"It will be on Monitor Fourteen, Don Hector," he said.
"What cars from the Russian embassy?" Pevsner demanded a split second before Castillo had finished opening his mouth to ask the same thing.
"There were three," Garcia-Romero said, "two Ford sport-"
He stopped and pointed to Monitor Fourteen.
The monitor showed two enormous black Ford Expeditions and a Mercedes sedan being waved past khaki-clad guards at a gate across a dirt road.
"Aleksandr, I was told that the aircraft would be on the ground here just long enough for the people from the Russian embassy to take the two crates from it," Garcia-Romero said.
"Hector, anything you have to tell anybody about this, you tell me," Castillo said. "Alek is not the tsar of this operation, I am."
Pevsner's face whitened but he didn't say anything.
"Are you going to tell me what 'this operation' is all about, Carlos?" Garcia-Romero asked.
"Probably not. Who told you about the Tupolev coming and the involvement of the Russian embassy?"
Garcia-Romero hesitated before replying, then said, "Valentin Borzakovsky."
"Who's he?"
Garcia-Romero hesitated again.
"He's a businessman who lives in Venezuela."
"What kind of a businessman? FSB or drug cartel?"
"I don't think I like the question, or your tone, Carlos," Garcia-Romero said.
"Probably both, Carlos," Nicolai Tarasov answered Castillo. "He's one of the people we often fly out of here. And then back in here."
"With suitcases full of money?"
Tarasov nodded, smiled, and added, "On the way out. He always comes back empty-handed."
Monitor Fourteen now showed the cave. The Expeditions and the Mercedes were driving into it.
Then it showed the sky, the camera obviously looking for an aircraft.
Or cameras, plural, Castillo thought as the view which had shown some terrain changed to one showing only the sky.
How do they know to expect it?
He looked around the control room and found a radar screen.
I wouldn't want to make an instrument landing using that, but that's not what it's intended for. That's just to let the authorities of Drug Cartel International know that an aircraft has entered their area.
There was a blip on the radar screen.
I wonder how far away that airplane is. How far and how high.
Monitor Fourteen showed a dot in the sky that quickly grew into an airplane.
Castillo looked at Tarasov to see if he had seen it. Tarasov nodded.
Castillo went back to the screen. The airplane had now grown an enormous vertical stabilizer and engines above the fuselage.
Castillo looked at Tarasov again.
Tarasov nodded and mouthed, "Tu-934A."
That's one weird-looking airplane. If I had ever seen one-even a picture of one-I would have remembered.
Monitor Fourteen showed the weird-looking airplane coming in low for a landing.
"I'd never seen an airplane like that before," Garcia-Romero said.
Well, the Russians certainly didn't show it off at the Paris Air Show. That's a Special Operations special.
That it exists can't be kept a secret but the fewer people who know anything else about it, the better.
The landing roll looked normal, until all of a sudden it decelerated at an amazing rate until it was almost at a complete stop and then turned.
He must have spotted the cave.
Proof of that came when Monitor Fourteen showed the Tu-934A coming into the cave, and the camouflaged tarpaulin being lowered into place once the plane was inside.
The rear door of the Mercedes opened and a man in a business suit walked toward the Tu-934A.
The monitor pulled in on his face.
"Well, hello, Pavel," Tom Barlow said.
"Who is he?" Castillo asked.
"Pavel Koslov," Svetlana said. "The Mexico City rezident."
"And that means this is important, and probably that there's somebody notorious on the plane," Barlow said.
Monitor Fourteen showed the ramp at the rear of the Tu-934A's fuselage lowering. Before it quite touched the ground, two men in rather tight, hooded black coveralls, their faces masked, and carrying Kalashnikov rifles, trotted down it and looked the area over.
One of them made a come on gesture and two more similarly dressed and armed men came down the ramp.
"We call people who dress up like that 'ninjas,'" Castillo said. "What do you call them, Sweaty?"
"Spetsnaz."
Another man, in the black coveralls but not wearing a mask, came down the ramp. The camera moved in for a close-up.
"And a very good afternoon to you, General," Barlow said. "I trust the general had a pleasant flight?"
"That's General Yakov Vladimirovich Sirinov," Svetlana said. "Which tells us that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is indeed behind all this."
"Behind all what?" Garcia-Romero asked. "May I ask?"
"Right now, Tio Hector…" Castillo began and then stopped when another man, this one in a business suit, came down the ramp, and again the camera moved in for a close-up.
"That's Valentin Borzakovsky," Garcia-Romero said.
"Why do I think he didn't just come from Venezuela?" Castillo asked.
"A fuel stop at friendly Jose Marti International Airport?" Tarasov said.
"I'd bet Ciego de Avila," Castillo said. "They wouldn't want the Tu-934A to be seen at Jose Marti."
"You're right, that's more likely," Tarasov said.
"Where Whatsisname… Bora-something?"
"Borzakovsky, Valentin Borzakovsky," Svetlana furnished, a touch of impatience or resignation in her voice.
"… where he boarded FSB Airlines Flight 007, one-stop-here at Drug Cartel International-service to Maiquetia International Airport in the People's Democratic Republic of Venezuela."
Tarasov and Barlow chuckled.
Barlow then said: "I don't think Hugo Chavez would want the Tu-934A… I rephrase: I don't think General Sirinov would want-as much as Hugo would want it to put it on display-the Tu-934A to be seen at Maiquetia. Maybe the Santo Domingo Air Base?"
"More likely La Orchila," Svetlana said. "That's on an island. And it's a pretty decent air base. The runways will take a 747, and Chavez has moved all the civilians off the island."
"Which would add to the security," Barlow agreed.
"If you Russians have no ambitions in the Caribbean, how come you know so much about all the military airfields?"
"Charley, my darling, Alek is right," Svetlana said. "You really have a sophomoric sense of humor."
"My precious, I'll bet you don't even know what a sophomore is."
"The term probably has its roots, my precious darling, in one of the late sophist Dialogues of Plato, but what it means is 'tricky and superficially plausible, ' so therefore a sophomore is someone who is tricky and superficial, with emphasis on superficial. Does the shoe fit?"
"Not at all, my precious beloved darling. A sophomore is a second-year student at a college or university. You really should try to be sure of your facts before you open your adorable mouth to challenge your intellectual betters."
Svetlana made a gesture to Charley involving the use of the index fingers on both hands held in upward position.
Tom Barlow laughed out loud.
"You will pay for that, Charley," he said.
"Look what's coming down the ramp," Tarasov said.
Monitor Fourteen showed a tracked front-loader rolling off the Tu-934A's ramp. Two blue plastic vessels, looking not unlike beer kegs, were suspended from its arms.
It moved to the rear of one of the Expeditions and, under the watchful eyes of General Sirinov and one of the ninjas, was carefully loaded into it.
Then it moved to the second Expedition, where the process was repeated.
General Sirinov held a brief conversation with the man who had helped him supervise the loading of the barrels; Pavel Koslov, the Mexico City rezident; and Valentin Borzakovsky, the Venezuelan "businessman."
Then they all shook hands, except for the ninja, who first saluted and then shook hands. Koslov got back in his Mercedes and immediately drove off. Borzakovsky and the ninja and two others got in one of the Expeditions, and four of the ninjas in the other.