Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“My mother’s still alive, so that wouldn’t work. How about on my honor as a graduate of the SVR Academy for Peace, International Cooperation, and Espionage?”

“That’ll do it.”

“Consider it given. The people we infiltrated into both the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort and Imperial Cruise Lines, Incorporated, have been told there is an emergency situation aboard the Czarina of the Gulf and they are going to have to work around the clock until it is cleared up.”

“What kind of an emergency situation?”

“I spent a lot of time and money developing this intel, Grigori, so pay attention.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Somehow—and I don’t know how; I’m still working on it—Aleksandr Pevsner has really pissed off some Mexican Indian witch doctors. So they put a curse on the Czarina of the Gulf.”

“What do you mean, a curse?”

“They call it ‘Montezuma’s revenge.’”

“What does it do?”

“I’m still working on that, too, but what I have learned is the toilets have stopped working, and when the ship unloaded its passengers, a bunch of them had to be carried off on stretchers, and the rest, who had medical masks over their mouths, had to be helped off and into the buses waiting for them.”

“What’s the problem? Isn’t that good for us?”

“Quite the opposite. Our people have heard about it—actually they smelled it—and are terrified. They sent a workers’ delegation to see me, and they said everybody wants to go back to Havana now, even if that means they can’t go to New York and moon the cops from the roof window of a UN limousine. That’s what I meant when I said we have a morale problem.”

“Jesus, Jesus, don’t panic,” General Murov said. “Let me think about this. Hand me the bottle, please. We Russians always think better with a little boost from our friend Stoli.”

X

[ONE]

Hacienda Santa Maria

Oaxaca Province, Mexico

1001 19 June 2007

“Don Fernando’s House,” as the main residence of Hacienda Santa Maria was known, was a sprawling, red-tile-roofed house with a wide shaded veranda all around it sitting on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

“I hate to mention this, Gringo,” Don Fernando Lopez, great-grandson of the man for whom the house was named, a heavyset, almost massive olive-skinned man in his late thirties, said from the wicker lounge on which he was sprawled on the veranda, “but the magic moment of ten hundred has come and gone.”

His cousin, Carlos Guillermo Castillo, gave him the finger.

“Fernando,” their grandmother, Doña Alicia Castillo, a trim woman who appeared to be in her fifties but was actually the far side of seventy, said, “don’t call Carlos ‘Gringo.’” And then she said, in awe, “Oh, my God!” and pointed out to sea.

Juan Carlos Pena, who was seated between Castillo and Doña Alicia, said, “I’ll be a sonofabitch!”

Doña Alicia said, “Watch your mouth, Juan Carlos. I haven’t forgotten how to wash your mouth out!”

“Sorry, Abuela,” Pena said, genuinely contrite.

“Great big son of a b— gun, isn’t she?” Castillo inquired admiringly.

The nuclear attack submarine USS San Juan (SSN-751) had just surfaced a thousand yards offshore. As the national colors were hoisted from her conning tower, hatches on her forward deck opened and lines of men in black rubber suits emerged. A davit then winched up black semi-rigid-hulled inflatable boats, which were quickly put over the side. The men in black rubber suits leapt into the sea and then climbed into the rubber boats. The hatches closed, the national colors were lowered, and the USS San Juan started to sink below the surface as the outboard-engine-powered rubber boats raced for the beach. The whole process had taken no more than four minutes.

“Fernando,” Castillo said, “I think that cheap watch of yours is running a little fast. Why don’t you get a real watch?”

Then he turned to Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC, and said, “Bradley, as the senior naval person on my staff—once a Marine, always a Marine—why don’t you go with Comandante Pena’s men to welcome our naval guests ashore?”