"It will be on Monitor Fourteen, Don Hector," 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," Garcia-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," Garcia-Romero said.
"Hector, 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?" Garcia-Romero asked.
"Probably not. Who told you about the Tupolev coming and the involvement of the Russian embassy?"
Garcia-Romero hesitated before replying, then said, "Valentin Borzakovsky."
"Who's he?"
Garcia-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," Garcia-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 airplane 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," Garcia-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.
"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?" Garcia-Romero asked. "May I ask?"
"Right now, Tio Hector…" 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," Garcia-Romero said.
"Why do I think he didn't just come from Venezuela?" Castillo asked.
"A fuel stop at friendly Jose Marti International Airport?" Tarasov said.
"I'd bet Ciego de Avila," Castillo said. "They wouldn't want the Tu-934A to be seen at Jose Marti."
"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 Maiquetia International Airport in the People's Democratic Republic of Venezuela."
Tarasov and Barlow chuckled.
Barlow then said: "I don't think Hugo Chavez 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 Maiquetia. 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 Chavez 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 barre
ls; 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," Garcia-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," Garcia-Romero said.
"And McAllen-Matamoros, that area? What's that, five hundred miles?"
"Probably," Garcia-Romero said.
"The ninjas came back, right? And the Venezuelan 'businessman'?"
Garcia-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, Tio Hector?"
Garcia-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, Hector," 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, Tio Hector. 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."
Garcia-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, Tio Hector?"
"I can't believe I'm hearing from you what you're suggesting, Carlos," Garcia-Romero said. "I am not in the drug business; this airfield is not a transshipment point for drugs."
"When you accuse Hector 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 spell it out for you-"
"I don't speak Russian," Garcia-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 Chavez 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," Garcia-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 Chavez 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 Hector could be that stupid."
Pevsner turned to Garcia-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, Hector, and tell us how this fiasco came to happen."
Garcia-Romero looked very uncomfortable.
"Let's hear it, Hect
or," Pevsner said coldly.
"Valentin Borzakovsky came to me and said the Russian embassy had a problem," Garcia-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," Garcia-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 naive as you seem to think, Carlos," Garcia-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, Hector," 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.
Garcia-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," Garcia-Romero said.
"Did it occur to you, Tio Hector," 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?"
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