“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.