His first reaction was a sudden realization: This is getting out of control This is getting out of control.

And the commander is in large measure responsible.

Sweaty's right about that.

His next reaction was: On the other hand, Sweaty should not have snapped at the commander like that, telling him to act like a commander. On the other hand, Sweaty should not have snapped at the commander like that, telling him to act like a commander.

One of the problems of having women subordinates is that one cannot jump all over their a.s.ses when they deserve it.

Especially when said female subordinate is sharing one's bed.

This sort of situation was not dealt with in Problems of Leadership 101 at West Point, nor anywhere else since I've been in the Army.

Correction: During the time I was was in the Army. in the Army.

So, what are you going to do now, General MacArthur, so that everyone can see you are in fact acting like you're in command?

Confidently in command.

There's a h.e.l.l of a difference between being in command, and being confidently in command.

And those being commanded d.a.m.ned well know it.

You better think of something, and quick!

Colin Leverette came to his rescue.

"I know what," Leverette said. "Let's start all over."

"What?" Svetlana asked.

"No, Mr. Pevsner," Leverette went on, "we are not all going to sit around and get drunk. We're going to have one-possibly two-Sazerac c.o.c.ktails, and then we're going to get down to business."

Pevsner didn't respond.

Castillo looked between them, and thought: I believe Uncle Remus just saved my a.s.s. I believe Uncle Remus just saved my a.s.s.

What is that, for the two hundred and eleventh time?

"That was your cue, Mr. Pevsner," Delchamps said, "to say, 'I should not have said what I did. Please forgive me.'"

Pevsner looked at him incredulously.

"It's a question of command, Aleksandr," Tom Barlow said, his tone making it clear that now he was wearing his polkovnik's hat. "If Charley, the commander, doesn't object to something, you have no right to. Now, ask Uncle Remus to forgive your runaway mouth."

"You have just earned my permission, Podpolkovnik Berezovsky," Leverette said, "to call me Uncle Remus."

Now, everyone looked at Pevsner.

"Uncle Remus is waiting, Mr. Pevsner," Delchamps said after a long moment.

After another long moment, Pevsner smiled, and said, "If an apology for saying something I should not have said is the price for one of Mr. Leverette's c.o.c.ktails, I happily pay it."

Castillo had another unpleasant series of rapid thoughts: Well, Pevsner caved, and quicker than I thought he would.

Problem solved.

Wait a minute! Aleksandr Pevsner-unlike me-never says anything until he thinks it through.

He knew the apology meant he understood he can't question me.

But what about the first crack he made?

Was that an attempt to put himself in charge?

If we'd caved, that would have put him in a position to question-question h.e.l.l, disapprove-of anything.

Alek, you sonofab.i.t.c.h!

His chain of thought was interrupted by the arrival of the butler-not a bellman; penthouses A and B shared the full-time services of an around-the-clock butler-bearing simple syrup, absinthe, a bowl of ice, a bowl of lemon twists, and a tray of old-fashioned gla.s.ses.

"The first thing we will do-actually, Lester will do," Leverette announced, "is fill the gla.s.ses with ice. This will chill them while I go through the rest of the process. Now, how many are we going to need?"

Everyone expressed the desire to have a Sazerac.

Leverette arranged all the old-fashioned gla.s.ses in two rows.

"You understand, Sweaty," he said, "that one of my Sazeracs has been known to turn a nun into a nymphomaniac?"

"I'll take my chances. Stop talking and make the d.a.m.ned drink."

"First, we muddle the syrup and the Peychaud bitters together," Leverette announced. "When I've done that, we will carefully measure three ounces of rye per drink and a carefully measured amount of ice into the mixing vessel."

He picked up a champagne cooler, and quickly rinsed it in the sink of the wet bar.

"This will serve nicely as a mixing vessel," he said, and then demonstrated that his notion of a carefully measured three ounces of rye and ice per drink was to upend the bottle of Wild Turkey over the champagne cooler and empty it. He shook it to get the last drop, then repeated the process with the bottle of Van Winkle Family Reserve. He then added four handfuls of ice cubes.

He stirred the mixture around with one of the empty bottles.

"You'll notice that I did not shake, but rather stirred. I learned that from Double-Oh-Seven," he said, then looked at Bradley. "Lester, dump the ice."

Lester emptied into the sink the melting ice from all the gla.s.ses.

"I will now pour the absinthe, and Lester will swirl. I know he will do a good job of swirling because I taught him myself."

Leverette then picked up the bottle of absinthe, and ran it very quickly over the lines of gla.s.ses in one motion. This put perhaps a teaspoon of the absinthe in each gla.s.s.

Lester then picked up each gla.s.s, swirled the absinthe around, and then dumped the absinthe into the sink.

Leverette picked up the champagne cooler. Lester picked up a silver strainer and held it to the lip of the champagne cooler to hold back the ice cubes as Leverette poured the chilled liquid content of the cooler into the gla.s.ses.

"There is a slight excess," Leverette announced as he looked into the cooler. "Stick this in the fridge, Lester. 'Waste not, want not,' as my saintly mother was always saying."

Leverette then picked up handfuls of the lemon twists and squeezed them in his ma.s.sive hands, which added not more than two drops of the essence into each gla.s.s.

"Finished!" he announced triumphantly.

He handed one to Castillo and another to Pevsner. He handed a third to Sweaty, and took a fourth with him as he walked to the couch.

He raised his gla.s.s to Pevsner, took an appreciative sip, and then asked, "And what do you think, Mr. Pevsner?"

Pevsner sipped his c.o.c.ktail.

"Unusual," Pevsner said. "But very good."

"I will pretend that I don't know the only reason you said that is because you knew I would tear off both of your arms and one leg if you hadn't, and will accept that as a compliment."

"You're insane," Pevsner said with a smile.

"Genius is often mistakenly identified as insanity," Leverette said. "I'm surprised you didn't know that. Now, shall we deal with our problem?"

He came to attention, gestured at Castillo, and gave the n.a.z.i salute.

"Mein Fuhrer, you have the floor."

Pevsner's eyes rolled in disbelief.

Castillo rose from his chair, walked to the bar, and leaned his back against it.

"Two-Gun," he began, "I think you'd better take notes."

Yung gave him a thumbs-up, then reached for his laptop computer.

"To bring everybody up to speed," Castillo began, "let's start with what we do know. First, somebody sent Colonel Hamilton a barrel of Congo-X. Then, in Budapest, Colonel Vladlen Solomatin of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki handed Eric Kocian a letter asking him to get it to Tom Barlow. The letter said, in essence, 'Come home. All is forgiven.' I think it's likely the two actions are related."

"About as likely as the sun will come up tomorrow," Svetlana said.

She waited for a chuckle. When she didn't get one, she looked at Castillo.

"We won't know know," Castillo said, "about the sun rising until tomorrow morning, will we, Svet? Until then, it's just likely likely that it will. And the way this works, Svet, is that no one offers an opinion, clever or otherwise, until I ask for it. Got it?" that it will. And the way this works, Svet, is that no one offers an opinion, clever or otherwise, until I ask for it. Got it?"

Her face colored and her eyes flared angrily, but she didn't reply.

Well, Commander Casanova, guess who's not going to get laid tonight?

Castillo took a sip of his drink, then went on: "Let's start with the Congo-X. Where did it come from? That raises the question, 'Did we destroy it all in the attacks on the Fish Farm or not?' Colin?"

"Sir, I respectfully suggest Colonel Torine can answer that better than I can," Leverette said.

"Jake?" Castillo asked.

Torine nodded. "Charley, you know as well as I do, except for nukes, there is no such thing as total destruction of anything by high explosive or incendiary saturation bombing. The question then becomes: 'How much was not destroyed? ' And I suggest Colin can answer that better than I can. He (a) was there, and (b) he's done a lot of damage a.s.sessment."

Castillo motioned with his hand toward Leverette.

"The Fish Farm was a collection of concrete block buildings, none of them over three stories, most of them just one," Leverette said. "The few I got into had bas.e.m.e.nts, and I saw a half-dozen buried and half-buried steel-door revetments-like ammo bunkers. Let's say the bombs and the incendiaries took out ninety-five percent of everything."

"Jake?" Castillo said.

Torine nodded his agreement. "Leaving five percent," he said.

"Until we run into a stone wall, let's try this scenario," Castillo said. "Five percent of the Congo-X in barrels survived the bombing. Let's say that's six barrels. Two of them got to the States. How and by what means? Tom?"

"I'm sure one of the first things Sirinov did after the bombing-"

Alex Darby interrupted: "General Yakov Sirinov, who runs the SVR for Putin?"

Barlow nodded, and went on: "What he did was send in a Vympel Spetsnaz team for damage a.s.sessment and to see if anyone was still alive."

Castillo said, "Can we presume (a) the Spetsnaz made it into the Fish Farm, and (b) while they were there found-more important, took control of-the six barrels of Congo-X?"

"If Tom is talking about Spetsgruppa V," Leverette said, and looked at Barlow.

Barlow nodded. He said, "Also known as the Vega Group of KGB Directorate B."

"The Russian Delta Force, Charley," Leverette said. "They're d.a.m.ned good."

"It is because they are so good that they were selected to provide security for the Congo operation," Barlow said. "I was surprised that you didn't encounter at least one or two of them, Uncle Remus, when you were there."

Leverette met his eyes for a moment.

"Quickly changing the subject," Leverette said, making it clear there had been a confrontation with at least one or two Spetsnaz special operators and that they had lost. "So they found the six barrels of Congo-X. What did they do with it?"

"This is conjecture," Barlow said, "based on my knowledge of how Sirinov's mind works. The Spetsnaz were parachuted onto the site from a great height, probably from a specially adapted Ilyushin Il-96 pa.s.senger transport on a flight path duly reported to aviation authorities. The parachutists would not have opened their canopies until they were quite close to the ground, so they would appear only momentarily, if at all, on radar screens."

"That's what we call HALO," Castillo said. "High-alt.i.tude, low opening."

"Copyright, Billy Waugh," Leverette said.

Castillo, Torine, and Peg-Leg Lorimer chuckled or smiled or both.

"Excuse me?" Barlow said.

"The first guy to do that was Billy Waugh, a friend of ours," Leverette explained.

Castillo said, "Okay, back to the question of now that Spetsnaz has six beer barrels full of Congo-X, what do they do with it?"

"They would have to truck it out," Barlow said. "But since-using Uncle Remus's ninety-five percent destruction factor-there would be no trucks, at least not as many as would be needed, left at the Fish Farm, I don't know how they could have done that."