Covert Warriors

by W. E. B Griffin

“What?”

  “You suggested the President was insane.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, that was a figure of speech, and you know it.”

  Naylor didn’t reply.

  “I have, Allan, on many occasions, going all the way back to our unhappy days at Hudson High, called you chickenshit. You knew I didn’t think you were really fecal matter excreted from the anus of a Gallus domesticus. When I accused our lunatic President of being crazy, I was—”

  “What if he is, Bruce?” Naylor asked softly.

  McNab took a long time to reply.

  “Well, that would certainly explain a hell of a lot, wouldn’t it?”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Colonel Caruthers said softly. “If you think about it . . .”

  “Not only this coup d’état nonsense,” McNab said. “But . . .”

  “I think we had all better stop right here,” Naylor said.

  “That won’t work, I’m afraid, Allan,” McNab said. “You’ve let a very ugly genie out of your bottle. He’s not going to go back in.”

  There was another long pause, and then McNab said, “Allan, I don’t think I’d mention this part of our conversation to Secretary Beiderman.”

  “What I think we should all do is wipe the last ninety seconds of this conversation from our minds,” Naylor said.

  “That won’t work, either, I’m afraid,” McNab said. “For two reasons. First, I don’t think any of us could. Second, we’ve all taken an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And I think a President who has done what this one has done—is doing—can be fairly characterized as a threat to the Constitution.”

  Another long pause ensued before Naylor asked, “For the time being, can we agree this conversation goes no further than it has?”

  “Yes, sir,” McNab said.

  “Yes, sir,” Caruthers said.

  “Thank you,” Naylor said.

  The red LED stopped blinking.

  VI

  [ONE]

  Hacienda Santa Maria

  Oaxaca Province, Mexico

  1515 16 April 2007

  As soon as Castillo took off his headset, Lester Bradley, who was sitting with Max in the backseat of the Cessna Mustang, handed him the headset from Castillo’s Brick. Castillo put it to his ear.

  “Yeah, Frank?”

  “Something wrong with the net? The new net?” Lammelle asked. “It took me almost four minutes to get you to answer.”

  “I try not to talk on a cell phone when I’m flying fifteen feet above the ocean,” Castillo said. “It tends to distract me.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “I just landed at the family ranch in Mexico; about fifty miles from Acapulco. What’s up?”

  “You free to talk?”

  “Nobody here but Sweaty and Lester, and they both know all—well, almost all—of my secrets.”

  “I have to know. Why were you flying fifteen feet above the ocean?”

  “Because that way, the radar at Xoxocotlán and Bahías de Huatulco international airports can’t see me landing at the family ranch. Next question?”

  “Makes sense,” Lammelle said.

  “My answers generally do. Now, is there something else you’d like to chat about before I get out of my airplane?”

  “Mark Schmidt came to see me just now. He needed my help, he said, to identify some of the people in the pictures his intrepid agents took on the tenth floor of the Mayflower yesterday afternoon and early this morning.”

  “The FBI took pictures of people at the wake? What the hell’s that all about?”

  “The President ordered it. Schmidt is to identify everyone who was in the hotel—emphasis on the guys from Bragg—down to name, rank, serial number, and organization, and deliver same—with their pictures—to the President. Personally. And to tell no one.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I heard, being at a private party is not against the law.”

  “I don’t know what Clendennen is up to, Charley. The point here, I think, the reason Schmidt came to me, was not to get me to identify anybody, but to let me know what the President had ordered him to do. Follow?”

  Castillo thought a moment, and then said, “I have never been able to really figure Schmidt out.”

  “He wanted me to know about this nutty order, but he didn’t want to tell me. Anyway, I identified you and Torine and Miller and other people I would be expected to know, but I couldn’t seem to recognize any of the Gray Fox or Delta guys.”

  “It just occurred to me that Clendennen will now have an unclassified box of pictures of about a third of the guys in the Stockade. I don’t like that.”

  “If you can figure it out, let me know. But, speaking of pictures—this is the real reason I called—there is a new senior cultural affairs officer at the embassy of the Russian Federation in Bogotá. His name is Valentin Komarovski.”

  “Oh?”

  “The reason they’re calling him the senior cultural affairs guy is that he will supervise their cultural affairs guys in Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala.”

  “So who is he really, Frank?”

  “Sergei Murov. I believe you know him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Señor Komarovski traveled to his new duty station via Havana, on Iberia, where his picture was taken by a disaffected Castroite and passed on to our guy in the Uruguayan embassy. Our guy wondered why a senior Russian dip didn’t travel Aeroflot to Miami, and make his connection there—catch the Colombian airline, Aero República—instead of waiting ten hours to catch the next Cubana flight to Bogotá. Maybe he didn’t want to pass through Miami and be recognized?”

  Castillo grunted.

  Lammelle went on: “So by the time Señor Komarovski arrived in Bogotá, our guy at the airport there had plenty of time to make sure the lighting was in place to take pictures of him arriving. The images were here minutes later, and one of the guys in the lab recognized him from Murov’s days as the rezident here. He brought the pics to me—‘Is that who I think it is?’

  “Just to be sure, I ran them through the comparison lab. It’s Murov, all right, or the Russians are now cloning people. So you have your heads-up, Charley. I don’t think he likes you, and I know he doesn’t like your girlfriend.”

  “I’m more worried, Frank, about the pictures of the guys from the Stockade getting out; I’d really hate to think I was responsible for that happening.”

  “You can’t do anything about that, Charley. You can’t stop the President from doing anything he wants to with those pictures.”

  “What the hell does he want them for? He’s too smart a politician to try to punish a bunch of soldiers for holding a wake for one of their own. He doesn’t want Roscoe going on Wolf News with a story like that.”

  “I don’t think anyone knows what Clendennen will do next, or why,” Lammelle said. “But in this case, I think maybe he’ll show them to the secretary of Defense. Get Beiderman to lean on Naylor to get rid of McNab, who commands the people who (a) went to Arlington when he had made it clear he didn’t want that, and (b) insulted POTUS by walking out on his speech.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “A good deal POTUS does doesn’t make sense, if you think about it, Charley.”

  Castillo didn’t reply.

  “Well, as I said, you’ve got your heads-up about Murov. Stay in touch.”

  “Whoa,” Castillo said. “Natalie Cohen told me she told you that you could have that Policía Federal Black Hawk that miraculously appeared on the dock at Norfolk.”

  “Why do I think I’m not going to like what comes next?”

  “Could you move it to a secure location—not too secure—in Texas? Near San Antone, maybe?”

  “What are you planning, Charley?”

  “At the moment, not a thing. But life is full of surprises, isn’t it? You never know what’s going to happen, do you?”

 
“Good-bye, Colonel Castillo, Retired. Nice talking to you.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Thank you, Frank.”

  “I’m beginning to understand why Clendennen wanted to load you on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow.”

  The LED stopped flashing.

  [TWO]

  Hacienda Santa Maria

  Oaxaca Province, Mexico

  1725 16 April 2007

  The sprawling, red-tile-roofed house with a wide, shaded veranda all around it sat on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A circular drive led to it from the acres of grapefruit trees running as far as the eye could see to the east.

  The house was known as “Don Fernando’s House,” but the reference was to Don Fernando Lopez the Elder, rather than to the Don Fernando Lopez who now sat on the veranda facing away from the Pacific, holding a bottle of Dos Equis beer in his massive fist.

  Beside him, on cushioned wicker couches and chairs, were his cousin, Carlos Castillo; Don Armando Medina, a swarthy, heavyset sixty-odd-year-old who was el jefe—“the boss” and general manager—of Hacienda Santa Maria; Sweaty; Stefan Koussevitzky; and Lester Bradley. They were all—except for Lester, who had a Coke—drinking wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon, from Bodegas San Felipe, which happened to be a subsidiary of Hacienda Santa Maria. Max lay beside Sweaty, gnawing on a grapefruit he held between his paws.

  Fernando Lopez and Carlos Castillo were grandsons of Don Fernando Castillo, who had married Alicia Lopez. Hacienda Santa Maria had been her dowry. Don Fernando and Doña Alicia had had two children, Maria Elena, who had married Manuel Lopez—no relation—and Jorge Alejandro, who had been killed in the Vietnam War as a very young—nineteen years old—man.

  Manuel and Maria Elena Lopez had three children: Fernando, Graciella, and Juanita.

  Don Fernando Castillo had strained relations with the Lopez family, into which his daughter had married, but had been exceedingly fond of his grandson Fernando. He and Doña Alicia had agreed that on their deaths, Hacienda Santa Maria would go to Fernando, and everything else would be given to charity and the Alamo Foundation.

  “I don’t want to spend all of eternity spinning in my grave thinking of the Lopez wetbacks squandering all our money,” he declared.

  All of that had changed a quarter century before, when an Army officer, then-Major Allan B. Naylor, appeared in Doña Alicia’s office in the Alamo Foundation building with the photograph of a twelve-year-old blond, blue-eyed boy, and said there was good reason to believe he was the out-of-wedlock son of the late Warrant Officer Junior Grade Jorge Alejandro Castillo.

  Don Fernando Castillo’s first reaction to this was that some Kraut Fraulein—Don Fernando had been Major F. J. Castillo of Combat Command A, 3rd Armored Division during World War II and had had some experience with Kraut Frauleins in the immediate postwar period—had learned who the Castillo family was, and intended, like the Lopez wetbacks, to get her hands into the Castillo cash box by passing off somebody else’s bastard son as the fruit of their Jorge’s loins.

  Doña Alicia had had no such doubts. One look at the boy’s eyes had been enough to convince her that she was looking at a picture of her grandson. On hearing from Major Naylor that the boy’s mother was in the final stages of pancreatic cancer, she picked up the telephone and called Lemes Aviation, ordering them to ready the company Learjet so that she and Major Naylor could make the Pan American flight from New York to Frankfurt late that same afternoon.

  Not two weeks later, equipped with a U.S. passport in the name of Carlos Guillermo Castillo, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger arrived in San Antonio. A week after that, his mother died, and he became the sole heir to the vast business empire known as Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

  The new situation required modification of the last will and testaments of Don Fernando and Doña Alicia. Legal counsel informed them that there would be problems if Carlos were to inherit half of Hacienda Santa Maria. Mexican law did not permit foreigners to own property in the United States of Mexico.

  Don Fernando was aware of this. When Maria Elena’s time had come, she had flown to Mexico City, where Fernando had been born. He himself had been born on Hacienda San Dominic, the Castillo farm near Guadalajara, and Doña Alicia on Hacienda Santa Maria.

  “Not a problem,” Don Fernando announced. “They’re like brothers; they’ll work it out between them.”

  Carlos and Fernando had almost immediately—frankly surprising both their grandparents—become close and inseparable. Fernando called Carlos “Gringo,” and Carlos called Fernando “Fatso.”

  Fernando and Charley were sitting with Svetlana, Stefan Koussevitzky, Lester Bradley, and Don Armando Medina on the veranda as two brown Suburbans with Policía Federal insignia on their doors kicked up a dust cloud coming up the road through the grapefruit groves to the house.

  The front doors of both vehicles opened simultaneously. A trim, neatly uniformed Federale, holding a CAR-15 in his hands as if he knew what to do with it, got out of the lead vehicle.

  Well, Castillo thought, despite what Don Armando said about us being old friends, I wouldn’t have recognized Juan Carlos if I’d fallen over him.

  A stout, balding man in civilian clothing, a thick black cigar clutched firmly in his teeth, got out of the second Suburban. A Colt Model 1911A1 in a skeleton holster was on his belt.

  Who the hell is he?

  I’ll be damned! That’s Juan Carlos!

  Last time I saw him he looked like a model in an advertisement for men’s cologne. Now he looks like . . . well, a fat Mexican cop.

  Juan Carlos Pena, el jefe of the Policía Federal for the province of Oaxaca, waved cheerfully, and with the cigar still in his mouth, called, in perfect American English, “Carlos, you sonofabitch, how the fuck are you?”

  Then he walked quickly onto the veranda, and the moment Castillo stood up, wrapped him in an affectionate hug.

  Castillo saw that Fernando was smiling, and knew it was not at the display of affection but rather at Castillo’s discomfiture.

  “Good to see you, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said.

  Where the hell did he get that cologne?

  And what did he do, pour it on?

  “How the hell long has it been?” Juan Carlos said. “Too fucking long, that’s for goddamn sure.”

  “How about a glass of wine, Juan Carlos?” Castillo asked in Spanish. “Or something stronger?”

  “A little Jack Daniel’s would go down nicely,” Juan Carlos said, continuing in English. “But not until after I meet the girlfriend. You’re right, Fernando, she’s spectacular!”

  “Swe . . . Susanna, say hello to an old friend, Juan Carlos Pena.”

  “Hola,” Sweaty said. “Nice to meet you, Susanna Barlow.”

  “And this is Stefan Koussevitzky,” Castillo said. “And this is Lester Bradley. My grandmother sent him down to see if he can straighten out the hacienda’s computers.”

  Max instinctively stood up.

  Sweaty laid a gentle hand on the dog’s back, and in Hungarian said, “It’s okay, baby.”

  “What the fuck is that?” Juan Carlos said. “I’ve ridden smaller horses.”

  “Meet Max,” Castillo said.

  Juan Carlos looked at Svetlana. “What was that language you was speaking?”

  “Hungarian. I’m Uruguayan but my parents immigrated there from Hungary.”

  Juan Carlos nodded. “I noticed the funny accent.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t know there’s three kinds of Spanish, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said. “Castilian—Spanish-Spanish; Southern Cone—the Spanish spoken in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile; and the Spanish spoken in Mexico, Central America, and the rest of South America. Susanna speaks the Southern Cone variety.”

  “I heard that,” Juan Carlos said. “Uruguay, huh? Is that where you two met?”

  “Yeah,” Castillo said.

  A maid appeared, and Fernando told her to bring whiskey.

  “So,” Juan Carlos asked, “what bri
ngs you to Hacienda Santa Maria, Señorita Barlow?” Before she could reply, Juan Carlos added: “Barlow doesn’t sound very Hungarian, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “It used to be Böröcz,” Sweaty said. “Which no one could pronounce, much less spell, in Spanish. So we changed it.”

  “You were telling me what you’re doing here,” Juan Carlos said.

  “Stefan and I are looking at those,” Sweaty said, pointing to the grapefruit grove. “When Carlos told us his family was in the citrus business—I have some pastureland I’m thinking of converting—and then that he was coming here, I imposed on his hospitality. Really imposed on it. I brought a half a dozen citrus experts with me. Stefan’s the expert’s expert.”

  “I didn’t know they grow grapefruit in Uruguay,” Juan Carlos said.

  “They don’t grow much, but some. Maybe I can change that.”

  “And your expert’s expert is another Hungarian? Koussevitzky doesn’t sound like he’s a native of Uruguay.”

  “Actually, I’m Israeli,” Koussevitzky said. “Or was. Now I’m an Uruguayan citizen.”

  “They grow grapefruit in Israel?”

  “All the citrus fruits, our—their—biggest market is Italy and France,” Koussevitzky said.

  “I’ll be damned. I never heard that,” Juan Carlos said, and then asked, “What were you doing in Uruguay, Carlos?”

  “I was an assistant military attaché of the American embassy.”

  “‘Assistant military attaché,’ huh?” Juan Carlos parroted. “Sounds pretty snazzy.”

  “It’s what the Army does with officers who are not going to get promoted, and don’t have enough time in to retire,” Castillo said. “They send them to an embassy until they have enough time. The only good thing about it was that I met Susanna in Montevideo.”

  “So you’re retired now?” Juan Carlos said.

  The maid came to them with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and accoutrements on a tray. When she poured the Tennessee whiskey into a glass, Juan Carlos gestured for her to add more.