"Mein Fuhrer, you have the floor."
Pevsner's eyes rolled in disbelief.
Castillo rose from his chair, walked to the bar, and leaned his back against it.
"Two-Gun," he began, "I think you'd better take notes."
Yung gave him a thumbs-up, then reached for his laptop computer.
"To bring everybody up to speed," Castillo began, "let's start with what we do know. First, somebody sent Colonel Hamilton a barrel of Congo-X. Then, in Budapest, Colonel Vladlen Solomatin of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki handed Eric Kocian a letter asking him to get it to Tom Barlow. The letter said, in essence, 'Come home. All is forgiven.' I think it's likely the two actions are related."
"About as likely as the sun will come up tomorrow," Svetlana said.
She waited for a chuckle. When she didn't get one, she looked at Castillo.
"We won't know," Castillo said, "about the sun rising until tomorrow morning, will we, Svet? Until then, it's just likely that it will. And the way this works, Svet, is that no one offers an opinion, clever or otherwise, until I ask for it. Got it?"
Her face colored and her eyes flared angrily, but she didn't reply.
Well, Commander Casanova, guess who's not going to get laid tonight?
Castillo took a sip of his drink, then went on: "Let's start with the Congo-X. Where did it come from? That raises the question, 'Did we destroy it all in the attacks on the Fish Farm or not?' Colin?"
"Sir, I respectfully suggest Colonel Torine can answer that better than I can," Leverette said.
"Jake?" Castillo asked.
Torine nodded. "Charley, you know as well as I do, except for nukes, there is no such thing as total destruction of anything by high explosive or incendiary saturation bombing. The question then becomes: 'How much was not destroyed? ' And I suggest Colin can answer that better than I can. He (a) was there, and (b) he's done a lot of damage assessment."
Castillo motioned with his hand toward Leverette.
"The Fish Farm was a collection of concrete block buildings, none of them over three stories, most of them just one," Leverette said. "The few I got into had basements, and I saw a half-dozen buried and half-buried steel-door revetments-like ammo bunkers. Let's say the bombs and the incendiaries took out ninety-five percent of everything."
"Jake?" Castillo said.
Torine nodded his agreement. "Leaving five percent," he said.
"Until we run into a stone wall, let's try this scenario," Castillo said. "Five percent of the Congo-X in barrels survived the bombing. Let's say that's six barrels. Two of them got to the States. How and by what means? Tom?"
"I'm sure one of the first things Sirinov did after the bombing-"
Alex Darby interrupted: "General Yakov Sirinov, who runs the SVR for Putin?"
Barlow nodded, and went on: "What he did was send in a Vympel Spetsnaz team for damage assessment and to see if anyone was still alive."
Castillo said, "Can we presume (a) the Spetsnaz made it into the Fish Farm, and (b) while they were there found-more important, took control of-the six barrels of Congo-X?"
"If Tom is talking about Spetsgruppa V," Leverette said, and looked at Barlow.
Barlow nodded. He said, "Also known as the Vega Group of KGB Directorate B."
"The Russian Delta Force, Charley," Leverette said. "They're damned good."
"It is because they are so good that they were selected to provide security for the Congo operation," Barlow said. "I was surprised that you didn't encounter at least one or two of them, Uncle Remus, when you were there."
Leverette met his eyes for a moment.
"Quickly changing the subject," Leverette said, making it clear there had been a confrontation with at least one or two Spetsnaz special operators and that they had lost. "So they found the six barrels of Congo-X. What did they do with it?"
"This is conjecture," Barlow said, "based on my knowledge of how Sirinov's mind works. The Spetsnaz were parachuted onto the site from a great height, probably from a specially adapted Ilyushin Il-96 passenger transport on a flight path duly reported to aviation authorities. The parachutists would not have opened their canopies until they were quite close to the ground, so they would appear only momentarily, if at all, on radar screens."
"That's what we call HALO," Castillo said. "High-altitude, low opening."
"Copyright, Billy Waugh," Leverette said.
Castillo, Torine, and Peg-Leg Lorimer chuckled or smiled or both.
"Excuse me?" Barlow said.
"The first guy to do that was Billy Waugh, a friend of ours," Leverette explained.
Castillo said, "Okay, back to the question of now that Spetsnaz has six beer barrels full of Congo-X, what do they do with it?"
"They would have to truck it out," Barlow said. "But since-using Uncle Remus's ninety-five percent destruction factor-there would be no trucks, at least not as many as would be needed, left at the Fish Farm, I don't know how they could have done that."
"They leave the Fish Farm area and steal some trucks," Castillo said. "And then truck it out. But where to?"
"Any field where a Tupolev Tu-934A can get in," Jake Torine said. "And that wouldn't have to be much of a field."
"You know about the Tu-934, Jake?" Tom asked.
"I've never seen one but, oh yeah, I know about it," Torine said.
"I don't," Castillo said.
"Ugly bird," Torine said. "Can carry about as much as a Caribou. Cruises at about Mach point nine. Helluva range, midair refuelable, and it's state-of-the-Russian-art stealth. And it can land and take off from a polo field. The story I get is that the agency will pay a hundred twenty-five million for one of them."
"You do know about it," Barlow said, raising his drink in a toast, demonstrating he was clearly impressed.
Torine returned the gesture, and they both sipped their Sazeracs.
"Okay, picking up the scenario," Castillo said. "The Spetsnaz load their six barrels of Congo-X onto their stolen trucks and drive it to some dirt runway in the middle of Africa, and then load it and themselves onto this… what was it?"
"Tupolev Tu-934A," Torine furnished.
"… which then takes off and flies at Mach point nine to where? To Russia?" Castillo pursued.
"No. They don't want Congo-X in Russia. They know how dangerous it is," Svetlana said. "They remember Chernobyl. That's why the Fish Farm was in the Congo."
"Could this airplane make it across the Atlantic?"
"Sure. With an en-route refueling, it could fly anywhere," Torine said.
"Where's anywhere? Cuba? Mexico?"
"Distance-wise, sure," Barlow said. "But politically…"
"They'd spot it on radar, right?" Castillo said.
"Charley, it has stealth technology," Torine said. "And even if it didn't, it could fly under the radar."
"So why not Cuba, Tom?" Castillo asked.
"The Castro brothers would be too expensive," Barlow said. "Both in terms of cash and letting them in on the secret. More the latter. Sirinov doesn't like to be obligated to anybody."
"Then right into Mexico," Edgar Delchamps said. "Getting it across the border into the States would be easy."
"I think we could say getting it across the border was easy," Castillo said. "But I have a gut feeling Mexico is not-was not-the final stop."
Alex Darby then said, "Drop off the Congo-X and enough people to get two barrels of this stuff into the States via Mexico, then fly the rest of it on to… where?"
"Venezuela," Delchamps suggested. "Hugo Chavez is in love with Communism, and has yet to be burned by the Russians, as the Castros were burned. And, God knows, Fat Little Hugo is no rocket scientist. Sirinov could easily have put him in his pocket."
Barlow pointed at Delchamps, and said, "You're on it, Edgar."
"Okay, then. Now what?" Leverette said. "We've located the Congo-X in Venezuela. What do we do about it?"
"We start to prove-or disprove-the scenario," Castillo said. "First step in that will be when we get from Aloysius the intel he's going to get from the DCI."
"You don't know that's who's giving him the intel he's promised to send, my darling," Svet said.