“Okay. I tried. I’ll go see if Sandor knows how we can get Mata Hari and her brother off the train.”
[FOUR]
Castillo was surprised fifteen minutes later when he slid the compartment door open a crack and saw that both Berezovsky and Svetlana were standing in the corridor.
He expected to see Berezovsky alone—Berezovsky was, after all, the full colonel and she the lieutenant colonel and kid sister—or Svetlana alone, playing the damsel in distress.
He glanced over his shoulder at Jack Davidson, made an angry face that said,
“If this is going to go any further,” Castillo said sharply, “you’re going to have to learn to take orders. I said I wanted one of you back, not both. Now one of you leave.”
“I don’t want my brother making decisions with my life,” Svetlana said evenly. “Either we both stay or we both go.”
He met her eyes, hoping she would think he was doing so coldly.
After a moment, he nodded.
“Okay. What are you offering besides blue sky?” Castillo said.
“ ‘Blue sky’?” Svetlana repeated.
“All I have to do to find out who’s replaced Colonel Zhdankov is get on the telephone. I don’t have to risk anything.”
Brother and sister looked at each other for a moment, and then Berezovsky asked, “What do you want, Colonel?”
“The names of the people who eliminated Friedler; ditto for the Kuhls.”
“As you may have guessed, Friedler was dealt with by ex-Stasi,” Berezovsky said. “I can give you the names they used, but they won’t do you any good. Their papers were phony. I borrowed them from the Special Center. There was no reason for me to know their names, and they weren’t given to me.”
“You borrowed them for that one job?”
Berezovsky nodded. “I didn’t want to run the risk of exposing my own people for that job. General Sirinov agreed and sent me men from the Special Center pool.”
“Why did you eliminate Friedler?”
“If your question, Colonel, is why was he eliminated, I think you know. He was asking the wrong questions of the wrong people—the Marburg Group—about their past activities in the international oil trade and the medical- supply business. If you meant to ask why did I execute the operation, General Sirinov delegated that action to me.”
“I’ll want the names of your men.”
“I understood that. But they won’t be of much use to you. Once I turn up missing, they will be transferred. The unlucky ones will be shot for failing to learn what I was planning.”
“And the Kuhls?”
“I can’t help you with the Kuhls, except to say that that action was most probably carried out by the rezident in Vienna on orders from Sirinov. He probably used Hungarians—ex-Allamvedelmi Hatosag—because I read in the paper that a metal garrote was used.”
“You knew nothing about that action?”
Berezovsky shook his head.
“But you think it may have been a warning to you?”
Now Berezovsky nodded, and exchanged a long glance with his sister. “Svetlana thinks that may be. And it may have been. On the other hand, it may have been decided it was finally time to reward the Kuhls for their long service to the CIA.”
Castillo looked at Svetlana.
“So, what else have you got to offer me?” Castillo asked.
“I will answer—Svetlana
“And, of course, volunteer nothing,” Castillo said. “I have heard nothing that sounds like it’s worth two million dollars and putting my South America operation at risk.”
“What I have to tell you is worth the two million dollars,” Berezovsky said. “And more.”
“Unfortunately, Tom, ol’ buddy, you’re operating in a buyer’s market,” Castillo said unpleasantly, “and this buyer doesn’t think so.”
“Tell him,” Svetlana said.
Berezovsky didn’t respond.
“Tell me what, Svetlana?” Castillo asked.
“There is a chemical factory in the former Belgian Congo,” she said.
“There’re also several in Hoboken, New Jersey. So what?”
“Weapons-of-mass-destruction chemical factory,” she said.
Castillo felt the muscles at the nape of his neck contract involuntarily.
“That sounds like more blue sky,” he said.
“If you’ve made up your minds not to help us,” Svetlana said, “please be kind enough to tell us.”
“Tell me more about the Congo.”
“We know which German companies sold chemicals to it before Iraq fell,” Berezovsky offered reluctantly, clearly unhappy, if not uncomfortable, that that chess piece had been put into play. “We know which German companies are selling chemicals to it now. And running it, of course.”
“Running it for whom?”
“Who would you think, Colonel?” Berezovsky asked sarcastically.
“Answer that question, Colonel, and any others I might pose, or get the hell out of here.”
Berezovsky glared at him for five full seconds.
“Iran, of course,” he said.
“Why isn’t whatever is being made for the Iranians in this factory in the Congolese jungle—”
“I didn’t say it was in the jungle,” Berezovsky interrupted.
“—not being made in Iran?” Castillo finished.
“How modest of you,” Berezovsky said. “Because if it were, that information would have been in Langley years ago. The CIA is not nearly as inept as they would have us believe.”
Castillo had a quick moment to look at Davidson. It was enough to see in his eyes that he, too, believed what they were being told.
“You know where this factory is?” Castillo said.
Berezovsky nodded. “Somewhere between Kisangani and Lake Albert.”
“That’s a large, empty area.”
“That’s why it was chosen in the first place.”
“Chosen by whom?”
“Some chemical manufacturers in what was then known as East Germany. They said they wanted the land to grow various products for medicinal use.”
Castillo looked at Davidson and mimed flipping a coin in the air and then looking to see how it came up.
“You just won, Colonel,” he said. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that if I find out you’ve been less than truthful with me, I guarantee that I personally will hand you over to the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti.”
Berezovsky nodded calmly.
“Like yourself, Colonel,” he said, “I am an officer. You have my word.”
“You ever hear that Roman Catholic priests assigned to the Congo—at least in the old days—were excused from their vows of celibacy?” Castillo asked.
