"Tell me about the operation," Castillo said.
"There's a hell of a lot of money involved here," Weiss said. "A goodly share of the proceeds go to support the Direccion General de Inteligencia, which means the FSB doesn't have to support it as much as it has been. And that's important, because the FSB's ability to fund clandestine operations, Islamic extremists, etcetera, has been greatly reduced since we went into Iraq and cut off their oil-for-food income.
"And the DGI is supporting its sister service in the Republic of Venezuela, which I presume you know is abou
t to become the People's Democratic Republic of Venezuela under Colonel Chavez, whose heroes are Fidel Castro, Josef Stalin, and Vladimir Putin.
"And the profits left over after the DGI gets what it needs go to the FSB's secret kitty, which supports, among other things, all those ex-Stasi and ex-AVO people who are causing trouble all over.
"Another way to put this is that if it wasn't for all this drug income they're getting, the FSB would have its operations seriously curtailed."
"Then my question is, why don't you confide in the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, whoever, what you know about this operation and have them stop it?" Castillo said.
Then he saw Delchamps shake his head, and then the look on Delchamps's face. It said, Not smart, Ace!
"Because," Weiss said, his face and tone suggesting he was being very patient with a backward student, "even if they did find a cooler full of coke on the Holiday Spirit-and their record of finding anything isn't very good-all that would happen is that we would add a dozen or so people to our prison population."
"So what's the alternative?"
"International Maritime Law provides for the seizure of vessels-including aircraft-involved in the international illicit drug trade."
"You want to grab Pevsner's airplanes?"
"That, too, but what we want to grab is the Holiday Spirit and her sister ships. Do you have any idea how much one of those floating palaces costs?"
Castillo shook his head to admit he didn't, then asked, "How are you going to do that?"
"Prove their owners were aware of the purpose to which they had put their ships."
"How are you going to that? They're not registered to Vladimir Putin."
"They're registered to a holding company in Panama," Weiss said. "And proving that Putin controlled that would be difficult, but that doesn't matter. All we have to prove is that the owners knew what was going on; that it was illegal. The owners lose the ship. The Holiday Spirit cost a little over three hundred and fifty million."
"And how are you going to prove the owners knew?"
"The operation could not be carried on without the captain being aware of what was going on."
"But the captains don't own their ships, do they?"
"No. But they don't get command of a ship except from the owners."
"Okay."
"The FSB was not about to entrust a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar ship to some stranger. They wanted their own man running things, and they didn't want him to come from the Saint Petersburg Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union because people might start wondering what the Russians were doing running a cruise ship operation out of Miami.
"So they provided reliable, qualified masters with phony documents saying they were Latvians, or Estonians, or Poles."
"That sounds pretty far-fetched."
"You're a pilot, right? You just flew a Gulfstream Three to Argentina and back, right?"
Castillo nodded.
"Anybody ask to see your pilot's license?"
Castillo shook his head.
"Anybody ever ask to see your pilot's license?"