W. Griffin: Covert Warriors

Castillo laughed when he saw that Juan Carlos was applying his “when meeting someone cutthroat, attack to put them on the defense” theory of how best to deal with dangerous people who expect to be treated differentially.

Sweaty said, “You’re learning, Juan Carlos.”

“You’re the policeman, obviously,” Pevsner said.

“Carlos has been telling me that Max is an infallible judge of character,” Juan Carlos said. “I tend to agree. We hadn’t known each other ninety seconds when he was begging me to scratch his ears.”

“And if I may be permitted to say so, Senor Pena,” Pevsner said, “I am not at all surprised that you and Karl are friends. You share not only a very odd sense of humor but a complete inability to take things seriously.”

“That’s it!” Svetlana snapped. “Stop.”

She walked to her Uncle Nicolai and allowed him to kiss her cheek.

“Introduce me to your friend, Svetlana.”

“Juan Carlos, this is my Uncle Nicolai,” Sweaty said. “Nicolai Tarasov, Juan Carlos Pena. I’d forgotten. You know Lester, don’t you?”

“How could I forget Mr. Bradley?” Tarasov said, and patted Lester on the back.

Tarasov and Pena shamelessly examined each other as they shook hands.

“And tell me what brings the chief of the Policia Federal for Oaxaca State so far from home?” Tarasov said.

“Well, not much was happening at Hacienda Santa Maria,” Pena said, “so I thought I might as well come over here and arrest somebody.”

Castillo chuckled.

“I said stop that and I meant it!” Svetlana said. “All right, Aleksandr, what’s so important that you couldn’t tell us on the Brick?”

“Before we get into that, do you suppose I could have a glass of wine?” Castillo said.

“It would be better if you were sober when I tell you what I have to tell you.”

“I said a glass, Aleksandr, not a damn bottle. Humor me.”

That’s unusual. He usually tries to feed people he’s dealing with all the booze he can get into them.

What the hell is this all about?

A waiter-whose starched white jacket did not entirely conceal the mini Uzi on his hip-appeared.

“Bring wine, some of that Cabernet Sauvignon, for my guests,” Pevsner ordered. Then he turned to Castillo. “The reason I didn’t open this subject on the Brick is I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“What makes you think I’ll believe you now?”

“Get to it, Aleksandr,” Svetlana ordered.

He looked at her and nodded.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich doesn’t want to exterminate us,” he said. “Unless of course that should prove to be convenient while he’s doing what he set out to do in the first place. It took me a long time to figure that out.”

“Of course he wants to exterminate us!” Svetlana said. “For all the reasons you know.”

“Listen to me carefully, Svetlana,” Pevsner said. “If he can eliminate us while he’s doing what he set out to do in the first place , he’d be pleased. But eliminating us is not his highest priority.”

Castillo looked at Pevsner. Where the hell is he going with this?

“Then what is?” he said.

“We misjudged him. We thought of him as what we think he is, rather than what he believes he is.”

“Which is?” Castillo asked.

“Tsar of all the Russias. Vladimir the Terrible. Cast in the mold of Ivan the Terrible. Chosen by God to restore Russia to its former magnificence.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Castillo asked.

There was not a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Perfectly. Absolutely,” Pevsner said.

“Where did this come from, Aleksandr?” Castillo asked. “Your notion that Putin thinks of himself as. . Ivan the Terrible reincarnate?”

“The first time I thought of it-and dismissed it-was during the funeral.”

“The imperial family’s funeral?”

Pevsner nodded.

The waiter pulled the cork from a wine bottle with a popping sound, and poured a little for Castillo to taste.

I probably shouldn’t take this.

But what the hell?

“You know Saint Petersburg?” Pevsner asked.

Castillo nodded, and Pevsner went on: “Renamed Petrograd from Saint Petersburg in 1914, then renamed Leningrad in 1924, and then back to Saint Petersburg in 1991, after the Soviet Union became the Russian Federation.”

Castillo vaguely remembered seeing photographs of the funeral. He hadn’t paid much attention to it.

“On July 17, 1998, eighty years to the day after the Tsar and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks, they were interred-as ‘The Royal Martyrs Tsar Nicholas II and his beloved family’-in the Royal Vault of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.

“His Holiness Patriarch Alexis came from Moscow to preside, and President Boris Yeltsin represented the government of the Russian Federation.

“The arrangements-moving what was left of the bodies from where they had been tossed down a well in Yekaterinburg, some nine hundred miles east of Moscow, and DNA examination of the remains to prove it was indeed the Tsar and his family, were handled by one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, then the KGB’s man in Saint Petersburg. .”

“Now, that’s interesting,” Castillo interrupted.

“. . who was very visible during the interment,” Pevsner finished.

“Yeah,” Svetlana said. “That caught my attention, too. I thought he was being blasphemous.”

“And that was my initial reaction, too,” Pevsner said. “But then, as I said, I dismissed it, deciding that either possibility was improbable.”

“Either possibility?”

“That he was being blasphemous, as Svetlana thought, or that he had gone back to the Lord.”

“But?”

“I began to think of it again a few days ago in San Carlos de Bariloche,” Pevsner said. “When I was trying very hard, and failing, to see how Vladimir Vladimirovich’s intention to eliminate us tied in with the kidnapping of Colonel Ferris. When I finally realized it had nothing to do with that-the kidnapping had nothing to do, except possibly as a diversion, with eliminating us-everything suddenly began to be clear.”

“Tell me how,” Castillo said.

“Who is Vladimir’s greatest enemy? I don’t think anyone would argue it’s not the United States. Can he engage in a war against the United States? No. If he could, he would. Can he, at virtually no cost to himself, cause the United States trouble? Weaken it? Yes, he can. And is.”

“And that’s what he’s up to?” Castillo asked.

Pevsner nodded. “Mexico is the battlefield. For one thing, the Mexicans hate the United States. The United States took most of the Southwest away from Mexico in the war of 1848, and the Mexicans have never forgiven them for that. Mexicans by the millions illegally enter the United States while the Mexican government not only looks the other way but actively encourages them. If those people aren’t in Mexico, not only don’t they have to be fed and hospitalized and educated but they send money-billions and billions of dollars-to their families in Mexico.”

“That seems a little far-fetched, Aleksandr,” Castillo argued.

“It won’t if you give it some thought,” Pevsner said. “But illegal immigration isn’t the point here, and neither is the drug traffic-both of which weaken the U.S., which is fine with Vladimir Vladimirovich, but what he’s really after is the destruction of the United States government.”

“And how does he plan to do that?”

“Off the top of your head, friend Charley, tell me what were the greatest threats to the stability of the United States government in your lifetime?”

“I don’t know,” Castillo admitted. And then after a moment, asked, “You’re talking about Nixon?”