Covert Warriors

VI
ONE

Hacienda Santa Maria Oaxaca Province, Mexico 1515 16 April 2007

As soon as Castillo took off his headset, Lester Bradley, who was sitting with Max in the backseat of the Cessna Mustang, handed him the headset from Castillo’s Brick. Castillo put it to his ear.

“Yeah, Frank?”

“Something wrong with the net? The new net?” Lammelle asked. “It took me almost four minutes to get you to answer.”

“I try not to talk on a cell phone when I’m flying fifteen feet above the ocean,” Castillo said. “It tends to distract me.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“I just landed at the family ranch in Mexico; about fifty miles from Acapulco. What’s up?”

“You free to talk?”

“Nobody here but Sweaty and Lester, and they both know all-well, almost all-of my secrets.”

“I have to know. Why were you flying fifteen feet above the ocean?”

“Because that way, the radar at Xoxocotlan and Bahias de Huatulco international airports can’t see me landing at the family ranch. Next question?”

“Makes sense,” Lammelle said.

“My answers generally do. Now, is there something else you’d like to chat about before I get out of my airplane?”

“Mark Schmidt came to see me just now. He needed my help, he said, to identify some of the people in the pictures his intrepid agents took on the tenth floor of the Mayflower yesterday afternoon and early this morning.”

“The FBI took pictures of people at the wake? What the hell’s that all about?”

“The President ordered it. Schmidt is to identify everyone who was in the hotel-emphasis on the guys from Bragg-down to name, rank, serial number, and organization, and deliver same-with their pictures-to the President. Personally. And to tell no one.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I heard, being at a private party is not against the law.”

“I don’t know what Clendennen is up to, Charley. The point here, I think, the reason Schmidt came to me, was not to get me to identify anybody, but to let me know what the President had ordered him to do. Follow?”

Castillo thought a moment, and then said, “I have never been able to really figure Schmidt out.”

“He wanted me to know about this nutty order, but he didn’t want to tell me. Anyway, I identified you and Torine and Miller and other people I would be expected to know, but I couldn’t seem to recognize any of the Gray Fox or Delta guys.”

“It just occurred to me that Clendennen will now have an unclassified box of pictures of about a third of the guys in the Stockade. I don’t like that.”

“If you can figure it out, let me know. But, speaking of pictures-this is the real reason I called-there is a new senior cultural affairs officer at the embassy of the Russian Federation in Bogota. His name is Valentin Komarovski.”

“Oh?”

“The reason they’re calling him the senior cultural affairs guy is that he will supervise their cultural affairs guys in Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala.”

“So who is he really, Frank?”

“Sergei Murov. I believe you know him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Senor Komarovski traveled to his new duty station via Havana, on Iberia, where his picture was taken by a disaffected Castroite and passed on to our guy in the Uruguayan embassy. Our guy wondered why a senior Russian dip didn’t travel Aeroflot to Miami, and make his connection there-catch the Colombian airline, Aero Republica-instead of waiting ten hours to catch the next Cubana flight to Bogota. Maybe he didn’t want to pass through Miami and be recognized?”

Castillo grunted.

Lammelle went on: “So by the time Senor Komarovski arrived in Bogota, our guy at the airport there had plenty of time to make sure the lighting was in place to take pictures of him arriving. The images were here minutes later, and one of the guys in the lab recognized him from Murov’s days as the rezident here. He brought the pics to me-‘Is that who I think it is?’

“Just to be sure, I ran them through the comparison lab. It’s Murov, all right, or the Russians are now cloning people. So you have your heads-up, Charley. I don’t think he likes you, and I know he doesn’t like your girlfriend.”

“I’m more worried, Frank, about the pictures of the guys from the Stockade getting out; I’d really hate to think I was responsible for that happening.”

“You can’t do anything about that, Charley. You can’t stop the President from doing anything he wants to with those pictures.”

“What the hell does he want them for? He’s too smart a politician to try to punish a bunch of soldiers for holding a wake for one of their own. He doesn’t want Roscoe going on Wolf News with a story like that.”

“I don’t think anyone knows what Clendennen will do next, or why,” Lammelle said. “But in this case, I think maybe he’ll show them to the secretary of Defense. Get Beiderman to lean on Naylor to get rid of McNab, who commands the people who (a) went to Arlington when he had made it clear he didn’t want that, and (b) insulted POTUS by walking out on his speech.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“A good deal POTUS does doesn’t make sense, if you think about it, Charley.”

Castillo didn’t reply.

“Well, as I said, you’ve got your heads-up about Murov. Stay in touch.”

“Whoa,” Castillo said. “Natalie Cohen told me she told you that you could have that Policia Federal Black Hawk that miraculously appeared on the dock at Norfolk.”

“Why do I think I’m not going to like what comes next?”

“Could you move it to a secure location-not too secure-in Texas? Near San Antone, maybe?”

“What are you planning, Charley?”

“At the moment, not a thing. But life is full of surprises, isn’t it? You never know what’s going to happen, do you?”

“Good-bye, Colonel Castillo, Retired. Nice talking to you.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Thank you, Frank.”

“I’m beginning to understand why Clendennen wanted to load you on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow.”

The LED stopped flashing.