Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“What is?”

“You remember when we left Havana, it was in sort of a hurry?”

“I remember. The ride to the airport in that 1958 Studebaker Hawk of yours was terrifying. It’s just too old to drive it at more than forty m.p.h., which you were dumb enough to try to do.”

“And do you remember Raúl ordering me to give you twenty-four of our best DGI people to help you get these people on the Aeroflot plane to Moscow?”

“Jesus, Jesus! To Domodedovo. Moscow is the city. Domodedovo is the airport. Why don’t you write that down?”

“Well, when we had to push my Hawk to get it to start, Raúl was looking out the window and saw us. So he decided to be helpful and called the DGI personnel officer himself and told him to get twenty-four of our best DGI agents out to the airport.”

“So?”

“The thing is, Grigori, although the People’s Democratic Republic of Cuba has absolutely done away with class distinctions, the truth is that there are two kinds of ‘best DGI agents.’”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“One group of ‘best DGI agents’ are the ones who have worked their way from the bottom.”

“And the other kind?”

“The other kind are the ones whose fathers, or uncles, are high-ranking officials of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic.”

“I think I know what’s coming,” General Murov said.

“So what the DGI personnel officer did was assume, since Raúl himself had called, that he was talking about that second group. So he took one of those buses we swapped rum for from the Bulgarians and went out to the Workers and Peasants Golf and Tennis Club and loaded twenty-four of them onto the bus and took them out to the airport.”

“They didn’t complain?”

“Not then. When I saw who they were, I told them we were going to the Cuban Mission to the UN in New York. They all knew, of course, that meant they would have diplomatic immunity so they could get in a UN stretch limousine, head for Park Avenue, find a fire hydrant, park next to it, and when the cops show up, open the sunroof and moon the cops to show their disdain for capitalist imperialism and its minions.”

“Well, I can understand that,” General Murov said. “But what happened when the plane landed here?”

“I lied to them again. I told them that before they went to New York they would have to prove they had been paying attention in Spy School, and the way they were going to do that was to pass themselves off as poor Mexicans and find menial employment at either the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort or with Imperial Cruise Lines, Incorporated. Those who did so successfully, I told them, got to go to New York. Those who didn’t would get sent back to Havana.”

“And this worked? Jesus, Jesus, I seem to have underestimated you.”

“Well, I was, you should know, trained in Moscow.”

“That would explain it, wouldn’t it?” Murov asked rhetorically. “So, what’s the problem?”

“The Czarina of the Gulf docked here this morning. I told you Aleksandr Pevsner is going to use her to house guests at the Castillo–Alekseeva nuptials.”

“No, Jesus, I told you that,” Murov said. “Is that how you got to be a general? Taking credit for intelligence developed by other people?”

“And I suppose you told me Castillo and his fiancée flew in here late yesterday?”

“No, I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”

“Would I tell you if I wasn’t sure?”

“You just told me Aleksandr Pevsner is going to use the Czarina of the Gulf to house wedding guests. If you lied about

that, why wouldn’t you lie about this?”

“You’ll just have to trust me that I’m not. Do you want to hear about the Czarina of the Gulf or not?”

“If you promise on your mother’s grave to tell the truth.”