direction of Uncle Remus—into a high-in-the-sky grilled seafood outdoor restaurant. A long table had been set up, and flames were still rising from the just-ignited lava coals in two barbecue grills. An enormous insulated box seemed to be stuffed with king mackerel, and another cooler with bottles of Dos Equis beer.
Max immediately went to sniff at the fish.
Everybody but Colin Leverette and Lester Bradley, who stood at the grills, was sitting around the pool on chaise longues under umbrellas, most of them holding bottles of the Dos Equis.
“I knew Our Noble Leader would return when he smelled food,” Uncle Remus said. “And he’d tell us where he’s been. Right, Charley?”
“I’ll even show you movies of where I’ve been,” Castillo replied, and looked at Lester. “Lester, can we send tapes from surveillance cameras to Casey? Or look at them on the TV? Both?”
Bradley thought about that a moment, nodded, and said, “Yes, sir. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Have at it,” Castillo said.
“I’ll take over the grill,” Svetlana said. “Somehow I suspect cooking is not among Uncle Remus’s many skills. And I don’t want that fish ruined. I’m hungry.”
“You are in the presence, madam, of one of New Orleans’s most skilled piscatorial chefs,” Uncle Remus said. “Be humble.”
“They have parrillas in Mother Russia, do they, Sweaty?” Delchamps said as he pushed himself off his chaise lounge.
“We have everything in Mother Russia, Edgar,” Svetlana said. “I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
“I think everybody should have a look at these tapes before we send them to Casey,” Castillo said. “Logical conclusion: Let Sweaty get the grills going.” He gave in to the temptation, and added innocently, “Aleksandr can help her.”
Surprising him, Pevsner went immediately to the grills and politely asked for, and was given, Lester’s chef hat. He put it on, then tested the heat coming from the no-longer-flaming lava briquettes by holding his hand, palm down, over them.
“Another seven minutes, I would estimate,” he said. “While you’re showing the tapes, I will ensure the fish have been properly filleted.” And then he smiled at Castillo and added, “Never underestimate people, friend Charley. You might want to write that down.”
“Two-Gun, get your laptop,” Castillo ordered as Lester hooked up cables from Casey’s radio to the television. “I’m going to offer a running commentary as the tapes run, identifying the players, et cetera. We’ll then edit the tape and the commentary to make sure the CIA can’t identify or locate the airfield or all the players.”
“Two questions,” Yung replied. “This is going to the CIA? And why shouldn’t they locate the airport?”
“Pevsner has a connection with the airport. I don’t want them to start linking things.”
“Make that three questions,” Yung said. “How are you getting it to the CIA? Through Casey?”
“I’d rather slip it under the door, but I haven’t figured out how to do that.”
“Lester,” Edgar Delchamps said, “can you send these tapes to the house in Alexandria?”
“Yes, sir. No problem.”
“And can you get me a number in Arlington, Virginia, without it coming to the attention of those nosy people at Fort Meade?”
“According to Dr. Casey, all they will hear at Fort Meade is what sounds like static on the line. And I can make it sound as if the call was made from anywhere.”
“Who do you want to receive the tapes, Ace?” Delchamps asked.
“Either the DCI or Frank Lammelle.”
“If I have one of the dinosaurs call on Madam Darby and pick up the tape and commentary, and then he slips that under the door addressed to Lammelle, and you also send it to Casey, he will probably send it to the DCI. He’s close to those people, right? Then we’d be sure both the DCI and Lammelle got it.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Castillo agreed.
“Let’s see the tapes, Lester,” Delchamps said.
“So our scenario wasn’t far off the mark,” Edgar Delchamps said, when the tapes had been played. “They did use the Tupolev Tu-934A to move that stuff. The question then is, from where did they move it? From a warehouse full of the stuff in Mother Russia or ...?”
“Sweaty says they wouldn’t have Congo-X in Russia,” Castillo said. “Too dangerous.”
“That would tie in with what Tarasov heard happened at that airport—El Obeid—in Sudan,” Delchamps said. “Okay, they picked it up in Africa and flew it here.... Nonstop?”
“They probably stopped in Cuba,” Castillo said. “Probably at Ciego de Ávila. They wouldn’t want the Tu-934A to be seen at José Martí.”
“And from Ciego de Ávila to this dry-lake airfield?” Alex Darby asked.
Castillo nodded.
“And then where? Back to Cuba?” Darby asked.
“Venezuela,” Castillo said. “Tom says the price for getting the Cubans to do more than fuel the Tu-934A would be too high. Chávez, on the other hand, is not half so smart as the Brothers Castro. Sweaty thinks it’s probably at La Orchila ... that island air base.”
“What is that, another proof you can’t judge a book by its cover?” Delchamps asked.
“What the hell does that mean?” Castillo asked.
“You never heard, Ace, that ‘the true test of another’s intelligence is how much he—in this case she—agrees with you’? I think your girlfriend’s right on the money. Hidden inside that gorgeous body is an unquestionable genius.”
“You may get to eat after all,” Svetlana called from the grill. “And speaking of that, can we start to cook?”
“Absolutely.”
[THREE]
The Lobby Bar
The Alvear Palace Hotel
Avenida Alvear 1891
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1955 7 February 2007
Ambassador Charles M. Montvale had liked the Alvear Plaza Hotel from the moment he walked in the door. He had liked it even better when, following a bellman to a very nice suite, he had walked past the Lobby Bar, an oasis of polished wood and brass, a vast array of liquor bottles, white-jacketed barmen, and a remarkable number of attractive women—at least three of whom were astonishingly beautiful.
“Tell you what, Truman,” he said to Ellsworth as their elevator rose silently. “Why don’t we have a quick shower and then go down to that bar for a little taste? God knows, it’s been a tough day. Say, thirty minutes?”
“Splendid idea,” Truman Ellsworth had replied. “I’ll see you there in thirty minutes.”
Ellsworth’s eye had also fallen upon the astonishingly beautiful women in the bar.
Neither had intentions of enticing one of the beautiful women to their suites, there to break the vow both had taken to keep only to the women who had marched down the aisle with them so many years ago.
But it never hurt just to look. Both of them would have agreed if God hadn’t wanted men to look at women, He would have made the female of the species flat-chested and given them green teeth and lizardlike skin.
But unexpected things did happen from time to time.
And they were, after all, human.
Ambassador Charles M. Montvale had just finished saying, “It’s been an awful day, and I think I’m entitled to another little taste,” when I. Ronald Spears appeared at the entrance to the Lobby Bar.
Montvale was not pleased to see him. He had really been looking forward to his second drink. The ceremony that went with the delivering of a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks in the Lobby Bar of the Alvear was something, he had immediately decided, that the watering holes of the nation’s capital and his various clubs would do well to emulate.
First, the bartender laid a tray before his customer. It held a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch whisky; a larger-tha
n-to-be-expected squat glass; a bowl of ice; a silver pitcher of water; silver tongs; and what at first Montvale had thought was a tea strainer, but then he had seen that it had no holes. It was sort of a shot glass with wings.
First the bartender lifted an ice cube—not something spit out of an ice maker, but a real ice cube, about an inch square—with his tongs and dropped it into the glass. Then he picked up another and wordlessly asked if his customer wanted a second ice cube. Montvale had stopped this process at three ice cubes, using a gesture he had learned playing blackjack.
The bartender laid the tea strainer/shot glass on the whisky glass. Next, he picked up the bottle of whisky and with great élan filled the shot to overflowing. And then kept pouring. And then he tipped the wings of the shot glass, slowly emptying the contents into the glass over the ice cubes. Finally, with a silver gadget, he stirred the ice cubes gently around in the glass.
Montvale impatiently waved I. Ronald Spears over to the table.
“Mr. Ambassador, there are two telephone calls for you at the embassy.”
“Why didn’t you transfer them here?” Montvale snapped.
Even as he did so, he knew what the answer was going to be, and was: “Mr. Ambassador, they’re on a secure line.”
Montvale looked around first for the bartender, to cancel the order for the drink he would now not get to drink, and to sign the bill, and then for the Secret Service agents who were drinking Coke and tonic water elsewhere in the bar.
The communications officer told them he had two calls, one from Supervisory Special Agent McGuire and the other from John Powell, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Get McGuire on here first,” Montvale said as he picked up the secure telephone.
“I have Ambassador Montvale on the line. The line is secure.”
“Good evening, sir.”
“What did you find out, Tom?”
“None of the people in whom you were interested were in the house in Alexandria, sir, but Mrs. Darby told me she believes Mr. Darby is in Ushuaia.”
“Where?”
“I understand it’s the southernmost city in Argentina.”
“What is she doing, pulling your leg? What the hell is he supposed to be doing there?”
“I understand from her—she seemed rather angry, sir—that he’s in the company of a young Argentine woman. You take my meaning, sir?”
“You mean he’s down there with some floozy?” Montvale asked incredulously.
“That’s what Mrs. Darby implied, sir.”
“And you believe her?”
“All I can say, sir, is that’s what she told me. She seemed quite upset about it.”
“You’re keeping that house under surveillance, right, Tom?”
“There will be three agents on it twenty-four/seven, sir.”
“Well, keep that up, and keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
“I have Ambassador Montvale on the line, Mr. Powell. The line is secure.”
“Hey, Jack, what’s up?”
“A good deal. The Russians have been heard from. Sergei Murov—the rezident—invited Frank Lammelle over to their dacha to go fishing.”
“In the middle of the winter?”
“And when he got there, told them what they want. They will give us all the Congo-X they have. With an implied promise they won’t find any more. In exchange, they want the two defectors. And Charley Castillo.”
“They say why?”
“Frank had the impression this came right from Putin. Frank said Murov told him, or implied, that not only has Putin’s ego been bruised, but some of the people Castillo and his merry band have been whacking around the world were friends—maybe even relatives—of his.”
“And you believe this?”
“Frank does. More importantly, President Clendennen does.”
“Which means what?”
“That as soon as we find those two Russians Castillo snatched from our station chief in Vienna, we put them on the next Aeroflot to Moscow.”
“Did Frank tell Murov we don’t have the two Russians?”
“He did. Murov didn’t believe him. Anyway, that’s moot. My orders are to find the Russians so that we can turn them over.”
“Clendennen’s going to stand still for that blackmail?”
“I’ll say it again, Charles: My orders are to find the Russians so that we can turn them over.”
“And Castillo? He’s going to turn him over, too?”
“I didn’t hear that, because you didn’t ask it. But a moment ago, I should have said that my orders are to find the Russians and Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, Retired.”
“And do what with Castillo when we find him?”
“The President did not share his thoughts on that with me, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Yeah. So how you doing? Have you found Castillo?”
“No, but I learned that Alex Darby’s in Ushuaia—that’s at the southern tip of South America—with some young floozy.”
“Darby’s doing what?”
“I’m afraid the source is reliable.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“I found that out about five minutes ago.”
“That might be a good place to stash those Russians.”
“That thought occurred to me about ten seconds ago.”
“There will be six officers—the most I could scare up on short notice meeting the criteria of reliable and available—on whatever American Airlines flight there is today from Dallas to Buenos Aires, one most likely landing in Argentina in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.”
“What the hell is that all about?”
“The President ordered me to send however many men it took to locate and detain the Russians. Shortly, they’re on their way there.”
“If they should find them, and that’s a big if, what are they going to do, kidnap them? The Argentines won’t stand for that. No country would.”
“This line is terrible. I don’t think you heard me when I said, ‘The President ordered me to send however many men it took to locate and detain the Russians.’”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Have you found Roscoe J. Danton? More important, have you learned (a) why he’s looking for Castillo, and (b) whether he’s found him?”
“I’m going to see him tomorrow. After I see the ambassador. I don’t know what I’m going to tell him about these people you’re sending down here.”
“You’ll think of something. That’s why they pay you the big bucks, Charles.”
“Fuck you,” Montvale said, and then said, “Break it down.”
Truman Ellsworth, Mizz Sylvia Grunblatt, I. Ronald Spears, one of his Secret Service agents, and a middle-aged man he did not recognize were waiting for him in the hall outside the communications cubicle.
“Ambassador Montvale,” the man said, “I’m Robert Lowe.”
When Montvale didn’t immediately reply, Lowe added: “From Mexico City.”
And you were ordered down here, what? A week ago?
You should have been here the next day.
Where the hell have you been? In one of those hotels on the white sandy beaches of Cancún or Cozumel, saying a tearful goodbye to your twenty-year-old tootsie?
“I’m really glad to see you, Lowe,” Montvale said. “We have a situation here that requires someone of your experience, and I might add, of your reputation.”
“I’m here to serve, sir.”
“I just got off the horn with the DCI,” Montvale said. “He tells me there will be six very good officers of the Clandestine Service on the next American Airlines flight from Dallas to help deal with the problem.”
“Which is?”
“I can’t get into that here.” He turned to Sylvia Grunblatt. “Nothing personal, Mizz Grunblatt, but I’m afraid you don’t have the need-to-know.”
“Mr. Montvale, in Ambassador Silv
io’s absence, I am acting for him.” She lost her diplomatic cool at that moment, and added: “That makes me, as I’m sure you know, the senior officer of the United States in Argentina.”
Jesus, now the goddamned press agent is going to give me trouble?
“What you say may well be true, Mizz Grunblatt, but I have only your word for it. On the other hand, I have been—and Mr. Ellsworth has been—sent down here by the President of the United States personally, and until the President tells me otherwise, I’m not going to breach security. Do we understand one another?”
“I think we’ll let Ambassador Silvio decide who’s right,” Grunblatt said.
“I’m looking forward to that,” Montvale said. “What I need from you now, Mizz Grunblatt, is a vehicle to pick up these agency people in the morning.”
“Can’t help you,” she said. “For one thing, I told you there are no free vehicles; the ambassador needed everything in the garage. And, now that I think about it, inasmuch as I presume these six spooks are traveling as tourists, rather than government employees—much less accredited diplomatic personnel—I couldn’t order the use of government vehicles if I wanted to.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing you in the morning when I call on the ambassador, Miss Grunblatt,” Montvale said. “Where are you staying, Mr. Lowe?”
Sylvia Grunblatt answered for him: “I’m going to put him in the apartment recently vacated by the Darbys.”
“You can move in there tomorrow,” Montvale said. “We need to talk. I’ll put you up in the Alvear Plaza with us. Let’s go, gentlemen.”
The manager on duty at the Alvear was the epitome of courtesy and regret, but there wasn’t an available room of any type in the house. He could, however, remove the king-size bed in either Mr. Montvale’s suite or Mr. Ellworth’s, and replace it with two single beds.
“Put them in Mr. Ellsworth’s suite,” Montvale ordered, and turned to Ellsworth. “It’s only for one night, Truman.”
An otherwise marvelous dinner in the Alvear Palace’s La Bourgogne restaurant was tainted midway by the appearance of the manager on duty. He was profusely sorry to report that the single beds he had planned to put in Mr. Ellsworth’s accommodation had already been put into service. He had found another king-size bed, but regrettably, there was not room for it in Mr. Ellsworth’s room.
The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Page 30