Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“They were aboard the nuclear submarine USS San Juan returning to California from Venezuela when General Naylor ordered them to report to me for hazardous duty. Because I was at the grapefruit farm, that’s where they went. When they got there, the sub surfaced, they loaded their telephone poles into their rubber boats, and headed for shore. You should have been there, Alek. The sight of twenty-four large SEALs and six telephone poles jammed into two small rubber boats racing across the waves is one I won’t soon forget.”

“A couple of questions, Charley. What’s with the telephone poles? And what was the nuclear submarine doing off the coast of Venezuela?”

“So far as the telephone poles are concerned—the SEALs are touchy on the subject—the best I’ve been able to figure out is that the SEALs train with them. Like when I went through the Q course—”

“The what?”

“Q for Special Forces qualification. When I went through the Q course at Camp Mackall, they issued us a rifle, a pistol, and a knife. We had to keep all three with us around the clock. I don’t know that I buy it, but I’ve been told that the SEALs do the same thing with telephone poles. Makes one think about it. Did you ever see a picture of SEALs training without a telephone pole in it?”

“Now that you mention it, no.”

“So, what was suggested to me is they become emotionally involved with their telephone poles. They become, so to speak, their security blankets. They just don’t feel comfortable unless they have a telephone pole—the bigger the better, I was told—around.”

“Makes sense,” Pevsner said. “And what was the sub doing off the coast of Venezuela?”

“Just between us? I wouldn’t want this to get around.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Well, you remember when the Venezuelans nationalized the American oil companies, seizing them, so to speak, for the workers and peasants?”

“Indeed, I do. And I confess that I was surprised when you didn’t send your Marines to take them back from the workers and peasants. That’s what we would have done. In the bad old days, I mean.”

“We’ve learned subtlety, Alek,” Castillo said. “What we did was refuse to sell them any more parts for the oil well drilling equipment and refineries they seized.”

“Whereupon we—I mean the Russian Federation—leapt to their aid in the interest of internal peace and cooperation, and sent them the parts they needed.”

“Which you—I mean the Russian Federation—since they don’t make those parts themselves, bought from us, doubled the price, and then sold to the Venezuelans. Correct?”

“You’re not saying there’s anything wrong with turning a little profit on a business deal, are you?”

“Absolutely not! So when we found out what the Russians were doing, we had several options. We could stop selling the parts to the Russians, which would have meant our parts people wouldn’t have made their normal profit. That was unacceptable, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Or we could have sunk the Russian Federation ships either as they were leaving the U.S. or—after the parts had been put ashore in Russia, where they were reloaded into crates marked ‘More Fine Products of Russian Federation Craftsmen’—when the ships carrying the parts were en route to Venezuela. That would have been an act of war, so we didn’t do that, either.”

“So, what did you do?”

“We made some parts that wouldn’t quite fit, or would wear out in a week or so, or would cause the drilling strings to break, or all three, and put them into crates marked ‘More Fine Products of Russian Federation Craftsmen.’ Then we loaded them and some SEALs onto nuclear submarines.”

“I know what’s coming,” Pevsner said. “Genius! No wonder we—I mean the USSR—lost the Cold War!”

“When the crates were off-loaded from the Russian ships onto docks in Venezuela, that same night the SEALs exchanged our crates for their crates. The parts the Russians bought from us were taken back to the U.S., put on shelves, and sold. They’re good parts. The—excuse the expression—bad parts no doubt now are installed in Venezuelan drilling rigs and refinery equipment. It’s only a matter of time before that equipment promptly breaks down or blows up—or both. The Venezuelans then will say unkind things to the Russians, and the Russians, who know they haven’t done anything wrong, will say unkind things to the Venezuelans.”

“When I changed sides, I knew it was time for us to change sides,” Pevsner said. “Didn’t I say that, Dmitri?”

“I remember you saying exactly that,” Tom Barlow said. “And you were right.”

“I’m always right. Or almost always. I have to admit that I did place my trust in that Korean sonofabitch who sold me those lousy air conditioners.”

He turned to Castillo.

“So when are you going to start the C. G. Castillo Pirated Ship Recovery Training Program?”

“After what you’ve just told me, how can I?” Castillo asked. “Won’t it take days to… how do I say this delicately? . . . restore the ladies’ rooms to their normal pristine and functioning condition?”

“This is another of those times when I wonder both how you got to be an intelligence officer and whether or not you’re intelligent enough to be let into the family. The last I heard there are zero females in your Delta Force and zero in your SEALs. That suggests there will not be a requirement for ladies’ restrooms, whether functioning and pristine or not.”