Black Ops

saying that he didn’t like to discuss business with the family around.”

“Well,” Berezovsky answered for her, “there’s family, Charley, and then there’s family. Permit me to introduce myself and my sister—that is, unless you already know who I am?”

“I know who you want me to think you are,” Castillo said. “And when we get to Vienna, I expect to learn not only if that passport is the real thing, but a whole lot more about you.”

“I’m sure there’s quite a bit of information about me—and my sister—in Langley.”

“In where?”

“In the CIA’s Order of Battle in Langley.”

“Well, there may well be, but—I don’t want to mislead you, Tom—I’m not CIA. If that’s what you thought.”

Castillo saw surprise in Berezovsky’s eyes.

“DIA?”

“And I’m not associated with the Defense Intelligence Agency, either.”

Castillo saw more surprise.

Hell, he thinks I’m lying to him, and that surprises him.

Or worries him?

Castillo held up his right hand, the center three fingers extended.

“What’s that?” Berezovsky asked suspiciously.

“Boy Scout’s Honor. I am not an officer of the CIA, the DIA, or, to put a point on it, any of the other alphabet agencies, such as the FBI, the ONI, or even the notorious IRS.”

Davidson chuckled, which earned him a dirty look from Berezovsky.

“You’re playing with me, Castillo,” Berezovsky said coldly. “And this is serious business.”

“What I’m doing is telling you the truth,” Castillo said.

“Then who do you work for?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

“If he did, Tom,” Davidson said conversationally, “I’d have to kill you.”

Berezovsky glared at him in disbelief, then stood.

“Let’s go, Svetlana. We’re wasting our time with these fools.”

Max got up and growled softly.

“I don’t think Max likes you, Tom,” Castillo said.

The sister, still seated, smiled at Castillo, then looked at her brother.

“Sit down, Dmitri.”

“I thought your name was ‘Susan,’” Davidson said innocently.

She smiled at him and shook her head.

“Permit me to introduce myself,” she said. “I am Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vnezhney Razvedki. Presumably, you know what that is?”

“The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service,” Castillo replied. “Sluzhba Vnezhney Razvedki—SVR—is the new name for the same branch of the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System. If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone was trying to fool somebody.”

Her expression showed Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva did not share Castillo’s sense of humor.

“Specifically, I am presently the rezident in Copenhagen. My brother, Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky, is the SVR rezident in Berlin. If I have to say so, he is also a member of the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System. We are willing, if our conditions are met, to defect.”

“Wow!” Castillo said, then parroted: “ ‘If our conditions are met’!”

“Come, Svetlana,” Berezovsky said. “We don’t have to put up with this.”

“It is said that Dmitri would already be a general if his brilliance were not tempered with his impatience,” Svetlana said, then added to her brother, “Sit down!”

She turned to Castillo and locked her eyes on his.

“Are you interested?” she asked evenly. “More importantly, if you are, are you in a position to deal?”

She does that look-you-in-the-eye thing like Aleksandr Pevsner does.

Does it come naturally? Or did somebody teach them how to do it?

She has eyes like Alek’s, too. Light, sky blue. Very attractive.

“Am I permitted to ask why you would like to defect?” Castillo asked, his tone now serious.

“If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me,” she said. “So I will say financial considerations.”

“What figure did you have in mind?”

“Two million dollars,” she said simply.

“And what would we get for our two million dollars?”

“That implies you have access to that kind of money,” she said.

“And if I did, what would it buy me?”

“Our complete cooperation.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“The name, for example, of the officer who is replacing Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Zhdankov,” she said. “Other names . . .”

“Viktor who?”

“The man . . .” she began, then stopped. “You know very well who I’m talking about, Colonel.”

“The two million is the only consideration you’re talking about?” Castillo asked.

She looked at her brother. He shook his head.

Castillo said, “While you two are mulling over answering that question, Colonel, why don’t you tell me the reasons that I won’t believe why you’d like to defect?”

She met his eyes again.

“I’ll tell you that when I think you will believe me,” she said. “After we go forward with this situation. If we go forward with this situation.”

“That would depend in large measure on your other conditions,” Castillo said.

“You’re on the train,” Berezovsky challenged. “Where is your airplane?”

“Assuming Schwechat is open, it should be there by now,” Castillo said.

“And is it in condition to make a long flight on short notice?”

Which obviously translates to mean that you not only want to defect, you want to defect now.

Which means that you think somebody suspects that you want to defect.

And that would further translate to “I’ve got you now, Tom, ol’ pal.”

If the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight Against Terrorism is onto you, I don’t need two million dollars to get you to change sides.

All I have to do is provide a way for you to keep running.

Where’s the elation that’s supposed to come with learning something like this?

Did I just fall into Svetlana’s sky-blue eyes?

Well, what the hell. James Bond is always having some damsel in distress throw herself into his arms. Why not me?

“How close behind you are they?” Castillo asked, this time turning the tables on Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva of the SVR and looking deeply and intently into her eyes.

“Are you going to answer the question?” Berezovsky asked angrily.

“We don’t know that they are,” Svetlana said.

“But the death of the Kuhls makes you think there’s that possibility?”

He saw in her eyes that the question had touched a chord.

“Who?” Berezovsky said without much conviction.

“Come on, Colonel,” Castillo said. “You know damned well what I mean.”

“You just admitted you’re CIA, you realize,” Berezovsky said. “How else would you know about him, about them?”