Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

The thing for me to remember about you, Alek, ol’ buddy, is that you were SVR, and while you can take the boy out of Russia, you can’t take the SVR out of the boy.

Not a problem. I will have two or more drinks—after that flight through the Andes, I’m entitled. And we will have our little chat in the morning, not tonight.

It was fifteen minutes—during which time Castillo had two substantial belts of vodka—before Sweaty rejoined the family, and then everyone went into the dining room. Not surprising Castillo at all were both another frosty glass of chilled vodka and a bottle of Saint Felicien Cabernet Sauvignon waiting for him at his place at the enormous table.

Sweaty was seated beside him.

“I waited for you,” Sweaty said quietly.

“Really? What did you want?”

She said, “It’s not important.” Her eyes told him carnal was off the table for tonight. And maybe for the next day, too.

What was on the table for tonight was a feast of Chilean seafood—absolutely marvelous oysters and enormous lobsters.

> About half a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon later, Castillo was watching when former Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC, stopped cracking the claw of an enormous lobster, pushed his chair away from the table, picked something up from the floor, and discreetly put it on his lap.

Castillo knew what had happened: When Lester rose in the morning, he stuffed a theoretically invisible flesh-colored speaker into his ear canal. When a call came to his closed Brick and there was no answer, it spoke a number into the earpiece, identifying the person who was having trouble getting through.

Castillo naturally wondered who was calling. He learned who it was only after Lester pushed back from the table, took a handset from the Brick, walked over to Castillo, and handed it to him.

The illuminated LEDs on the handset told Castillo that the Brick was in Category I encryption status and showed him the number 6.

Castillo put the handset to his ear.

“Castillo,” he said.

There was a very brief period during which the system compared the digital interpretation of his voice with its database, found a 99.9 percent match, and illuminated the number 1 on the calling party’s handset, telling A. Franklin Lammelle, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, that he was now connected with Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, U.S. Army, Retired.

“Where the hell have you been, Charley?” Lammelle began the conversation. “I’ve been calling every five minutes for the past half hour.”

“I was occupied.”

“Doing what, that you couldn’t answer?”

“For most of that time, I was dodging rock-filled clouds in a helicopter flown by a guy who finished flight school six weeks ago in Sevastopol. I don’t take calls under those conditions.”

He exchanged smiles with Koshkov.

Lester didn’t think I should have gotten on the phone, either; otherwise he would have handed it to me.

“Rock-filled clouds where?”

“The Andes.”

“What the hell are you doing down there? The locator’s not working.”

“I turned it off,” Castillo replied, adding, “At the moment, eating lobster.”

“Why do I suspect you’ve been at the sauce?”

“You’re perceptive? Would that explain it?”

“Jesus Christ, Charley, the last thing I need is you smashed.”

Right now, the last thing Charley needs is Charley smashed.

Whatever this is, Lammelle is excited about it.