Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  “When Colonel Castillo first came to Argentina, the President told me personally that Colonel Castillo was acting on his behalf and with his authority, and directed me to provide him with any assistance he required. Given that—”

  “You’ve heard this insanity!”

  “Pray let me continue,” Silvio said. “Given that, Mr. Ambassador, I don’t think you have the authority to force Colonel Castillo to go anywhere or do anything he doesn’t want to do, absent a specific order from the President placing him under your authority. Quite the opposite, actually, I see it as my ‘clear duty’ to do whatever I can to assist him in carrying out his orders from the President and to prevent anyone from interfering with him.”

  “His orders say nothing about abducting Russian defectors from the CIA,” Montvale argued, “and certainly nothing about conducting any kind of an operation in the Congo.”

  “Since what exactly his orders actually entail seems to be in question, it seems obvious that the only person who can clarify them is the President himself. Absent that clarification, I am not going to challenge Colonel Castillo.”

  Montvale met his eyes for a long moment.

  He then said: “May I use your secure telephone again, Mr. Ambassador?”

  “To call the President?”

  “To call the President.”

  “Certainly. But if that is your intention, I think I should tell you that when I speak with the President—and I will do so—I will tell him that Colonel Castillo is, in my judgment, in full possession of his extraordinary mental faculties, and that it seems to me that, motivated by your desire to spare the CIA and yourself embarrassment for losing the Russian defectors, what you and the DCI are trying to do—please forgive the colorful speech—is to throw Colonel Castillo under the bus.”

  Montvale looked at him in angry disbelief.

  “I shall also tell him,” Silvio went on, “that it is my judgment that if he goes along with you and orders Castillo to Washington, it will be some time—probably years—before the CIA will be able to locate the Russian defectors, much less get them to the United States. I will point out to the President that it took decades for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, as you know, to find Adolf Eichmann, who they knew was in Argentina, and wasn’t until a couple of years ago that Erich Priebke, who gained infamy for his role in the Ardeatine Caves massacre outside Rome, could be brought to justice, even though he had been in Argentina since 1948 and owned a hotel in Bariloche.”

  Montvale’s face was white. Castillo wondered if the director of National Intelligence was going to lose control.

  He didn’t.

  “Well, it seems our little chat is over, doesn’t it, Castillo?” Montvale said.

  “Not quite, Mr. Montvale. I would like to know whether you are going to obstruct my operation in Africa, or provide what assistance I’ll need to carry it out under my existing authority.”

  Montvale contorted his face. “Why in hell would I do that?”

  “Because, if you give me the help I need, I give you my word that I will go along with your charade about my medical retirement, and even show up for my retirement parade.”

  Montvale looked as if he didn’t believe his ears.

  “You’ll go along with that?” Montvale asked after he’d taken a moment to consider the ramifications. “Why?”

  “I’m as interested in protecting the President as you are. And after this the President would have to choose between us—and, self-evidently, you’re far more valuable an asset than I am. I know when it’s time to fold my tent.”

  Montvale considered that, then nodded once. “I’ll give you what you think you need.”

  “I don’t want the CIA, or anybody else, to know what I’m going to do. Understood?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Before a witness,” Ambassador Silvio put in.

  “It will take me a couple of hours to explain the situation to Colonel Torine and get him and Captain Sparkman to Jorge Newbery.”

  “To where? Oh, the airport.” He looked at his watch. “Okay. We’ll be there.”

  Without thinking about it, when Montvale looked at his watch, Castillo looked at his. Montvale saw it.

  “That looks like a brand-new stainless steel Rolex,” the director of National Intelligence said.

  “Actually, it’s white gold. A gift from a friend.”

  Castillo, using his eyes, then asked for permission to use the secure telephone from Ambassador Silvio, who responded by handing him the handset.

  “Get State on here, please,” Castillo said into it, “and get them to give me a secure line to Major Richard Miller at OOA in the Nebraska Avenue Complex.”

  In the silence of the room, with Montvale’s and Silvio’s eyes on him, Castillo took a puff on his cigar while the telephone operator put the call through.

  “Dick? I’ll call you back in an hour or so. But right now make plans to get yourself on a plane down here tonight. If there’s any trouble with that, call the Presidential Flight and have them fly you down in one of their Gulfstreams. If there’s any trouble about that, tell them Ambassador Montvale authorized it.”

  Montvale rose from the couch and, without saying a word or looking at either Ambassador Silvio or Castillo, walked out of the ambassador’s office.

  Castillo heard Montvale say, “Okay, Remley, we’re through here.”

  After Castillo broke off his call with Miller, he looked at Silvio.

  “Mr. Ambassador, I didn’t realize that you’d wind up in the middle of that. I am indeed sorry. And of course very grateful, sir.”

  “No reason for you to be sorry, Charley. Or grateful. I did what I thought it was my duty to do.”

  XI

  [ONE]

  Nuestra Pequeña Casa

  Mayerling Country Club

  Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

  1605 2 January 2006

  When Jack Davidson turned the embassy’s BMW into Mayerling, the gendarmería Mercedes-Benz SUV following them made a U-turn, then stopped and backed off the road into a position from which it could easily follow the BMW when it left the country club, no matter which way it turned when it came out.

  Seeing what the gendarmería vehicle had done, Castillo realized that he was going to have to somehow dump his protective tail. As soon as he could, he wanted to join Svetlana at the Pilar Golf & Polo Country Club, and he didn’t want the gendarmes to follow him there. They would attract unwanted attention.

  When they got to the safe house, Jack Britton, holding an Uzi along his leg, opened Castillo’s car door and told them that “everybody” was out back by the quincho.

  “Everybody” turned out to be more than Castillo expected.

  When he walked up to the shaded verandah of the quincho, “everybody” was comfortably sprawled like passengers on a cruise ship in lines of teak deck chairs on the verandah and in teak chaise lounge chairs along one side of the pool.

  Susanna and Paul Sieno, Sandra Britton, Bob Kensington, and Dick Sparkman, all in bathing suits, were at the pool. Castillo knew that Paul Sieno had come from Asunción while he had been in Bariloche. Jake Torine, Tony Santini, and Jack Britton, wearing slacks and polo shirts, were in deck chairs in the shade of the verandah. A garbage can full of iced-down beer was helping them deal with the heat, and a mound of jumbo-sized packages of pretzels and potato chips on a table was giving them sustenance.

  Castillo had not expected to see either Edgar Delchamps or Alex Darby, who were also on the verandah. They were wearing somewhat sweat-soaked dress shirts, and their suit jackets and the shoulder holsters they had worn under them were lying on the tiled floor beside their deck chairs.

  They’re supposed to be with Berezovsky and his family at Pevsner’s second safe house way the hell the other side of Pilar!

  Castillo’s mouth went on automatic: “What the hell are you two doing here? Who’s sitting on the Berezovskys?”

  Delchamps didn’t like Castillo’s ton
e, and his voice showed it when he replied.

  “In reply to the first question, Ace, we’re sucking on a cerveza while waiting for you to tell us all about your chat with Montvale.” He took a long pull on his Quilmes beer bottle to illustrate. “As for the second question, Polkovnik Berezovsky and his family are being sat upon by half a dozen heavily armed men working for our own Alfredo Munz, four of them Argentines and the other two former associates of the colonel.”

  He paused, and when he saw by Castillo’s expression that that information had registered, then went on: “And when you have finished telling us what the ambassador had to say, Ace, we need to have a little chat ourselves.”

  Max interrupted the exchange by making a quick run to a table between two of the deck chairs, delicately snatching a jumbo-sized package of potato chips in his mouth, then effortlessly jumping the fence around the swimming pool and trotting to the far side of the pool, away from the deck chairs, where he lay down with the bag between his paws. He tore the bag fully open, took a mouthful of chips, then more or less casually looked up at the humans to see if there was any objection to his action.

  “Max, you sonofabitch!” Castillo called.

  Max took this as permission to proceed—with haste—and dug his nose back into the bag.

  Castillo shook his head but couldn’t help but smile.

  “To err on the side of caution, I think I had better deliver the bad news inside,” Castillo said as he signaled the swimmers to join him.

  Everybody hoisted themselves out of the deck chairs and filed inside the quincho.

  “Gather ’round me, children,” Castillo said after “everybody” had entered and he had hoisted himself to sit on the pool table. Everybody shifted chairs so that they formed a half circle facing him.

  “How did you know I was with Montvale?” Castillo asked, looking at Delchamps.

  “I called here right after Davidson had called saying you were on the way here, had just left Montvale, and wanted everybody here. Alex and I decided we could consider ourselves ‘everybody.’ ”

  “And that it would be all right to leave the Berezovskys with those people?”

  “The only question in my mind, Ace, was whether the sitters would let us go. There were six of them and two of us. It finally took a call to Alfredo before they would.”

  “You think they’re still going to be there when you go back?”

  “You’re not listening, Ace. There were six of them. Alex and I were outnumbered and outgunned. If Berezovsky wanted to leave, he would have left.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He told me what he wants to do is to have a little chat, mano a mano, with you.”

  “About what?”

  “Why don’t we get into that when you’ve finished telling us about the ambassador? Starting at the beginning and leaving nothing out.”

  “Fair enough,” Castillo said, and began: “When I parked at Jorge Newbery, there was a Presidential Flight Gulfstream on the tarmac. The pilot told me not only that it had carried Montvale down here, but that Montvale had blown his stack when Ambassador Silvio told him he had no idea where I was.

  “So I went looking for him. I found him in the Río Alba and then we went to the embassy for a little chat. . . .”

  It took Castillo about five minutes to bring everybody up to speed.

  “Okay. That’s about it. Anybody?”

  Colonel Jake Torine shook his head in wonder. He—and everyone else— had just heard that he was being sent to the Nebraska Avenue Complex, where—aided and abetted by Mrs. Agnes Forbison, their very own expert on all things bureaucratic—he was to be prepared to convince Mr. C. Harry Whelan of The Washington Post that the Office of Organizational Analysis was in fact what its name suggested, just one more small governmental agency charged with analyzing government organization, in this case that of the Department of Homeland Security.

  Castillo looked at Torine. “Jake?”

  “Why do I think you have a hidden agenda here, Charley?”

  “Because by nature you are simply unable to trust your fellow man?”

  “How about because I have been around the block with you too many times, ol’ buddy.”

  “Did I forget to mention that I hope you and Sparkman will be able to tear yourself away from your analytic duties for a few hours so that you might consider the problems of getting whatever matériel and men into the Democratic Republic of the Congo in complete secrecy so they can take out a chemical laboratory/factory?”

  “No, I guess that slipped your mind,” Torine said.

  “And of course once they have accomplished that little task, to get them out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as unobtrusively as they entered?”

  “That presumes that you will be allowed to use the Delta Force 727.”

  Castillo nodded. “And some people from Delta Force. Uncle Remus comes to mind.”

  Chief Warrant Officer Five Colin Leverette, a legendary Delta Force special operator, was an enormous, very black man who was called “Uncle Remus” by his close friends—and only by his close friends—in the special operations community.

  “From what you have told us of your little chat with Ambassador Montvale, are you sure that’s going to happen?”

  “No,” Castillo said simply.

  “Then what, Charley?”

  “I haven’t quite figured that out.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “If you’re uncomfortable with this, Jake, don’t do it. Just con C. Harry Whelan and leave it at that.”

  “Every time you lead me around the block, I’m uncomfortable,” Torine said. “But I always go, and you know that.”

  “That was before,” Castillo said, “when you were able to con yourself into thinking I wasn’t really crazy.”

  “Not without difficulty,” Torine said, chuckling.

  “I’ve got something to tell you that will probably make you conclude I have finally really gone over the edge.”

  “Frankly, Charley, that wouldn’t be hard.”

  “I’m emotionally involved with Svetlana Alekseeva,” Castillo said.

  Torine looked at him intensely, his eyes wary, but otherwise there was no expression on his face at all.

  “To prevent any possible misinterpretation of that, Jake, let me rephrase: I am in love with her, and that emotion, I believe, is reciprocated.”

  “I’m really glad to hear you say that, Ace,” Delchamps said.

  Castillo instantly decided he had not correctly heard what Delchamps had said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you had said anything but almost exactly that, we would have had, added to our other burdens, the problem of protecting you from the lady’s big brother. In my brief association with him, I have learned he is one smart, tough sonofabitch, and protecting you from him might not have been possible.”

  Castillo thought he saw a look of disbelief in Susanna Sieno’s eyes, then wondered if it was disbelief or contempt.

  Paul Sieno and Sparkman had their eyes fixed on the floor.

  “Charley,” Torine said finally, “I hope you weren’t crazy enough to tell Montvale about this.”

  Castillo shook his head.

  There was another long pause before Torine went on: “Insofar as reciprocity is concerned, would this explain Colonel Berezovsky’s otherwise baffling sudden change of attitude?”

  Castillo first noticed the near-stilted formality of Torine’s question, then realized: He’s thinking out loud. Not as good ol’ Jake, but as Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF, a senior officer subconsciously doing a staff study of a serious problem and, specifically, right now, doing the Factors Bearing on the Problem part of the study.

  “Pevsner told him that I was almost family. . . .”

  “Supported,” Torine went on, “by Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva’s statement, which I thought was odd: ‘So far as I am concerned, before God and the world, he is family.’ ”

  “That’s what she said,” Castill
o agreed.

  Delchamps put in: “If I’m to believe Polkovnik Berezovsky—and truth being stranger than fiction, I do—the whole family, including the infamous Aleksandr Pevsner, is deeply religious folk with quote family values unquote that would satisfy the most pious Southern Baptist. Make that Presbyterian; they do like their booze.”

  He looked at Alex Darby.

  “That’s my take,” Darby said, nodding gently.

  Susanna Sieno looked like she was going to say something but changed her mind.

  “Following which,” Torine went on almost as if he was in a daze and hadn’t heard Delchamps, “Colonel Berezovsky began not only to answer questions he had previously answered evasively and ambiguously—if at all—and began not only to answer such questions fully, but also to volunteer intelligence bearing on the questions.”

  “One explanation for the change in attitude,” Susanna Sieno said more than a little sarcastically, “might be Charley repeating his offer of two million dollars for the information.”

  Delchamps looked at her coldly but didn’t challenge her.

  He respects her, Castillo thought.

  Susanna may look like a sweet young housewife in a laundry detergent advertisement, but she’s a good spook who has more than paid her dues in the agency’s Clandestine Services.

  “No, Susanna, that wasn’t his motivation,” Castillo said. “They asked me for two million on the train to establish a credible motive for their defection. But they don’t need money. They brought out with them—it’s in various banks around the world—far more than two million. So much money I have trouble believing how much.”

  Torine, deep in thought, looked out the quincho’s doors.

  “That is the belief of their interrogator,” he went on in the military bureaucrat cant of the staff study, which sounded even more stilted when spoken. “Inevitably raising the question of the soundness of the interrogator’s judgment, inasmuch as the interrogator in his admission of romantic involvement has also admitted he has abandoned the professional code he has followed throughout his adult life.”