W. Griffin - Covert Warriors

“Even before Mr. Lafferty of Gladiator Security called me and said I had no cause for concern, that there were six of them and a half dozen more could be here in less than five minutes if they were needed.”

Castillo took a moment to frame his reply.

While he was doing so, Dona Alicia asked, “Have you noticed, Svetlana dear, that ‘who me?’ look on Carlos’s face when you catch him with his hand in the cookie jar?”

“Abuela,” Castillo began carefully, “think of the security guys as me just being extra-careful.”

“About what?”

“Do you want me to tell her, Carlito?” Sweaty said.

“I wish you would, dear,” Dona Alicia said. “I don’t think you’re nearly as good at getting around the truth as he is.”

Castillo gestured for Sweaty to go ahead.

“We have good reason, Abuela,” Sweaty said matter-of-factly, “to believe that the SVR is behind the kidnapping of Colonel Ferris and the assassinations of the other Americans. That it is a diversion in their plans to get at Carlito, my brother, our cousin Aleksandr, and me.”

“And you’re worried that this might involve me?” Dona Alicia asked calmly.

“Yes, ma’am,” Castillo said.

“What about Billy Kocian and Otto Gorner? I’d think if I were at risk, so would they be.”

“We think that whatever the SVR tries,” Castillo said, “it will be in Mexico. Or here. But just to be sure, Abuela, I gave Sandor Tor a call and told him what we think is going on.”

“Not Otto?”

He shook his head.

“Why not?” she asked.

It was not an idle question but rather more on the order of a rebuke.

“Two reasons,” Castillo replied. “After the SVR murdered that Tages Zeitung reporter-I forget his name-”

“His name was Gunther Friedler,” Dona Alicia said evenly, “and you should be ashamed of yourself for not knowing his name. He was one of your employees!”

Castillo looked at her a long moment, then nodded.

“Yes, ma’am, you’re right. What I started to say, Abuela, was that after Herr Friedler was murdered, Billy arranged for Sandor Tor to take over all security for Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. He told Otto that if Otto’s security people had done their job, Herr Friedler would still be alive. So Otto went along.

“Anyway, I called Sandor-Billy and Sandor-and told them what we thought. Both agreed, by the way, with what we think. It probably took no more than half an hour before Sandor’s people were sitting on Otto and his family.”

“You didn’t call Otto? Why not?”

“That’s the second reason,” Castillo said, pointing to a leather attache case sitting on a sideboard. “Otto doesn’t answer his Brick. He thinks the CIA listens to everything he says over it.”

“Does it?”

Castillo shook his head.

“And what do you think Otto’s going to do when he notices his extra security?” Dona Alicia asked. “And you know he will.”

“Since Otto also believes that both the Germans and the Russians listen to his telephone calls,” Castillo said sarcastically, “and since he doesn’t want to use the Brick because the CIA will be listening, what he probably will do is hop in his new Mustang and fly to Budapest for a goulash lunch. Or, if the Mustang is in Budapest, invite Billy to Fulda for Knackwurst mit Kraut .”

“Otto has a Mustang? Like yours?”

“ They have a Mustang. Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., has had a very good year, but not good enough to be able to afford buying both of them a two-point-seven-million-dollar toy.”

“I’m surprised Otto would permit something like that,” she said. “He’s usually very frugal.”

“Oh, he protested bitterly,” Castillo said. “It was as hard for me to talk him into it as it would have been for me to talk someone who’s been wandering around the Sahara Desert for a month into having a glass of ice water.”

She smiled.

“And how do you justify your two-point-seven-million-dollar toy?”

“I’d rather not tell you. You might decide that Sweaty’s profligate.”

“My Uncle Nicolai has one, Abuela,” Sweaty explained. “He uses it to fly-‘high rollers,’ right, Carlito? — back and forth to the Grand Cozumel from Mexico City and Miami. .”

Castillo thought: And for other purposes, such as hauling suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills out of Drug Cartel International to someplace where they can be laundered.

“. . and when I saw the way Carlito looked at it, like a little boy watching an electric train in a store window. .”

She mimed this by opening her eyes very wide and letting her tongue hang out the side of her mouth.

Dona Alicia laughed.

“I know the look,” Dona Alicia said. “When he and Fernando were about twelve, their grandfather showed them a pair of Winchester.30–30 Model 1894 lever-actions that he said he was sending down to Hacienda Santa Maria. .”

Dona Alicia paused when Sweaty’s face showed a lack of understanding.

“The grapefruit farm,” Castillo explained.

Dona Alicia went on: “The rifles were for keeping the deer from eating our grapefruit. They were to be a Christmas present for them, but they didn’t know that. And both of them. .”

She opened her eyes wide and let her tongue hang out of the side of her mouth.

Sweaty laughed, then finished: “So I bought him a Mustang.”

“Grandpa told me that it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as it was a poor one,” Castillo said. “And I took his advice.”

“I don’t know how you put up with him, Svetlana dear. But, on the other hand, his grandfather was just about as bad, and I put up with him for forty-eight years before the Lord took him.”

And then her face grew serious.

“Do you think the people at Hacienda Santa Maria are safe?” she asked.

Well, that’s a natural transition, I suppose, from a couple of Model 94s as Christmas presents for a couple of twelve-year-olds to asking by implication if weapons are needed to protect our people at Hacienda Santa Maria.

“Fernando’s down there right now, Abuela, making sure they are.”

“And how is he going to do that?”

“He took some security people with him,” Castillo said.

“From Gladiator Security? Was that necessary? The police chief in Oaxaca is an old, old friend of ours. And, for that matter, so is the chief of police in Acapulco. Between them, I’m sure. .”

“Abuela, Colonel Ferris was kidnapped fifty miles from Acapulco,” Castillo said.

“So you decided that people from Gladiator Security were needed?”

“Not Gladiator Security. The people Fernando took to the hacienda are Spetsnaz. Ex-Spetsnaz. ”

“Russian Green Berets?”

“More or less. They’ve been protecting Sweaty’s cousin Aleksandr and his family in Argentina.”

“And Fernando took them there?”

Castillo nodded.

“Then he must take this threat very seriously,” she said.

“He does. You seem surprised.”

“He knows it will insult our people at Hacienda Santa Maria,” she said.

“Abuela, we’re trying to protect them. Why should they be insulted?”

“Fernando knows-and you should-that Hacienda Santa Maria has been in the family for centuries. It was a land grant from the king of Spain. For all that time, our people there have been fighting off people who wanted to do the hacienda harm. Indians, all sorts of banditos, even French soldiers when Mexico had a French emperor. And lately these despicable drug people. They won’t think they need any help.”

“Well, they’re wrong,” Castillo said.

“And getting back to where this conversation began,” she said. “Neither do I. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I don’t need more people from Gladiator than are already here.”