Covert Warriors

“I’ll take that as a yes. Thank you, Frank.”

“I’m beginning to understand why Clendennen wanted to load you on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow.”

The LED stopped flashing.

TWO

Hacienda Santa Maria Oaxaca Province, Mexico 1725 16 April 2007

The sprawling, red-tile-roofed house with a wide, shaded veranda all around it sat on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A circular drive led to it from the acres of grapefruit trees running as far as the eye could see to the east.

The house was known as “Don Fernando’s House,” but the reference was to Don Fernando Lopez the Elder, rather than to the Don Fernando Lopez who now sat on the veranda facing away from the Pacific, holding a bottle of Dos Equis beer in his massive fist.

Beside him, on cushioned wicker couches and chairs, were his cousin, Carlos Castillo; Don Armando Medina, a swarthy, heavyset sixty-odd-year-old who was el jefe-“the boss” and general manager-of Hacienda Santa Maria; Sweaty; Stefan Koussevitzky; and Lester Bradley. They were all-except for Lester, who had a Coke-drinking wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon, from Bodegas San Felipe, which happened to be a subsidiary of Hacienda Santa Maria. Max lay beside Sweaty, gnawing on a grapefruit he held between his paws.

Fernando Lopez and Carlos Castillo were grandsons of Don Fernando Castillo, who had married Alicia Lopez. Hacienda Santa Maria had been her dowry. Don Fernando and Dona Alicia had had two children, Maria Elena, who had married Manuel Lopez-no relation-and Jorge Alejandro, who had been killed in the Vietnam War as a very young-nineteen years old-man.

Manuel and Maria Elena Lopez had three children: Fernando, Graciella, and Juanita.

Don Fernando Castillo had strained relations with the Lopez family, into which his daughter had married, but had been exceedingly fond of his grandson Fernando. He and Dona Alicia had agreed that on their deaths, Hacienda Santa Maria would go to Fernando, and everything else would be given to charity and the Alamo Foundation.

“I don’t want to spend all of eternity spinning in my grave thinking of the Lopez wetbacks squandering all our money,” he declared.

All of that had changed a quarter century before, when an Army officer, then-Major Allan B. Naylor, appeared in Dona Alicia’s office in the Alamo Foundation building with the photograph of a twelve-year-old blond, blue-eyed boy, and said there was good reason to believe he was the out-of-wedlock son of the late Warrant Officer Junior Grade Jorge Alejandro Castillo.

Don Fernando Castillo’s first reaction to this was that some Kraut Fraulein-Don Fernando had been Major F. J. Castillo of Combat Command A, 3rd Armored Division during World War II and had had some experience with Kraut Frauleins in the immediate postwar period-had learned who the Castillo family was, and intended, like the Lopez wetbacks, to get her hands into the Castillo cash box by passing off somebody else’s bastard son as the fruit of their Jorge’s loins.

Dona Alicia had had no such doubts. One look at the boy’s eyes had been enough to convince her that she was looking at a picture of her grandson. On hearing from Major Naylor that the boy’s mother was in the final stages of pancreatic cancer, she picked up the telephone and called Lemes Aviation, ordering them to ready the company Learjet so that she and Major Naylor could make the Pan American flight from New York to Frankfurt late that same afternoon.

Not two weeks later, equipped with a U.S. passport in the name of Carlos Guillermo Castillo, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger arrived in San Antonio. A week after that, his mother died, and he became the sole heir to the vast business empire known as Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

The new situation required modification of the last will and testaments of Don Fernando and Dona Alicia. Legal counsel informed them that there would be problems if Carlos were to inherit half of Hacienda Santa Maria. Mexican law did not permit foreigners to own property in the United States of Mexico.

Don Fernando was aware of this. When Maria Elena’s time had come, she had flown to Mexico City, where Fernando had been born. He himself had been born on Hacienda San Dominic, the Castillo farm near Guadalajara, and Dona Alicia on Hacienda Santa Maria.

“Not a problem,” Don Fernando announced. “They’re like brothers; they’ll work it out between them.”

Carlos and Fernando had almost immediately-frankly surprising both their grandparents-become close and inseparable. Fernando called Carlos “Gringo,” and Carlos called Fernando “Fatso.”

Fernando and Charley were sitting with Svetlana, Stefan Koussevitzky, Lester Bradley, and Don Armando Medina on the veranda as two brown Suburbans with Policia Federal insignia on their doors kicked up a dust cloud coming up the road through the grapefruit groves to the house.

The front doors of both vehicles opened simultaneously. A trim, neatly uniformed Federale, holding a CAR-15 in his hands as if he knew what to do with it, got out of the lead vehicle.

Well, Castillo thought, despite what Don Armando said about us being old friends, I wouldn’t have recognized Juan Carlos if I’d fallen over him.

A stout, balding man in civilian clothing, a thick black cigar clutched firmly in his teeth, got out of the second Suburban. A Colt Model 1911A1 in a skeleton holster was on his belt.

Who the hell is he?

I’ll be damned! That’s Juan Carlos!

Last time I saw him he looked like a model in an advertisement for men’s cologne. Now he looks like. . well, a fat Mexican cop.

Juan Carlos Pena, el jefe of the Policia Federal for the province of Oaxaca, waved cheerfully, and with the cigar still in his mouth, called, in perfect American English, “Carlos, you sonofabitch, how the fuck are you?”

Then he walked quickly onto the veranda, and the moment Castillo stood up, wrapped him in an affectionate hug.

Castillo saw that Fernando was smiling, and knew it was not at the display of affection but rather at Castillo’s discomfiture.

“Good to see you, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said.

Where the hell did he get that cologne?

And what did he do, pour it on?

“How the hell long has it been?” Juan Carlos said. “Too fucking long, that’s for goddamn sure.”

“How about a glass of wine, Juan Carlos?” Castillo asked in Spanish. “Or something stronger?”

“A little Jack Daniel’s would go down nicely,” Juan Carlos said, continuing in English. “But not until after I meet the girlfriend. You’re right, Fernando, she’s spectacular!”

“Swe. . Susanna, say hello to an old friend, Juan Carlos Pena.”

“Hola,” Sweaty said. “Nice to meet you, Susanna Barlow.”

“And this is Stefan Koussevitzky,” Castillo said. “And this is Lester Bradley. My grandmother sent him down to see if he can straighten out the hacienda’s computers.”

Max instinctively stood up.

Sweaty laid a gentle hand on the dog’s back, and in Hungarian said, “It’s okay, baby.”

“What the fuck is that?” Juan Carlos said. “I’ve ridden smaller horses.”

“Meet Max,” Castillo said.

Juan Carlos looked at Svetlana. “What was that language you was speaking?”

“Hungarian. I’m Uruguayan but my parents immigrated there from Hungary.”

Juan Carlos nodded. “I noticed the funny accent.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know there’s three kinds of Spanish, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said. “Castilian-Spanish- Spanish; Southern Cone-the Spanish spoken in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile; and the Spanish spoken in Mexico,