The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“Do I detect a subtle tone of disapproval in your voice, Sergei?” Lammelle said.

“How about disappointment? I really hoped we could have a serious discussion and resolve our problem. As professionals.”

“As a professional, Sergei, I find it hard to believe that you thought we could have a serious discussion when what I’m hearing from you strikes me as nonsense.”

“Nonsense?”

“Right now I don’t have a clear picture of the long-term implications of Congo-X turning up at Fort Detrick and on the U.S.-Mexico border. If you wanted to hurt someone with it, you would have. If you had hurt someone, that could have led anywhere, right up to a nuclear exchange. If you do hurt something that hurts us badly, for example, killing as many people as the rag-heads taking down the World Trade Center towers killed, then the missiles will fly. We didn’t know whom to nuke after 9/11. But if something happens involving Congo-X, we know just where to go: Lubyanka Square, Moscow, and you damned well know it.

“And what you’re suggesting here is that you’re willing to risk a nuclear exchange unless we turn over to you three people, a colonel and two lieutenant colonels! You’re right, Sergei, that’s not nonsense. It’s not even a clumsy attempt at blackmail. What it is, is pure bullshit!”

Murov looked at him for a moment, then reached for the bottle of Rémy Martin cognac. He poured two inches of it into one of the snifters, and then looked at Lammelle.

“Why not?” Lammelle said. “Not only are the gloves off, but I’m about to walk out of here.”

Murov poured cognac into another snifter, then handed it to Lammelle.

They touched glasses.

“Mud in your eye,” Murov said.

“Up yours, Sergei,” Lammelle said unpleasantly.

“I used the word ‘disappointed’ a moment ago, Frank. And I am. I’m disappointed that you don’t really understand power.”

“And what don’t I understand about it?”

“In your government, your leader, your President, doesn’t really have absolute power. There are things he simply cannot do because he wants to. In other governments—Cuba, for example, North Korea, Venezuela, and one or two others—the leader can do anything that pleases him. Anything.”

Lammelle felt a chill at the base of his neck.

“Russia wouldn’t be one of those other countries, would it?”

“Of course not. We are a democracy now. Our president and other officials must—and always do—follow the law and the will of the people.”

Lammelle took a healthy swallow—half of the cognac in the glass—and felt the warmth move through his body.

“That’s utter bullshit, too,” he said.

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen now, Frank,” Murov said. “You’re going to go back to Langley and report this conversation to Jack Powell. And he will be as unbelieving as you were. This will evolve into anger. And then you’ll go to the President. And he will be as unbelieving as you were and Jack Powell will be. And then he will become angry. Fortunately—for all of us—President Clendennen is not nearly as impulsive as his predecessor. He will think things over carefully, and in the end he will tell you to call me back and say that you will do whatever you can to resolve this problem. As you yourself pointed out, in the balance, the lives of a colonel and two lieutenant colonels aren’t really worth all that much.”

“Fuck you, Sergei.”

“I’ll have the car brought around,” Murov said, and reached for a telephone.

“Let me call first,” Lammelle said, and Murov slid the telephone to him.

Lammelle punched in a number from memory.

“It’s time to pick up the dry cleaning,” he said a moment later, and then hung up.

He slid the telephone back to Murov.

“Don’t bother to make note of the number,” he said. “In ten minutes, it will be out of service.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that, Frank,” Murov said, and then punched in a number and said, in Russian, “My guest will be leaving.”

Murov walked him to the Caravan.