And there are probably two hundred ninety-seven thousand and six Mexicans named Garcia-Romero.
"Si, senor. In the house."
"Then what are we standing around here for?"
"Excuse me, senor, but we must check to see if you are armed."
"That's none of your business," Pevsner snapped. "Now, get on the telephone and tell Senor Garcia-Romero that I am here with a pistol in each hand."
One of the men considered that briefly, then turned, and walked quickly deeper into the cave. The remaining three men eyed everyone, except for Svetlana, warily. In Svetlana's case, the adjective was "lustfully."
In under a minute, the man who had walked away came back.
"If you will be good enough to come with me, senor?"
In the back of the cave, incongruously modern and high-tech against the gray stone into which it had been cut, was a stainless-steel-framed elevator door.
Carefully staying out of Max's way, the men ushered them onto the elevator, but did not get on it. The door closed and just as Pevsner reached for a button with an UP arrow on it, the elevator began to rise.
A Haydn string quartet came over speakers.
The door opened.
Four people were waiting for them, three of them much better dressed than the guards in the cave, but just as obviously guards. The fourth was a superbly tailored, portly, silver-haired man in his sixties.
I will be goddamned.
"Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding down there," Hector Garcia-Romero said, and then he took a closer look at Castillo.
"Holy Mother of God, is that really you, Carlitos?"
"It's been a long time, Tio Hector," Castillo said.
"What did you call him?" Svetlana asked.
"Carlitos," Hector Garcia-Romero said. "It means 'Little Carlos.'"
"That's sweet!" Svetlana said.
"I have known him since he was this tall," Garcia-Romero said, holding his hand flat a few inches below the level of his shoulder. "You were what, Carlitos, eleven?"
"Twelve," Castillo said.
"I saw Dona Alicia ten days ago in San Antonio," Garcia-Romero said. "She said you were in Hungary with Billy Kocian."
"I was."
And now we're both in the VIP Lounge of Drug Cartel International Airport in the middle of the Mexican desert.
What the hell are you doing here, Tio Hector?
"I had no idea you knew Senor Pevsner," Garcia-Romero said.
"Likewise," Castillo said. "And I've been wondering what sort of business you do together."
"Carlitos's grandfather was one of my dearest friends," Garcia-Romero said. "If he had one flaw, it was his habit of asking indelicate questions. Carlitos has apparently inherited that, along with his more desirable character traits."
"Why don't you answer the indelicate question?" Castillo asked.
"Why don't we all go sit in the great room, have a little snack, and a little something to drink, and then we can sort this out?" Garcia-Romero said, and waved them into the house. An elaborate buffet had been laid out on an enormous low table. Silver coolers held wine, champagne, and beer bottles, and there was an array of whisky bottles at the end of the table.
Max went immediately to examine them, and with great delicacy, helped himself to a wafer topped with salami and cheese. And then helped himself to another.
"I thought Dona Alicia was exaggerating when she told me how big your dog is," Garcia-Romero said.
"And what did Dona Alicia tell you about me?" Svetlana asked.
"That Carlitos had brought a girl to the Double-Bar-C Ranch she really hoped would be the one with whom he would finally settle down and start a family."
"That's the plan," Svetlana said.
"And that's about all she told me," Garcia-Romero said.
"Hector," Pevsner said, "Svetlana and I are cousins."
"And this gentleman?" Garcia-Romero asked, indicating Tom Barlow.
"Dmitri and Svetlana are brother and sister," Pevsner said.
"And Carlitos fits in how?"
"We think of him as family," Pevsner said.
"He is family," Svetlana corrected him.
"And I have always thought of Carlitos and his cousin Fernando as my nephews," Garcia-Romero said.
"So, in a manner of speaking," Pevsner said, "we're all family."
"Above the sound of the violins softly playing 'Ave Maria,'" Castillo said, "I keep hearing a soft voice asking, 'Charley, who the hell do these two think they're fooling?'"
"Excuse me?" Garcia-Romero asked.
"You heard me, Hector," Castillo said. "How come I never saw you surrounded by thugs with Uzis before?"
"They're necessary security, Carlos," Garcia-Romero said.
"To protect you from whom?"
"You're a Mexican, a Mexican-American. You know there's a criminal element here."
"I'm a Texican, and you goddamned well know the difference between a Mexican-American and a Texican."
Garcia-Romero did not answer.
"I saw surveillance cameras in that cave downstairs," Castillo said. "What I want from you now, Tio Hector, right now, is to see the tapes of the Tupolev Tu-934A when it was here."
He could see in Garcia-Romero's eyes that that had struck a chord.
"The what?" Garcia-Romero asked.
"The Russian airplane," Castillo qualified. "And please don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about. I've had about all the bullshit I can take."
Garcia-Romero looked at Castillo and then at Pevsner.
"You know about that? Is that why you're here?"
"Why don't you show us the tapes, Hector?" Pevsner replied.
"I was going to show them to you anyway," Garcia-Romero said.
"Mommy, I was only trying to see how many cookies were in the jar. That's the only reason I had my hand in it. I wasn't going to eat any of them. And that's the truth."
"Let's go, Hector," Castillo said. "Where are they?"
"In the security office," Garcia-Romero said. "It's on the upper floor."
He gestured toward the center of the building, and then led everybody out of the great room into the foyer, and then up a wide, tiled stairway to an upper floor.
The security room was at the end of a corridor to the right.
Garcia-Romero didn't even try to work the handle, instead pulling down the cover of a keypad and then punching in a code. And even then he didn't try to open the door.
"I wondered what kind of an airplane that was," he said. "I'd never seen one before."
There was the sound of a bolt being drawn, and then the door was opened by a man in khakis. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster.
"We want to see the tapes of that strange airplane," Garcia-Romero said.
"Shall I bring them to the great room, Don Hector?"
"No," Castillo said. "We'll look at them here."
The man looked at Castillo in surprise, and then at Garcia-Romero for guidance.
Garcia-Romero courteously waved Svetlana ahead of him through the door, and then motioned for the others to follow.
Inside, there was a desk and chairs and a cot, and another door. That was opened only after another punching of a keypad-this one mounted in sight beside the door-and the sliding of another bolt.
Inside the interior room there was a wall holding more than a dozen monitors. A man sat at a table watching them. There was room and chairs for two more people at the table.
Castillo looked at the monitors. He was not surprised to see that it was a first-class installation, which covered just about everything in and around the house, the "airfield," and the cave. And he was pleased to see a battery of recorders; that meant that whatever had happened when the Tupolev Tu-934A had been at Drug Cartel International had been recorded and would be available.
"We want to see whatever the cameras picked up when that strange airplane was here," Garcia-Romero said. "So I suspect we had better start with the arrival of the cars from the Russian embassy."
The man who had opened the door for them went to a rack, quickly found what he was looking for, and inserted it into a slot of the desk.