"So they don't get the decoration they deserve and I would really like to see them have. General Naylor also suggested that what they did could honestly be described as 'participating with the highest degree of professionalism in aerial flight under exceedingly hazardous conditions.' So that's what the citations on the DFCs say."
He looked at the directors of the FBI and the CIA.
"These pictures will not be released to the press, but when Charley and Colonel Torine look at them in years to come, I'd like them to be able to recall the award was made with you two-and you, too, Tom, of course-looking on.
"Come on, up against the wall. General, will you read the orders, please?"
The FBI director and the DCI with absolutely no enthusiasm got out of their white wicker armchairs.
General Naylor waited until the photographer had lined everybody up, and then began to read: "Attention to orders. Headquarters, Department of the Air Force, Washington, D.C. 18 June 2005. Subject: Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Distinguished Flying Cross, thirteenth award, is awarded to Colonel Jacob…" "Much better, Charley," the President said, in reference to what Castillo was now wearing, a polo shirt, khaki trousers, and boat shoes. "Now sit down, have a beer, and tell me what I can do for you."
The President saw the look on Castillo's face.
"Why do I think I'm going to regret that offer?" the President asked.
Castillo didn't reply.
"Come on, Charley, what's on your mind?" the President pursued.
General Naylor's face was frozen.
"There's two things, Mr. President," Castillo said. "We would never have located that airplane without Mr. Pevsner."
"That's the Russian gangster?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you want me to do, Charley?" the President asked, more than a little sarcastically. "Pardon him? I don't think I can do that. I think we're the only country in the Western world who doesn't have a warrant out for him."
"Sir, he has intelligence sources we, self-evidently, don't have. I'd really like to… to suggest that the government should maintain a relationship with him."
"For God's sake, Castillo," FBI Director Mark Schmidt exploded, "that Russian bastard's got a record that makes John Gotti look like a Boy Scout."
"And he has intelligence sources we just don't have," Castillo repeated evenly. "And which he has proved willing to make available to us."
"He's got a point, Mark," the President said. "How would we do what you suggest, Charley? What does this guy want?"
"He wants the CIA off his back, sir. Right or wrong, he suspects that since they have stopped using him, they-"
"Hold it right there," the President interrupted. "'Stopped using him'? The CIA's been using him?" He looked at the DCI. "Tell me about that, John."
The DCI looked uncomfortable.
"On several occasions, Mr. President," he said, "Operations has covertly dealt with Pevsner, chartered his aircraft to deliver certain things where they were needed-"
"How about 'frequently dealt' with him?" Castillo interrupted, earning an immediate glower from the DCI.
"To deliver the weapons and other goodies they bought from him?" Castillo went on.
The President looked at Castillo, and then at the DCI and waited for him to go on.
"There were some transactions of that nature, Mr. President," the DCI admitted. "But that's in the past. I've ordered that all connections with this character be severed."
"And now he believes, rightly or wrongly," Castillo said, "that since the agency has stopped using him, they've been trying to arrange his arrest-or worse-by the governments the agency hired him to work against."
"You don't know that, Castillo!" the DCI snapped.
"I said that's what he believes," Castillo said.
"Why?" the President asked, softly.
"Because if he's in some jail in a remote area of the Congo-or dead-there's no trail back to the agency, sir."
The President sat back in his chair and looked out across the Atlantic. He took a long and thoughtful pull at the neck of his beer bottle.
After a moment, he turned to Charley and said carefully, "I want you to tell Mr. Pevsner that while I find it difficult to believe that anything like that could be happening-it sounds more than a little paranoiac-I have, as a token of my gratitude for his valuable assistance vis-a-vis locating that 727, directed the DCI to look into the matter, and if anything like that is going on, to stop it immediately."
"Thank you, sir," Castillo said.
"You have any questions about that, John?" the President asked.
"No, sir," the DCI said.
"And that I have told the director of the FBI that I want to be informed of the details of any investigation of Mr. Pevsner now under way in the United States, or which may be begun in the States. Make sure he understands that if he violates any of our laws, he will be prosecuted."
"Yes, sir."
"You understand what I've just said, Mark?"
"Yes, sir," the director of the FBI said.
Castillo happened to look at General Naylor, who was shaking his head as if in disbelief.
"Okay, Charley," the President asked, jocularly. "What else can I do for you?"
"I don't suppose you would let me go back to being a simple soldier, would you, Mr. President?"
General Naylor's eyebrows rose.
"From what I have seen, Charley," the President said, "I doubt if you were ever a simple soldier. But to answer your question, no, I would not. That's out of the question." "And what was the President's reaction?" Alex Pevsner asked.
"He said that if he finds out you're breaking any laws in the United States, he will cheerfully throw you in jail. But he told the director of Central Intelligence that if he's running any sort of operation to tip you to anybody to stop it."
"And you believe he really said that to the CIA?"
"I was there when he said it. He appreciates what you did helping us find that airplane."
Pevsner looked with his brilliant blue eyes into Castillo's face for a long moment. "I was about to say that I will show my appreciation for the President's appreciation by seeing what I can find out about the diplomat's wife…"
"Thank you," Castillo said.
"Let me finish, please," Pevsner said sharply. "But, obviously, if you reported to him that I had told you thus and so, that would locate me here, and I don't want that. So I will make inquiries with the understanding that if I am able to learn anything, you will tell no one the source of your information. Okay?"
"Understood. Thank you, Alex."
"Anna, why don't you get a pair of my swimming trunks for Charley? Then you can have a swim while I'm on the phone."
"I should be getting back to Buenos Aires," Castillo said.
"I think your time would be more profitably spent waiting for me to find out what I can," Pevsner said, somewhat sharply, and then added, far more charmingly: "And Anna and I would really like you to stay for dinner."
"Thank you," Castillo said.
"If there were developments, someone from the embassy would call you, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then have a swim, and later we'll have some more wine and I will personally prepare an Argentine pizza for you."
You will personally prepare an Argentine pizza?
"Sounds fine, Alex. Thank you." [FIVE] The pizza oven, a wood-fired, six-foot-wide, clay-covered brick dome, was about twenty feet from the swimming pool in front of a thatch-roofed quincho, which was a building devoted to the broiling of food over a wood-fired parrilla, and then eating it picnic-style.
There were fires-tended by a young Argentine man-blazing in both the parrilla and the oven when Castillo followed Anna and the children through a flap in the heavy plastic swimming pool enclosure to walk to the quincho, where more enormous crystal glasses and a half dozen bottles of wine awaited them.