“Laguna el Guaje mean anything to you, Charley?” Pevsner asked.
Castillo shook his head.
“It’s sort of the Mexican version of Groom Dry Lake Test Facility,” Nicolai explained. “Far fewer aircraft, and different secrets.”
Castillo knew that Groom Lake, on the vast Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, was rumored to be where—in Area 51 thereon—the CIA was holding little green men from Mars, or elsewhere in the universe. He hadn’t seen any of them when he had been to Area 51, but he had seen some very interesting experimental aircraft.
“I have never heard of either what you just said or Area 51,” Castillo said. “But if I had, and talked to you about it, I’d have to kill you.”
Nicolai laughed out loud and punched Castillo’s shoulder.
“I like him, Alek,” he said.
“Don’t speak too soon,” Pevsner said.
“Why do you think that might be the place?” Castillo said.
“Because we use it from time to time,” Tarasov said.
And what do you use it for, from time to time?
Moving cocaine around?
“How do we find out?”
“A man who you should know is going to meet us there,” Pevsner said.
“And how do we get there?”
“Fly,” Tarasov said. “It should take us about an hour.”
“Two of the three pilots who can fly our Gulfstream are deep-sea fishing. It may take some time to get them back here. And when they get here, they’ll probably be half in the bag. They didn’t expect to go flying. And I really don’t like flying that airplane by myself.”
“But you could if you had to, right? I hear you’re quite a pilot.” He paused, then added: “Schwechat-Ezeiza via Africa is a long way to go in a G-Three unless you really know how to fly a Gulfstream.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Uncle Nicolai. Goodbye, Uncle Nicolai,” Castillo said.
Tarasov seemed unaffected by Castillo’s belligerence.
“Actually, Colonel Castillo,” he said, “I have an airplane. I just picked up a Cessna Citation Mustang at the factory in Wichita. That’s what I was doing when Aleksandr called, getting checked out in it.”
“And now you’re going to fly it to Johannesburg, right?” Castillo said sarcastically. “I hope you know how to swim. The specs I saw on the Mustang gave it a range of about eleven hundred nautical miles, and the last time I looked, the Atlantic Ocean was a lot wider than that.”
“He’s not going to fly it to South Africa,” Pevsner said. “The casino here bought the Mustang to replace the Lear it uses to pick up good casino customers and bring them to Cozumel.”
The last I heard, Cessna was happy not only to deliver a plane like that to the customer, but also to have whoever delivered it teach the new owner or his pilot how to fly it.
And since you own the casino, please forgive me for wondering what almost certainly illegal services this new Mustang will render to you when it’s not hauling high-rollers around.
What’s behind all this bullshit?
You know, but you don’t like to think about it.
Fuck it. Get it out in the open.
“Alek, listen to me carefully,” Castillo said. “Whatever we do to solve our current problem, we are not going to get involved with the drug trade or anybody in it.”
“Friend Charley, you listen carefully to me,” Pevsner said, icily furious. “I am not, and never have been, involved with the drug trade.”