"Is that what happened to you, Uncle Allan?" he asked softly.

Naylor met his eyes, but said nothing.

Colonel Jack Brewer broke the silence.

"The general's question, Colonel Castillo," he said, "was whether the freezing process has been satisfactorily completed."

Castillo hesitated.

"Well, has it?" Sweaty demanded.

Castillo looked at her for a long moment, then at Lammelle, and then back at Sweaty.

What choice do I have?

"The answer to that is we don't really know," he said. "What Master Sergeant Dennis told me . . ."

"So, what do you want to do?" General Naylor asked, when Castillo had related what had happened just before he'd come to the war room.

"In two hours, I want to put Sergeant Dennis and the beer keg that's thawing in the sun in Aloysius's G-Five and fly it to Fort Detrick. We have to know if the helium has really killed it and the only way to do that is in Colonel Hamilton's lab."

"Fly it to Baltimore/Washington, right?" Lammelle asked.

Eyes jumped to Castillo to see how he was going to react to Lammelle having asked a question.

Castillo nodded.

"In for a penny, in for a pound, Charley," Lammelle said. "If I went with it, I could have an agency vehicle ... It'll fit in a Yukon, right?"

Castillo nodded again, but didn't speak.

". . . meet the airplane and personally make sure it gets to Fort Detrick. The only one who could interfere with that, or ask me questions I don't want to answer, would be Jack Powell, and I don't think Jack would actually go out to the airport even if he heard I was coming. Worst scenario there, I think, would be Powell sending Stan Waters-"

"Who?"

"J. Stanley Waters, deputy director for operations. Who wants my job, and therefore does everything Jack tells him to. I trust him a little less than you trust me."

"Okay. We get the stuff to the lab at Detrick. Sergeant Dennis tells me Hamilton can find out in half an hour whether the Congo-X is really dead. And what would you do after you dropped off the Congo-X? Wait for Hamilton to run his tests?"

"That would be information I'd like to have."

"And with which you could head straight for the White House, right?"

"Yeah, Charley, if I were so inclined, I could head straight for the White House. But what I plan to do is head straight for Langley to see what I can learn there."

"And if Jack Powell does go out to the airport? Or sends your buddy Waters?"

"Can I have my dart gun back?"

After a perceptible pause, during which he wondered again, What choice do I have? What choice do I have? Castillo said, "You know what they say, Frank: 'In for a penny, in for a pound.' Lester, give Mr. Lammelle his dart gun." Castillo said, "You know what they say, Frank: 'In for a penny, in for a pound.' Lester, give Mr. Lammelle his dart gun."

"There will be room for me on that plane, right?" Roscoe J. Danton said. And then he quickly added: "Colonel, I've got pictures of that stuff on the Tu-934A on the island. And what you and Uncle Remus and the Sergeant did to it here. I'd like to follow it all the way to the lab at Fort Detrick."

Castillo didn't immediately reply.

"And before I go, I'd like to get pictures of you and Jake getting on that airplane," Roscoe went on.

"Which raises the question, Charley," McNab said, "of flying that airplane across the border and to Washington without getting it shot down."

"What General McNab and I talked about, Colonel," Naylor said, "and what we recommend, is that he and I go on the Russian aircraft to Washington. I can call MacDill, inform them that we're coming, and get us an Air Force escort."

"Which means the White House will know," Castillo thought aloud.

"But not the circ.u.mstances," McNab said.

"And I'll have time to get from Baltimore/Washington so that I can get pictures of the Tu-934A landing at Andrews," Roscoe J. Danton said.

"And that raises the question of Roscoe J. Danton," Castillo said. "What captions will he put under all those pictures he's been taking?"

"Frankly, Colonel, I don't know," Danton replied. "But I'm sort of like Frank. I've learned to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys."

"I see we're back to a choice between trusting Roscoe and killing him," Castillo said.

"You may think that's funny," Sweaty snapped, "but I don't."

"And that unsolicited and unwelcome opinion raises yet another question," Castillo said. "What do I do with Big Mouth here and her big brother?"

Sweaty said unkind things to him in Russian.

Castillo went on: "I think the best thing to do is have Miller and Sparkman take them-and the Spetsnaz that Cousin Aleksandr was so kind to loan us, plus whichever of Sirinov's Spetsnaz want to go to Argentina-to Cozumel to meet the Peruaire freighter."

"You're out of your mind!" Sweaty said in English.

"I think not, Charley," Dmitri Berezovsky said.

"You mean you don't think I'm out of my mind, or you don't want to go to Argentina?"

"I can't wait to get back to Argentina. You remember that my wife and daughter are there? But before this is over, we will certainly be talking with the Washington rezident rezident, Sergei Murov, and perhaps even dealing with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin himself. Svetlana and I know them both well. I think you need our counsel."

"What kind of pa.s.sports do you have?" Lammelle asked.

"You mean besides our Russian Federation diplomatic pa.s.sports?"

"Right."

"Argentine and Uruguayan."

"Are they in your names?"

Berezovsky shook his head.

"How much inspection will they stand?"

"My cousin a.s.sures me they were issued by the respective foreign ministries," Berezovsky said.

"And would your cousin know?"

"I think he would."

"Who is your cousin?"

"If he tells you, Frank, I'd have to kill you," Castillo said.

"His name is Aleksandr Pevsner," Sweaty said. "And if your knowing that in any way ever endangers him or his family, I will will kill you." kill you."

"On a threat credibility scale of one to ten, I think I'd rate that as a ten," Lammelle said. And then added, "Well, knowing that name explains a lot of things I didn't really understand. Pevsner is really your cousin?"

"Our mothers are sisters," Berezovsky said.

"Charley, if they're determined to go ..." Lammelle began.

"We are," Berezovsky said.

". . . and I agree they could be very useful," Lammelle went on. "Hide them in plain sight."

"Where?" Castillo asked.

"The Monica Lewinsky Motel," Lammelle said.

"The what?" Sweaty asked.

"If a President of the United States can hide his girlfriend there, it should be good enough for mine," Castillo said. "How do you plan to get them there?"

"I wouldn't want Senator Johns to hear about this, but I have a limo, armored, with radios, et cetera, and driven by agency officers," Lammelle said.

"You want to fly them to Baltimore/Washington on Casey's airplane?" Castillo asked.

Lammelle nodded.

"And General Sirinov?"

"On the Tu-934A. If Roscoe can get Wolf News out there to cover its arrival-"

"He would be on TV and Murov would see that," Castillo interrupted, "but what do we do with him afterward?"

"I think General Sirinov would be comfortable in the Monica Lewinsky Motel," Lammelle said. "And he'd be available if we need him, and we probably will."

"Have you got enough people-people you can trust-to handle all this?"

"Yes, I do," Lammelle said. "Your call, Charley."

"What other options do I have?"

"Not many-none-that I can think of," Lammelle said.

Castillo counted something on his fingers, then announced, "There's room for Lester on the Tu-934A. So he goes, too, to sit on General Sirinov. Miller and Sparkman take the Spetsnaz to Cozumel as soon as they can-in the next thirty minutes-in our G-Three, then come back here and pick up Uncle Remus and Peg-Leg-and anybody I've forgotten. By then Uncle Remus and Peg-Leg will have Drug Cartel International all cleaned up. And then they go to Baltimore/Washington."

He paused for a good thirty seconds, and then asked, "Any comments?"

"I want to know about this motel," Sweaty said.

"You'll like it, sweetheart," Castillo said. "Inside plumbing and all the other conveniences one would expect in a Motel-8. Any other comments?"

There were none.

"Okay, then that's it. That's what we'll do."

[SEVEN].

Office of the Director The Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia 1305 12 February 2007

"Keep me advised, Bruce," DCI John Powell said. "We absolutely can't afford to have this get away from us."

He took the telephone handset from his ear, very slowly replaced it in the base, then met the eyes of J. Stanley Waters, the DDCI for operations.

"Festerman says that Naylor called Central Command and ordered that a flight of F-16s meet him over the Gulf of Mexico prepared to escort his plane into U.S. airs.p.a.ce and then to Andrews."

"Where in the Gulf of Mexico? When?"

"Right in the G.o.dd.a.m.n middle of it. And right now."

"Where did he call from?"

"Mexico City," Powell said. "But I'm not sure I believe that. What I'm beginning to suspect is that Casey's communications is not quite as miraculous as advertised. Or that Casey is f.u.c.king with us."

"Why would he do that?"

"Maybe because he likes McNab more than he likes me."