Black Ops

1530 14 January 2006

Castillo had made two calls on the AFC from Jack and Sandra Britton’s suite in the Four Seasons.

The first was to Dr. Aloysius Francis Casey. Casey told Castillo that while he’d said no problem to Charley’s request to get Dmitri and Svetlana to Cozumel, he admitted now that he’d instead brought them to Vegas, and what he suggested was that Castillo come, too, until he could straighten things out.

The second call was to Major Dick Miller in the Office of Organizational Analysis. He lied to Miller. He said he would explain the whole thing when he had the chance, but right now the President wanted them both out of sight, and he was going to go out of sight in Vegas, and the way they were going to do that was that Miller was going to meet him at BWI, where they would turn in the Lear, pick up the Gulfstream, and fly out to Nevada.

That had a secondary reaction. Castillo decided that there was no reason Jack and Sandra Britton should not enjoy the cultural advantages of Las Vegas. For that matter, Two-Gun Yung either.

The G-III went wheels-up out of Baltimore and four hours and forty minutes later touched down at McCarran. Somewhere over Pennsylvania, Castillo had called Aloysius again, told him who was now aboard the Gulfstream, and asked that rooms for one and all be arranged.

“Our last excursion, so to speak, on the tab of the Lorimer Charitable and Benevolent Fund.”

“I’ll send somebody to meet you,” Casey said.

What met them at the AFC hangar was a gleaming black Lincoln stretch limousine with THE VENETIAN lettered in gold on the doors.

Sandra was thrilled.

“I’ve always wanted to be mistaken for a rock star with five lovers,” she said.

When they were off-loaded at the Venetian’s grand entrance, there was one assistant manager in gray frock coat and striped pants for each of them.

“May we show you to your suites?” each asked.

Castillo, who still had not shaved, felt a little uncomfortable in the elegance of the lobby, but he reasoned he would soon be alone with Svetlana and right now that was all that mattered.

“The center door, sir. You are expected. Just go right in,” his assistant manager ordered.

Castillo pushed open the door.

“Sweaty?”

“In here, Charley,” Aloysius Francis Casey called.

Shit!

Swapping war stories with Aloysius is not what I had in mind.

He found himself at the head of a set of sweeping glass stairs leading down a floor to a dimly lit sunken living room. Aloysius Francis Casey and half a dozen men he could not remember ever having seen before sat on a circular couch that appeared to be upholstered with gold lame.

Castillo started down the stairs, then realized he knew two of the men. Tom Barlow and Jack Davidson were sitting with their feet on a piece of furniture in front of the circular couch. And then he heard a familiar whine— Davidson was barely holding back Max.

What the hell is going on? he thought as Max broke loose and ran to him. Then Castillo realized that he did recognize some of the others. One was a legendary character who owned four—maybe five?—of the more glitzy Las Vegas hotels.

But not this one, a voice from the memory bank told him.

Another was a well-known, perhaps even famous, investment banker.

And another had made an enormous fortune in data processing. Castillo remembered him because he was a Naval Academy graduate.

The others he couldn’t place.

“Need a little taste, Charley?” Aloysius asked. “You look like you could use one.”

“Yes, thank you. I do.” He petted Max. “How are you, buddy?”

A butler in striped pants and a gray jacket took his order, and delivered it in a nearly miraculous short time.

“Gentlemen, now that the colonel has his drink,” Casey said, “I propose a toast to Colonel Hamilton, Phineas DeWitt, and the incomparable Uncle Remus. They did the job of getting Operation Fish Farm off the ground better than anyone in this room thought they could.”

Glasses were raised and clinked and there was a chorus of overlapping voices.

“Charley, word has come back-channel that a scrambled sortie comprised of F-16A, F-15E, and F-15C attack aircraft—on a black op devised by one Colonel Torine—has turned a so-called ‘fish farm’ into a flaming crater.”

All these people know about Op Fish Farm?

I can’t believe Aloysius has been running at the mouth.

Or Dmitri or Jack—and what the hell are they doing here?

“Everybody pay attention,” Casey said. “You don’t often get a chance to see Charley with a baffled look on his face.”

“Okay, Aloysius, you have pulled my chain—more than it’s ever probably been pulled. What the hell is going on around here?”

“How many times since you made the acquaintance of Colonel Hamilton have you said dirty words when he told you of ‘his people’?”

“Every damn time. So what?”

“Here we are, Charley. We’re Hamilton’s people. And now that you’re soon to be unemployed, we’d like to be yours.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Colonel,” the Naval Academy graduate said with a Texas twang, “what we are is a group of people who realize there are a number of things that the intelligence community doesn’t do well, doesn’t want to do, or for one reason or another can’t do. We try to help. And we’re all agreed that you’re just the man to administer the program.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy. The intel community hates me, and that’s a nice way of describing it.”

“Well, telling the DCI that his agency ‘is a few very good people trying to stay afloat in a sea of left-wing bureaucrats’ may not have been the best way to charm the director, even if I happen to know he agrees with you.”

“Colonel,” the man who owned the glitzy hotels said, “this is our proposal, in a few words: you keep your people together, keep them doing what they do so well, and on our side we’ll decide how to get the information to where it will do the most good, and in a manner that will not rub the nose of the intelligence community in their own incompetence.” He paused. “And the pay’s pretty good.”

“Carlos,” Dmitri said, “you don’t want to learn to play golf any more than I do. And maybe we can do some good on another occasion.”

“Think it over, Charley,” Davidson said. “I’m in.”

“Fair enough,” Castillo said. “I will.”

I am being dishonest again.

This sounds almost too good to be true.

“Where’s Sweaty?” Castillo asked.

“Freddy put her in the Tsar Nicholas II Suite,” Casey said. “He thought she’d like it. It’s even got one of those big copper teapots.”

“Samovars,” Castillo corrected him without thinking. “Where is it?”

“You go up the stairs into the foyer. There’s three doors. This is the center. You and Svetlana are in the right one. I’ll give you a call in a couple of hours, and maybe we’ll have dinner and hoist a couple.”

Max was already waiting at the top of the stairs.

Svetlana kissed Charley and held him and told him he needed a shave.

“I usually shave while I’m in the shower, Sweaty.”

“Is that so? How interesting. Can I watch?”