Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Ordonez made a gesture that said, Of course. It is nothing.

He said, "And so, having of course never been here, I'm going to have another glass of the perfumed fairy Cabernet and leave."

[TWO]

Berezovsky and Svetlana came out of the room where they had been waiting.

Castillo handed the FBI backgrounder to Berezovsky, who read it and then gave it to Svetlana.

"I do not know what this is," Berezovsky said.

"It's a backgrounder," Castillo said. "The FBI sends this sort of thing to people they think would be--or should be--interested. It's unofficial, but of course in effect it is official."

"The question," Darby said, "is: Where did it come from? My primary suspect is Montvale."

"Ye olde knife in Ace's back?" Delchamps said. "Despite his promise to lay off?"

"Could be Montvale," Castillo said. "But it could be the FBI itself, never mind the President's standing order of hands off the OOA. The FBI's under the Department of Justice, not Montvale. They don't like him any more than they like me. And by now the story of me having snatched Dmitri and Svet from the agency station chief in Vienna has had plenty of time to get around Washington. They have the capability of locating the Gulfstream; they know it was in Buenos Aires. That'd explain the 'was seen in Buenos Aires' line.

"So, thinking that it would be very nice indeed if they could embarrass Montvale and stick it to me and get credit for bagging the Russian defectors, they sent that backgrounder to both Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Shines a different light on their motto, 'Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity,' eh?"

Darby, DeWitt, and Davidson chuckled. Delchamps grunted.

"In Buenos Aires," Castillo went on, "a couple of things might've happened. Maybe Artigas got the backgrounder and 'lost' it--"

"Who, Charley?" Dick Miller said.

"Julio Artigas. Used to be an FBI agent in Montevideo. He looks like Ordonez's brother. Smart. Good guy. He learned--intuited--more about us than was comfortable, so we had him transferred to OOA and moved him to the embassy in Buenos Aires. Inspector Doherty has made it clear to him that if he behaves, Doherty will take care of him in the FBI."

Miller nodded his understanding.

"So he got the backgrounder and tore it up. Or he didn't get it. Some other FBI agent did and took it to Ambassador Silvio for permission to tell SIDE or whatever, and Silvio said 'Not yet' or even 'Hell, no.'

"The backgrounder also went to Montevideo, where (a) the FBI guys are still pissed at Two-Gun Yung, who they now know works for us, and (b) the ambassador is still pissed at us generally because of Two-Gun, and me personally. I can see McGrory--"

"Who?" Miller said again.

"The ambassador," Castillo furnished. "I can see him smiling broadly, saying that he thought the local authorities should be made aware of the contents of the message. But then McGrory also says to slip it under Ordonez's door in the middle of the night, thus covering his ass by producing what is called 'credible deniability.' I thought it interesting that 'FBI' was nowhere to be found on this."

He tapped the backgrounder with his fingertips.

"Yeah," Darby said.

"Ol' Ace really isn't as dumb as he looks, is he?" Delchamps said, earning him a cold look from Svetlana.

"So, what does it mean?" Berezovsky said.

"Since we don't know where else that backgrounder may have gone, I just don't know what it means. But I don't think it's a very good idea for you and Svet--for that matter, any of us--to go back to Argentina right now."

Delchamps said, "One thought that pops into my mind is that you face facts and abandon this wild idea of yours to take out the chemical factory."

"Is that what you really think I should do?" Castillo said evenly. "That is, not do?"

"It's an option, Ace."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's obviously the most sensible thing to do," Delchamps said. "But on the other hand, I still have this romantic, second-childhood notion that I'd like to go out in a blaze of glory."