CHAPTER 91

Buenos Aires, Argentina

November

OLIVER GREY LOVED BUENOS AIRES. It was so alive. It reminded him of Madrid with its rich history and Old World architecture but there was a spark here that Europe lacked. Spain’s best days were behind her, but this nation had a bright future. San Telmo was not his favorite part of the city but, thanks to its Russian population, it was the safest place for him until things settled down. He would have loved to have explored his old neighborhood of Juncal but the chances of being spotted there by someone from the U. S. embassy were too great.

This working-class neighborhood was home to a group of Russian expatriates to which, of course, Andrenov’s network was connected. Grey was to go to ground until the next phase of the operation unfolded. Once the inevitable elections were held, Grey would take his place at Andrenov’s side in Russia. He got a taste of his future home each day when he looked to the bright indigo domes of the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, shrine to the Russian Orthodox religion that Andrenov loved so deeply. Perhaps Grey himself would attend services there as part of his transformation.

He took a bite of the Milanesa and washed it down with half a glass of the house Malbec, his third. The hearty meal made him crave a smoke and he thought of the fresh supply of local flue-cured leaf that he’d bought for his pipe that morning. The operation had been a success, despite the escape of the U. S. president and the thwarted chemical attack. The lynchpin of the entire plan was the assassination of President Zubarev and the subsequent blame game. Zubarev was lying in state in Moscow and the international media was whipped up into a frenzy over the apparent alliance between Chechen, Syrian, and Ukrainian conspirators. It was a perfect storm, calculated and set in motion by a genius. Grey liked to think that he had picked the right mentor, conveniently forgetting that it was Andrenov who had selected him.

The sights, sounds, and smells of Buenos Aires brought him back to his first real field operation for Colonel Andrenov, one that took place on these very streets more than a decade before. After he’d discovered the identities of the U. S. MACV-SOG recon team members operating in Laos in 1971 in the Agency’s files, Andrenov had asked for his help in locating the team leader. Grey’s research was thorough. So much time had passed that no alarm bells went off at CIA headquarters when an analyst requested files on CIA operations in Vietnam. It was ancient history. Grey discovered that the same SEAL chief petty officer who had led RT Ozark on the raid that had killed a senior Soviet officer had become part of the Agency’s Clandestine Service after leaving the Navy. The man had been one of the famed Cold War operators who had dedicated his life to countering the Soviet threat. Grey could still remember his excitement at having successfully completed his first mission and could see the man’s name clear as day at the top of the dossier: Thomas Reece. Oh, how the world is small.

Though Tom Reece had retired from the Agency, he was one of those hard-core spooks who’d never really left and he had agreed to help with an operation in South America after 9/11. Grey had already recruited that sociopath Landry from the local embassy and this had been his first true test of loyalty. The old spy had been wise, but age had slowed his reflexes, and the four sicariatos, assassins from the Los Monos drug gang in Rosario whom Landry had hired to complete the task, had the drop on him. He bled out quickly in a dark corner of the German section of the Cementerio de la Chacarita, the city’s historic cemetery. Grey glanced at the stainless-steel Rolex that Landry had brought him back as a trophy, its colors faded and edges worn smooth by decades of hard use. The death had been ruled a homicide and attributed to a robbery gone wrong, thanks in part to the theft of the very wristwatch Grey had worn ever since. He wished he’d had the courage to have done the deed himself, but he knew his limits. His weapon was his mind; it was up to Neanderthals like Landry to do the dirty work.

It was only after that operation that Grey had dug deeper into the Agency files and had come to appreciate its importance. The Russian officer had been Andrenov’s father, and the death of Thomas Reece, the man who’d killed him in the steaming Laotian jungle, was revenge decades in the making. That Grey had brought such closure for Andrenov cemented their relationship. By avenging the death of Andrenov’s father, Grey had found a father figure of his own. A father who was poised to become Russia’s next leader, a president who would lead Grey’s ancestral homeland back to greatness. All it would take now was patience, a virtue that was easy to embrace in the land of silver.

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