What the hell is going on?
Weiss met Castillo's eyes for a moment, and Castillo was again reminded of Aleksandr Pevsner.
"And we don't want them to know about it," Weiss went on.
"Are you going to tell me about that?" Castillo asked carefully.
"That's why I'm here, Castillo. I told you, you're in a position to fuck up an important operation. But before I get into that, I want you to understand this conversation never took place."
"I can't go along with that."
"You don't have any choice," Weiss said. "I'll deny it. And so will Delchamps."
"That leaves out the Secret Service guy you ran off," Castillo said. "He saw you here."
"He saw Delchamps and me taking a walk down memory lane. That's all. Paraguay and Timmons never came up."
Castillo looked at Delchamps.
"I gave him my word, Ace. Not for auld lang syne, but because it was the only way I could get him to come."
"I'm not giving you my word about anything," Castillo said. "And that specifically includes me not going to Montvale and telling him you're withholding intelligence I should have."
"Before this gets unpleasant, let me tell you about the important operation," Weiss said. "The bottom line, Castillo, is that it'll be your call."
"Tell me about the operation," Castillo said.
"There's a hell of a lot of money involved here," Weiss said. "A goodly share of the proceeds go to support the Direccion General de Inteligencia, which means the FSB doesn't have to support it as much as it has been. And that's important, because the FSB's ability to fund clandestine operations, Islamic extremists, etcetera, has been greatly reduced since we went into Iraq and cut off their oil-for-food income.
"And the DGI is supporting its sister service in the Republic of Venezuela, which I presume you know is about to become the People's Democratic Republic of Venezuela under Colonel Chavez, whose heroes are Fidel Castro, Josef Stalin, and Vladimir Putin.
"And the profits left over after the DGI gets what it needs go to the FSB's secret kitty, which supports, among other things, all those ex-Stasi and ex-AVO people who are causing trouble all over.
"Another way to put this is that if it wasn't for all this drug income they're getting, the FSB would have its operations seriously curtailed."
"Then my question is, why don't you confide in the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, whoever, what you know about this operation and have them stop it?" Castillo said.
Then he saw Delchamps shake his head, and then the look on Delchamps's face. It said, Not smart, Ace!
"Because," Weiss said, his face and tone suggesting he was being very patient with a backward student, "even if they did find a cooler full of coke on the Holiday Spirit-and their record of finding anything isn't very good-all that would happen is that we would add a dozen or so people to our prison population."
"So what's the alternative?"
"International Maritime Law provides for the seizure of vessels-including aircraft-involved in the international illicit drug trade."
"You want to grab Pevsner's airplanes?"
"That, too, but what we want to grab is the Holiday Spirit and her sister ships. Do you have any idea how much one of those floating palaces costs?"
Castillo shook his head to admit he didn't, then asked, "How are you going to do that?"
"Prove their owners were aware of the purpose to which they had put their ships."
"How are you going to that? They're not registered to Vladimir Putin."
"They're registered to a holding company in Panama," Weiss said. "And proving that Putin controlled that would be difficult, but that doesn't matter. All we have to prove is that the owners knew what was going on; that it was illegal. The owners lose the ship. The Holiday Spirit cost a little over three hundred and fifty million."
"And how are you going to prove the owners knew?"
"The operation could not be carried on without the captain being aware of what was going on."
"But the captains don't own their ships, do they?"
"No. But they don't get command of a ship except from the owners."
"Okay."
"The FSB was not about to entrust a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar ship to some stranger. They wanted their own man running things, and they didn't want him to come from the Saint Petersburg Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union because people might start wondering what the Russians were doing running a cruise ship operation out of Miami.
"So they provided reliable, qualified masters with phony documents saying they were Latvians, or Estonians, or Poles."
"That sounds pretty far-fetched."
"You're a pilot, right? You just flew a Gulfstream Three to Argentina and back, right?"
Castillo nodded.
"Anybody ask to see your pilot's license?"
Castillo shook his head.
"Anybody ever ask to see your pilot's license?"
Castillo shook his head again.
"You're flying an eight-, ten-million-dollar airplane, you're given the benefit of the doubt, right?"
"Okay."
"You bring a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar ship into port, everybody's going to say he must be an 'any tonnage, any ocean' master mariner, right? And proved this to the owners-otherwise, they would not have given him their ship, right?"
Castillo nodded once again.
"We have proof that the master of the Holiday Spirit and four of his officers gained their nautical experience in the submarine service of the Navy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and are not Latvians, Estonians, or Poles, or using the names they were born with.
"Now, all we have to do is prove that the owners knew this, and that said officers were actively involved in the smuggling of controlled substances into the United States…"
"How are you going to do that?"
"By having people on the Holiday Spirit. Filipino seamen come cheap. Getting them onto the Holiday Spirit took some doing, but they're in place. And they have been compiling intel-including pictures of the ship's officers checking the incoming drugs, and putting them over the side-for some time. When we're absolutely sure we have enough to go to the Maritime Court in The Hague, we're going to blow the whistle.
"Unless, of course, you go down there and start making waves causing the system to go on hold. Which would mean we would have to start all over again from scratch."
"And you don't want me to make waves, is that it?"
"It's a question of priority."
"The President wants Timmons freed."
"So I understand."
"The only person who can call off my operation is the President," Castillo said simply. "And I don't think he will. And talking about waves, if I go to him with this, and he hears the company is withholding intel like this from Montvale, you'll have a tsunami."
"You were listening, I trust, when I told you we never had this conversation?"
Castillo nodded.
Weiss went on: "Montvale will be pissed on two accounts-first, that he's been kept in the dark, and second, that you let the President know he didn't know what was going on under his nose. When the company denies any knowledge of this, where does that leave you with Montvale? Or the President?"
"You're suggesting I go down there and go through the motions, but don't really try to get Timmons back?"
"I'm not suggesting anything, Colonel," Weiss said. "But it's pretty clear to me that if you go down there and pull a professional operation to get this DEA guy back, it's going to tell these people that they have attracted attention they don't want. They'll go in a caution mode, and we don't want that."
He stood up and looked at Castillo.
"See you at the briefing tomorrow," he said. "I've been selected to brief you."
"What you're suggesting, Weiss, is that I just leave Timmons swinging in the breeze."
"People get left swinging in the breeze all the time," Weiss said. "You know that as well as I do. I told you before, this is your call. One guy sometimes gets fucked for the common good."