Covert Warriors

After everyone else filled the seats between, the waiters stood ready to pour the wine.

Pevsner picked up his glass, took a large sip, nodded his head as a signal to the waiter that it met his approval, and then watched as the waiter emptied the bottle between his, Uncle Nicolai’s, and Tom Barlow’s glasses. Much the same thing happened elsewhere at the table.

Then Pevsner made an announcement, or gave an order, that surprised-perhaps startled-both Roscoe and Porky.

“Let us pray,” he said, folding his hands piously before him, closing his eyes, and bowing his head.

He prayed in English: “Dear Lord and Father of mankind, we thank You for the bounty we are about to receive. We thank You for the continued good health and safety of our families. .”

Roscoe had a somewhat irreverent thought: He sounds as if he’s having a conversation with a friend who happens to be the Almighty.

“. . and our beloved friends. We ask that You permit us to assist the Archangel Michael and the Blessed Saint George in their and Your holy war against Satan, his wicked works, and his followers. We ask their and Your help in rescuing. . what’s his name again, Karl?”

“Ferris, Colonel James D. Ferris,” Castillo furnished.

“. . Colonel James Ferris from the evil men who hold him for Satan’s evil purposes, and we ask that those who are about to do battle in Thy name to this end be given the courage of Saint George.

“This we ask in the name of Thy son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

There was a chorus of amens.

What the hell was that all about? both Porky and Roscoe thought more or less simultaneously.

Pevsner went on, now icily angry: “Where the hell are the shrimp cocktails?” He then switched to Russian, and apparently repeated what he had said in English, for both waiters hurried inside the building and quickly returned with trays of shrimp cocktails.

“It doesn’t get much better than this, Roscoe,” Castillo announced. “The shrimp were floating around out there”-he gestured toward the sea-“not six hours ago. And the beef and the wine arrived with the ex-Spetsnaz this morning from Chile.”

Parker wondered: With the what? The “ex-Spetsnaz”? Is that what he said?

“Charley, why was it important that I come here?” Roscoe asked.

“I’d planned to get into this after dinner,” Castillo replied, “but what the hell? The thing is, Roscoe, you’re one hell of a reporter. .”

What is this, soft soap from Charley Castillo?

Watch yourself, Roscoe!

“. . and I figured it was just a matter of time before you figured out that the kidnapping of Colonel Ferris, and the whacking of the other three guys, including my old friend Daniel Salazar, probably has nothing to do with the drug trade. And I wanted to ask you to hold off writing what you learned or intuited.”

Otherwise what?

“Otherwise we’ll have to kill you”?

Do not pass GO.

Go directly to the cemetery and do not collect one million dollars?

“Are you going to explain that? If it’s not connected with the drug trade, what’s it all about?”

“Vladimir Vladimirovich has a problem, Mr. Danton,” Pevsner said.

Who? Oh! Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

“That, and his ego is involved,” Tom Barlow said.

“That’s part of the problem,” Pevsner agreed, “but his major problem is that everyone in the Russian intelligence community, and the diplomatic community, and of course within the Oprichnina-”

“Within the what?” Roscoe interrupted.

Pevsner flashed him an icy glance and went on as if he hadn’t heard the question: “. . is waiting for him to react. He either reacts, or. . what is Carlos always saying? ‘There goes the old ball game.’”

“Reacts to what?” Roscoe asked.

“His gross underestimation of Svetlana and her Carlitos,” Tom Barlow said, and laughed.

“About sixteen months ago, Mr. Danton,” Pevsner said, “Vladimir Vladimirovich thought he had the world by the tail-”

“The expression, Alek,” Castillo interrupted, “is ‘had the world by the balls.’”

Delchamps chuckled. Pevsner glared at both of them, and again went on as if he had not been interrupted: “. . but then a series of things went very wrong for him. Again, quoting my friend Charley, ‘cutting to the chase,’ culminating in what happened two months ago-”

Roscoe quickly did the arithmetic and interrupted: “Exactly two months ago today, Clendennen was ‘persuaded’ to name Montvale Vice President. Is that what you mean?”

This time Pevsner chose to answer.

“That had a bearing on it, of course, but what I was thinking of, Mr. Danton, was what happened in the lobby bar of the Mayflower Hotel immediately before that happened.”

Danton’s face showed his confusion.

Pevsner went on: “There was a meeting there between Sergei Murov, the SVR rezident in Washington, and Mr. Lammelle-who later that morning would be appointed as head of the CIA-and Dmitri, Svetlana, and Charley.

“The previous afternoon, as you reported on Wolf News, Charley landed a Tupelov Tu-934A at Andrews Air Force Base. On that pride of the Russian air force were the last barrels of Congo-X that Vladimir Vladimirovich and Lieutenant General Yakov Sirinov had.

“Thanks to your journalistic discretion, Mr. Danton, which we all deeply appreciate, there was no mention of the Congo-X or General Sirinov either on Wolf News or in The Washington Times- Post.

“But Sergei Murov, of course, knew about both, and was thus naturally quite anxious to hear what Mr. Lammelle and the others wished to say.

“Mr. Lammelle got right to the point. He informed Sergei that Secretary of State Natalie Cohen had called the Russian ambassador and told him that unless Murov voluntarily gave up his post and returned to Russia he would be declared persona non grata and expelled within forty-eight hours.”

“And I told him,” Sweaty chimed in, “that when he left, I had a little present for Vladimir Vladimirovich I wanted him to take with him; a barrel of Congo-X that had been rendered harmless. And I also told him that if Stefan Koussevitzky and his family were not in Budapest within seventy-two hours-”

“She would make sure,” Castillo picked up the narrative, laughing, “that every officer of the SVR would know that what Putin was doing behind closed doors when he was running the KGB in Saint Petersburg was write poetry. For some reason, I gather that Saint Petersburg poets are regarded with some suspicion vis-a-vis their sexual orientation.”

Tom Barlow chuckled.

“I’m not sure that pouring salt on an open wound was wise,” Pevsner said.

“I disagree,” Nicolai said. “Always press an advantage, Alek. You know that.”

“And it worked,” Koussevitzky said. “We were on our way to Argentina via Budapest the next day.”

“Which caused you to decide that Charley’s offer of an armistice had been accepted,” Pevsner said. “Which we now know is not the case.”

He let that sink in a moment, and then went on: “It was a low point for Vladimir Vladimirovich, Mr. Danton. He had dispatched General Sirinov personally on the super-secret Tu-934A with the last stocks of Congo-X, confident that President Clendennen would happily exchange Svetlana, Dmitri, and Charley for the Congo-X.

“When Sergei-who had proposed the exchange to Lammelle-walked into the hotel bar to learn he was about to be declared persona non grata, Charley’s March Hare assault on Hugo Chavez’s La Orchila Island had not only already taken the Congo-X-and rendered it harmless-but also had taken possession of the Tu-934A and taken General Sirinov prisoner.”

“And under those circumstances, Aleksandr,” Tom Barlow said, “Svetlana was right to rub salt in his wound,