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"Oh, my Charley," Svetlana said, and got out of her chair and went to kiss him.
"Obviously, the others are going to find out," Castillo said a moment later. "The later they do, the better. I'll cross those bridges when I get to them."
"If I may say so, sir," Bradley said, "I have seen nothing in your behavior toward Colonel Alekseeva, or in hers toward you, that in any way suggests any impropriety of any kind on the part of either party."
"That sums it up pretty well for me, too, Charley," Munz said. "Anything else?"
Castillo shook his head. He didn't trust his voice to speak.
"Lester, call the safe house, and get Mr. Darby on there, please," Munz ordered.
"I was wondering when you were going to check in, Ace," Edgar Delchamps's voice came over the AFC handset loudspeaker perhaps thirty seconds later. "Your pal the ambassador has been looking for you."
"Ambassador Silvio? Oh, shit. What did he want?"
Juan Manuel Silvio was the American ambassador to Argentina. He had courageously risked his career to help Castillo in the past, doing things an ambassador just should not do. Castillo did not want to involve him in the current situation.
"No. The one who doesn't like you. Montvale. That ambassador."
"What did that ambassador want?"
"Aside from talking to you, do you mean?" Delchamps asked, then went on: "Well, he wanted to know where you were."
"And?"
"And I told him you were off in the Andes with a redhead studying geological formations, and would return after the New Year's holiday. I may have given him the impression I suspected you were going to try to hide the salami in the redhead."
Svetlana's face showed that it had taken her five seconds to take Delchamps's meaning. Then it showed indignation, perhaps even outrage. Then it colored.
"And his response?"
"Something to the effect that if you had been able to keep your salami in your pants in the past you wouldn't be in the trouble you're in now. No. Actually, what he said was 'We wouldn't be in the trouble we're in now.'"
"Did he say what trouble that was?"
"He alluded to a preposterous notion apparently held by the agency's Vienna station chief--which she has apparently relayed officially to the DCI--and unofficially to a former co-worker at the CIA, one Mrs. Patricia Davies Wilson, who in turn just happened to mention it in passing to C. Harry Whelan, Jr., of The Washington Post."
"Did he say what this preposterous notion was?"
"As a matter of fact, he did. He said that a Miss Dillworth--she's the Vienna station chief--has somehow gotten the preposterous idea that you swooped into Vienna and snatched away two very important Russians she had labored hard and long upon to change sides and who were about to do so.
"The ambassador said he found this impossible to believe--even of you--especially inasmuch as you had an arrangement with him to tell him whenever you were going to do something out of the ordinary, but he would like to have a litt
le chat with you as soon as possible to straighten the matter out."
"Well, I guess I'd better call him in the next day or two. How are you and Alex doing with Polkovnik Berezovsky?"
"In Russian, huh? Can I infer from that your relations with Podpolkovnik Alekseeva have been going well?"
"Answer the question, Edgar."
"Not well. He's one tough sonofabitch, Charley. And we're running out of time."
"Well, don't break out the ice water and the bright lights just yet. Get him on the radio."
"Really? You got something out of Red Underpants we can use on him?"
"Get him on the horn, and make sure everybody else can hear."
