The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

The chief recovered quickly, and the remaining accommodations were parceled out among the other officers. There was one captain; the rest of the 160th’s pilots were warrant officers.

The chie

f left, closing the wardroom door behind him.

Castillo laid his laptop computer on the table and opened it.

“Overview,” he said. “The target is on the airfield on the Venezuelan island of La Orchila. The target—targets, plural—are a Russian general named Yakov Sirinov, whom we are going to snatch; the Tu-934A aircraft, which he flew onto La Orchila; and the cargo that that bird carried.”

He looked down at the computer, saw that it was on, and tapped several keys.

“These are the latest satellite images of the target,” he went on, then leaned over for a closer look, and added, “as of forty-five minutes ago.”

“You have imagery like that on your laptop?” Captain Lowe asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Lowe bent over the laptop.

“How could a poor sailor get a laptop like that?” Lowe asked.

“Well, I could give you this one,” Castillo said, affecting a serious tone, “but then I would have to kill you.”

With one exception, the others in the room laughed. It was an old joke, but it was theirs.

The exception was former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki.

“Captain,” she flared, “you will have to excuse Colonel Castillo. He never grew emotionally after he entered puberty. Whenever there is serious business at hand, he makes sophomoric jokes.”

“What is this, dissension in the ranks?” Castillo asked. “Or the beginning of a lover’s quarrel?”

Sweaty let loose a thirty-second torrent of angry words in Russian.

Dmitri Berezovsky laughed, then said, “Captain, gentlemen, permit me to offer an explanation. In our family, my mother used to say that what my sister needed more than anything was a strong man who would take her down a peg or two on a regular basis. She has finally found such a man, and doesn’t like it.”

This produced from Sweaty another torrent of vulgar and obscene Russian language.

“If our mother ever heard her speak like that,” Berezovsky went on, “which on occasion she did, our mother would wash her mouth out with laundry soap.”

This was too much for the men in the room who had been studiously ignoring the exchange. Most of them chuckled, and several laughed.

Sweaty, red-faced, opened her mouth to deliver another comment.

“Colonel,” Castillo said very softly. “Zip your lip. One more word and you’re out of here and off the operation.”

Carlito and Sweaty locked eyes for a very long moment.

And then wordlessly she sat down.

Castillo turned to the laptop.

“If you’ll gather around here, please,” he said, “you’ll see that while the Tu-934A is not visible, there are Spetsnaz guarding this canvas temporary hangar, which makes it fairly certain that the Tu-934A is inside.

“Now, this is what we’re going to do. Please hold comments until I’ve finished.

“I want to arrive at first light ...”

Some five minutes later, when Castillo had finished, he said, “Okay, comments, please. But I’m not going to start with the juniors, the way a good commander is supposed to. We’re starting at the top. Captain Lowe, your thoughts, please.”