"I like him, Alek," he said.

"Don't speak too soon," Pevsner said.

"Why do you think that might be the place?" Castillo said.

"Because we use it from time to time," Tarasov said.

And what do you use it for, from time to time?

Moving cocaine around?

"How do we find out?"

"A man who you should know is going to meet us there," Pevsner said.

"And how do we get there?"

"Fly," Tarasov said. "It should take us about an hour."

"Two of the three pilots who can fly our Gulfstream are deep-sea fishing. It may take some time to get them back here. And when they get here, they'll probably be half in the bag. They didn't expect to go flying. And I really don't like flying that airplane by myself."

"But you could if you had to, right? I hear you're quite a pilot." He paused, then added: "Schwechat-Ezeiza via Africa is a long long way to go in a G-Three unless you really know how to fly a Gulfstream." way to go in a G-Three unless you really know how to fly a Gulfstream."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Uncle Nicolai. Goodbye, Uncle Nicolai," Castillo said.

Tarasov seemed unaffected by Castillo's belligerence.

"Actually, Colonel Castillo," he said, "I have an airplane. I just picked up a Cessna Citation Mustang at the factory in Wichita. That's what I was doing when Aleksandr called, getting checked out in it."

"And now you're going to fly it to Johannesburg, right?" Castillo said sarcastically. "I hope you know how to swim. The specs I saw on the Mustang gave it a range of about eleven hundred nautical miles, and the last time I looked, the Atlantic Ocean was a lot wider than that."

"He's not going to fly it to South Africa," Pevsner said. "The casino here bought the Mustang to replace the Lear it uses to pick up good casino customers and bring them to Cozumel."

The last I heard, Cessna was happy not only to deliver a plane like that to the customer, but also to have whoever delivered it teach the new owner or his pilot how to fly it.

And since you own the casino, please forgive me for wondering what almost certainly illegal services this new Mustang will render to you when it's not hauling high-rollers around.

What's behind all this bulls.h.i.t?

You know, but you don't like to think about it.

f.u.c.k it. Get it out in the open.

"Alek, listen to me carefully," Castillo said. "Whatever we do to solve our current problem, we are not going to get involved with the drug trade or anybody in it."

"Friend Charley, you listen carefully to me," Pevsner said, icily furious. "I am not, and never have been, involved with the drug trade."

Castillo considered that a moment, and then realized: I'll be a sonofab.i.t.c.h if I don't believe him! I'll be a sonofab.i.t.c.h if I don't believe him!

Why? Because I want to?

"Why do I keep waiting for you to say 'but'?" Castillo asked.

"Aleksandr, I think you should answer Charley's question, and fully," Svetlana said.

Pevsner glared at her.

"Svet took the words from my mouth, Alek," Tom Barlow said. "Not only is he ent.i.tled to an answer, but the last thing we need right now is Charley questioning your motives."

"I'm not used to sharing the details of my business operations with anybody," Pevsner said. "I told you I am not, and never have been, involved with the drug trade. That should be enough."

"I keep waiting for the rest of the sentence beginning with 'but,'" Castillo said.

"Colonel Castillo," Tarasov said, "let me try to explain: Once a month-sometimes three weeks, sometimes five-certain businessmen-most often Mexican, Venezuelan, and Colombian, but sometimes from other places-want to visit Switzerland, or Liechtenstein, or Moscow, without this coming to anyone's attention.

"We pick them up at Laguna el Guaje. It's always two of them. Each has two suitcases, one of them full of currency, usually American dollars, but sometimes euros or other hard currency. But only cash, no drugs."

"How do you know that?"

"Because we open them to count the cash, which determines the fare, which is five percent of the cash. We bring them here, where they travel to El Tepual International Airport at Puerto Montt, Chile, aboard a Peruaire aircraft returning from a foodstuff delivery here. At El Tepual, they transfer to an aircraft- depending on their final destination-of either Cape Town Air Cargo or Air Bulgaria-"

"Both of which the tsar here owns?" Castillo asked.

"The tsar or one of the more charming of the tsar's grand dukes," Tarasov said. "To finish, the aircraft is carrying a cargo of that magnificent Chilean seafood and often Argentinean beef to feed the affluent hungry of Europe. Getting the picture? Any questions?"

"Oh, yeah," Castillo said. "And the first one that comes to mind is: Are all you Russian expatriate businessmen really related? Aren't you worried that you'll corrupt the gene pool?"

Tarasov laughed. "I'm starting to understand you, Colonel Castillo. You say things designed to startle or outrage. People who are startled or outraged tend to say things they hadn't planned to say. Alek was right to warn me not to go with my first impression of you, which-by your design, of course-is intended to make people p.r.o.ne to underestimate you.

"Got me all figured out, have you, Uncle Nicolai? Tell me about the gene pool."

"We're not really related, except very distantly. Our families have been close, however, for many years."

"Do I see the Oprichnina raising its ugly head?" Castillo asked.

"Why ugly?" Tarasov said. "Did what you may have heard of the Oprichnina make you think that?" He turned to Pevsner. "How much did you tell the colonel about the separate state, Alek?"

"What I didn't tell him, Svetlana did," Pevsner said.

"And what Svet didn't tell him, Nicolai, I did," Tom Barlow said, and then turned to Castillo. "Charley, when Alek first left Russia and bought the first Antonov An-22 and went into business, the man who flew it out of Russia was an ex-Aeroflot pilot and Air Force polkovnik named Nicolai Tarasov."

"And we have been in business together since then," Tarasov said. "Does this satisfy your curiosity, Colonel Castillo, or have you other questions?"

This could all be bulls.h.i.t, which I am, in my naivete, swallowing whole.

On the other hand, my gut tells me it's not.

"Just one," Castillo said. "Are you going to check me out in the Mustang on our way back and forth to Area 51?"

"It would be my pleasure," Tarasov said.

"Can I go like this?" Sweaty asked, twirling in her bikini.

Castillo saw in Pevsner's eyes that he was considering discouraging her notion, and wondered why, and then that Pevsner had decided she could-or even should-go, and wondered about that, too.

"You can go as naked as a jaybird, as far as I'm concerned," Pevsner said, "but you probably would be more comfortable in a dress."

"Your dog thinks he's going," Tarasov said, pointing at Max, who was sitting on his haunches by the door.

And again Castillo saw something in Pevsner's eyes, this time that Max going was a good idea. He wondered about that, too.

"Max goes just about everywhere with Charley, Nicolai," Pevsner said.

There were two Yukons with darkened windows waiting for them in the bas.e.m.e.nt garage of the luxury hotel, and two men standing by, each not making much of an effort to conceal the Mini Uzis under their loose, flowered shirts.

Castillo wondered if all the security was routine, and then considered for the first time that if the Russians were successful in getting Svetlana and Tom back to Russia, they would probably-almost certainly; indeed Pevsner had said so-be coming after Pevsner.

And if that's true, they will also be coming after Tarasov.

I'll have to keep that in mind.

And continue to wonder when Alek will decide that if throwing me-and possibly even Tom and Sweaty-under the bus is the price of protecting his family and his businesses, then so be it.

Am I paranoid to consider the possibility that that's what may be happening right now? When we get to this mysterious airfield, is there going to be a team of General Yakov Sirinov's Spetsnaz special operators waiting for us, to load us on the Tupolev Tu-934A and fly us off to Mother Russia?

That would solve everyone's problems.

No. That's your imagination running away with you.

Scenario two: The crew of the Bertram terminates all the fishermen and tosses their suitably weighted bodies overboard to feed the fishes.

That would get rid of everybody else who knows too much about the affairs of Aleksandr Pevsner.

And n.o.body knows-except Pevsner and his private army of ex-Spetsnaz special operators-that any of us have ever been near Sunny Cozumel by the Sea.

Come to think of it, there was no real reason we couldn't have pa.s.sed through customs under our own names, or the names on the new pa.s.sports we got in Argentina.

You are being paranoid, and you know it.

On the other hand, you have had paranoid theories before, and on more than several occasions, acting on them has saved your a.s.s.

The Yukon convoy drove directly to the airport, and then through a gate which opened for them as they approached, then onto the tarmac and up beside a Cessna Citation Mustang.

There were two pickup trucks parked close to the airplane. An air-conditioning unit was mounted in the back of one, with a foot-wide flexible tube feeding cold air through the door. The other held a ground power generator.

As soon as the doors of the Yukons opened, the air-conditioning hose was pulled out of the door.

Max knew his role in the departure procedure: He trotted up to the nose gear, sniffed, then raised his right rear leg.

"Does he do that often?" Tarasov asked.

"Religiously," Castillo said.

"You want to do the walk-around with me?" Tarasov said.

Castillo would have done the walk-around without an invitation-no pilot trusts any other pilot to do properly what has to be done-but he intuited Tarasov's invitation was more than courtesy, and even more that it wasn't something a pilot about to give instruction would do.

"Max, go with Sweaty," Castillo ordered in Hungarian, and the dog went to the stair door and politely waited for Svetlana to board, then leapt aboard himself, pushing Pevsner aside as he did.

Castillo's suspicion deepened when Tarasov said, "Why don't you come with us, Dmitri?" and was confirmed when they came to the rear end of the port engine, which could not be seen from inside the airplane.

"Colonel," Tarasov asked, "are you armed?"

"No," Castillo admitted. "Should I be?"

"Dmitri?"

Tom Barlow shook his head.

Tarasov squatted beside his Jeppesen case, opened it and came out with two pistols. Castillo was surprised to see that both were the officer's model-a cut-down version-of the Colt 1911A1 .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol.

They held five cartridges-rather than seven rounds-in the magazines in their shortened grips. The slides and barrels had been similarly shortened. They had once been made from standard pistols by gunsmiths at the Frankford a.r.s.enal for issue only to general officers but later became commercially available.

That's my weapon of choice, Castillo thought.

I wonder where Uncle Nicolai got them. And if by coincidence, or because he's aware that they're about the best people shooter around.

"I'm sure you know how to use one of these," Tarasov said to Charley, and handed him one of the pistols. Then he turned to Barlow. "Dmitri?"

Barlow took the extended pistol, said, "They work like the regular ones, right?" and proceeded to quickly check the pistol to see if there was a round in the chamber. There was. He ejected the magazine, then worked the action, which ejected the round in the chamber. He caught it in the air, said, "Lester showed me how to do that," put it back in the magazine, shoved the magazine back in the pistol, and worked the action. It was now ready to fire.

"Am I going to need this, Nicolai?" he asked.

"I hope not. But Alek said to give them to you, and he always has his reasons. Try not to let Svetlana know you have them."

"Why not?" Castillo challenged.

"I think Alek wants the people we're going to talk to think she's somebody's girlfriend."

"Why?" Castillo pursued.

"If somebody brings his girlfriend to a meeting with people like these, it means either that he's not afraid of them, or stupid, and these people know that whatever he is, Alek is not stupid."

"Neither is Sweaty. If she's going to play a role, she should know what's expected of her."