“So what are you saying?” Tony Santini asked.
“I can’t wait to see the look on Susanna’s face when I say this,” Delchamps said. “I believe, and so does Brother Darby, that (a) Polkovnik Berezovsky and Podpolkovnik Alekseeva risked all to get out of Russia because—subpara lowercase i—they came to believe that Vladimir Putin was about to resurrect the bad old days of the Soviet Union and they wanted nothing to do with that . . .”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” Susanna Sieno said.
“. . . and—(a) subpara lowercase ii—they suspected that because Brother Putin, himself a member in good standing of the Oprichina—you’ll recall his father was Stalin’s cook—knows all about what a threat heavy-duty oprichniki would pose to his regime, they stood a very good chance of spending the rest of their lives in a mental hospital with their veins full of happy juice, said mental hospitals having replaced the gulag in the new and wonderful Russian Federation as depositories for potential troublemakers.”
“You’re telling me that you and Alex”—she looked between them—“believe those ludicrous yarns about a state within a state?”
“With all my innocent trusting heart, Susie,” Darby said, putting his right hand to his chest. “But then again, you have to remember that throughout my long career in the Clandestine Services I earned the reputation of always being the guy who believed everything he was told.”
“If I may go on?” Delchamps said. “Darby and I also believe that (b) the Berezovskys, the Pevsners, and at least Charley’s new friend Svetlana are Christians who take it seriously—we’re not so sure of the lady’s husband, he’s one mean sonofabitch who may well be a godless Communist. . . .”
“She’s married?” Susanna asked, shaking her head.
“To Polkovnik Evgeny Alekseeva of the SVR,” Delchamps confirmed, “who at last report was scouring the streets of Vienna in high hopes of finding his wife, who he no doubt then hopes to kill in the most painful way he can think of.”
“Oh, Charley!” Sandra Britton said.
“Once again, if I may go on?” Delchamps said. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes! (b): are Christians who take it seriously, and for that reason—subpara lowercase i—regard the poisoning of a couple of million innocent women and children as un-Christian and are therefore willing to help Charley take out whatever the hell those bastards have in the Congo, about which Berezovsky apparently knows a hell of a lot.
“Subpara lowercase ii, would be deeply offended if Our Leader—known to the Secret Service as ‘Don Juan’—as I really expected to hear just now when he returned to our little nest—had been pleasuring Podpolkovnik Alekseeva simply to get her to talk—or simply for fun—rather than as a manifestation of his intention to marry the lady when that is possible, and thereafter to walk hand in hand and in the fear of God in the bonds of holy matrimony until death do them part. Amen.” He paused. “Getting the picture, Susanna?”
“If I heard all that from anybody but you two . . .”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She nodded. “I got it, Edgar.”
“Now tell our leader you’re sorry, baby,” Paul Sieno said.
Susanna looked at Castillo.
“Is the wedding going to be simple, Don Juan, or are you both going to wear your uniforms?”
“Uniforms, I think. But only if you’re going to precede us down the aisle scattering rose petals while singing ‘I Love You Truly.’ ”
[TWO]
Pilar Golf & Polo Country Club
Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1740 2 January 2006
After thinking about it, Castillo decided there was more to be lost than gained by eluding the gendarmería SUV that was waiting for them outside the gate of the Mayerling Country Club.
Comandante Liam Duffy would be annoyed, Castillo understood, and now was not the time to annoy the Latin-tempered (his mother was Argentine) gendarmería officer. That was, annoy him any more than he already was annoyed.
Castillo knew that Duffy remained furious about the assassination attempt on Christmas Eve on Duffy and his family, and while Castillo had almost identified the SVR officer who had organized and probably participated in that, he would have to check with Berezovsky before he was sure. And as soon as Duffy learned that name, he was going to do his very best to find him and then kill him and his close associates in the most imaginatively painful ways he could think of.
While Castillo fully sympathized with Duffy, he didn’t want that to happen until the Congo operation was over. Taking out the SVR officer who had replaced Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Zhdankov in South America would tell the SVR more than Castillo wanted them to know about the extent of his knowledge of SVR operations.
Replacing Zhdankov had become necessary after Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC, using his Colt Model 1911 .45-caliber semiautomatic, had taken Zhdankov out with a well-placed head shot in the basement garage of the Pilar Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center when Zhdankov had been engaged in trying to take out Aleksandr Pevsner.
The initial order, according to both Aleksandr Pevsner and Svetlana, had come from Lieutenant General Yakov Sirinov, who was the man in charge of that sort of thing for the Sluzhba Vnezhney Razvedki. He ran either Directorate S, the oddly brazenly named Illegal Intelligence arm of the SVR, or Service A, which was the arm of the SVR charged with planning and implementing “active measures,” which meant such things as assassinations.
Or General Sirinov ran both Directorate S and Service A.
Or Directorate S and Service A were really one and the same entity.
Svetlana and Pevsner had told Castillo the order from General Sirinov had probably been rather vague in nature, stating only that the individuals on a list had been determined to be posing a threat to the Russian Federation and were to be eliminated as soon as the local rezidents could arrange to have it done, preferably within the same twenty-four-hour period.
That, Svetlana had matter-of-factly told Castillo, would serve both to keep the others on the list from suspecting they were in danger because one of their number had been eliminated, and would also make a statement, when the assassinations had been successfully carried out, that the SVR was back and dealing with its enemies as the KGB, the NKVD, and the Cheka had done in the past.
The names certainly listed were Frau und Herr Kuhl in Vienna, Herr Friedler in Marburg, Mr. Britton in Philadelphia, and Comandante Duffy in Buenos Aires. Both Svetlana and Pevsner felt that some people on General Sirinov’s list who would be eliminated, if possible, as a second priority included Otto Görner, Eric Kocian, and Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, aka C. G. Castillo.
Neither Svetlana nor Pevsner had mentioned that the Berlin rezident ordered to implement the successful termination of Herr Friedler and, if possible, as a second priority, Otto Görner, Eric Kocian, and Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger aka C. G. Castillo, was one Dmitri Berezovsky—and, although this thought had run through Castillo’s mind more than once, neither had he.
When Jack Davidson had driven the BMW out of the Mayerling gate, Castillo had signaled cheerfully for the gendarmes in their Mercedes SUV to follow them.
When finally he had to deal with Liam Duffy’s impatience—angry impatience—to learn the name of the man who had tried to kill Duffy and his family, at least the Argentine cop wouldn’t have his Irish temper already inflamed by Castillo having eluded his protectors. Read: tail.
Several miles past the end of the Autopista del Sol, where the six-lane toll road had turned into a two-lane macadam highway, Castillo saw a sign reading PILAR GOLF & POLO COUNTRY CLUB, and moments later saw the gatehouse of the place itself.