"What won't those evil Yankees be up to next?" Pevsner asked.
"… which the Russians use as their air-freight forwarder. Borzakovsky said the Russian embassy really needed to get something from Moscow the Americans couldn't know about," Garcia-Romero finished.
"Do you think those blue beer kegs they unloaded from the Tu-934A might have contained nuclear weapons?" Castillo said jokingly.
But what the hell am I joking about?
They contained Congo-X, which is just about as bad.
"I'm not as naive as you seem to think, Carlos," Garcia-Romero said. "There were radiation detectors waiting for that shipment."
And if the needles on your radiometers had gone off the scale, and you had said anything, you and everybody who works for you in the cave would be dead and the nukes would be in Mexico.
"Go on, Hector," Pevsner said.
"He said there would be very little risk. Pavel Koslov of the Russian embassy-who of course has diplomatic immunity-would come here to meet the airplane, immediately load this cargo into Russian embassy trucks, and be gone within minutes."
"How much else do you think your friend Valentin Borzakovsky, this Venezuelan businessman good friend of yours, told Koslov about what goes on here?" Pevsner asked angrily.
Garcia-Romero didn't respond, and instead said, "He offered me one hundred thousand euros for the service."
"You risked everything we have here for a hundred thousand euros?" Pevsner asked incredulously.
"Do you know how much it costs to maintain this facility, Aleksandr?"
"To the penny!" Pevsner snapped. "And the last time I looked, the income made the cost look like a minor operating expense. And you risked losing all that income for a hundred thousand euros? My God, you are a fool!"
"I also thought it might be useful to have the Russian embassy owe us a favor," Garcia-Romero said.
"Did it occur to you, Tio Hector," Castillo asked, "that once you did this hundred-thousand-euro 'favor' for the Russians that you had jumped into their pocket, and they would be back asking for other 'favors' and this time there would be no euros, just the threat to expose you for what you did?"
"Or that once this happened, we couldn't take the risk of ever using this place again?" Nicolai Tarasov put in before Garcia-Romero could open his mouth.
"Is that all the bad news, Hector?" Pevsner asked. "Or is there more?"
Garcia-Romero hesitated a long moment before replying.
"There is more," he said. "I don't know whether you think it will be bad news or not."
"Let's have it."
"My men have heard gossip that the coyotes-there were seven or eight of them-were found shot to death near the American border."
"Dead men tell no tales," Castillo said. "You might want to write that down, Alek."
Pevsner's response was not what Castillo-or, for that matter, any of the others-expected.
"Have you any further questions for your Uncle Hector, friend Charley?" he asked matter-of-factly.
"I've got a couple, including one I expected you to ask," Castillo said.
"Which is?"
"How much does your friend Borzakovsky know about Nicolai and Alek's operations here?"
"Nothing," Garcia-Romero said immediately. "I swear your name didn't come up, Aleksandr."
I don't believe you, Uncle Hector, and I don't think Pevsner will either.
Did you commit suicide when you made this deal with the Russians?
"Anything else you want to know, Charley?" Pevsner asked.
"How long is it going to take you to put all those surveillance tapes in a box for me?"
"You're going to do what with them?" Pevsner asked.
"Slide them-or copies of them-under the door of that big building in Langley, Virginia."
Pevsner considered that for a long moment, but made no comment.
"And after you've done that, Hector," Pevsner said, "what you're going to do is shut this place down. I want all the surveillance tapes that Charley doesn't take destroyed. I want the system removed. I want everybody who has worked here to find employment as far from here as possible. If this place should suddenly attract the attention of the Mexican government, I want them to find nothing that will tie me-or, for that matter, you-to it in any way."
"You think that maybe we should burn the house down?" Garcia-Romero said sarcastically.
Pevsner considered that a moment, and then said, "You use bottled gas here, right? Bottled gas explodes. Can you handle that, or should I have Janos show you how that's done?"
"You're serious?"
"Yes, I'm serious. You have a problem with that?"
Careful, Tio Hector.
The wrong answer will get you in more trouble than you can imagine.
"How much time do I have?" Garcia-Romero asked. "I have several men I trust completely. I could leave them here to arrange the… accident."
"While you go where?"
"I was about to say Mexico City, but I think San Antonio would be even better. Better yet, New York."
Pevsner considered that.
"New York would be better," he said. "Twenty-four hours from now, Nicolai will fly over this place. When he looks down, he will expect to see the burned-possibly still burning-ruins of this building."
"That's what he will see," Garcia-Romero said.
Congratulations, Uncle Hector. You have just said the magic words.
And your bullet-ridden corpse will not be found in the burned ruins of your house in the desert. [TWO] Penthouse B The Grand Cozumel Beach amp; Golf Resort Cozumel Quintana Roo, Mexico 1915 7 February 2007 The fishermen had apparently come home from the sea shortly before the hunters had come home from the hills around Drug Cartel International.
When Castillo and the others walked into the penthouse, the tiled area around the swimming pool was being converted by the resort staff-under the direction of Uncle Remus-into a high-in-the-sky grilled seafood outdoor restaurant. A long table had been set up, and flames were still rising from the just-ignited lava coals in two barbecue grills. An enormous insulated box seemed to be stuffed with king mackerel, and another cooler with bottles of Dos Equis beer.
Max immediately went to sniff at the fish.
Everybody but Colin Leverette and Lester Bradley, who stood at the grills, was sitting around the pool on chaise longues under umbrellas, most of them holding bottles of the Dos Equis.
"I knew Our Noble Leader would return when he smelled food," Uncle Remus said. "And he'd tell us where he's been. Right, Charley?"
"I'll even show you movies of where I've been," Castillo replied, and looked at Lester. "Lester, can we send tapes from surveillance cameras to Casey? Or look at them on the TV? Both?"
Bradley thought about that a moment, nodded, and said, "Yes, sir. That shouldn't be a problem."
"Have at it," Castillo said.
"I'll take over the grill," Svetlana said. "Somehow I suspect cooking is not among Uncle Remus's many skills. And I don't want that fish ruined. I'm hungry."
"You are in the presence, madam, of one of New Orleans's most skilled piscatorial chefs," Uncle Remus said. "Be humble."
"They have parrillas in Mother Russia, do they, Sweaty?" Delchamps said as he pushed himself off his chaise lounge.
"We have everything in Mother Russia, Edgar," Svetlana said. "I'm surprised you don't know that."
"I think everybody should have a look at these tapes before we send them to Casey," Castillo said. "Logical conclusion: Let Sweaty get the grills going." He gave in to the temptation, and added innocently, "Aleksandr can help her."
Surprising him, Pevsner went immediately to the grills and politely asked for, and was given, Lester's chef hat. He put it on, then tested the heat coming from the no-longer-flaming lava briquettes by holding his hand, palm down, over them.
"Another seven minutes, I would estimate," he said. "While you're showing the tapes, I will ensure the fish have been properly filleted." And then he smiled at Castillo and added, "Never underestimate people, friend Charley. You might want to write that down." "Two-Gun, get your laptop," Castillo ordered as Lester hooked up cables from Casey's radio to the television. "I'm going to offer a running commentary as the tapes run, identifying the players, et cetera. We'll then edit the tape and the commentary to make sure the CIA can't identify or locate the airfield or all the players."