“There’s a lady present, Edgar,” Castillo said.
“She’s not a lady, she’s an SVR podpolkovnik,”
Delchamps said.
Sweaty gave him the finger.
“A former lieutenant colonel of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki,” she corrected him. “Which has nothing to do with whether or not I’m a lady.”
“I hate to tell you this, Sweaty, but it’s a stretch to think of anyone—how do I put this delicately?—consorting with Ace here as being a lady.”
Sweaty and Castillo both gave him the finger.
“Anyway,” Delchamps said, “according to that letter, ‘all is forgiven, come home.’ That sounds as if someone still thinks of you as an SVR podpolkovnik in good standing.”
“Alek, do they really think anyone is going to believe that letter?” Castillo asked. “That Tom and Sweaty are going to be ‘welcomed home as loyal Russians’?”
“I am a loyal Russian,” Svetlana said. “But loyal to Russia, not to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”
“That—loyalty, loyalty to Russia, or even loyalty to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin personally—may be at the bottom of this,” Pevsner said.
“What do you mean?”
“Putin wants Dmitri and Svetlana to come home.”
“Is he stupid enough to think they’d be stupid enough to go back?” Castillo asked.
“No one who knows him—and I know Vladimir Vladimirovich very well—has ever suggested he’s stupid,” Pevsner replied. “And Dmitri ... Tom ... knows him even better than I do.”
“I hate to use the word ‘genius,’” Tom Barlow said, “but ...”
“How about ‘evil genius’?” Svetlana suggested.
“Why not?” Barlow said chuckling.
“So what is the evil genius up to?” Castillo asked.
“I wonder if you understand, Charley—at least as well as Edgar and Alek do—how important it is for the FSB and the SVR to appear both to the people and, more important, to its own members as all-powerful and without fault.”
Castillo’s temper flared.
But when he spoke, his voice was low and soft. Those who knew him knew that meant he was really angry.
“I don’t even know what the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti and the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki are,” he said, speaking Russian with a Saint Petersburg accent. “Perhaps before we go any further, someone will be kind enough to tell me.”
“I hate to tell you this, Alek,” Delchamps said in Russian, “but I think you just pissed Ace off.”
After a moment, during which Pevsner looked carefully at Castillo, he said, “More important, Edgar, I once again underestimated my friend Charley. I tend to do that. It probably has something to do with his sophomoric sense of humor. No offense was intended, Charley.”
“Offense taken, Polkovnik Pevsner,” Castillo said. “In other words, screw you, friend Alek.”
Pevsner shook his head, and smiled.
“Let me continue,” Pevsner said. “Not long ago, all was right in the world of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He had both finally taken over the KGB and its successor organizations and was president of the Russian Federation.
“He could start to restore the Russian Empire. With a good deal of help from me, he had managed to keep most of the KGB’s money out of the hands of those misguided souls who thought it belonged to the people of Russia.
“He would have to deal with me, eventually, of course. I knew too much, and I had too much of what he considered the KGB’s money. But that could wait—what does Charley say?—could ‘sit on the back burner’ until the right time came.