Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“I’d like to break his bones,” the President said. “Roscoe J. Danton’s bones, I mean. He’s supposed to be in Europe trying to get into Somalia, not in Las Vegas having French perverts thrown at him by the Ethel Barrymore of the dirty movie business.”

“People who keep a box full of adult films in the James Earl Carter historical presidential desk in the Oval Office are in no position—”

“What Robin and I were hoping to talk to you and Belinda-Sue about, Mother Krauthammer,” the President said, “is my library… actually Belinda-Sue’s and my library and last resting place.”

“And the necessity for you, Madam First Mother-in-Law,” Robin Hoboken amplified, “to make a real effort, as we start to raise money for the foregoing, to avoid as much as possible doing anything, such as your recent difficulties with the Public Drunkenness Squad of the Pascagoula Police Department, that might be in the newspapers or, God forbid, on Wolf News, as that might impede our fund-raising efforts.”

“This I have to hear,” Mother Krauthammer said. “But make it quick. Belinda-Sue and I want to watch the rerun of the Pastor Jones show.”

[FOUR]

The Ivan the Terrible Penthouse Suite

The Grand Cozumel Beach & Golf Resort

Cozumel, Mexico

0915 20 June 2007

“Good morning, Alek,” Charley Castillo called cheerfully as he got off the elevator. “Tom and I understand you need a little cheering up.”

He pointed to Tom Barlow, formerly Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky of the SVR, who had followed him off the elevator. Both Dmitri and Charley, who looked so much alike they could have been mistaken for brothers, were wearing polo shirts and tennis shorts and carrying rackets and cans of balls.

Aleksandr Pevsner, attired in a terry-cloth bathrobe, darted his large, blue, and extraordinarily bright eyes coldly at them but didn’t reply.

“So, what’s bothering you on this sunny morning in sunny Cozumel?” Castillo pursued.

Again Pevsner didn’t reply. But the look in his eyes, which previously had been chilly, changed to one that would have frozen Mount Vesuvius.

“I guess he didn’t see that sign in the lobby, Tom,” Castillo said.

“What sign in the lobby?” Barlow asked.

“The one that says, ‘Abandon Despair, All Ye Who Enter Here! Welcome to the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort!’”

“I guess not,” Tom agreed.

“Tell us why you haven’t abandoned despair, Alek,” Castillo said. “Perhaps we can help.”

“I knew I should have killed you on the Cobenzl,” Pevsner said.

The Battle of Vienna in 1693, which saw the troops of the Ottoman Empire flee the battlefield leaving only bags of coffee beans behind, was directed from the Cobenzl, a high point in the fabled Vienna Woods.

Castillo had first met Pevsner there after Pevsner had had him abducted at pistol point from the men’s room of the Sacher Hotel.

“You told us God stayed your murderous intentions,” Castillo said. “You remember him saying that, Tom, right?”

“I remember him saying just that,” Barlow replied. “‘I was just about to kill Charley when God stayed my hand’ is exactly what he said.”

“Well, that wasn’t the first mistake God’s made,” Pevsner said. “Staying my hand like that.”

“We’re back to what’s troubling you, Alek,” Castillo said. “You can tell us. Tom is family, and I soon will be. What’s bothering you?”

“Do you have any idea how much money that stupid sonofabitch has cost me?”

“It would help, Cousin Alek, if you told us to which stupid sonofabitch you’re referring. Then we could guess.”

“Nicolai Nicolaiovitch Putin.”