“And a very good afternoon to you, General,” Barlow said. “I trust the general had a pleasant flight?”
“That’s General Yakov Vladimirovich Sirinov,” Svetlana said. “Which tells us that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is indeed behind all this.”
“Behind all what?” García-Romero asked. “May I ask?”
“Right now, Tío Héctor ...” Castillo began and then stopped when another man, this one in a business suit, came down the ramp, and again the camera moved in for a close-up.
“That’s Valentin Borzakovsky,” García-Romero said.
“Why do I think he didn’t just come from Venezuela?” Castillo asked.
“A fuel stop at friendly José Martí International Airport?” Tarasov said.
“I’d bet Ciego de Ávila,” Castillo said. “They wouldn’t want the Tu-934A to be seen at José Martí.”
“You’re right, that’s more likely,” Tarasov said.
“Where Whatsisname ... Bora-something?”
“Borzakovsky, Valentin Borzakovsky,” Svetlana furnished, a touch of impatience or resignation in her voice.
“... where he boarded FSB Airlines Flight 007, one-stop—here at Drug Cartel International—service to Maiquetía International Airport in the People’s Democratic Republic of Venezuela.”
Tarasov and Barlow chuckled.
Barlow then said: “I don’t think Hugo Chávez would want the Tu-934A ... I rephrase: I don’t think General Sirinov would want—as much as Hugo would want it to put it on display—the Tu-934A to be seen at Maiquetía. Maybe the Santo Domingo Air Base?”
“More likely La Orchila,” Svetlana said. “That’s on an island. And it’s a pretty decent air base. The runways will take a 747, and Chávez has moved all the civilians off the island.”
“Which would add to the security,” Barlow agreed.
“If you Russians have no ambitions in the Caribbean, how come you know so much about all the military airfields?”
“Charley, my darling, Alek is right,” Svetlana said. “You really have a sophomoric sense of humor.”
“My precious, I’ll bet you don’t even know what a sophomore is.”
“The term probably has its roots, my precious darling, in one of the late sophist Dialogues of Plato, but what it means is ‘tricky and superficially plausible, ’ so therefore a sophomore is someone who is tricky and superficial, with emphasis on superficial. Does the shoe fit?”
“Not at all, my precious beloved darling. A sophomore is a second-year student at a college or university. You really should try to be sure of your facts before you open your adorable mouth to challenge your intellectual betters.”
Svetlana made a gesture to Charley involving the use of the index fingers on both hands held in upward position.
Tom Barlow laughed out loud.
“You will pay for that, Charley,” he said.
“Look what’s coming down the ramp,” Tarasov said.
Monitor Fourteen showed a tracked front-loader rolling off the Tu-934A’s ramp. Two blue plastic vessels, looking not unlike beer kegs, were suspended from its arms.
It moved to the rear of one of the Expeditions and, under the watchful eyes of General Sirinov and one of the ninjas, was carefully loaded into it.
Then it moved to the second Expedition, where the process was repeated.
General Sirinov held a brief conversation with the man who had helped him supervise the loading of the barrels; Pavel Koslov, the Mexico City rezident; and Valentin Borzakovsky, the Venezuelan “businessman.”
Then they all shook hands, except for the ninja, who first saluted and then shook hands. Koslov got back in his Mercedes and immediately drove off. Borzakovsky and the ninja and two others got in one of the Expeditions, and four of the ninjas in the other.
The Expeditions drove off.
Monitor Fourteen showed first the Mercedes, and then, a minute later, the Expeditions moving up a road in the hill surrounding the dry lake.
“They’re wearing their ninja suits?” Castillo thought out loud.
“There’s probably clothing for them to wear over their tactical suits in the trucks,” Barlow said.
The monitor now switched back and forth between the moving vehicles, and what was happening in the cave. General Sirinov himself drove the front-loader back aboard the Tu-934A. The ramp was raised. The monitor followed Sirinov and two men Castillo guessed were the pilots to the stainless-steel elevator and showed them getting in.
“Nothing much happened after this,” García-Romero said. “Those three men—you said you knew one of them?”
“How far is that—are we—from the Mex-U.S. border?” Castillo asked, ignoring the question.
“At the closest point, seventy-five, eighty miles,” García-Romero said.
“And McAllen-Matamoros, that area? What’s that, five hundred miles?”
“Probably,” García-Romero said.
“The ninjas came back, right? And the Venezuelan ‘businessman’?”
García-Romero nodded. “They returned about four hours after what you just saw.”
“So that means they got the barrels across the border near here,” Castillo said. “How would they do that, Tío Héctor?”
García-Romero hesitated for a moment, but finally said, “There are people who make a profession of getting people across the border. ...”
“People and drugs, right?”
“Yes, Carlos, sometimes drugs. They call them ‘coyotes.’”
“What?” Svetlana asked.
“A coyote is something like a cross between a wolf and a German Shepherd, sweetheart,” Castillo said. “With all of the bad, and none of the good, characteristics of both. They attack calves, lambs, dogs, cats, rabbits, and sometimes children. Their numbers are increasing, and there doesn’t seem to be much that can be done to control them. In other words, they’re sort of a canine drug cartel.”
“You really don’t like people involved with drugs, do you, baby?” she asked softly.
“Moving right along, Héctor,” Castillo said, “would it be reasonable to assume that somewhere near the border, some of these coyotes had been pre-positioned, either by the Venezuelan businessman or the guy from the Russian embassy, to move those two barrels into the United States?”
“If they wanted to move those barrels into the United States, that would be the way to do it. Do we know that they wanted to do that? What’s in those barrels, anyway?”
“We know they moved those barrels into the States. What we’re trying to figure out is how and where. And you don’t want to know what’s in those barrels, Tío Héctor. Believe me.”
“They somehow got one of the barrels to Miami, sweetheart?” Svetlana suggested. “And shipped it from Miami to Colonel Hamilton? And later left the other where your border guards would find it?”
“Yeah. Probably to make us think the first barrel was smuggled into Miami from Cuba.”
García-Romero began: “I had no idea anything like this—”
“Let me see if I have this right,” Castillo interrupted him. “Borzakovsky came to you ... Wait. Let me back up. You’re in charge of Drug Cartel International, right, Tío Héctor?”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing from you what you’re suggesting, Carlos,” García-Romero said. “I am not in the drug business; this airfield is not a transshipment point for drugs.”
“When you accuse Héctor of that, friend Charley,” Pevsner said in Russian, “you’re accusing me. And that’s something I cannot accept, even from you.”
“Okay, then, tell me what goes on here,” Castillo said.
“Nicolai has already told you,” Pevsner said. “There are people who need large amounts of currency shipped from place to place.”
“And I’m supposed to believe those large amounts of money are not connected with the drug business? Come on, Alek!”
“You are really trying my patience, friend Charley, but since you are being so intentionally dense, let me sp
ell it out for you—”
“I don’t speak Russian,” García-Romero interrupted.
Pevsner ignored him, and continued in Russian: “What I do, as you well know, is move things around.”
“Like drugs?” Castillo asked sarcastically.
“Not knowingly,” Pevsner said. “Not that I think drugs are any more reprehensible a cargo than, say, the shipments of arms I have moved on many occasions and for years for your Central Intelligence Agency, but rather because when, inevitably, one of my shipments of arms, for example, is intercepted by the authorities, all that happens is that I lose the shipment and pay a fine. If the authorities intercept a cargo of drugs, my airplanes are confiscated and the authorities try very hard to make sure everyone goes to jail.
“That said, and again as you very well know, in recent years I have severed my connection with the CIA and, for that matter, with the SVR, when that involves the shipment of arms.
“Just about everything that Nicolai and I now transport around the world is perfectly legal. Moving currency, and the bearers of that currency, from one place to another may not be perfectly legal, but if there is a violation, it is of customs and immigration laws. People caught by the authorities attempting to illegally enter a country are simply returned to where they came from. If customs officers discover they have in their luggage undeclared large amounts of currency, the usual punishment is the seizure of half of it.
“In that connection, an amateur attempt by Hugo Chávez several months ago to send about a million dollars to the president of Argentina—”
“‘An amateur attempt’?” Castillo interrupted sarcastically.
“—without it coming to the attention of the authorities failed because the courier used a chartered private jet—a Gulfstream like yours, if memory serves. People using chartered jets attract the attention of the authorities. The Argentine customs people carefully searched the courier’s bags as he passed through customs, found the money, refused his offer of a little gift, and confiscated half of the money. The courier had dinner that night with the president. You getting the picture?”
“I really would like to know what you two are saying,” García-Romero said.
“If moving money around is so easy, why do they need you to do it?” Castillo asked.
“Discretion, Carlos,” Nicolai Tarasov said. “The people we move money for are as much—perhaps more—concerned that no one finds out they are moving money as they are for the money itself. They don’t want to be embarrassed as the president of Argentina and Hugo Chávez were when their courier was caught.
“If one of their couriers is caught aboard one of our aircraft—which very rarely happens—we say we didn’t know he had the money with him, and the courier tells them he was carrying the money for someone not remotely connected with the people he’s actually carrying it for. Half of the money—presuming the customs officials cannot be bribed, and they usually can—is confiscated. The owners of the currency write the loss off as the cost of doing business, and that’s the end of it.”
“You’re telling me the only thing Drug Cartel International is used for is moving money?” Castillo said.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,” Pevsner said. “And that’s why I was so surprised when Nicolai said he thought it likely the Tu-934A had come here. I had trouble believing your Uncle Héctor could be that stupid.”
Pevsner turned to García-Romero, who of course had recognized his name being said, and switched to Spanish.
“I just told Carlos that I had trouble believing you could be so stupid,” he said. “Now, let’s turn to that. Start at the beginning, Héctor, and tell us how this fiasco came to happen.”
García-Romero looked very uncomfortable.
“Let’s hear it, Héctor,” Pevsner said coldly.
“Valentin Borzakovsky came to me and said the Russian embassy had a problem,” García-Romero began. “He said they had reason to believe the CIA had infiltrated Aeromexpress Cargo ...”
“What won’t those evil Yankees be up to next?” Pevsner asked.
“... which the Russians use as their air-freight forwarder. Borzakovsky said the Russian embassy really needed to get something from Moscow the Americans couldn’t know about,” García-Romero finished.
“Do you think those blue beer kegs they unloaded from the Tu-934A might have contained nuclear weapons?” Castillo said jokingly.
But what the hell am I joking about?
They contained Congo-X, which is just about as bad.
“I’m not as naïve as you seem to think, Carlos,” García-Romero said. “There were radiation detectors waiting for that shipment.”
And if the needles on your radiometers had gone off the scale, and you had said anything, you and everybody who works for you in the cave would be dead and the nukes would be in Mexico.
“Go on, Héctor,” Pevsner said.
“He said there would be very little risk. Pavel Koslov of the Russian embassy—who of course has diplomatic immunity—would come here to meet the airplane, immediately load this cargo into Russian embassy trucks, and be gone within minutes.”
“How much else do you think your friend Valentin Borzakovsky, this Venezuelan businessman good friend of yours, told Koslov about what goes on here?” Pevsner asked angrily.
García-Romero didn’t respond, and instead said, “He offered me one hundred thousand euros for the service.”
“You risked everything we have here for a hundred thousand euros?” Pevsner asked incredulously.
“Do you know how much it costs to maintain this facility, Aleksandr?”
“To the penny!” Pevsner snapped. “And the last time I looked, the income made the cost look like a minor operating expense. And you risked losing all that income for a hundred thousand euros? My God, you are a fool!”
“I also thought it might be useful to have the Russian embassy owe us a favor,” García-Romero said.
“Did it occur to you, Tío Héctor,” Castillo asked, “that once you did this hundred-thousand-euro ‘favor’ for the Russians that you had jumped into their pocket, and they would be back asking for other ‘favors’ and this time there would be no euros, just the threat to expose you for what you did?”
“Or that once this happened, we couldn’t take the risk of ever using this place again?” Nicolai Tarasov put in before García-Romero could open his mouth.
“Is that all the bad news, Héctor?” Pevsner asked. “Or is there more?”
García-Romero hesitated a long moment before replying.
“There is more,” he said. “I don’t know whether you think it will be bad news or not.”
“Let’s have it.”
“My men have heard gossip that the coyotes—there were seven or eight of them—were found shot to death near the American border.”
“Dead men tell no tales,” Castillo said. “You might want to write that down, Alek.”
Pevsner’s response was not what Castillo—or, for that matter, any of the others—expected.
“Have you any further questions for your Uncle Héctor, friend Charley?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“I’ve got a couple, including one I expected you to ask,” Castillo said.
“Which is?”
“How much does your friend Borzakovsky know about Nicolai and Alek’s operations here?”
“Nothing,” García-Romero said immediately. “I swear your name didn’t come up, Aleksandr.”
I don’t believe you, Uncle Héctor, and I don’t think Pevsner will either.
Did you commit suicide when you made this deal with the Russians?
“Anything else you want to know, Charley?” Pevsner asked.
“How long is it going to take you to put all those surveillance tapes in a box for me?”
“You’re going to do what with them?” Pevsner asked.
“Slide them—or copies of them—under the door of that big building in Langley, Virginia.”
Pe
vsner considered that for a long moment, but made no comment.
“And after you’ve done that, Héctor,” Pevsner said, “what you’re going to do is shut this place down. I want all the surveillance tapes that Charley doesn’t take destroyed. I want the system removed. I want everybody who has worked here to find employment as far from here as possible. If this place should suddenly attract the attention of the Mexican government, I want them to find nothing that will tie me—or, for that matter, you—to it in any way.”
“You think that maybe we should burn the house down?” García-Romero said sarcastically.
Pevsner considered that a moment, and then said, “You use bottled gas here, right? Bottled gas explodes. Can you handle that, or should I have János show you how that’s done?”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. You have a problem with that?”
Careful, Tío Héctor.
The wrong answer will get you in more trouble than you can imagine.
“How much time do I have?” García-Romero asked. “I have several men I trust completely. I could leave them here to arrange the ... accident.”
“While you go where?”
“I was about to say Mexico City, but I think San Antonio would be even better. Better yet, New York.”
Pevsner considered that.
“New York would be better,” he said. “Twenty-four hours from now, Nicolai will fly over this place. When he looks down, he will expect to see the burned—possibly still burning—ruins of this building.”
“That’s what he will see,” García-Romero said.
Congratulations, Uncle Héctor. You have just said the magic words.
And your bullet-ridden corpse will not be found in the burned ruins of your house in the desert.
[TWO]
Penthouse B
The Grand Cozumel Beach & Golf Resort
Cozumel
Quintana Roo, Mexico
1915 7 February 2007
The fishermen had apparently come home from the sea shortly before the hunters had come home from the hills around Drug Cartel International.
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.
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