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"Forgive me, Charley. I am ashamed to say I was sitting here trying to decide who would be more likely to lie to me, you or that lying sonofabitch Montvale."
"No apology required, sir."
"How much truth is there to the tale Montvale tells that you--for reasons he can't imagine--snatched two Russian defectors from the CIA station chief in Vienna and flew them to Argentina?"
"They were never in the hands of the CIA, sir."
"But you did fly them from Vienna to Argentina?"
"Yes, sir."
"Off the top of my head, Charley, that sounds as stupid as . . . well, for example, as borrowing a Black Hawk. Why the hell did you do that?"
"You mean borrowing the Black Hawk? Or flying the Russians here?" Castillo asked innocently.
"You know goddamn well what I mean, Charley," McNab said. But he chuckled.
"Sir, at the time I thought it--both things--was the thing to do."
"And now that you've had time to reflect?"
"Now I know, sir, that I did the right thing. Both times."
"Why?" McNab asked simply. "Skip the part about Dick Miller and his people still being among the living."
"Sir, I had good reason to believe the SVR was onto them, and unless I got them off the train and out of the Westbahnhof in Vienna, they'd be grabbed."
There was another long pause before McNab went on: "That raises the questions 'What train?' 'What were you doing on the train?' and 'How did you get together with the Russians in the first place, since getting the bastards to turn is none of your goddamn business?' But I will not ask them, because that is what is known as water under the dam. Pick it up where you got them out of the Westbahnhof and to Gaucho Land instead of turning them over to the agency in Vienna."
"Sir, the Russians suspected that the CIA station chief also knew the SVR was onto them and was going to let them hang in the breeze. I think they were right."
"Montvale's version is that you rode into town like Jesse James and blew up the carefully laid plans of the CIA to arrange their defection."
"Yes, sir. I'm aware of his story."
"You don't sound very repentant about all this, Charley. Even though it's going to end your colorful military career on something of a sour note."
"Sir, what I got from the Russians is worth more than my career."
"Their heartfelt gratitude for helping them dodge the SVR?"
"Sir, they've put me onto an operation in the ex-Belgian Congo--run by Iranians with other raghead cooperation and funded by oil-for-food money--that's going after our water supplies."
"And you don't think the agency, as incompetent as we both know it sometimes can be, doesn't know the bad guys would love to poison our water supply? And if they're seriously working on an operation would know just a little bit about it?"
"As of a couple of hours ago, the agency believes--sir, this is just about verbatim--that, quote, there is no discernible activity there of interest to the United States. They are apparently experimenting with fish farms, unquote."
"How the hell could you possibly know that?"
"I heard the DCI tell Montvale that. We were in the embassy in Buenos Aires, and Montvale called him."
"And you think the agency is wrong?"
"Yes, sir. I believe they are."
"One of the defectors told you that?"
"Both of them did, sir."
