Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Berezovsky laughed and applauded. Delchamps joined in.

Svetlana with obvious effort kept her mouth shut.

Castillo looked at Miller. "Okay, Dick, let's have it."

Miller hesitated.

"The colonel just used the term 'terminated,' " Leverette then said. "Presuming it means what I think it does, who and why?"

"Is that what you were going to ask, Dick?" Castillo said.

"Among other things," Miller said.

"Okay," Castillo said. "What Tom Barlow--not Colonel Berezovsky; no one ever heard of him--wants to do is take out two SVR people. One of them, Lieutenant Colonel Lavrenti Tarasov, is the rezident for Paraguay and Argentina. The other, Colonel Evgeny Alekseeva, works for Directorate S and came here looking for Tom and Susan."

"What's the connection?" Leverette asked, and when Castillo didn't immediately answer, said, "Alekseev, Alekseeva, whoever you said?"

Castillo looked at Svetlana.

"What did you say Rule One was, Carlos?" she said, giving him her okay.

Castillo looked back at Leverette. "Alekseeva was once married to Susan."

"Davidson, you didn't happen to mention that," Leverette said.

Miller rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Because of that connection . . ." Berezovsky began and stopped. "I don't know what to call you. 'Mister Leverette'?"

Leverette looked at Castillo, then back to Berezovsky. "Tell you what, Tom. Against my better judgment, and until I decide you really are the nice guy Charley seems to think you are, you can call me 'Uncle Remus' . . ."

"Thank you."

"Everybody else seems to be crazy, so why not me?" Leverette finished.

Berezovsky said: "As I was saying, Uncle Remus, because of that connection, Colonel Alekseeva has, in a

ddition to a coldly professional interest, a personal interest in our defection. Unless he either can return us to Russia--which is just about an impossible ambition--or terminate us, his career will be finished. An officer who could not prevent the defection of his wife and her brother obviously is unreliable." He met Castillo's eyes. "I am suggesting, Carlos, that because Evgeny Alekseeva is highly skilled in this sort of thing, and we know highly motivated, eliminating him is the thing to do."

"No," Castillo said.

"Was that also ex cathedra, Carlos?" Berezovsky asked softly, but with a tone that was challenging.

Castillo nodded. "Yes, it was, Tom."

"Dmitri!" Svetlana said warningly.

"I think I should tell you, Carlos," Berezovsky said, "that I have several options. One is to smile at you and agree, then pretend to be surprised when we learn that Evgeny is no longer with us. Stepan--the larger of the two men Aleksandr assigned to watch over our Susan--he used to work for me. He would eliminate Evgeny Alekseeva with at least as much enthusiasm as Comandante Duffy would take out Lavrenti Tarasov."

"Please don't try that, Tom," Castillo said.

Berezovsky ignored the comment.

"My second option," he went on, "is to try to reason with you, one professional to another, to try to show you why eliminating Evgeny now makes more sense than anything else. And if that failed, to go to you as Svetlana's brother and point out that this very dangerous man is determined to kill the woman we both love and my wife and child."

"Don't you think I've thought of that?" Castillo said.

"Dmitri," Svetlana said evenly, "the woman you both love is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. And stop treating Carlos as if he started in this business last week. If he has his reasons--"