Black Ops

Svetlana smiled. “So did I, Comandante, when I first heard about it. You do have to expand your mind even to begin accepting it.”

“ ‘Expand your mind’?” Duffy parroted.

“Consider this, Comandante,” Svetlana said. “The day before Hiroshima, how many people could have accepted that the Americans had developed an incredible bomb with the explosive power of thousands of tons of dynamite? Or, on the tenth of September, how incredible would it have been to hear that the next day two one-hundred-story buildings would be taken down by religious zealots flying passenger airliners into them?”

Duffy thought about that a moment. “I take your point, Colonel. Which is not to say that I suddenly believe this Congo thing.”

Castillo met Munz’s eyes, then Berezovsky’s.

They heard it, too.

Duffy called her “Colonel”—and without a hint of sarcasm or condescension.

What comes next is the truth. . . .

“Then,” Svetlana went on, “you have to ask yourself why we would make up something such as this.”

Duffy began to argue: “If there was anything to this at all, certainly the CIA must have some idea—”

“As of a few hours ago, Liam,” Castillo interrupted, “the CIA sees no threat in the Congo operation. Specifically, the CIA believes that what’s there is nothing more than a fish farm.”

“How do we know they’re wrong?” Duffy asked reasonably.

Operative words, “How do we know?”

We’ve got him.

Except, of course, when he asks, “What has this to do with Argentina? It’s none of Argentina’s business.”

“We know, Comandante,” Berezovsky offered, “because of the Marburg Group. Those businessmen—ones who can be cheated and manipulated because of their dishonesty—were my responsibility when I was the Berlin rezident.”

Duffy looked at him, waiting for him to go on.

“The laboratory in the Congo,” Berezovsky explained, “requires not only chemicals unavailable in Iran—or anywhere else in the Arab world—but, of course, the laboratory equipment, centrifuges, that sort of thing, with which to manipulate these chemicals. Also unavailable anywhere else in the Arab world. It has been credibly suggested that one of the reasons why the Muslims hate the West is that they are scientifically four hundred years behind the West.

“What the laboratory in the Congo needs is available only in three places— six if you include Russia, China, and India and refer in the latter countries only to the raw chemicals.

“Conversely, everything is available in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. The United States and Great Britain, especially after both rejected chemical and biological warfare, pay very close attention to their stocks of chemicals and to the allied processing equipment.

“They don’t want anyone else developing stocks of chemical and biological weapons now that they have destroyed their own stocks.

“Germany’s chemical and biological warfare capability died when they lost the Great War, but the chemicals and processing equipment are available in Germany and used for medical purposes.”

He paused, then asked, “Can you see where I’m going with this, Comandante?”

Duffy nodded. “I think so.”

“Enter the SVR,” Berezovsky went on. “The Foreign Intelligence Service knew which German businessmen had profited handsomely from the sale of medicine, medical chemicals, and medical equipment at grossly inflated prices when the oil-for-food program was in full swing—”

“You knew?” Duffy interrupted. “How?”

“It was our business to know. We had assets at every step.” Berezovsky paused, then went on: “It became in our interest to see that the Congo operation had what it needed. So we went—in the case of the Marburg Group, I went—to see these dishonest businessmen. I told them there was more money to be made by acquiring certain chemicals and laboratory equipment—in some cases, manufacturing the equipment themselves—and shipping it quietly to a transfer point, often in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, but in other places as well.”

“And they were willing to do this?”

“Of course they were. They saw another golden opportunity to make a great deal of money without a tax liability. But then, when they were not paid, they of course came to realize, in that charming American phrase, that ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch.’ ”

“You didn’t pay them?” Duffy asked.

“Of course not,” Berezovsky said. “All we had to do was tell them that if they made any trouble, the German government would learn not only of their involvement in the oil-for-food business but also of their involvement in shipping chemicals and equipment without the proper licenses. And, of course, evading taxes. The SVR decided it needed the money the Iranians paid for all this materiel more than these already-rich-by-dishonest-means German businessmen.”

“And none of them went to their government?”

“Of course, we considered that scenario,” Berezovsky said. “We fed a journalist from the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain enough information to attract his interest toward one of the smaller players. We knew they would learn of his interest.”

“ ‘We’ being defined here as General Sirinov,” Susan said. “He prides himself in taking a personal hand in the more interesting operations. Feeding that information to Herr Freidler was the general’s idea. We didn’t think it was necessary and told him so. He didn’t pay any attention to our recommendation, and ordered that it be done. And it turned out badly. Friedler was getting too close to the heart of the operation—not just to the man we’d pointed him to.”

“And he had to be eliminated?” Castillo asked, but it was a statement.

Susan met his eyes. “Yes, and that, too, was General Sirinov’s decision.”

“Now that I’ve had time to think about it,” Berezovsky said, “what I think happened was that Sirinov— possibly, probably, we have to consider this, Susan—at the recommendation of Evgeny, who has always been prone to think of termination as the best solution to any problem—”

Castillo’s mouth ran away with him. He blurted in Russian: “You’re talking about her Evgeny?”

Berezovsky nodded.

“He hasn’t been my anything for years, Carlos,” Svetlana replied, also in Russian. “I thought I had made that quite clear.”

“I was talking about Colonel Evgeny Alekseeva,” Berezovsky continued in Russian, smiling, “who belongs to Directorate S. What I was suggesting was that General Sirinov concluded—possibly on the advice of Colonel Alekseeva—that Herr Friedler had become a threat and had to be terminated. Then, with that decision made—and here is where it sounds like Evgeny—it was decided that it would also make sense to eliminate the policeman in Philadelphia.”

“Why?” Castillo asked.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Duffy was uncomfortable not understanding the conversation.

“Because Sirinov knows—”

“I don’t want to leave Comandante Duffy out of this,” Castillo interrupted Berezovsky. “Can we speak English?”

“You’re the one, Carlos, who started speaking Russian,” Susan said in English.

“Sorry,” Castillo said.

“I didn’t understand a word, of course,” Lee-Watson said. “But it’s a melodic language, isn’t it? I thought it would be more guttural, like German.”

“What we were talking about, Comandante,” Berezovsky said in his American English, “was the possibility that when he prepared the list of people who were ultimately attacked, General Sirinov was very likely getting advice from an SVR colonel attached to Directorate S, which General Sirinov runs. A man named Evgeny Alekseeva, whom both my sister and I know well.

“What I was suggesting was that once the decision to eliminate Herr Friedler had been made, Alekseeva