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One of the crew came into the passenger compartment. There were seven men, all Russians, on the crew. All of them wore wings. Five of them wore the four-stripe shoulder boards of captains, and the other two the three-stripe shoulder boards of first officers.
The ranks didn’t seem to matter, as one of the captains functioned as the steward, cooking and serving lunch and making drinks, and the last time Castillo walked into the cockpit to see where the hell they were over South America, one of the first officers was occupying the pilot’s seat.
He had come first to the conclusion that Russians did things differently, and then idly wondered what kind of passports the crew was carrying, and then decided that they more than likely had a selection of passports from which to choose, depending on where they had landed.
As a stairway mounted on a pickup truck was backed against the fuselage, the captain worked open the door.
When there was the light bump of the stairway contacting the aircraft, Max jumped to his feet, effortlessly shouldered the captain out of the way, and ran down the stairway.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Castillo said. “He can’t wait to see his babies.”
“He’s been on this plane for nine hours. I know what he wants to do,” Sweaty said, then immediately stopped, realizing that she had been had.
“I better get down there before those two guys at the bottom of the steps see Max and wet their pants,” Castillo said, and started to get out of his seat.
“My God,” Koussevitzky suddenly said. “It’s Blatov! And Koshkov!”
Koussevitzky beat Castillo to the door.
Castillo got there in time to see the two men salute, and heard one of them say, “Kapitáns Blatov and Koshkov reporting for duty, sir!”
Koussevitzky ran quickly down the stairs and the three men embraced. Castillo—moving slowly—made it all the way down the stairs before they broke apart. When they did, he saw tears running down all of their cheeks.
“Colonel Castillo, may I present Kapitáns Blatov and Koshkov, late of Vega Group Two?”
Both Blatov and Koshkov snapped to attention and saluted.
Castillo returned it, in Pavlovian response, and then put out his hand.
Koussevitzky saw the lack of understanding on Castillo’s face.
“It was General Sirinov’s plan, Carlos,” Koussevitzky said, “that should something go wrong on La Orchila Island, a second Tupelov based in Cuba would fly in our reserve force.”
“But by the time we got there, Podpolkovnik Castillo,” Kapitán Koshkov said, “all we found was Major Koussevitzky resting against what was left of the hangar wall, drinking emergency liquid against the pain of the wound Podpolkovnik Alekseeva had given him.”
Castillo looked at him and thought: Emergency liquid? What the hell is that?
“Emergency liquid?” he asked.
“Vodka, Carlos,” Koshkov explained with a smile. “One knows when one has been really accepted as a Spetsnaz when the officer inspecting your equipment before a mission does not inspect your two water bottles to make sure one of them doesn’t contain emergency liquid.”
Kapitáns Koshkov and Blatov then snapped to attention again and raised their arms in a salute.
“Well, what have we here?” Tom Barlow asked, offering his hand. “A veterans’ convention?”
“It is good to see you again, Polkovnik Berezovsky,” Blatov said. And then quickly added, as Sweaty came off the stairs, “And you, Podpolkovnik Alekseeva.”
Sweaty extended her hand. Koshkov and Blatov bent over it and kissed it.
Unless both of them had really been into the emergency liquid, I don’t think a U.S. Army female light colonel has ever had her hand kissed by two captains.
“How did you get out?” Sweaty asked.
“It was only a question of time, Podpolkovnik Alekseeva, until they got around to deciding we were involved in the La Orchila Island disaster.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“We are Spetsnaz, Podpolkovnik Alekseeva,” Koshkov replied. “We can do anything.”
