“Sir, I’m sorry. He’s not here.”
“Where is he?” Beiderman demanded.
“Sir, he’s on his way to Afghanistan.”
“As soon as you can get in touch with him, O’Toole, have him call me,” Naylor ordered.
“That will probably take about an hour, sir.”
“As soon as possible,” Naylor said, and hung up.
He met Beiderman’s eyes, and said, “Done.”
“And now O’Toole knows all about this,” Beiderman said.
“No. O’Toole’s the SPECOPSCOM deputy commander. McNab would have to tell him he was going to Afghanistan.”
“Including the circumstances?
“We wait to see what happens when POTUS gets his temper under control.”
“And if he doesn’t? If this makes him even more angry? God, Naylor, if he ever finds out what you and I just did. .”
“If POTUS doesn’t get his irrational behavior under control, which is a possibility, I’m afraid then you and I and the other rational people around him are going to have to worry about how to protect the country from that.”
After a long moment, the secretary of Defense said very softly, “I’ve been wondering who would be the first to actually say that out loud.”
FIVE
El Tepual International Airport Puerto Montt, Chile 1945 17 April 2007
As the PeruaireCargo 777 taxied down the runway toward the refrigerator warehouses, Castillo saw that there were two other Boeings on the field. Both were identical to the aircraft on which they had flown from Cozumel-all Boeing 777-200LRs, just about the last word in heavy long-haul transport aircraft.
One bore the insignia of PeruaireCargo, and the other the paint scheme of Air Bulgaria, which Castillo could not remember ever having seen before.
There were no other fixed-wing aircraft on the tarmac. Castillo had expected to see Pevsner’s Learjet 45.
The only aircraft visible besides the huge cargo jets were two Bell 206L-4 helicopters, both painted with the legend CHILEAN HELICOPTERS S.A.
“I don’t see the Lear,” Castillo said to his seatmate, who was in the process of applying lipstick, an act he found quite erotic.
They were in the small section of a dozen seats behind the bulkhead that separated them from the flight deck.
“Alek knew when we would arrive,” Sweaty said. “It will be here.”
The massive 777 stopped moving.
Max, who had spent just about all of the flight sound asleep, now awoke. He sat on his haunches and looked expectantly at the cabin door.
One of the crew came into the passenger compartment. There were seven men, all Russians, on the crew. All of them wore wings. Five of them wore the four-stripe shoulder boards of captains, and the other two the three-stripe shoulder boards of first officers.
The ranks didn’t seem to matter, as one of the captains functioned as the steward, cooking and serving lunch and making drinks, and the last time Castillo walked into the cockpit to see where the hell they were over South America, one of the first officers was occupying the pilot’s seat.
He had come first to the conclusion that Russians did things differently, and then idly wondered what kind of passports the crew was carrying, and then decided that they more than likely had a selection of passports from which to choose, depending on where they had landed.
As a stairway mounted on a pickup truck was backed against the fuselage, the captain worked open the door.
When there was the light bump of the stairway contacting the aircraft, Max jumped to his feet, effortlessly shouldered the captain out of the way, and ran down the stairway.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Castillo said. “He can’t wait to see his babies.”
“He’s been on this plane for nine hours. I know what he wants to do,” Sweaty said, then immediately stopped, realizing that she had been had.
“I better get down there before those two guys at the bottom of the steps see Max and wet their pants,” Castillo said, and started to get out of his seat.
“My God,” Koussevitzky suddenly said. “It’s Blatov! And Koshkov!”
Koussevitzky beat Castillo to the door.
Castillo got there in time to see the two men salute, and heard one of them say, “Kapitans Blatov and Koshkov reporting for duty, sir!”
Koussevitzky ran quickly down the stairs and the three men embraced. Castillo-moving slowly-made it all the way down the stairs before they broke apart. When they did, he saw tears running down all of their cheeks.
“Colonel Castillo, may I present Kapitans Blatov and Koshkov, late of Vega Group Two?”
Both Blatov and Koshkov snapped to attention and saluted.
Castillo returned it, in Pavlovian response, and then put out his hand.
Koussevitzky saw the lack of understanding on Castillo’s face.
“It was General Sirinov’s plan, Carlos,” Koussevitzky said, “that should something go wrong on La Orchila Island, a second Tupelov based in Cuba would fly in our reserve force.”
“But by the time we got there, Podpolkovnik Castillo,” Kapitan Koshkov said, “all we found was Major Koussevitzky resting against what was left of the hangar wall, drinking emergency liquid against the pain of the wound Podpolkovnik Alekseeva had given him.”
Castillo looked at him and thought:
“Emergency liquid?” he asked.
“Vodka, Carlos,” Koshkov explained with a smile. “One knows when one has been really accepted as a Spetsnaz when the officer inspecting your equipment before a mission does not inspect your two water bottles to make sure one of them doesn’t contain emergency liquid.”
