Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"I don't know about cynical. I guess it's to be expected of an oprichniki. I know you guys have to be careful, even of your friends. Or maybe especially of your friends."

If looks could freeze, I would now be colder than that ice-encased bottle.

He raised his vodka glass to Pevsner and drained it.

"Mud in your eye, Alek!"

Anna's face had gone almost white.

"What did you say?" Pevsner asked coldly.

"About what?"

"Goddamn you to hell, Charley!"

"You're not supposed to have secrets from your friends," Castillo said. "I remember you telling me that. Several times."

"You are on very thin ice, Friend Charley."

"Speaking of ice," Castillo said, raising his glass. "That was just what I needed. May I have another?"

He went to the ice-encased bottle of vodka and refilled his glass.

"Can I pour you one? You look like you could use it," Castillo said, and then asked, "How come you never told me you are a card-carrying member of the Oprichina?"

"Was a member," Anna said very softly.

Pevsner glared at her, then moved the glare back to Castillo, who went on: "Okay. Was an oprichniki. Did you formally resign? Or just not show up for work one day as the Kremlin walls were falling down?"

"What do you want, Charley?" Pevsner asked very softly.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky."

Anna sucked in her breath. Her lips looked bloodless.

God, I hope she's not about to pass out!

"Berezovsky, Dmitri, Colonel. The Berlin rezident," Castillo pursued. "A high muckety-muck of the Oprichina. Tell me about him, Alek, please."

"Why are you interested in Berezovsky?"

"Fair question. He had a man who worked for me at the Tages Zeitung killed. And he tried to take out two people very close to me. Oh, and me. I'm always curious about people who want to kill me."

"If Berezovsky wanted you . . . eliminated . . . you wouldn't be standing here," Pevsner said.

"Well, you're wrong. He did, and here I am. You should not believe your own press releases, Alek. The SVR isn't really that good."

"Why did he try to kill you, Charley?" Anna asked.

He saw that some of the color had returned to her face.

And there was something about her carriage that told him that she had abandoned her just-a-wife-who-doesn't-have-any-idea-what's-going-on role.

And Pevsner has seen that, too. He's not trying to shut her up.

"I don't really know. I think he was trying to send a message for the SVR. Maybe make a statement. 'We're back, and we're going to kill everybody who gets in our way.' "

He gave that a moment to register and then went on. "I know why he took out the reporter for the Tages Zeitung. He was getting too close to the connection between the Marburg Group who made all that money sending medicine and food to Iraq, and what's going on in the African chemical factory. I want you to tell me everything you know about that, too."