Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Jesus Christ!” Castillo said.

  “And, to make sure everybody believed that I had really left the Oprichina, it was arranged for Anna and the children to escape.”

  “What did you do with the gold and platinum?”

  “After taking my agreed-upon fee of five percent—”

  “You took five percent of a billion dollars’ worth of gold?”

  “I took five percent of a lot more than a billion dollars’ worth of gold, Charley. And about twice that much of platinum.”

  He saw the look on Castillo’s face.

  “Is true,” he said, chuckling. “And when that was over, I began to spend a very great deal of money ensuring that no one I formerly knew would ever see me or hear of me ever again. So you’ll understand my annoyance, Friend Charley, when I heard that a young American colonel—no, a young American major—was looking for me because he thought I’d stolen a worn-out, old 727 from an airfield in Angola. At the time, I was buying four new 777s—through other people, of course—more or less direct from Boeing.”

  He smiled and reached out and touched Castillo’s arm.

  “Who would have thought the night we met in Vienna that one night we would be sitting together halfway across the world, as Anna put it, as family?”

  “Jesus Christ, Alek!” Castillo said.

  “If I tell you what I know about—and what I can learn about—the chemical factory outside Kisangani, you will not tell anyone where you got the information?”

  “You have my word.”

  “And maybe you will be able to convince your superiors to do something about it?”

  “It’ll go, if I have to take it out myself.”

  Pevsner nodded his approval.

  “You heard about the factory from your journalist? Is that what started you on this? ‘If it’s rotten, Aleksandr Pevsner will certainly know something about it’?”

  “Actually, Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky told me about it.”

  Pevsner clearly bristled at that. “All you had to say was ‘None of your business.’ I don’t find that funny. In the old days, I knew Berezovsky. Despite what he tried to do to you, he’s a good man.”

  “Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky told me about the factory,” Castillo said. “I don’t lie to friends. If you don’t believe me, you can ask your cousin Svetlana.”

  “I told you, I don’t think this is funny. Sometimes, when you think you’re being funny, I could kill you.”

  “Did your cousin Svetlana have red hair the last time you saw her?”

  It took a moment for Pevsner to take his meaning.

  “Svetlana is here with you?” he asked finally.

  “I thought, if it’s all right with Anna, you might want to ask her to have dinner with us. I am invited, right?”

  “And Alfredo is with her?” Pevsner asked.

  “And my bodyguard,” Castillo said. “You remember him?”

  “The boy with the gun,” Pevsner said.

  Castillo nodded. “Who killed your pal Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Komogorov in the garage of the Sheraton Pilar when Komogorov was trying to kill you.”

  “And they nearly killed János,” Pevsner said. “Yes, Charley. I remember.”

  Castillo took out his cell phone. “Should I call Munz and tell him to put her on his boat?”

  “Where is his boat?”

  “Bobbing around in the lake, just outside the reach of your floodlights.”

  “I always keep a boat at the hotel,” Pevsner said. “Get him on the line for me, please, Charley.”

  Thirty-five minutes later, Pevsner and his wife were standing together under the enormous chandelier in the foyer. Castillo had taken a seat at the side of the room.

  János came into the house first, then Munz, then Svetlana, and finally Lester Bradley. Two men followed them, carrying everybody’s luggage, including, Castillo saw, the AFC radio.

  Svetlana, somewhat confused, looked quickly around the foyer, settled her eyes on Castillo, and asked, somewhat plaintively, “Charley?”

  And then Anna sobbed, and Svetlana looked at her and for the first time recognized her. Anna held her arms open and Svetlana ran to her.

  Without realizing he had gotten out of the chair, Castillo was now standing.

  Anna let go of Svetlana, who moved to Pevsner’s open arms. Castillo saw tears running down his cheeks.

  Pevsner finally let Svetlana go, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped his eyes.

  Svetlana looked at Castillo for a moment, then ran to him.

  Castillo decided it would be ungentlemanly of him to refuse her gratitude, even if he was aware that her previous manifestations of affection for him had been solely professionally motivated.

  She threw herself into his arms and pressed herself against him.

  “Oh, Charley, my Charley, thank you, thank you. I love you so much!”

  And then her mouth was on his.

  Some time later, Castillo heard Anna say, “If you two are about finished, the children are waiting to see Svetlana.”

  IX

  [ONE]

  La Casa en Bosque

  San Carlos de Bariloche

  Río Negro Province, Argentina

  0845 31 December 2005

  “I love you, my Charley,” Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva announced, and kissed him very quickly, if incredibly intimately, and then went on: “And I love this room! I’m going to have one just like it!”

  She jumped out of the bed and trotted naked to the window on her toes. She pulled the translucent curtain aside and further clarified her desire. “With a view of a lake, like this, and the mountains!”

  They were in “The Blue Room,” so identified by a little sign on the bedside telephone, the walls of which were covered with pale blue silk brocade—Castillo thought it was the same shade of blue as that on the Argentine flag and had, when he had been shown—alone—to the room, wondered if that was intentional or coincidental.

  He had had perhaps three minutes to consider this and a number of other things when the door to the adjacent room had opened and Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva, attired as she was now—and carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses—had joined him.

  It was some time later that he noticed through the open door that the walls of the adjacent room were covered with dark green silk brocade and wondered if it was called “The Green Room.”

  By then, he had come to several philosophical conclusions:

  Live today, for tomorrow you may die was one of them.

  Anything this good can’t be bad was another.

  So I’m out of mind, so what? was yet another.

  Svetlana let the curtain fall back into place and looked at Castillo.

  “I see your face,” she said. “Anything worth having is expensive.”

  Then she trotted back to the bed and dove into it.

  “You don’t like this room?” she asked.

  “I like it fine.”

  “Then I will buy one just like it for you,” she said, and then corrected herself. “For us, my Charley!”

  He put his arms around her shoulders and she crawled up on his chest and bit his nipple.

  He had time for just one more philosophical conclusion, There’s no such thing as too much of a good thing, when there was a knock at the corridor door.

  “Oh, no!” Svetlana said, raising her head to look at it.

  “May I come in?” Anna Pevsner called.

  “One moment,” Svetlana called, rolled onto her back, pulled the sheet—which was also, Castillo noticed for the first time, Argentina blue—modestly over them, and then called, “Okay. Come!”

  Anna came into the room and stood at the foot of the bed with her hands folded in front of her.

  “This is difficult for me,” she said. “But the children . . .”

  “What, Anna?” Svetlana said.

  “I believe, as I know you do, what Holy John Chrysostom said about ‘the sacrament of the brother.’”


  “Good,” Svetlana said. “Then don’t do it.”

  What the hell is this?

  Who the hell is Holy John whatever she said?

  “Would you like me to . . . uh?” Castillo asked, pointing to the bathroom door.

  “This concerns you, too, Charley,” Anna said.

  Svetlana nodded to confirm this.

  “Then somebody please tell me about Holy John,” Castillo said.

  “You are a Christian, Charley?” Anna asked.

  “I don’t think I’m in particularly good standing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said.

  “I will fix that,” Svetlana said.

  “What about Holy John Whatever?”

  “Holy John Chrysostom said one must avoid . . .” Anna began.

  “What he said was one must certainly avoid judging or condemning one’s brother or sister,” Svetlana corrected her. “Certainly avoid.”

  “And that’s what I’m trying to do. If you want to . . . be intimate . . . with a man not your husband, that’s between you, God, and Evgeny.”

  “Between me and God, certainly. It’s none of Evgeny’s business.”

  “Evgeny’s your husband.”

  “Was my husband. If he’s still alive, he’s trying to find me so he can kill me.”

  “He is still your husband,” Anna insisted.

  You didn’t challenge that “he’s trying to find me so he can kill me,” though, did you, Anna?

  “No, he’s not. I left his bed four years ago.”

  Four years ago?

  “You can’t break the covenant.”

  “I did. And you know that the Holy John Chrysostom wrote that it’s ‘better to break the covenant than to lose one’s soul.’ ”

  “That’s between you and the Lord.”

  “Yes, it is. And as far as my Charley is concerned, I’ll go with what Saint Paul said in First Corinthians.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I’m a little rusty about First Corinthians,” Castillo said. “What exactly did Saint Paul say?”

  Anna looked uncomfortable. Svetlana blushed.

  “Well?” Castillo pursued.

  “Why not? You know anyway. ‘If they cannot control themselves, they should marry.’ The moment I saw you on the train, I knew I was through controlling myself.”

  “Saint Paul said that about the unmarried and widows,” Anna said.

  “I told you, I broke the covenant; I’m not married,” Svetlana said. “And when I first saw my Charley, I had been controlling myself for four long, long years. You try that sometime, Anna.”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Anna said.

  “Well, at least it’s out in the open,” Svetlana said.

  “All I’m asking is that you try to . . . behave appropriately in front of the children. Especially Elena. She remembers Evgeny.”

  “The last time she saw Evgeny she was practically in diapers. She wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door right now.”

  But that would certainly be interesting, wouldn’t it?

  “Breakfast will be in half an hour,” Anna said. “And after that, we’re going to decorate the Novogodnaya Yolka.” She looked at Castillo, said, “Thank you for understanding, Friend Charley,” and walked out the door.

  Svetlana waited until it was closed, then got quickly out of bed, went to the door, made sure it was locked, and then got back in bed.

  She put her hand on the bodily appendage peculiar to his gender and gave it an affectionate squeeze to which it immediately responded.

  “Are you happy, my Charley, that I cannot control myself?”

  Before his mind moved almost immediately afterward to other thoughts of a more erotic nature, Castillo had time to think, Both of them are genuinely devout. How the hell can that be?

  [TWO]

  “Forgive me for starting my breakfast without waiting for you,” Aleksandr Pevsner said absolutely insincerely. “I hope you slept well?”

  “Better than I have in years,” Svetlana said as she took one of the chairs. Then she asked, “What in the world is that you’re eating?”

  “American pancakes,” Pevsner said. “I thought it would be nice for Charley and Corporal Bradley. They get the sauce by bleeding a tree.”

  “What?”

  “Tell her, you Americans.”

  “It’s maple syrup, Colonel,” Bradley explained. “A tap is driven into maple trees, which are common in the northern United States. And, of course, in Canada. Possibly in other similar climates, but I just don’t know. When there are below-freezing nighttime temperatures followed by daytime temperatures above freezing, the sap of the tree drips from the tap into a container. It is collected, then boiled until the desired consistency is reached.”

  “And now you know,” Castillo said. “Thank you, Bradley.”

  “You’re quite welcome, sir. Was the explanation sufficient, Colonel?”

  “Yes, it was,” Svetlana said. She turned to a maid and said, in Spanish, “Please bring me black coffee and a pastry of some kind. A croissant would be nice.”

  “Oh, try a pancake with tree sauce,” Castillo said. “Live dangerously.”

  “I thought I was,” she said. “But all right. Bring me one, please, a small one.”

  Castillo smiled at Elena, who was cuddling the puppy.

  “And how did it go with Nameless, sweetheart?”

  “Well, he wouldn’t stop crying until I took him into bed with me,” she said. “Then he was all right. When I woke up this morning, Max was in there with us and he wouldn’t let the maid in the room.”

  “That animal was in bed with you?” her father asked incredulously.

  “And he wouldn’t let Delores come into the room until I screamed at him,” she said. “And the puppy’s not nameless anymore. He’s Ivan.”

  “Why Ivan?” her mother asked.

  “Well, the first thing he did when I took him to my room was wee-wee on the floor. So I took him outside so he could do his business, and brought him back, and the first thing he did when I put him on my lap was . . . you know. So I told him ‘you’re terrible’ and there it was: ‘Ivan the Terrible.’ ”

  “That seems to fit,” Castillo said.

  “Right after our breakfast, we’re going to decorate the Novogodnaya Yolka,” Anna said quickly. “Do you know what that is, Charley?”

  “No, but I’ll bet Lester does,” Castillo said, and gestured to Bradley.

  “My understanding, Colonel,” Bradley began, “is that the Novogodnaya Yolka is sort of the Russian version of our Christmas tree but is symbolic of the New Year rather than of Christmas. It is topped by a star, and decorated with candy and small pastries. Father Frost, sort of a Russian Santa Claus, and his daughter—”

  “Granddaughter,” Pevsner interrupted. “Ded Moroz’s granddaughter, Snegurochka, the Snow Girl.”

  “Thank you for the amplification, sir,” Bradley said. “I didn’t know that. Please feel free to correct me at any time.”

  “You are doing very well, Corporal,” Anna said. “Please go on. My husband will not rudely interrupt you again.”

  Bradley acknowledged that with a nod and went on: “Father Frost and the Snow Girl bring in presents for the good children and leave them under the Novogodnaya Yolka. More or less a variation of presents left under the Christmas tree. That is about the sum of my knowledge, sir.”

  “Thank you, Lester,” Castillo said.

  “You’re very welcome, sir.”

  “And since I have been a very good girl for years and years,” Svetlana said, looking directly at Anna, “and Ded Moroz and Snegurochka knew how very, very hard that was for me, they brought me my present early. Last night.”

  Castillo realized he was being groped under the table.

  “What was it, Aunty Svet?” Elena asked.

  “I promised not to tell; if other girls knew what it is, they’d be jealous. Something I really needed. I’ll have to take very good care of it.”r />
  Anna’s face was frozen.

  “And while Anna and the children are decorating the Novogodnaya Yolka,” Pevsner said quickly, as if trying to shut off that line of conversation, “I need to have a word with Colonel Munz and Charley. And you, too, Svetlana, unless you’d rather help decorate the tree.”

  “I told you I’ve already gotten my present,” Svetlana said, giving the present a farewell squeeze. “So I’ll go with you.”

  The maid placed a plate with one solitary pancake on it before Svetlana and a plate with a stack of half a dozen pancakes and four strips of bacon before Castillo.

  Svetlana watched as Castillo buttered his pancakes and poured maple syrup over them. She buttered her pancake, put maple syrup on it, and then sawed off a small piece and forked it into her mouth.

  Then she reached over to Castillo’s plate and transferred two pancakes and two strips of bacon to her plate.

  She caught the maid’s attention and said, “We’re going to need some more of this, if you’d be so kind.”

  [THREE]

  János was in the library when Pevsner, Castillo, Munz, and Svetlana walked in, followed by a maid pushing a cart with a silver samovar, a silver coffee thermos, and the necessary accoutrements on it.

  Pevsner waited somewhat impatiently for the maid to leave, then gestured to János to arrange chairs in a circle around a small low table. When he had, everybody sat down.

  János then served. He poured coffee for Castillo and Munz without asking, asked Svetlana with a gesture whether she wanted tea or coffee, then poured tea for her and Pevsner.

  “Since the circumstances have changed somewhat—” Pevsner began. “God, what an understatement that was!” he interrupted himself, and then went on: “Under the new circumstances, certain things have to be discussed and dealt with.

  “I will start with János. Svet, János has been protecting me and the family for years. We have almost died together. Most recently, I was betrayed and lured to the basement garage of the Sheraton Pilar—near Charley’s safe house—where Podpolkovnik Yevgeny Komogorov, whom you know, and several of his friends tried very hard to kill us both. János was severely wounded. Only Charley’s people kept us alive. The boy who just now delivered the lectures on tree syrup and the Novogodnaya Yolka took care of Komogorov.”