Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"Knowing something of how Putin's mind works," Berezovsky picked up, "I can tell you he is going to evaluate the five assassinations we know about--and I'm sure there were more--and decide, depending on the speed and ferocity of the reaction to them, whether he should pull in his horns or see how much more he can get away with before the enemy charges a price he doesn't wish to pay."

"Some of this is personal for me, Charley," Davidson said. "I really don't want to spend the rest of my life--on whatever sunny beach I find myself in retirement--looking over my shoulder."

"Nor I," Berezovsky said.

Svetlana didn't say anything out loud, but her eyes also said, Nor I.

And neither do I, goddamn it.

Sexy Susan said, "CWO Leverette for Corporal Bradley, Class One Encryption."

"C. G. Castillo."

"It's okay, sweetheart," Leverette's voice said, "I'll talk to him."

"Go ahead, gentlemen," Sexy Susan said.

"You're watching the radio in the middle of the night, are you, Colonel? What did she do, kick you out of bed?"

"I understand you've already displeased Colonel Hamilton. You sure you want to do that with me, too, Mr. Leverette?"

"Negative."

"I didn't expect to hear from you for another twenty-four hours or so."

"As I just explained to Colonel Hamilton, sir, I meant that forty-eight-hour period to mean the longest time we might be gone."

"He's there with you?"

"Good morning, Colonel Castillo," Hamilton said.

"Good morning, sir."

"Mr. Leverette has assured me that our little problem was a communications breakdown."

"I felt sure it was something like that, sir."

"Some good news and some bad, Colonel," Leverette said.

"Good first. I've just had some bad."

"As we speak, Phineas is taking the vehicles and a dozen shooters across the bridge. I found several Congolese officials who became very sympathetic to our desire to collect small fauna for the Fayetteville Zoo after I gave them a great deal of money."

"Only a dozen shooters?"

"I'll explain that when I get to the bad news. These same officials were also kind enough to rent me four outboard motorboats--not bad ones, with 150-horsepower Yamahas; they told me they stole them from the UN--at a price I would say is only four or five times what they're worth, even in this neck of the woods. And further, to show us the place where the boats will be hidden from sight until--and I hope this never happens--it is necessary to launch them as an alternative method of leaving the Congo.

"It is my intention to use four of the shooters as guards on the fleet while the rest of us try to catch parrots--"

"Parrots?"

"--and whatever else we might happen across. Yeah, parrots. Our new friends are in the wild livestock business. They offered us everything up to and including gorillas. We settled on parrots."

"The Congo African Grey Parrot," Hamilton furnished, "Psittacus erithacus erithacus, is regarded as the most intelligent of the species. They bring anywhere from a thousand dollars to several times that much in Washington."

"As I said," Leverette went on, "our new friends somehow got the idea we're trying to catch and illegally export African Grey Parrots. They said the birds may be found in large numbers along the Ngayu River, on both sides of National Route 25.

"They also said--I'm not sure if this is bad news or good news--that we should be very careful not to go past kilometer marker 125 on Route 25, because beyond that is where the Arabs and the bad water are.