“And if an IP’s not handy?”
“That’s the idea, Colonel. If you don’t know where to land, you shouldn’t try. There won’t be any boulders, but you’re liable to find large tree trunks in your way. Your IP will show where there are no tree trunks.”
“Meaning there are people here who remove them?”
Tarasov nodded, then said, “May I call you ‘Charley’? Or ‘Carlos’?”
“I wish you would—‘Carlos’—as I ain’t a colonel no more.”
“Once a colonel, Carlos, always a colonel,” Tarasov said. “Put it into a shallow descent on this course. Go into a low-level pass to make sure there really are no dead trees on the runway, and then you can land.”
“What about the wind?”
“When they hear us coming, a wind sock will miraculously appear next to the runway.”
“I gather there is no Laguna el Guaje tower?”
“That’s the idea, Carlos. Since there is no tower, curious ears cannot overhear it clearing aircraft in and out of here.”
The “physical feature” Tarasov pointed out was a sprawling ranch house and some outlying buildings on the high terrain next to the lake.
“Immediately down the hill you should see—there it is—the wind sock,” Tarasov said. “Usually there are negligible crosswinds. Just land into the wind, remembering, of course, to lower the wheels first.”
“I have a tendency to forget that,” Castillo said as he began a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn.
“Wheels coming down,” Tarasov said a moment later, “and down and locked.”
And a moment after that, Castillo greased the Cessna Mustang onto the lake bed.
“Not too bad a landing for a beginner,” Tarasov said. “After another, say, twenty hours of my masterful instruction, I might be prepared to sign you off to fly this aircraft.”
Castillo gave him the finger. Tarasov smiled at him.
“What now?” Castillo asked.
“Taxi back toward the house. You’ll see sort of a hangar.”
What Castillo saw just over a minute later was “sort of a hangar” dug into the side of the hill lining the dry lake bottom. It was invisible from the air, and to him as he landed, but now an enormous dirt-colored tarpaulin had been raised out of the way, revealing a cavelike area in which Castillo could see a Learjet.
A burly man in khakis walked out of the opening, holding wands and motioning him to taxi inside. An Uzi hung around his shoulder and when Castillo turned the nose, he could see three other men similarly dressed and armed.
“They don’t look very friendly,” Castillo said.
“They’re not,” Tarasov said.
Castillo turned the Mustang nose out and shut down the engines.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now it gets interesting,” Tarasov said as he unfastened his harness. Charley followed suit, and when he stood up, saw that Max and Pevsner were standing by the door.
“Maybe you better tell Max to stay onboard,” Pevsner said. “Those people are liable to shoot first and ask questions later.”
The best defense is usually a good offense.
“Maybe I should get off first,” Castillo said, and reached for the opening mechanism.
When the stair door dropped in place, he jumped to the ground.
The men with the Uzis moved toward the airplane.
“Good afternoon,” Castillo said in Spanish. “My dog is about to get off the airplane. If anyone looks like he’s even thinking about pointing a weapon at him, I’ll stick it up his ass, before I kill him.”
The men stopped moving toward him.
He snapped his fingers and Max jumped easily to the ground. Castillo pointed to the nose gear. Max headed for it. He would have anyway, but the men with the Uzis didn’t know that, and they were as much impressed with the obedient, well-trained dog as they were with his size.
“Okay, Alek,” Castillo called. “You’re next. This is your show.”
János came down the doorstairs, followed by Pevsner, then Tom Barlow, and finally Svetlana.
The men’s faces made it clear that she surprised them even more than the dog.
“El Señor García-Romero is presumably here?” Pevsner asked, more than a little arrogantly.
There was a faint flash from Castillo’s memory bank: I know that name.
Héctor García-Romero headed a law firm which maintained offices in Mexico City, San Antonio, and New York.
Among its clients was Lopez Fruit and Vegetables Mexico, a wholly owned subsidiary of Castillo Agriculture, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, whose honorary chairman of the board was Doña Alicia Castillo, whose president and chief executive officer was Fernando Lopez, Charley’s cousin, and whose officers included Carlos Castillo.
This can’t be my Tío Héctor. What the hell would he be doing here at a thug-guarded secret airfield that might as well have a sign reading WELCOME TO DRUG CARTEL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT?
And there are probably two hundred ninety-seven thousand and six Mexicans named García-Romero.
“Sí, señor. In the house.”
“Then what are we standing around here for?”
“Excuse me, señor, but we must check to see if you are armed.”
“That’s none of your business,” Pevsner snapped. “Now, get on the telephone and tell Señor García-Romero that I am here with a pistol in each hand.”
One of the men considered that briefly, then turned, and walked quickly deeper into the cave. The remaining three men eyed everyone, except for Svetlana, warily. In Svetlana’s case, the adjective was “lustfully.”
In under a minute, the man who had walked away came back.
“If you will be good enough to come with me, señor?”
In the back of the cave, incongruously modern and high-tech against the gray stone into which it had been cut, was a stainless-steel-framed elevator door.
Carefully staying out of Max’s way, the men ushered them onto the elevator, but did not get on it. The door closed and just as Pevsner reached for a button with an UP arrow on it, the elevator began to rise.
A Haydn string quartet came over speakers.
The door opened.
Four people were waiting for them, three of them much better dressed than the guards in the cave, but just as obviously guards. The fourth was a superbly tailored, portly, silver-haired man in his sixties.
I will be goddamned.
“Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding down there,” Héctor García-Romero said, and then he took a closer look at Castillo.
“Holy Mother of God, is that really you, Carlitos?”
“It’s been a long time, Tío Héctor,” Castillo said.
“What did you call him?” Svetlana asked.
“Carlitos,” Héctor García-Romero said. “It means ‘Little Carlos.’”
“That’s sweet!” Svetlana said.
“I have known him since he was this tall,” García-Romero said, holding his hand flat a few inches below the level of his shoulder. “You were what, Carlitos, eleven?”
“Twelve,” Castillo said.
“I saw Doña Alicia ten days ago in San Antonio,” García-Romero said. “She said you were in Hungary with Billy Kocian.”
“I was.”
And now we’re both in the VIP Lounge of Drug Cartel International Airport in the middle of the Mexican desert.
What the hell are you doing here, Tío Héctor?
“I had no idea you knew Señor Pevsner,” García-Romero said.
“Likewise,” Castillo said. “And I’ve been wondering what sort of business you do together.”
“Carlitos’s grandfather was one of my dearest friends,” García-Romero said. “If he had one flaw, it was his habit of asking indelicate questions. Carlitos has apparently inherited that, along with his more desirable character traits.”
“Why don’t you answer the indelicate question?” Castillo asked.
“Why don’t we a
ll go sit in the great room, have a little snack, and a little something to drink, and then we can sort this out?” García-Romero said, and waved them into the house.
An elaborate buffet had been laid out on an enormous low table. Silver coolers held wine, champagne, and beer bottles, and there was an array of whisky bottles at the end of the table.
Max went immediately to examine them, and with great delicacy, helped himself to a wafer topped with salami and cheese. And then helped himself to another.
“I thought Doña Alicia was exaggerating when she told me how big your dog is,” García-Romero said.
“And what did Doña Alicia tell you about me?” Svetlana asked.
“That Carlitos had brought a girl to the Double-Bar-C Ranch she really hoped would be the one with whom he would finally settle down and start a family.”
“That’s the plan,” Svetlana said.
“And that’s about all she told me,” García-Romero said.
“Héctor,” Pevsner said, “Svetlana and I are cousins.”
“And this gentleman?” García-Romero asked, indicating Tom Barlow.
“Dmitri and Svetlana are brother and sister,” Pevsner said.
“And Carlitos fits in how?”
“We think of him as family,” Pevsner said.
“He is family,” Svetlana corrected him.
“And I have always thought of Carlitos and his cousin Fernando as my nephews,” García-Romero said.
“So, in a manner of speaking,” Pevsner said, “we’re all family.”
“Above the sound of the violins softly playing ‘Ave Maria,’” Castillo said, “I keep hearing a soft voice asking, ‘Charley, who the hell do these two think they’re fooling?’”
“Excuse me?” García-Romero asked.
“You heard me, Héctor,” Castillo said. “How come I never saw you surrounded by thugs with Uzis before?”
“They’re necessary security, Carlos,” García-Romero said.
“To protect you from whom?”
“You’re a Mexican, a Mexican-American. You know there’s a criminal element here.”
“I’m a Texican, and you goddamned well know the difference between a Mexican-American and a Texican.”
García-Romero did not answer.
“I saw surveillance cameras in that cave downstairs,” Castillo said. “What I want from you now, Tío Héctor, right now, is to see the tapes of the Tupolev Tu-934A when it was here.”
He could see in García-Romero’s eyes that that had struck a chord.
“The what?” García-Romero asked.
“The Russian airplane,” Castillo qualified. “And please don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve had about all the bullshit I can take.”
García-Romero looked at Castillo and then at Pevsner.
“You know about that? Is that why you’re here?”
“Why don’t you show us the tapes, Héctor?” Pevsner replied.
“I was going to show them to you anyway,” García-Romero said.
“Mommy, I was only trying to see how many cookies were in the jar. That’s the only reason I had my hand in it. I wasn’t going to eat any of them. And that’s the truth.”
“Let’s go, Héctor,” Castillo said. “Where are they?”
“In the security office,” García-Romero said. “It’s on the upper floor.”
He gestured toward the center of the building, and then led everybody out of the great room into the foyer, and then up a wide, tiled stairway to an upper floor.
The security room was at the end of a corridor to the right.
García-Romero didn’t even try to work the handle, instead pulling down the cover of a keypad and then punching in a code. And even then he didn’t try to open the door.
“I wondered what kind of an airplane that was,” he said. “I’d never seen one before.”
There was the sound of a bolt being drawn, and then the door was opened by a man in khakis. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster.
“We want to see the tapes of that strange airplane,” García-Romero said.
“Shall I bring them to the great room, Don Héctor?”
“No,” Castillo said. “We’ll look at them here.”
The man looked at Castillo in surprise, and then at García-Romero for guidance.
García-Romero courteously waved Svetlana ahead of him through the door, and then motioned for the others to follow.
Inside, there was a desk and chairs and a cot, and another door. That was opened only after another punching of a keypad—this one mounted in sight beside the door—and the sliding of another bolt.
Inside the interior room there was a wall holding more than a dozen monitors. A man sat at a table watching them. There was room and chairs for two more people at the table.
Castillo looked at the monitors. He was not surprised to see that it was a first-class installation, which covered just about everything in and around the house, the “airfield,” and the cave. And he was pleased to see a battery of recorders; that meant that whatever had happened when the Tupolev Tu-934A had been at Drug Cartel International had been recorded and would be available.
“We want to see whatever the cameras picked up when that strange airplane was here,” García-Romero said. “So I suspect we had better start with the arrival of the cars from the Russian embassy.”
The man who had opened the door for them went to a rack, quickly found what he was looking for, and inserted it into a slot of the desk.
“It will be on Monitor Fourteen, Don Héctor,” he said.
“What cars from the Russian embassy?” Pevsner demanded a split second before Castillo had finished opening his mouth to ask the same thing.
“There were three,” García-Romero said, “two Ford sport—”
He stopped and pointed to Monitor Fourteen.
The monitor showed two enormous black Ford Expeditions and a Mercedes sedan being waved past khaki-clad guards at a gate across a dirt road.
“Aleksandr, I was told that the aircraft would be on the ground here just long enough for the people from the Russian embassy to take the two crates from it,” García-Romero said.
“Héctor, anything you have to tell anybody about this, you tell me,” Castillo said. “Alek is not the tsar of this operation, I am.”
Pevsner’s face whitened but he didn’t say anything.
“Are you going to tell me what ‘this operation’ is all about, Carlos?” García-Romero asked.
“Probably not. Who told you about the Tupolev coming and the involvement of the Russian embassy?”
García-Romero hesitated before replying, then said, “Valentin Borzakovsky.”
“Who’s he?”
García-Romero hesitated again.
“He’s a businessman who lives in Venezuela.”
“What kind of a businessman? FSB or drug cartel?”
“I don’t think I like the question, or your tone, Carlos,” García-Romero said.
“Probably both, Carlos,” Nicolai Tarasov answered Castillo. “He’s one of the people we often fly out of here. And then back in here.”
“With suitcases full of money?”
Tarasov nodded, smiled, and added, “On the way out. He always comes back empty-handed.”
Monitor Fourteen now showed the cave. The Expeditions and the Mercedes were driving into it.
Then it showed the sky, the camera obviously looking for an aircraft.
Or cameras, plural, Castillo thought as the view which had shown some terrain changed to one showing only the sky.
How do they know to expect it?
He looked around the control room and found a radar screen.
I wouldn’t want to make an instrument landing using that, but that’s not what it’s intended for. That’s just to let the authorities of Drug Cartel International know that an aircraft has entered their area.
There was a blip on the radar screen.
I wonder how far away that a
irplane is. How far and how high.
Monitor Fourteen showed a dot in the sky that quickly grew into an airplane.
Castillo looked at Tarasov to see if he had seen it. Tarasov nodded.
Castillo went back to the screen. The airplane had now grown an enormous vertical stabilizer and engines above the fuselage.
Castillo looked at Tarasov again.
Tarasov nodded and mouthed, “Tu-934A.”
That’s one weird-looking airplane. If I had ever seen one—even a picture of one—I would have remembered.
Monitor Fourteen showed the weird-looking airplane coming in low for a landing.
“I’d never seen an airplane like that before,” García-Romero said.
Well, the Russians certainly didn’t show it off at the Paris Air Show. That’s a Special Operations special.
That it exists can’t be kept a secret but the fewer people who know anything else about it, the better.
The landing roll looked normal, until all of a sudden it decelerated at an amazing rate until it was almost at a complete stop and then turned.
He must have spotted the cave.
Proof of that came when Monitor Fourteen showed the Tu-934A coming into the cave, and the camouflaged tarpaulin being lowered into place once the plane was inside.
The rear door of the Mercedes opened and a man in a business suit walked toward the Tu-934A.
The monitor pulled in on his face.
“Well, hello, Pavel,” Tom Barlow said.
“Who is he?” Castillo asked.
“Pavel Koslov,” Svetlana said. “The Mexico City rezident.”
“And that means this is important, and probably that there’s somebody notorious on the plane,” Barlow said.
Monitor Fourteen showed the ramp at the rear of the Tu-934A’s fuselage lowering. Before it quite touched the ground, two men in rather tight, hooded black coveralls, their faces masked, and carrying Kalashnikov rifles, trotted down it and looked the area over.
One of them made a come on gesture and two more similarly dressed and armed men came down the ramp.
“We call people who dress up like that ‘ninjas,’” Castillo said. “What do you call them, Sweaty?”
“Spetsnaz.”
Another man, in the black coveralls but not wearing a mask, came down the ramp. The camera moved in for a close-up.
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