The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

The bartender looked at Darby and Duffy, and in English said, “What may I get for you, gentlemen?”

Pevsner looked genuinely amused, and he even made a little joke when everyone had their drinks and had taken seats around the plates of cold lobster chunks and oysters laid out on the coffee table.

“Well,” Pevsner said. “Now that we’re all here, whatever shall we chat about?”

Tom Barlow took the chair Pevsner had wanted Castillo to sit in, bringing with him an ice-covered bottle of vodka and a frozen glass.

“My call?” Delchamps asked.

Pevsner gestured for him to go on.

“Is that letter genuine?” Delchamps asked. “Is it really from Cousin Vladlen, or did Solomatin just sign what somebody put in front of him?”

“That’s two questions, Edgar,” Tom Barlow said. “Yes, I think the letter is genuine. And I think Cousin Vladlen wrote it. But he would have signed anything put in front of him by General Sirinov. Cousin Vladlen has built his career by doing whatever he is told to do.”

“I know people like that in the agency,” Delchamps said, smiling. “Is he really your cousin?”

“His father is our mother’s brother,” Barlow said, pointing at Sweaty.

“How come Cousin Vladlen didn’t get burned when you and Sweaty took off?”

“General Sirinov may have believed him when he said he had no hint what Svetlana and I were planning. Vladlen’s a respected oprichnik.”

“A what?” Darby asked.

“That’s right,” Castillo said. “You weren’t here for this history lesson, were you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Darby said.

“An ‘oprichnik’ is a member of the Oprichnina, the secret police state-within-the-state that goes back to Ivan the Terrible,” Castillo said, and looked at Sweaty. “Did I get that right, sweetheart? Do I get a gold star to take home to Mommy?”

She smiled and shook her head resignedly.

“I’ll explain it to you later, Alex,” Castillo said.

“Tell me about General Sirinov,” Delchamps said.

“General Yakov Sirinov runs the FSB and the SVR for Putin,” Pevsner said.

“Putin as in Prime Minister Putin?”

“As in Prime Minister Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, formerly president of the Russian Federation, and before that, polkovnik of the KGB, and before that ...”

“Oh, that Putin,” Delchamps said.

Castillo and Barlow chuckled.

“You think Putin’s personally involved in this?” Castillo asked.

“Up to the nipples of his underdeveloped chest,” Pevsner said.

“I’m getting the feeling you don’t like him much,” Delchamps said.

Pevsner chuckled.

“Is anyone interested in the possible scenario I’ve come up with?” Pevsner then said.

“Does a bear shit in the forest?” Delchamps asked in Russian.