“Why?”
“Because when the Merry Outlaws launch their plan to rescue Ferris, Abrego’s location is intelligence Castillo has to have.”
“The President doesn’t want Castillo anywhere near this.”
“I know. Which means you’re going to have to make up your mind whether you’re going along with Clendennen’s-how do I put this? —
“Castillo has a well-earned reputation for leaving bodies all over.”
“Do you really care how many SVR bodies or drug cartel bodies Castillo leaves anywhere?”
Schmidt considered the question for a long moment, as if it confused him, and then he said: “Frank, when I consider the option of Montvale taking over, I have to admit that I don’t.”
VIII
ONE
The Lobby Lounge Llao Llao Hotel and Spa Avenida Ezequiel Bustillo Bariloche Rio Negro Province, Argentina 1225 18 April 2007
Castillo, Sweaty, Bradley, Tom Barlow, Kiril Koshkov, and Stefan Koussevitzky were sitting around an enormous round table with a wood fire burning in its center when a white-jacketed bellman pointed them out to the four men he’d just brought from the airport.
They were Colonel Jacob Torine, U.S. Air Force (Retired); Major Richard Miller, U.S. Army (Retired); former Captain Richard Spark-man, U.S. Air Force; and CWO5 Colin Leverette, U.S. Army (Retired).
Castillo stood and addressed Torine: “Good afternoon, Colonel, sir. I trust the colonel had a nice flight?”
Torine eyed him suspiciously.
“Why am I afraid of what comes next?” Torine asked, then went to Svetlana and kissed her cheek.
“I believe the colonel knows Colonel Berezovsky,” Castillo went on. “And he may remember Major Koussevitzky. .”
“Indeed, I do,” Torine said. “How’s the leg, Major?”
“It only hurts when I move, Colonel,” Koussevitzky replied. “Good to see you again, sir.”
“And this is Kiril Koshkov, late captain of the Spetsnaz version of the Night Stalkers,” Castillo went on. “Kiril, Stefan, these distinguished warriors are Colonel Jacob Torine, Captain Richard Spark-man, and Mr. Colin Leverette.”
The men shook hands.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Torine said, “but why are we being so military?”
Max walked to Torine, sat beside him on his haunches, and thrust his paw at Dick Miller until he took it.
“Max, I hate to tell you this,” Miller said, “but as I came through the door there was a sign in at least four languages that says NO DOGS.”
“Not a problem. Max knows the owner,” Castillo said.
“You were telling me, Colonel,” Torine said, “why we are being so military.”
“I spent the morning playing general,” Castillo said. “I gave a PowerPoint presentation of a staff study that I am forced, in all modesty, to admit was brilliant.”
Svetlana shook her head in resignation.
“How so?” Torine asked, smiling.
“Don’t shake your head at me, Podpolkovnik Alekseeva,” Castillo said. “Did I, or didn’t I, convince Ivan the Terrible Junior that his plans for this problem wouldn’t solve it?”
“What were his plans?” Torine asked.
“They did have, I’ll admit, the advantage of simplicity,” Castillo said. “What he wanted to do was whack anyone who he suspected was SVR. I finally managed to convince him that Vladimir Vladimirovich has more SVR operators than we have bullets, and that a wiser, less violent, solution was called for.”
“Which is?” Torine asked, smiling as he beckoned to a waiter.
“I’m still working on that,” Castillo said. “Little problems keep popping up.”
“You managed to talk Pevsner out of whacking everybody in sight and letting God sort it out,” Leverette asked, incredulously, “without having a Plan B?”
“I was impressed,” Tom Barlow said. “That’s just what he did. I didn’t think he was going to get away with it.”
Castillo smiled at Svetlana, and said, “Pay attention to your big brother, Sweaty.”
“What makes either of you think you really got away with it?” Sweaty replied.
“No plans at all, Charley?” Leverette asked.
“More questions than plans,” Castillo said.
He pointed at the laptop in front of Bradley.
“Lester, show Uncle Remus, Uncle Jake, and Gimpy the letter that the President wants President Martinez to send to him.”
The three bent over the laptop and read the letter.
“Where’d you get this?” Torine asked.
“What is it?” Miller asked.
“That’s the letter the President ordered Natalie Cohen to give to Ambassador McCann, so that McCann can go to President Martinez with it, and have Martinez send it back. She sent it to Lammelle, and he sent it to me.”
“So?” Torine said. “He wants to swap the guy doing time in Florence for Ferris. We knew that.”
“Uncle Remus has that pained look on his face that shows he’s thinking,” Castillo said. “That, or he smells a rat.”
“Both,” Leverette said.
“Go on.”
“The President wrote this himself?” Leverette asked.
“The President told Natalie that Clemens McCarthy wrote it,” Castillo said. “He told Natalie he thought it was brilliant.”
“‘. . your Marshals would transport him to the Oaxaca State Prison, where they would turn him over to prison authorities,’” Leverette quoted.
“I, too, found that interesting.”
“I don’t understand,” Torine said.
Castillo nodded, then said: “Question one: Why would the President be specific about where Abrego was to go to be exchanged? Question two: Why the Oaxaca State Prison? It’s way south, not near the U.S. border. There must be a state prison near our border.”
“Oaxaca is closer to Venezuela?” Uncle Remus asked.
“That may-probably does-have something to do with it. I have no idea what, but there is a reason.”
“You just said McCarthy wrote the letter,” Miller said.
“Same questions,” Castillo said.
“Where are you going with this?”
“I don’t know; I just started thinking about it,” Castillo said. “Okay, here goes. A lot of people are beginning to realize that Clendennen is losing, or has lost, his marbles. That’s what everybody-including me-thought when we heard his paranoid suspicions that we were staging a coup d’etat to get him out of the Oval Office, and Montvale in.
“There’s considerable proof that he’s not playing with a full deck. For example, he staged that business at Langley and fired Porky Parker for disloyalty. Then he went bananas because we walked out on his speech. And
