Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

“But if I should suddenly lose my mind and discuss this situation with Mr. Leverette and he similarly suffers a temporary loss of his good judgment and agrees to talk with you about it, it will be with the understanding that if I do not approve—personally, here in the States—every detail of your proposed operation to snoop around this chemical factory in the Congolese jungle, you will not undertake it. Agreed?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “When and where do you want Uncle Remus, Charley?”

  “Here, as soon as possible, sir.”

  “I can’t get him on a plane today.”

  “Sir, Major Miller will probably be coming down here in a Presidential Gulfstream. It could stop at Bragg . . .”

  “And you don’t think Montvale will hear about that?”

  “Montvale knows about it, sir. I made a deal with him, too.”

  There was a pause.

  “What kind of a deal, Charley?”

  “No matter what happens in Africa, sir, I will retire at the end of this month.”

  “Even if you’re right and everybody else is wrong?”

  “Yes, sir. That was the deal I made.”

  There was another long pause.

  “I’ll get back to you—or Vic D’Allessando will—with the details of Mr. Leverette’s travel,” McNab said finally. “And now I’m going to have a word with General Naylor.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “General Naylor decided that he was doing the right thing when Montvale went to him with this. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him. He saw it as his duty.”

  Another long pause.

  “That’s the problem a good officer has to face every once in a while, isn’t it, Charley? Knowing just what doing your duty really calls for?”

  Castillo didn’t reply, and a moment later one of the green LEDs went dark, signaling the call had been broken.

  Castillo shook his head, then looked around at the others.

  “Who was that, my Charley?” Svetlana asked.

  “The man who heads our version of Spetsnaz,” Castillo said softly. “Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab. Who just decided to help me deal with the chemical factory, even though he’s fully aware that may very likely see him standing beside me in the Thank You for Your Service and Don’t Let the Door-knob Hit You in the Ass on Your Way Out retirement parade.”

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “I’m getting kicked out of the Army,” Castillo said, and stopped. “Correction: For what I like to think is ‘for the good of the service,’ I will go along with being medically retired as psychologically unfit for active service.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.

  “Not to worry, Svetlana. I will receive a pension of twenty-five percent of my base pay. You may have to flip burgers in McDonald’s to help out with our bills, but we can probably get by.”

  She ignored the comment.

  “You work for this man? You are American Spetsnaz?”

  “Not anymore. I used to be. I used to work for General McNab.”

  “And now who do you work for? This Ambassador Montvale?”

  “You and your brother were right to be worried about the CIA station chief in Vienna,” Castillo said, ignoring the question. “She probably would have left you swinging in the breeze, since she probably knew the SVR was onto you. What happened is that when she figured out that I had gotten you out of Vienna safely, instead of saying ‘thank you’ or keeping her mouth shut, which also would have been nice, she told the director of Central Intelligence—and also told a friend of hers who she knew would promptly tell an important journalist—that I had swooped in out of nowhere and snatched you and the colonel and family away just as she was about to put you in the bag and send you to Washington.”

  “So you are in trouble because of what you did for us? I will kill this woman!”

  “Hold that thought, Svetlana,” Delchamps said.

  Castillo looked between them and thought: The truth is both of them are more than likely dead serious.

  “Both of you drop that thought,” Castillo said.

  “And this Ambassador Montvale, who you do work for, believed this woman?” Svetlana asked.

  “I don’t work for Montvale. But yeah, sure, he believed her. Right now his priority, which is one I agree with, is to protect the man I work for.”

  “Who is? And this man you work for will believe this bitch in Vienna?”

  “Two profound thoughts, Ace,” Delchamps said. “ ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman protecting her man.’ ”

  Davidson and Castillo chuckled.

  “You said two,” Castillo said.

  “ ‘The cow is already out of the barn,’ ” Delchamps said. “If you won’t tell her, Ace, I will. Svetlana, Charley works for the President.”

  If she was surprised by this announcement, it didn’t show on her face.

  “And your President will take the word of the bitch in Vienna over yours?”

  “That’s not the point,” Castillo explained. “But no, I think he’d accept whatever I told him as the truth. The point is that he’d be deeply hurt politically if it came out that—”

  “That he has been running his own private CIA-FBI-American Spetsnaz rolled into one,” Delchamps interrupted, “in contravention of American law and—maybe even worse—without taking the Congress into his confidence. He would be crucified, unless they could think of something more painful.”

  Svetlana looked at Castillo, who nodded to confirm what Delchamps had said.

  Castillo said: “So far, the President doesn’t know anything about this?”

  “Wrong, I think,” Delchamps interrupted again. “I think the DCI probably got carried away and told the President that—to use Svetlana’s delightful terminology—the bitch in Vienna was about to put—after long, brilliant, and expensive CIA labor—Svetlana and her brother into the bag. He probably thinks they’re in a safe house in Maryland right now.”

  Castillo didn’t reply.

  “He came down here to get them, Ace. I rest my case.”

  “Could very well be,” Castillo admitted.

  “This man, the ambassador, came down here to get us and take us to the United States?” Svetlana asked.

  Castillo nodded. “That was one of the things on his agenda. Understandable.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him that two hundred dollars, a bottle of scotch, and a mule wasn’t even in the ballpark pricewise, but if he wanted to reconsider and up his offer, I’d listen.”

  It was obvious on Svetlana’s face that Castillo’s remark made no sense to her.

  Davidson took pity on her.

  “Svet,” he said in Russian, “I don’t know how to translate this into Russian, but the essence of Charley’s reply to Montvale’s suggestion that he turn you over to the agency was that the ambassador”—he switched to English—“should try a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.”

  After a long moment, Svetlana said seriously: “I think I understand. But what is a ‘doughnut’?”

  “Think of a Berliner,” Delchamps said, “but round. And with a thumb-sized hole in the middle.” He held up his thumb, then mimed rolling the pastry across the floor.

  She smiled as the mental picture formed.

  “My Charley, you are very naughty. But I love you anyway!”

  She demonstrated this by leaning over and kissing him.

  “Edgar,” Davidson asked, “do you think there’s any chance that when Romeo and Juliet are finished we can get that drink we were promised when we got here?”

  [FOUR]

  “Oh, Charley, look! Isn’t that sweet?” Svetlana exclaimed as they walked into a basement room of the house.

  Marina was across the room, tugging as hard as she could on a woven twine rope, the other end of which was in her father’s mouth.

  Castillo took a quick double-take around the r
oom. It held a rack of golf club bags. Next to that was a rack of cues for the billiards table that was in the center of the room. One side of the room was given over to a bar, at which stood Cedric Lee-Watson and ex-Polkovnik Dmitri Berezovsky of the SVR. They had drinks in their hands. Lora and Sof’ya Berezovsky were sitting on bar stools, drinking what looked like Coca-Cola.

  Castillo snapped his head to look at Svetlana.

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I, my Charley? We’re going to have dinner with my brother Tom and his family at the Club House,” Svetlana said as she crossed to the bar to kiss first Sof’ya and then her sister-in-law.

  Castillo looked at her and then at Munz.

  Munz smiled knowingly, which pushed Castillo even closer to losing his temper.

  “Is this smart, for Christ’s sake?” Castillo snapped.

  “Sooner or later, Karl,” Munz said in German, “Mr. Barlow and his family, including of course Susanna, are going to have to start living their new identities. Why wait? For what?”

  Castillo didn’t reply.

  “And you did notice, didn’t you, the security measures around here?” Munz went on.

  “I did,” Edgar Delchamps said. “This place is tighter than a drum.”

  He saw the look on Castillo’s face and went on: “Smile, Ace, you’ve been had,” and then he walked to the bar, with Davidson on his heels.

  “I thought I’d find you near the liquor, Tom, old buddy,” he said in Russian.

  “My Russian is not so good,” Berezovsky/Barlow said in English. “Would you mind if we speak English?”

  “Not at all.”

  Castillo walked to the bar.

  Tom Barlow set his drink on it and took two steps toward Castillo. He grabbed Castillo’s upper arms.

  “I can call you Charley, right?” he asked in accentless American English.

  “Why not?”

  “One of the reasons I accepted my sister’s kind invitation to break bread with you tonight was that I’d hoped to have a private word with you about her.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s my little sister, Charley. You understand. I wanted to make sure I understood your intentions.”

  The Russian words for Go fuck yourself, Dmitri leapt to Castillo’s lips.

  At the last possible split instant, he bit them off.

  “But when I saw how you looked at each other when you walked in, I realized that wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “Good,” Castillo said in English.

  Barlow looked intently into Castillo’s eyes, reminding Castillo of the first time Aleksandr Pevsner had done that to him.

  “So I think we should both be very grateful to God that things in Marburg turned out the way they have, don’t you?” Barlow said. “They could—so easily—have gone differently.”

  Castillo neither replied nor blinked.

  But finally Barlow let go of his arms, and Castillo looked away.

  Svetlana was squatting beside Max and Marina.

  “Hey, Susie,” he called. “Do want something to drink?”

  She looked at him and smiled uncertainly. “Susie” hadn’t registered.

  “That’s you, baby. ‘Susie.’ You’d better get used to it.”

  She got up and walked to him. He put his arm around her shoulder.

  XII

  [ONE]

  Pilar Golf & Polo Country Club

  Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

  1910 2 January 2006

  “Then it is agreed, is it not,” Tom Barlow said, “that tonight what we have is friends having dinner together, and we do not talk—or even think about—the business we will deal with tomorrow?”

  I didn’t hear any proposal to agree to, Castillo thought, but what the hell, why not?

  “Fine with me,” he said.

  “You know a little about our family, Charley, but Susanna tells me she knows nothing of yours,” Barlow said.

  “There are nine of us,” Castillo said. “There were ten, but my brother Fritz was hung a couple of years ago for cattle rustling in the Texas Panhandle.”

  Barlow shook his head.

  “Aleksandr told me you have an . . . interesting sense of humor,” Barlow said.

  “If it’s all right with you, Charley,” Alfredo Munz said, “I’ll pass on dinner. My wife has the odd notion that I should have dinner with her and the girls once in a while.”

  The translation of that is: Will I feel safe to be left here alone?

  “Go ahead, Alfredo. The Marine is here and the situation is well in hand.”

  Davidson and Lester understood and both smiled. Lester looked pleased at what he took as at least some small recognition of his self-appointed role as Castillo’s bodyguard.

  Davidson also saw the look on Svetlana/Susanna’s face.

  “Susie . . .” he said.

  “Susanna,” she corrected him.

  “We already have a Susanna. How about simply Susan?”

  She looked at Castillo.

  “Hello, there, Simply Susan,” Castillo said, smiling.

  “I was about to say there’s something you don’t know about Charley,” Davidson said.

  “Is there?”

  “You know the Bible verse ‘Whither thou goest . . .’ ?”

  “Yes, of course.” She looked at Charley again. “It’s in Ruth. ‘For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people . . .’ ”

  “That’s it,” Davidson said.

  Castillo, who knew what was coming next, looked uncomfortable.

  “Well, Simply Susan, so far as Charley goes, our version says, ‘For whither Charley goest, Lester and I goest, and where Charley lodgest, Lester and I lodge, etcetera.’”

  “You are mocking Holy Scripture!” she snapped, and looked to Castillo for help.

  Castillo held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “What is this all about?” Susan demanded angrily.

  “Simply Susan, you’re a formidable female,” Davidson said. “Maybe the most formidable female I’ve ever met. But you’re not in the same league as General Scotty McNab. And my orders from him are not to let Charley out of my sight. Amen.”

  “There’s an exception in there for closed bedroom doors,” Castillo said.

  “Right,” Davidson agreed. “I guess McNab would go along with that.”

  “And how long is that going to last?” Susan asked.

  “Until, Simply Susan,” Castillo began, then looked at Barlow—“Forgive me, Tom, I know I promised not to talk business”—he turned back to Susan—“until we come back from Africa. Then Jack can go back to his usual duties of pulling the wings off flies and teasing beautiful women.”

  “Susan,” she said. “Not Simply Susan.”

  “Whatever you prefer,” Castillo said magnanimously.

  Susan mentally gathered her arguments, then earnestly began: “There is absolutely no reason for them to be here. You have seen the security. . . .”

  “I think,” Barlow said, smiling, “that we are about to see the irresistible force meet the unmovable object.”

  “I’m not going to get in the middle of this,” Munz said. “Tom, slide that phone to me, please? I’ll call my wife and tell her I’m coming home.”

  Barlow did, and Munz reached for the telephone. His hand was almost on it when it rang. He was so startled that he pulled back his hand for a moment before picking up the handset.

  “Yes?” Munz said into it. He nodded at the reply, as if he expected it. He met Castillo’s curious eyes and said, “Please escort Comandante Duffy here,” and hung up.

  Castillo was reminded once again that Munz was not in the habit of asking for his permission—or even advice—before taking what he thought was the appropriate action.

  “Jesus Christ, Alfredo. Couldn’t you have stalled him until we figure out how to deal with him?”

  “Karl, I’ve given how to deal with him some thought. And we might as
well find out here and now if what I intend to do is going to work.”

  “That’s the policeman who was at the airfield?” Susan asked.

  “The gendarmería comandante,” Munz corrected her. He smiled at Davidson and added, “A formidable man. If he’s so inclined, he can cause us a great deal of trouble. He is smart, honest, and a patriot. For people in our business, that combination often spells trouble.”

  “Before you just do it,” Castillo said more than a little sarcastically, “you’re going to tell us how we’re to deal with him, right?”

  Munz nodded, the sarcasm apparently lost on him. “As best I can, Karl. Basically, what I’m going to do is follow your advice: ‘When all else fails, tell the truth.’ ”

  Castillo bit off the reply that came to his lips. Now was not the time to get in a scrap with Munz.

  The cold truth is I don’t have any better idea how to deal with the problem of Comandante Liam Duffy than telling him the truth and seeing what happens.

  “Okay, Alfredo,” he said. “Tell us how we should handle Duffy. And make it quick; in a couple of minutes, he’ll be coming through the door.”

  “Should we be here?” Susan asked.

  Munz answered: “I think it would be best if it were only Charley, Colonel Berezovsky, Señor Lee-Watson, and me. In the study upstairs?”

  Berezovsky and Lee-Watson nodded their agreement. Charley was surprised that neither Delchamps nor Svetlana—especially Svetlana—objected.

  [TWO]

  The study—which actually was more of a library, the room lined with bookshelves—had not been on Svetlana’s tour of the house. Four red leather armchairs were arranged around a large, low table on which sat a telephone and an ashtray designed for cigars. Next to the ashtray was a large, silver-plated lighter.

  Castillo sat in one of the chairs, then took out and trimmed a cigar. The silver-plated lighter didn’t work. He then produced what he called his “terrorist tool”—a butane cigar lighter, a replacement for one that had been seized by the ever-vigilant Transportation Safety Administration inspectors at Washington National Airport as enthusiastically as if it had been an Uzi—and lit the cigar.

  He looked at the door to see if Duffy had arrived. His eyes fell on one wall of books. There was something wrong, something odd about them. He got up and went to the shelf. He tugged at one book spine—and suddenly a flimsy shelf-long sheet of something designed to look like book spines fell from the shelf.