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San Carlos de Bariloche
Río Negro Province, Argentina
0815 18 April 2007
Aleksandr Pevsner, Tom Barlow, Nicolai Tarasov, Stefan Koussevitzky, Kiril Koshkov, and Anatoly Blatov were sitting around the long table when Castillo and Svetlana walked in, holding hands, trailed by Lester Bradley, his arms full with two laptops and a Brick. Janos was in his usual place, sitting in a chair against the wall.
A maid and one of Pevsner’s ex-Spetsnaz waiters were clearing away the breakfast dishes.
I knew Alek was going to play King of the Hill sooner or later, and that just won
’t work. Better settle it once and for all right now.
“Sweaty, I don’t think the Reichsmarschall plans to feed us,” Castillo said in English. “Do you think we could possibly have annoyed him in some way?”
“The Reichsmarschall,” Pevsner replied sarcastically, “didn’t know how long it would be before—or even if—Romeo and Juliet could bear to be torn apart. So we decided we’d better start without you.”
Castillo looked around the table. Tom Barlow was smiling. The others were stone-faced.
“Nice try, Hermann, but no brass ring,” Castillo said. “Starting without me would be what Kiril, Anatoly, and I would call really flying blind, and you know it. Or you should.”
Pevsner stared at him icily but didn’t reply.
Castillo turned to the waiter and, switching to Russian, ordered: “Set places for us. Put me at the head of the table, where Mr. Pevsner is now sitting. Podpolkovnik Alekseeva will sit to my right, and Mr. Bradley to my left.”
The waiter looked at Pevsner for direction. He got none.
“Your house, Alek, your call,” Castillo said. “You either stop behaving like you think you’re Ivan the Terrible and I’m a second lieutenant of your household cavalry, or we’re out of here.”
“We’re out of here?” Pevsner parroted sarcastically.
“ETA of Jake Torine and the Gulfstream at San Carlos de Bariloche International is twelve fifteen,” Castillo said. “Unless you agree that I’m the best man to deal with our mutual problem, I’ll just get on it and leave you here to deal with your problem by yourself.”
“Then get on your goddamn airplane and go,” Pevsner said.
“Where Carlos goes, I go,” Svetlana said.
Pevsner shot back: “Then both of you get on the goddamn airplane and go. I will deal with the problem this family faces.”
“Aleksandr,” Nicolai Tarasov said, “I think you should listen to what Podpolkovnik Castillo has to say.”
Pevsner looked at him in disbelief.
“I’ll go further than that,” Tom Barlow said. “You have to listen to what Carlos has to say.”
“Or what?” Pevsner snapped.
“Or when Carlos’s airplane leaves, Lora, Sof’ya, and I also will be on it. Presuming of course Carlos will take us.”
“Of course we will,” Svetlana said. “You’re family.”
“Family? Family? What it looks like to me is that my family is betraying me and taking the side of this goddamn American.”
Svetlana snapped: “You goddamn fool! You are alive because of this ‘goddamn American.’ ”
Castillo thought: She sounds like an SVR lieutenant colonel.
“And if not for Carlos,” Tom Barlow added, “Svetlana, Lora, Sof’ya, and I would never have gotten out of Vienna. And you really would be handling this family problem by yourself.”
