Black Ops

And by now she also knows that despite some spectacular initial success in turning me into a chump, that’s over. She’s given up on the soulful looks into my eyes.

“You know how to get to the boat?” Munz asked.

“Get on the elevator and push the Minus-2 button, and then down the corridor.”

“You sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Castillo walked to the bathroom door, scooped up the puppy, said, “Come on, Max,” then nodded at Munz and walked out of the suite.

Castillo heard the boat’s engine quietly burbling when he walked out onto the long pier jutting into the lake, but he couldn’t see it until he was almost to where it was tied by the stern to the pier.

He was a little surprised by the boat. He expected a cabin cruiser. This was—he searched for the word and after a moment found it—a speedboat. There had been one like it when he was a kid, at the beach house on the Gulf of Mexico. That had been a Chris-Craft, and he and Fernando were never allowed to take it out themselves—but of course had—as their grandfather thought it was dangerous in ocean water.

The speedboat waiting for him now was made of mahogany and had two passenger compartments, one fore and one aft, with the engine mounted between them. The forward compartment had the controls and an automobile-like steering wheel. The aft compartment had a leather-upholstered seat for three behind a small windshield that was supposed to protect the passengers from spray—but never did.

The man standing on the pier directed him: “In the rear seat, please, mi coronel . For the balance.”

“Thank you,” Castillo said, and, holding the puppy against him, carefully stepped into the boat and then down into the seat. Max leapt effortlessly aboard, inspected the front compartment, then came back and sat beside Castillo.

Castillo then set the pup on the footboards. He had not thought to bring newspaper or one of the Llao Llao’s monogrammed towels with him.

The man untied the stern, then jumped onto the boat, causing it to rock somewhat. He squatted beside Castillo and handed him a cellular phone.

“I know the colonel has probably told you, mi coronel, but button seven is my phone and button four is the colonel.”

Munz had not said a word.

“Thank you,” Castillo said.

“I will take you to the pier. You can get out without help?”

“Yes.”

“And then I will go beyond the floodlights, which, if they don’t come on as we approach the pier, will do so as soon as you step on the pier. There are motion sensors.”

“Okay.”

“There is a guard shack, usually only one man, at the shore end of the pier.”

Castillo said, “Thank you,” instead of what started to come to his lips: “I know. This is not my first visit to ‘Karinhall.’”

The man moved on hands and knees to the forward compartment and dropped into it. Castillo both heard and felt the chunk as the man engaged the transmission and the propeller began to spin.

Thirty seconds later, the engine revved and Castillo sensed the speedboat going up on the step. Ten seconds after that, he got a face full of spray. Max went down on the floorboards next to the puppy. Castillo sought what refuge he could behind the windshield.

The speedboat slowed and almost stopped as suddenly as it had accelerated twenty minutes before.

Castillo raised his head above the windshield and saw in the faint light that they were very close to a pier. He grabbed the puppy from the floorboard by the loose skin above its neck and stood up on the leather seat.

The man driving the boat skillfully put the stern against the pier and held it there long enough for Castillo to jump out of the boat. The moment Max leapt onto the pier, the engine revved and the boat headed back out on the lake.

Castillo had just enough time to change his grip on the squealing puppy when floodlights came on, blinding him.

It took perhaps twenty seconds for his eyes to adjust enough for him to see down the pier.

Twenty yards away a man came warily, in a half-crouch, down the pier toward him. He held an Uzi. Max was halfway between them; his hair bristled, and he was growling deeply.

The man cocked the Uzi.

“If you shoot the dog,” Castillo called in Spanish, “you will die!”

He repeated the same threat in Russian and then a third time in Hungarian.

“Lower the gun!” a voice from farther away called, loudly and authoritatively, in Hungarian.

Castillo could now see the second man, who also had an Uzi.

“Hey, Janos,” Castillo called in Hungarian to Aleksandr Pevsner’s bodyguard. “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

And then, as Janos kept advancing toward them, Castillo ordered in Hungarian, “No, Max! Sit!”

Max sat, but Castillo could hear him growling still.

Janos looked around the pier.

“You are alone?” Janos asked, then without waiting for a reply: “You didn’t bring the redheaded woman?”

“Do you see her, Janos?”

“He does not expect you,” Janos said, then corrected himself: “He did not expect to see you.”

“Well, he knows as well as I do that life is full of surprises,” Castillo said.

Janos gestured for him to walk down the pier. Halfway to the shore, the floodlights died and were replaced with small lights illuminating the pier and a path beyond.

“You are well now, Colonel?” Janos asked softly.

“It hurts me a little to sit down,” Castillo said honestly. “The leg’s okay.”

“My woman says I now have a zipper,” Janos said, and drew a line from his waist up his side to his armpit.” He was quiet a moment, then added, “I never say, ‘Thank you, Colonel’—so, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Janos.”

A Jeep Wrangler, so new it looked right off a showroom floor, was at the end of the pier. It had a driver waiting behind the wheel.

Max jumped in the front seat and sat there.

“In the back, Max,” Castillo ordered.

Max reluctantly complied after the order had been repeated three times.

“He bite me if I get in back?” Janos asked.

“Probably,” Castillo said, and somewhat awkwardly got in the back.

[FIVE]

Aleksandr Pevsner, a tall, dark-haired man, wearing linen trousers and jacket and a yellow polo shirt, was waiting for them under a huge chandelier in the foyer of the enormous house.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight, Hermann,” Castillo greeted him in German. “And some hair, too. Been on a diet here in ‘Karinhall,’ have you? Nothing but knockwurst und sauerkraut?”

Pevsner smiled as if he really didn’t want to.

“Frankly, there are times when one wishes never to see dear friends again,” Pevsner replied in Russian. “This is one of them.”

“I love you too, Aleksandr,” Castillo said. “But I hope you aren’t going to kiss me.”

“Never fear. Where’s the redhead?”

“What redhead?”

“The one you flew here in that little airplane.”

“A gentleman never discusses his love life. Didn’t your mother teach you that?” He held up the puppy and