Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

He met Montvale's eyes.

"So what happened in Germany?" Montvale said after a moment.

"I was at the Haus im Wald, near Bad Hersfeld--it used to belong to my mother, but now Otto Gorner, who runs Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, the holding company, lives there--when there was a call for me--as Castillo--from quote the U.S. embassy in Berlin unquote.

"When I answered it, a guy asked in Berliner German if he had Gossinger--not Castillo--and when I said 'yes,' he switched to English--faultless American accent--and said, 'Sorry to bother you, Colonel Castillo, but I thought you would like to know an attempt will be made on your life and Gorner's and Kocian's during the Friedler funeral.' Sometime during the conversation, he said his name was 'Tom Barlow' and that I should be careful as the workers were ex-Stasi.

"And then he hung up.

"Friedler's funeral, the next day, was in Saint Elisabeth's church in Marburg. We had reserved seats. Two of my guys checked them before the ceremony. They found an envelope addressed to me--Gossinger--in one of the prayer books. It contained a photocopy of Berezovsky's passport and four cards with the name 'Tom Barlow' on one, and 'Vienna,' 'Budapest,' and 'Berlin' on the others. 'Berlin' had been crossed out.

"What it looked like was that Berezovsky wanted to meet me in either Vienna or Budapest and would be using the name 'Tom Barlow.' "

"You mean he wanted to defect?" Montvale asked, his tone now somewhat civil.

"It didn't say that, but we thought that was likely."

"And it never occurred to you to contact the station agent in either Berlin or Vienna or Budapest?"

"I considered that and decided against it."

Montvale shook his head in obvious disgust. "So you went to Vienna to see what would happen?"

"Let me tell this through, please," Castillo said, and after a visibly annoyed Montvale nodded his assent, went on: "Nothing happened at the church, possibly because my people and the local cops were all over it. Afterward, Kocian said he wanted to go to the Kuhl funeral in Vienna and wanted to go there on the train. I sent the airplane ahead to Vienna, and Kocian and I--plus Kocian's bodyguard and one of my guys--caught the train in Kassel."

"Which one of your guys?" Montvale said.

"That's not germane."

"The one General McNab sent to make sure you didn't do anything stupid, as you're so wont to do? The one sitting in there with the gendarmes? Sergeant Major Davidson?"

"We went to lunch on the train," Castillo said, ignoring the question. "Berezovsky, his wife and daughter, and Alekseeva were having their lunch. I recognized him from the photocopy of his passport picture and spoke to him. He said he would like to talk a little business, so I invited them to my compartment.

"Thirty minutes later, they showed up--just Berezovsky and Alekseeva--told me who they were, and said they were willing to defect for two million dollars. I asked him what he had that was worth two million dollars, and he promised to tell me all about the chemical factory in the Congo once he was where he wanted me to take them in the Gulfstream."

"Where did he want you to take them?"

"Next question?"

"Okay. And at no time during all this did it occur to you that you were in way over your head with something like this, and what you should do was take these people to the U.S. embassy in Vienna and turn them over to the CIA station chief? Or call me, for Christ's sake, and ask me what you should do? I thought we had an agreement."

"That implies that you have some authority over me, and we both know you don't," Castillo said. "We do have an agreement, but I came to understand that this did not fit its guidelines. Berezovsky and Alekseeva were antsy, and it came out they knew that the Kuhls had been whacked, and I decided that's why they had come to me. They were afraid of what they were going to find in Vienna--from anyone who ultimately reports to you. Thus, the loophole in our agreement."

Montvale didn't say anything for a moment as he looked across the room in thought. It was clear he was not happy with what he was hearing. He then said: "How did they come to contact you in Germany?"

"My theory at the time was that Berezovsky went to Marburg to see that the ex-Stasi guys did a good job on Kocian and Goerner. Then--in what sequence, I don't know--they saw my picture--Gossinger's picture--in the Tages Zeitung--"

"What was that all about?"

"There was a front-page story that announced that the publisher--Gossinger--had returned to Germany from the States for Friedler's funeral and was offering a reward--a large reward--for information leading to the people who had taken him out.

"I decided that Berezovsky knew who Gossinger is--who I am--and saw in the newspaper photograph that I was traveling in the Gulfstream, and decided I was his safe ticket out of Europe.

"What I guessed then turned out to be pretty much on the money. They told me that they had heard about the Kuhls, which suggested the SVR would be waiting for them in Vienna. And they had very little faith in the CIA station chief in Vienna, fearing that she would leave them hanging in the breeze if the SVR was onto them.

"So I slipped them out of the West Bahnhof in Vienna, onto the Gulfstream, and got them the hell out of Dodge."

"And brought them here," Montvale finished for him. "Where are they, Charley? To salvage anything from this mess, we have to get them to Washington and turned over to the agency just as soon as possible."