Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

He paused, obviously thinking, before going on: "You know how far back it goes?"

Castillo nodded. "Ivan the Awesome."

"A terrible, tormented, cruel, godless man, who by comparison makes Stalin and Hitler and Saddam Hussein look like Saint Francis of Assisi," Pevsner said. "But not all of the people he took off into the state within the state were like him. There were good, God-fearing people among them, who went with him because the alternative to being of unquestioned loyalty to Ivan was watching your family being skinned alive and fed to starving dogs."

"Your ancestors?"

"Don't mock me, Charley."

"I wasn't. I was asking a question."

"Our ancestors, Charley," Anna said softly.

"Some of those who went with Ivan were minor nobility, and some were soldiers, like you and me."

"You were a soldier?" Castillo asked.

"Former Polkovnik Pevsner of the Soviet Air Force at your service, Podpolkovnik Castillo. I was simultaneously, of course, a colonel in the KGB. My father and Anna's father were generals. Anna's mother was a podpolkovnik. My mother never served. Her father, of course, did. Are you getting the picture, or should I go on?"

"What did you do?" Castillo asked.

"Is that important?"

"If you feel uncomfortable telling me, don't."

"I was in charge of ensuring the loyalty of Aeroflot aircrew, service personnel working outside the Soviet Union for Aeroflot, and the transmission--the protection--of diplomatic pouches sent by whatever means."

"For all of Aeroflot?"

"I was considered one of the very reliables," Pevsner said. "And I was. But let me get back to what I was saying: In the beginning, it was the women who kept their faith--their faith, not the Church per se; after Ivan had Saint Philip, the Metropolitan of Moscow, strangled"--he paused to see if Castillo was following him, then went on--"the women understood that being too good a Christian was about as dangerous as harboring disloyal thoughts about Ivan, so while paying lip service to the Church, as was expected of them, aided by some clergy, they kept their faith private, within the family. You understand?"

"I think so," Castillo said.

"It was impossible to really be a Christian--standing up to Ivan and the others we served over the years would have been suicide--but it was possible, here and there, from time to time, to act with great caution and, for example, warn the Jews of an upcoming pogrom so that some of them would survive, or arrange for someone about to be executed or sent to the gulag to make it out of Russia to China or Finland. . . . You understand?"

Castillo nodded.

"That's what I meant, Friend Charley, when I said that the best that people like you and me can do is stop a little here and a little there."

"Why did you leave?"

"Because the opportunity was there. Half of what would become the FSB left as Soviet Russia started coming apart."

"Half of the Oprichina left?"

"Not everybody. Probably less than one-quarter, one-fifth of the FSB--or the Cheka, or the NKVD, whatever, by whatever name--was Oprichina."

"In other words, a state within a state within a state?"

"Precisely."

"Okay," Castillo said. "So why, if you were a card-carrying oprichniki, and doing pretty well, did you leave?"

"I told you, there was the opportunity."

"To swap the good life to make a few bucks as an arms smuggler, which would have not only most of the world's police departments trying to put you in jail, not to mention your former pals in Moscow and in Saint Petersburg trying to whack you and your family, as an example pour les autres? Come on, Alek!"

This time it was more than twenty very long seconds before Pevsner replied.