Covert Warriors

friend, the gringo’s girlfriend, and several other gringos on the veranda, signaled that it was safe for el jefe to get out of the second Suburban.

Juan Carlos Pena, commander of the Policia Federal for Oaxaca State, did so, and walked quickly to the veranda.

“What the hell are you still doing here, Carlos?” he demanded.

“Good morning, Juan Carlos,” Castillo replied. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“I don’t want a fucking cup of coffee. I want to know what the fuck the emergency is you called me about. And why the fuck you’re still here.”

Castillo shrugged. “You might as well have some coffee. You’re going to be here for a while.”

He gestured toward the orchard.

There was a line of a dozen men walking out of the orchard toward the house. They were wearing black coveralls, their faces were covered with balaclava masks, and they were all armed with Kalashnikovs.

“What the fuck?” Juan Carlos exclaimed, and turned back to Castillo. He now saw that another half dozen men, similarly clothed and armed, had come onto the veranda from inside the house.

“Your American Express is outgunned, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said. “I think you’d better tell them to lay down their weapons. I don’t want to kill them, but that’s your other option.”

Pena thought: “Your American Express is outgunned”?

He wouldn’t dare try killing my bodyguards!

He said: “What the fuck is going on here?”

“The weapons, please, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said. “And then we can have our little chat.”

“You’re not actually threatening me? You know who I am.”

“You’re the man who’s going to tell your men to put their weapons down, because otherwise they’ll be dead.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to let you get away with this,” Pena said, and then switched to Spanish and ordered his bodyguards to lay down their weapons.

Castillo then issued an order in Russian to the men in the balaclava masks.

Pena looked at him with wide eyes.

“That was Russian, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said. “What I did was tell them to restrain your men. That means they will put your men in plastic handcuffs, take them to the back of the house, sit them on the ground in a circle, and then handcuff them together. I have no intention of hurting them-as a matter of fact, I’m hoping we can become pals-but for the moment, that’s what’s going to happen.”

A maid appeared from inside the house, pushing a wheeled cart holding a coffee service toward a table where Svetlana sat in one of the upholstered wicker chairs.

“Ah, and here’s our coffee,” Castillo said.

Pena watched in furious fascination as his visibly terrified bodyguards were efficiently cuffed and led around the side of the house.

“You will not be harmed,” Pena called out to them in Spanish.

His bodyguards appeared anything but convinced.

Four of the black-clad men then gathered the Policia Federal weapons, took them to one of the Suburbans, unloaded and disassembled them, and then put roughly half of the parts in the second Suburban. Then they emptied the magazines of their cartridges, left the magazines in the first Suburban, and put the cartridges in the second.

Castillo issued a second, somewhat shorter order in Russian.

Pena looked at him.

“What I told them to do now was go in the kitchen and get lemonade and give it to anyone who is thirsty,” Castillo said. “And I suspect most of them will be. When the Russians were in Hungary, I learned from the Allamvedelmi Hatosag-the Hungarian secret police; probably the best interrogators in the world, better even than the Mossad-that terror causes unusual thirst. And your American Express certainly looked terrified just now, wouldn’t you agree?”

Pena barked: “You’re going to spend the rest of your life in the Oaxaca State Prison, you realize. If you live long enough. .”

“Think that through, Juan Carlos. Are you really in a position to threaten anyone? The guys with the guns get to do the threatening. You might want to write that down.”

“I don’t scare, Carlos. You might want to write that down.”

“I really hope that’s true,” Castillo said.

Two of the men in black got into the Suburbans and drove them out of sight into the grapefruit orchard.

“Speaking of the truth. .” Castillo began, and then interrupted himself. “But before we get into that, why don’t you sit down and drink your coffee?”

“Fuck you and your coffee,” Pena said.

“Are you saying that because you don’t like coffee, or to prove you’re not terrified and aren’t thirsty?”

“Fuck you,” Pena repeated-but couldn’t restrain a slight smile.

“Go on, have some coffee,” Castillo said, taking a seat beside Sweaty. “We used to be pals, and, who knows, maybe we can be again.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Pena said. He sat in one of the upholstered wicker chairs across from Castillo and Svetlana, and reached for the coffee.

Max walked up to him, sat on his haunches, and thrust his paw at him.

Pena shook it.

“What’s a nice dog like you doing hanging around with a crazy gringo?” he asked.

Castillo thought: Max, you better be right!

Please, God, let Max be right!

“I have a confession to make, old buddy,” Castillo said. “I have not been exactly truthful with you.”

“No shit?” Pena said, as he scratched Max’s ears.

Castillo gestured with his coffee cup at Koussevitzky.

“The last time you were here, I told you that my friend Stefan Koussevitzky here is an Israeli citrus expert. Actually, he’s not an Israeli, and he really doesn’t know much about citrus.”

“No shit? Then what is he?”

“He’s a businessman, associated with the LCBF Corporation. And before that, he was a major of Spetsnaz.” He gestured toward the black-clad men. “You know about the Spetsnaz, Juan Carlos, right?”

“I’ve heard the term,” Pena said.

“And I told you that Senorita Barlow owns an estancia in Uruguay. That’s true, but before she bought the estancia, she was known as Svetlana Alekseeva, and she was an SVR podpolkovnik. That’s a lieutenant colonel, Juan Carlos.”

Pena studied her, then said, “You won’t mind, Red, if I find that very hard to believe.”

“I won’t mind, but you’d be a fool if you didn’t,” she said.

“And, finally, I told you that Lester here is a computer expert. That’s also true, but what I didn’t tell you is that he’s my version of your American Express.”

“This kid is your American Express?” Pena said.

Castillo smiled. “Looks can be deceiving, mi amigo. Say hello to Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC, Retired.”

Pena shook his head, then eyed Lester.

“He’s your bodyguard?” he said, incredulously. “Come on, Carlos! You don’t really expect me to believe that.”

“You’d better. If we were keeping score, it would be Lester six, SVR zero.”

“I’m dying to know why you’re trying to lay all this bullshit on me,” Pena said.

“I’m hoping that now that I’m telling the truth, you’ll tell me the truth.”

“First, why don’t you tell me the truth about you? What the fuck is this all about?”

“Well, first why don’t you tell me the truth about yourself? Think carefully before replying, Juan Carlos. When you came here the first time and told me to get the hell out of Dodge before I got hurt