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“Does anyone else have anything for General McNab?” Naylor asked.
“General McNab,” General McFadden asked, “is Colonel Torine readily available?”
“No, sir, he’s not.”
“He went back to Charleston?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And are you going to tell me?”
“Yes, sir. He should be in Cozumel about now.”
“Cozumel? The island off the Yucatán Peninsula?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t happen to know what he’s doing on a Caribbean island, do you?”
“He went there with Mr. Castillo, sir. Mr. Castillo said he needed an expert in 727 series aircraft and Colonel Torine volunteered to go with him.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch!” General McFadden said. “Thank you, General McNab.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll be in touch, General McNab,” General Naylor said. “Is there any part of my orders, which you are to stand ready to implement this operation at my orders and only at my orders, that you don’t completely understand?”
“No, sir.”
“Naylor out,” General Naylor said.
“When you have your talk with General McNab and this Castillo fellow, General, I’d like to be there,” General McFadden said. “What the hell did he take Torine to Cozumel for? Why the hell did Torine go?”
Naylor threw up his hands in a sign of frustration. “There is a strong element of lunacy in special operators, General, and it’s highly contagious,” Naylor offered, resignedly. He looked at Lieutenant General Potter, who was his J-5 (Special Operations) officer.
“I was about to say, ‘No offense,’ ” Naylor said. “But, goddammit, George, why should I apologize for stating the obvious?”
“No offense was taken, General,” General Potter said.
[THREE]
Cozumel International Airport Cozumel, Mexico 0940 10 June 2005
The preparations to get through Mexican customs without having to explain Sherman’s radio and their small arms turned out to be unnecessary. As the Lear trailed a FOLLOW ME jeep down a taxiway at the small but grandly named Cozumel International Airport, Castillo saw an off-brown Mexican customs Ford F-150 pickup truck and three white Yukon XLs—with heavily tinted windows—parked where they were apparently being directed. A tall, dark-haired man wearing powder blue slacks and a yellow short-sleeved shirt—dressed for the golf course—was sitting on the hood of one of the Yukons.
Aleksandr Pevsner had come to the field himself to meet them. Castillo didn’t see Howard Kennedy or any of Pevsner ’s bodyguards anywhere.
But they’re almost certainly in the Yukons.
“That’s Pevsner,” Charley said. “But the odds are, he’s not calling himself that now. Play along with me.”
Two Mexican customs officers, armed with chrome-plated .45 ACP semiautomatic pistols, approached the Lear as the engines wound down and Charley opened the door.
“Welcome to Cozumel,” one of them said in Spanish. “May we come aboard?”
