Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Like, what’s going on here, sir?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Randy shrugged. “The last thing I heard was that you were getting kicked out of the Army.”

  Jesus H. Christ!

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Last week my father came home . . .”

  He’s not your father.

  I am.

  “. . . and told Mom that you were getting kicked out of the Army. Some guy he used to work for in the Pentagon . . . Colonel Remley? . . .”

  “I know Colonel Remley,” Castillo said evenly.

  “. . . told him General McNab was sending him to Argentina to get you to sign the papers.”

  Castillo didn’t answer.

  “And here you are,” Randy finished, “with General McNab.”

  “Randy, what you got, what your father got, is called ‘a garbled message.’ I’m retiring from the service.”

  “And when he came to the motel last night, I was in the bathroom. I heard him tell Mom that she wouldn’t believe it, but you were having a party with General McNab in McGuire’s restaurant.”

  “And so we were. Your father was invited, of course, but he wanted to be with you and your mother.”

  “How are you going to retire? You don’t have enough service to retire; you’re a classmate of my father’s.”

  I will be goddamned if I’ll lie to my son and tell him I’m “psychologically unfit to remain on active service.”

  Damn that paper-pushing, straight-leg-chair-warming sonofabitch Remley!

  “Medically,” Castillo said. “I’m being medically retired.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Sonofabitch!

  There was the sound of a door opening, and both automatically looked toward it.

  “Good morning,” Svetlana said from the doorway to the master bedroom.

  She was wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, running a heavy wooden-handled brush through her lustrous hair.

  Randy politely got to his feet.

  “Randy, this is Miss Barlow,” Castillo said. “Svet, this is—”

  “I know who he is,” she said, smiling warmly and looking between them. “One look at those eyes and I’d know him anywhere!”

  Oh, shit!

  Svetlana saw something on both their faces but didn’t know what it was. Her smile disappeared.

  “Oh? You are not Carlos’s son, his son who lives with his mother and her husband?”

  Where the hell did she get that?

  From me, of course—that’s where the hell she got that, stupid.

  I told her—and Pevsner and damn near everybody else—that I had a son who lived with his mother.

  “Well, I guess that answers most of my other questions,” Randy said.

  “What?” Castillo asked.

  Randy looked him in the eyes. “Like why I look just like the pictures of your father, Colonel Castillo, sir. And why Abuela wanted me to call her Abuela. And—”

  “He didn’t know?” Svetlana suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, Carlos!”

  “No, ma’am. I didn’t know. I think everybody else knew. My Grandfather Wilson has known all the time. And, of course, I think it’s safe to assume Mom knows—”

  “Randy!” Castillo said.

  “Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me?” Randy asked.

  Castillo saw that the boy was on the edge of tears.

  “I don’t think your father knows,” Castillo said gently.

  Which is true.

  I don’t think Righteous Randolph would be able to believe his wife ever had been to bed with me.

  Much less believe that their honeymoon child was mine.

  “Is that an admission, Colonel Castillo, sir, that I am in fact your bastard son?”

  “Oh, Randy!” Svetlana said.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Randy demanded, his voice cracking. “What kind of a man would—”

  “Shut up!” Castillo ordered.

  Both Svetlana and Randy looked at him in shock.

  “I have a habit of saying—and, of course, thinking I’m clever when I say it—that when you don’t know what to say, try telling the truth. Are you able to handle the truth, Randy?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Okay, let’s start with being a bastard.”

  “Carlos!” Svetlana said warningly.

  “My parents were not married. That makes me a bastard. You learn to live with it. My mother loved me deeply and I deeply loved her. I am sure that my father would have—but he never knew about me. He was killed before I was born.”

  Charley looked at Svetlana.

  “He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Svet. And Randy’s grandfather was his co-pilot.”

  “At Fort Rucker,” Randy said, “there’s a picture of them in a building they named for Colonel Castillo’s father—or should I say ‘my other grandfather’? He won the Medal of Honor. I look just like him. Did you really think nobody would ever know?”

  “Well, I didn’t know until we flew down to see the Mastersons and the Lorimers—yeah, Svet, our Ambassador Lorimer—right after Hurricane Katrina.”

  He met Randy’s eyes.

  “I honest to God didn’t know about you, Randy. Worse, in Mississippi, after Ambassador Lorimer told me, ‘Your son has eyes just like yours,’ I told him I didn’t have a son.”

  “My God!” Svetlana said. “You really didn’t know!”

  “So he says,” Randy said more than a little sarcastically.

  “I’m getting off the track here,” Castillo said. “One point I was trying to make, Randy, is that I can’t work up a hell of a lot of sympathy for you. You have a loving mother, and she’s still around. Mine died when I was twelve. I never knew my father, and you’ve had a good man all of your life who thinks he’s your father and who loves you.”

  “You sonofabitch!”

  “No,” Castillo replied more calmly than he expected. “I am not a sonofabitch, and neither are you. My mother was the antithesis of a bitch, and so is yours. Think what you like of me, but never ever apply that term to me. And never allow anyone to apply it to you.”

  The boy glared at him but didn’t reply.

  “Clear, Randy? Say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

  After a long moment, the boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “This is not to suggest that I am a man of principle and sterling character,” Castillo went on. “The opposite is true, as a great many people, including your mother, have learned from painful experience.

  “And that’s the reason that your mother, when she found out that you were on the way . . .”

  Castillo paused. He made a face as he visibly gathered his thoughts.

  “Did I lie to your mother? Yes, I did. Did I feed her martinis knowing full well how they would affect her? You bet your ass I did. Did I take advantage of her naïve notion that because I was a West Pointer I had the same moral attributes as her father and Lieutenant Randolph Richardson III—and that I would not lie, cheat, or steal to get what I wanted from her? You can bet your naïve little ass I did.

  “Getting the picture?”

  Randy stood stone-faced.

  “Your mother had a tough call to make. She had to decide between who would be the better father to the child she was carrying—a thoroughly decent man who loved her or . . .”

  “You,” Randy said.

  “. . . or a man who would lie, cheat, and steal to get whatever he wanted, and never lose a moment’s sleep over it. And it is now self-evident that she made the right decision.”

  The boy just looked at him.

  “So now you have a decision to make, Randy. You can wallow in self-pity—‘poor little me’—and tell everybody how everyone—your mother, your grandfather, me, Abuela, the man you call Uncle Fernando—has abused you. And if you do, the result of that will be that you will hurt, deeply hurt, not only all of them but also the only man who’s absolutely innocent in all of this—the man who has been de fact
o your father all of your life. You owe him better than that.”

  Castillo let that sink in a moment.

  “Or . . . you can keep this secret a secret.”

  After looking at Castillo for a full ten seconds, Randolph J. Richardson IV’s face contorted. He blurted, “I have to piss.”

  Castillo pointed toward the bathroom door, and the boy ran to it.

  They heard the door close, then the unmistakable sound of him being nauseated.

  Castillo looked at Svet.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he said softly.

  “How much of what you said to him was true?” she replied as softly.

  “I don’t know, baby. I don’t even know what I said, or where it came from; my mouth was on autopilot.”

  She ran the balls of her fingers down his cheek.

  They heard the sound of water running for a long time, and when Randy came out, his new T-shirt was almost soaking wet.

  He didn’t make it to the john before he threw up; he fouled himself.

  Then washed the shirt.

  What have I done?

  “Want to borrow a shirt?” Castillo asked.

  “If I did that, my father would ask what happened to this one,” the boy replied logically. “If I keep it on, it will dry pretty quick.”

  “Makes sense. Your call.”

  The boy met his eyes.

  “If you’re really such an all-around sonof—bastard, as you say you are, why should I believe anything you said?”

  “I guess that’s your call, too, Randy,” Castillo said evenly.

  Randy considered that, then nodded once.

  “I guess, even after everything, I don’t think you’re a liar.”

  “Well, counting Abuela, Max, and Svetlana, that’s three of you against the rest of the world.”

  “Is that your real name? Svetlana?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He looked back at Castillo. “You going to tell me what’s going on around here?”

  “No.”

  “I should have known that the story of you getting kicked out of the Army was bullshit.”

  “Why?”

  “Grandfather Wilson, when you started showing up at Abuela’s house when I was there, said I should never ask you what you do in the Army. He said you couldn’t talk about it, that you were an intelligence officer. He said that General McNab told him you were the best one he’d ever known.”

  It took Castillo a good fifteen seconds to find his voice.

  Finally, he said, “Well, Randy, your grandfather and General McNab, between you and me, are a little too fond of the bottle. When they’ve been at it, you just can’t believe anything they say.”

  The boy smiled at him.

  Castillo turned to Svetlana.

  “Randy and I are about to have our breakfast. Following which, I will locate the ogre in his den and introduce Randy to him. Would you care to join us for either or both?”

  “Ogre? Is that what you call General McNab?” Randy asked.

  “Only behind his back,” Castillo said.

  “Do they have those flat little round cakes with that sauce they bleed from the tree?” Svetlana asked.

  Randy looked at her in confusion a moment, then understood. “If you’re talking about buckwheat pancakes with genuine Vermont maple syrup, yes, ma’am, they do.”

  “Can you handle calling room service, Randy?” Castillo asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And while he’s doing that, my Carlos, you can put on your pants.”

  [THREE]

  It was not necessary to locate the ogre in his den.

  As they were finishing their breakfast, there came a knock at the door. Castillo opened it, and through it marched Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, now in camouflage BDUs, trailed by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Woods and Major Homer Foster, similarly attired.

  “I see I’m wrong,” McNab greeted them. “That does happen from time to time, despite what you’ve probably heard.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re out of bed. I gave Foster ten-to-one we’d have to throw you out of bed and then watch you eat.”

  McNab walked into the living room.

  “You look like you’re about to attack Baghdad,” Svetlana said.

  “Good morning,” McNab said to her. “And I’ve already done that twice.” He turned to Woods. “Get the others up here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Woods said, and headed for the telephone.

  McNab spotted Randy.

  “I thought it was the young females of the species who wore wet T-shirts,” he said.

  “General,” Castillo said, “this is Randolph Richardson the Fourth.”

  “Really?” McNab said. He looked at Castillo. “I know your father.”

  Jesus H. Christ!

  Did everybody know but me?

  McNab redirected his attention to the boy. “And, of course, your grandfather. If you will give me your word to give General Wilson my best regards, I will give you my word that I will keep that cross-dresser’s wet T-shirt between us.”

  Randy grinned as McNab shook his hand.

  “Yes, sir. Will do.”

  “And while we are waiting for the others, yes, I will, thank you, have a cup of coffee, if that meets with your approval, Colonel Castillo.”

  “Yes, sir, it does. And I will even order up some fresh for you, sir.”

  “Why don’t we let Woods do that?” He turned to his aide. “Coffee and pastry, Peter, please. Lots of sugar on the doughnuts.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sugar does all sorts of terrible things to your body, Randolph—they don’t really call you Randolph, do they?”

  “Randy, sir.”

  “So, Randy, you should avoid it if at all possible. However, sugar does provide a sudden burst of energy. And a sudden burst of energy is just what the motley crew that’s soon to drift in here is going to need.”

  He looked at Castillo.

  “As Colonel Castillo knows, a morning jog feeds blood to the brain. Feeding it greater amounts of blood causes the brain to function with more efficiency. And while some people, Randy—nothing personal—have been sitting around a hotel room, stuffing their faces, some others of us have been out on the beach jogging.”

  By 0850, everybody who had been at the last meeting had shown up, and all were drinking coffee and eating pastries.

  At 0855, the door chimes sounded once again. Major Foster opened the door. Two officers wearing Class A uniforms—heavily starched shirt, trousers, tunic, and tie—marched in.

  One of them was Lieutenant Colonel Randolph J. Richardson III. The other was a very slim, very tall, ascetic-looking officer who was even blacker than Uncle Remus. His stiffly pressed, immaculate, perfectly tailored uniform bore the silver eagles of a full colonel, the caduceus of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, a shoulder insignia Castillo could not remember ever having seen, two—but only two—rows of I Was There ribbons, and, somewhat incongruously, a set of parachutist wings. Basic wings, which meant he had jumped fewer than thirty times.

  The colonel, who appeared to be in search of a suitably senior officer to whom to report, looked around at the coffee drinkers and doughnut munchers slumped in chairs—or sitting on the floor—and only then finally found the senior officer present. This luminary was on his hands and knees, holding one end of a web strap between his teeth, and exchanging growls with Max, who had the other end in his mouth.

  “Sir!” the colonel barked as he raised his hand to his brow in a crisp salute, “Colonel J. Porter Hamilton reporting to the commanding general, Special Operations Command, as ordered, sir!”

  McNab let loose the web strap, leapt rather nimbly to his feet, and returned the salute with something less than parade-ground precision. Max went to inspect the newcomer.

  “At ease, Colonel,” McNab said, then turned to Charley. “Invocation time, Colonel.”

  “Yes, sir.” Castillo looked at Hamilton. “You are hereby advised—”


  “Pay attention, please, Colonel Richardson,” McNab interrupted. “This now applies to you.”

  He signaled for Castillo to continue. Randy watched raptly.

  Castillo noticed that Righteous Randolph seemed delighted that he was about to be included in whatever was going on around here.

  Castillo recited: “You are hereby advised that anything and everything discussed in this meeting is classified Top Secret Presidential and is not to be disclosed in any manner to anyone without the express permission of myself or the President.”

  “Got that, the both of you?” McNab asked.

  “Yes, sir,” they chorused.

  Colonel Hamilton looked askance at Castillo, who had added khaki trousers to his clothing but still was barefoot.

  “Richardson,” General McNab ordered, “this is what you’re going to do. Go see the commanding general at Hurlburt. Him only. Tell him I sent you to get the maps.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “See that they are securely packaged, then go to Base Ops and wait for us; we’ll be along shortly.”

  “Yes, sir. Transportation, sir?”

  McNab considered that for a full two seconds.

  “Any reason they can’t take the Mustang, Charley? Randy would like a ride in a ragtop.”

  “No, sir,” Castillo said, and tossed Richardson the keys to the convertible.

  “See you at Hurlburt, Richardson,” McNab said. He turned to Randy. “It was a pleasure meeting you, son. Give my best to your grandfather.”

  They shook hands.

  “It was nice to see you, Colonel Castillo,” Randy said as he walked to Castillo with his hand extended.

  I have never wanted to put my arms around anyone, Svetlana included, more than I want to put them around Randy.

  But that’s obviously out of the question.

  He swallowed hard and said, “Good to see you, too, Randy. Give my regards to your mother. And see if you can get your granddad to bring you out to the ranch. Between Fernando and me, we’ll get you some more PT-22 stick time.”

  “I’d like that, sir,” Randy replied a little roughly as they shook hands.

  Svetlana felt no restrictions on her conduct. “You get a kiss and a hug from me, Randy.” And she proceeded to give him a long one of each.

  Thirty seconds later, Richardson and Randy were gone.