Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“Which got Raúl and me to thinking…” Cosada said.

“What would happen if we sent Alejandro down there with the Hungarians…” Raúl said.

“For which they were offering us a lot of money,” Cosada picked up. “And they took out Dr. Lorimer…”

“But then we told them there was no sixteen million dollars in bearer bonds in his safe.”

“And somebody tipped the Uruguayan cops to what the Hungarians had done, and where to find them.”

“And Alejandro brought us the bearer bonds,” Raúl said. “Getting the picture?”

“Brilliant!” General Murov said.

“The Oil-for-Food people were not about to make a stink. They would have gotten the important part of what they wanted—Lorimer dead—and the money wasn’t that important to them. The money those rag-headed Iraqi bastards made from Oil-for-Food is unbelievable, except it’s true.”

“So that’s what happened,” Murov said.

“No, that’s not what happened,” Raúl said. “What happened was this goddamn Yankee Castillo killed Alejandro and killed the Hungarians and made off with our sixteen million dollars. The notion of that thieving Yankee sonofabitch sitting naked in a cell in Lubyanka getting sprayed with ice water—I presume that’s what you have in mind for him—has a certain appeal. I don’t like it when people steal sixteen million dollars from me. Tell me what you have in mind, Sergei.”

“Well, so long as they were in Argentina—”

“‘Were in Argentina’?” Cosada interrupted.

“Jesus Christ, Jesus, for Christ’s sake stop interrupting my friend Sergei,” Raúl snapped.

“As I was saying,” Murov went on, “so long as the three of them, ‘the Unholy Trio,’ so to speak, are in Argentina, we can’t get at them. Not only are they protected by Aleksandr Pevsner’s private army, but that goddamn Irish cop Liam Duffy has my photograph on the wall of every immigration booth in the country.”

“So what are you proposing?” Raúl asked.

“Just as I got on the plane to fly here—”

“Speaking of flying, Sergei,” Raúl said, “we have to talk about the Tupolev Tu-934A.”

“What do you mean, ‘talk about it’?”

“Fidel wants one. He told me to tell you his feelings were hurt when you gave one to the late Fat Hugo…”

“I did not give one to Fat Hugo.”

“. . . and didn’t give one to him,” Raúl said. “And I can see his point.”

“Read my lips, Raúl. I did not give a Tupolev Tu-934A to Fat Hugo.”

“That’s not what we heard,” Cosada said.

“If you didn’t give one to Fat Hugo, what was that airplane our friend Castillo stole from him? A Piper Cub?” Raúl challenged.

“What Castillo stole from Fat Hugo’s island was General Vladimir Sirinov’s Tupolev Tu-934A,” Murov said.

“I don’t think Fidel’s going to believe that,” Raúl said.

“Raúl, listen to me. I don’t want this to get around, but we don’t have that many Tupolev Tu-934As. We don’t have enough for us. Do you think I would have come here on that Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 if I could have talked Vladimir Vladimirovich into letting me use a Tu-934A? That so-called Superjet is a disaster. I didn’t uncross my fingers until we landed here, and I’m going home on Air Bulgaria. They’re flying DC-9s that are as old as I am, but their engines don’t fall off.”

“Well, I’ll tell Fidel what you said, but if I were you, I’d try real hard to get him a Tupolev.”

“Can we get on with this?”

“You’d be in a better bargaining position, Sergei, if you got Fidel one of those Tupolevs, but go ahead.”