Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Duffy was uncomfortable not understanding the conversation.

"Because Sirinov knows--"

"I don't want to leave Comandante Duffy out of this," Castillo interrupted Berezovsky. "Can we speak English?"

"You're the one, Carlos, who started speaking Russian," Susan said in English.

"Sorry," Castillo said.

"I didn't understand a word, of course," Lee-Watson said. "But it's a melodic language, isn't it? I thought it would be more guttural, like German."

"What we were talking about, Comandante," Berezovsky said in his American English, "was the possibility that when he prepared the list of people who were ultimately attacked, General Sirinov was very likely getting advice from an SVR colonel attached to Directorate S, which General Sirinov runs. A man named Evgeny Alekseeva, whom both my sister and I know well.

"What I was suggesting was that once the decision to eliminate Herr Friedler had been made, Alekseeva encouraged him to also eliminate the policeman in Philadelphia."

"I heard that much," Duffy said.

"Why?" Castillo asked again.

"Because he knows that those black people in Philadelphia are being funded by oil-for-food money. And Sirinov probably heard that the policeman now works for you. That could also explain your presence on his list."

"I dunno, Tom," Castillo said dubiously. "That seems stretching. And when they tried to whack Britton, he wasn't working for me; he was on the Vice President's Protection Detail."

"I could be wrong, of course, but let me run the scenario out. We're working pretty much in the dark. I'm trying to put things together. My theory is that the decision to eliminate two people opened the door to eliminating the others. We don't know that Sirinov knew that we--Svetlana and I--had been in touch with the Kuhls. There were only two meetings with them, and I'd be surprised if we were detected.

"But the SVR has known about them for a long time. I can see Evgeny reasoning that this would be a good time to terminate them on general principles."

"Nice guy, Susan," Castillo said.

Berezovsky said: "Colonel--or may I also call you 'Carlos'?--he is ambitious and quite ruthless, something I strongly suggest you keep in mind. And he has an agenda."

"An agenda?"

"Do we have to get into this?" Susan asked.

"I think we should," Berezovsky said simply. He met her eyes for a moment, waited until, just perceptibly, she nodded, and then went on: "Evgeny was shamed by the breakup of the Soviet Union. By the near dissolution of the KGB. By what he regarded as the shameful behavior of Aleksandr--and there were others like Aleksandr--who not only left their successful careers in the KGB but left Russia to become very rich.

"He was determined to stay; to be faithful to the Motherland; to do what he could to restore the Soviet Union--he never really accepted the words 'Russian Federation'--to what he thought of as its former greatness. And, of course, the KGB to its former, now greatly diminished, power.

"He was not alone. There were thousands like him, ranging from privates in the border patrol to highly placed KGB officers. Colonel Vladimir Putin, for example. They flocked to the 'new' SVR. It wasn't what it once was--many of the brightest officers had left--but it could form the nucleus of what Putin and the others were determined would be an even better, stronger organization than the KGB had ever been.

"And they immediately set out to do so.

"Just about everyone who had remained loyal and was not a certified moron was promoted. I was reminded of Hitler after France fell, when he made field marshals of all those generals. Among those promoted before his time was Evgeny Alekseeva, first to lieutenant colonel and then, after his wife was promoted to lieutenant colonel, to colonel.

"I was not promoted, and as I was not certifiably stupid, I suspected that this was because Putin didn't like me very much. I had once been his commanding officer, and my reports on him were not flattering. But I had too many friends for Vladimir to ship me off for psychological evaluation, as happened to others. I think he was hinting that I might do well to join Aleksandr wherever he might be.

"I therefore resisted as well as I could any foreign assignments when they were proposed to me. The result of that, of course, was I was given the assignment--one I think I would have killed for, literally--as rezident in Berlin.

"Meanwhile, Evgeny was having domestic problems. His wife wanted a divorce. In the new SVR as well as in the old KGB, an officer is supposed to control his wife. Divorce was and is frowned upon. If she left him--much less divorced him--his career would have been severely hurt."

"And he didn't have any proof that she had ever been unfaithful to him," Svetlana said. "Because she had never been unfaithful. If he had been able to even credibly allege that she had been in someone else's bed, that would have solved the problem. He just would have killed her, and that would have been the end of the problem."

Castillo looked up at her on the arm of his chair and thought: If you think that speaking in the third person, Simply Susan, my love, is going to disabuse Duffy of his suspicion that Dmitri is talking about you, have another think.

That cow was out of the barn a long time ago.

"So," Berezovsky went on, "they acted as if nothing was wrong, continued to live together. Then Evgeny, who has always disliked me, had one of his inspirations. Who better to watch the Berlin rezident than the rezident's sister--who happened to be Evgeny's own wife?"