Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Castillo made a grand gesture with his right index finger, poking the felt of the table. "Here, the first night."

There was a resounding silence.

"On the pool table?" Sandra Britton blurted. "Charley!"

"No, I mean in Argentina, not before."

"Right after her swimsuit top 'accidentally' came off, right?" Susanna said, undeterred.

Castillo nodded.

"That was an accident," Sandra said. "I saw what happened."

"Well, she really covered herself up just as fast as she could, I'll say that for her. Top and bottom," Susanna said.

Castillo's memory bank kicked in, and he had a clear image of Svetlana adjusting her bathing suit back over her exposed buttock.

"If I didn't know better, Susie," Darby said, "I'd suspect you don't like Podpolkovnik Alekseeva very much."

"That's the point, you asshole," Susanna snapped. "She is a podpolkovnik of the FSB--"

"Was a podpolkovnik of the SVR," Delchamps corrected her without thinking.

"Et tu, Edgar?" Susanna said, thickly sarcastic. "You're into this true-love-at-first-sight bullshit?"

"Well, what the hell's wrong with that?" Sandra challenged. "It happens."

"Bullshit!" Susanna said.

"I don't know about you people," Sandra snapped back. "But it does happen to certain cops and schoolteachers. Tell her, Jack."

"Guilty," Britton said.

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Susanna said disgustedly.

Darby said: "What I started to say, Susie, what seems an hour or so ago, before we got into the romantic aspects of all this, is the flaw in your argument is that the Russians don't need Charley anymore."

"Meaning what?" Susanna challenged.

"Well, for example, we weren't at the second safe house thirty minutes when the Russians came in, bearing gifts."

"Like what?"

"Passports and national identity cards for everybody--Argentine, Uruguayan, Paraguayan, South African, Mexican."

"All good forgeries, I'm sure," Susanna said, her tone making clear her contempt for counterfeit passports, which everybody knew were good only until immigration authorities could run them through a computer database.

Darby took two passports and two national identity cards from a zip-top plastic bag and handed one set to Susanna and the other to Castillo. "These are genuine. I have an asset in Argentine immigration and he checked them for me."

Castillo found himself looking at photographs of Svetlana looking at him through the sealed thick plastic of a Uruguayan national identity card and passport identifying her as Susanna Barlow, born in Warsaw, Poland, and now a naturalized citizen living in Maldonado, Uruguay. He remembered from somewhere that Maldonado was just north of the seaside resort town of Punta del Este.

"What's the name on yours, Susanna?" Castillo asked as he extended the documents to her.

She didn't reply. She simply handed him the set of documents Darby had given to her. When Castillo examined them, Svetlana's photo--the same one as on the Uruguayan documents--was on both an Argentine passport and a national identity card identifying her as Susanna Barlow, born in Warsaw, Poland, and now a naturalized citizen living in Rosario.

Delchamps said: "The Paraguayan, South African, and Mexican documents may be fake, but I don't think so. As soon as I can, I'll check them."

Susanna looked at him but didn't say anything.