Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"Little warm down there, isn't it?"

"Brutal. Jack, Lieutenant Colonel Castillo is with us."

"Oh, really?"

"The question has come up--actually, Castillo raised it--about activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; specifically, on that experimental farm the West Germans used to operate down there. You know what I mean?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you know of anything going on down there?"

"Is that what Castillo suggested?"

"Yes, it is."

"Where did he get that?"

Castillo clapped his hands, then drew his right hand in a cutting motion across his throat.

"He'd rather not say," Montvale said.

"I see. Well, as I said, I haven't heard anything. But if you'll give me a minute, I'll check to see if anything has happened that I missed. Hang on a minute, please."

There came the murmur of unintelligible voices in the background, and then Powell came back on: "It'll take a couple of minutes. Are you on a speakerphone?"

"Yes, Jack, we are."

"How are you, Colonel?"

Castillo said: "I'm very well, Mr. Powell. Thank you. And yourself?"

"I understand you've been in Vienna."

"There is a rumor circulating to that effect, sir."

"Apropos of nothing whatever, Colonel, to kill the time while we're waiting to hear about Africa, so to speak, a couple of interesting Interpol warrants crossed my desk this morning."

"Yes, sir?"

"The Russians say that several of their diplomats--Dmitri Berezovsky and Svetlana Alekseeva, known to be SVR officers, one in Copenhagen and the other in Berlin--have absconded with large amounts of money. More than a million dollars from Copenhagen, and twice that from Berlin."

"Well, I suppose that goes to show we're not the only ones with crooked diplomats," Castillo said, and winked at Ambassador Silvio, who smiled and shook his head.

"The Russians seem really upset about these two," Powell went on. "They've offered a large reward for information leading to their arrest. And no one seems to know where they are or how they got there."

"Well, I'll keep my eyes peeled for dishonest-looking Russians, Mr. Powell. And you'll be the first to know if I find any."

"I don't like to think what will happen to these people--Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva is Colonel Berezovsky's sister, and his wife and little girl are apparently with them--if the SVR catches up with them. As they will eventually."

"Well, just off the top of my head, Mr. Powell, I'd say if anyone knew how to dodge the SVR it would be a couple of senior SVR officers. Especially if they had a lot of cash. What did you say they're supposed to have stolen? Three million dollars?"

"And off the top of my head, Colonel Castillo," Powell said with more than a little impatience in his voice, "if the situation presented itself, I'd think it obviously would be in their self-interest to place themselves under the protection of the CIA."

"And you'd really like to talk to them, right?"

"Yes, we would really like to talk to them."

"Well, I'd say that might be possible somewhere down the pike, but not anytime soon."