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“I understood that Carlos Montoya—”

The president brushed this comment aside impatiently “The papers say that Fox and CNN broadcast that, the pundits fixate on it, but the fact is Carlos Montoya is done He was the worst of the scum in Mexico He killed two of his own brothers to win control of the family business, and yet he proved no match for the Russians In fact, our intel leads us to believe that he’s been killed The Russians are about as ruthless as they co world”

“All right,” said Stone evenly

“So long as the Mexican cartels were the adversary it was eable Not ideal, of course, but it didn’t reach national security status We could battle it on our borders and in the h gang ranks It’s different with the Russians”

“Meaning a connection between the spy rings and the cartels?”

Brennan eyed Stone, perhaps surprised he’d made the connection so fast “We believe there is In fact, our belief is that the Russian govern cartels are one and the same”

“That’s a very troublesome conclusion,” said Stone

“And the correct one, we think Illegal drug sales are one of the leading exports from Russia They make it in the old Soviet labs, and ship it all over the world through various means They pay off the people they have to and kill the ones they can’t bribe The monies involved are enorovernment not to want its share And there’s more to the equation”

“You s they sell to America the weaker we become as a nation? It drains dollars and brain cells It increases the level of both petty and major crime, taxes our resources, shifts assets from productive areas to nonproductive ones”

Again, Brennan looked surprised at Stone’s niht And the Russians know so about the power of addictions Their populace certainly abuses both drugs and alcohol But we have detected a purposeful, enhanced effort by the Russians to basically overwhels” The president sat back “And then there’s the obvious co factor”

“They’re a nuclear power,” replied Stone “They have as many warheads as we do, in fact”

The president nodded “They want back in the top tier Perhaps they want to be the sole superpower, supplanting us And on top of that they are vastly influential in the Middle and Far East Even the Chinese and Israelis fear the out of whack”

“All right Why me?”

“The Russians have gone back to old-school tactics, Stone From your era”

“I’ency?”

“No, there’s really not There was a hiring freeze before 9/11 and a lot of voluntary and involuntary retires, there was considerable ramp-up The result is that three-quarters of the CIA is co they know about Russia is they ood vodka and it’s cold there You know Russia You understand the trenches of espionage better than ley” He paused “And we all know you have special skills Skills this country spent goodin you”

The guilt factor Interesting

“But all one Dead”

“That is actually an advantage You go in with a blank slate, an unknown quantity”

“Hoe start?”

“By you going back in unofficially, of course There will be training, getting you up to date on things I suspect you will be ready to leave the country in a month”

“Going to Russia?”

“No, Mexico and Latin A through It’ll be rough work And dangerous I guess I don’t need to tell you that” He paused and his gaze flicked to Stone’s close-cropped white hair

Stone easily interpreted the observation “I’ as I was, obviously”

“None of us are”

Stone nodded, his ical conclusion of all this He really only had one question “Why?”

“I already told you why In many respects you’re the best we have And the proble worse”

“Can I hear the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?”

“Why I’m really here”