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The shooters pa-4

Page 5

by W. E. B Griffin


  "Done deal?"

  "You told Dick to get you out of the Monica Lewinsky Motel right now, and yesterday would be better. Yeah, it's a done deal. I gave them a check two hours ago," Agnes said.

  "On my account, I hope? I don't want the Lorimer Benevolent amp; Charitable Trust involved in this."

  "You're paying for it," Agnes said. "But on that subject, we just got confirmation of that substantial deposit to the trust we've been expecting."

  "Well, presuming we can keep that a secret, that's good news. Can I go to this place straight from the airport? And can I stash Lieutenant Lorimer there until I figure out what to do with him?"

  "You can go there from the airport," Agnes said. "But there's no sheets or towels, food, etcetera. And yes, you can take somebody there. Six bedrooms, six baths. And it's off the road; nobody can look into the windows from the street. I told them to get a radio in there tomorrow, but it will probably be a couple of days before you have a secure White House telephone."

  "Dick, can you get our stuff out of the Mayflower and over there before I get there? And stop by Sam's Club or someplace and buy sheets, etcetera, and food? Charge that to the Trust."

  "Yes, sir, Colonel, sir. Dare I to presume that was an invitation to share your new quarters?"

  "Yeah, but no guests of the opposite sex above the first floor," Castillo said. "We are going to be paragons of virtue in our new home."

  Agnes laughed.

  "That I'll have to see," she said.

  Castillo had a new thought: "Who's going to take care of this place?"

  "That's another problem I'm working on," Agnes said. "You're going to need a housekeeper and a yardman. At least. Dick said maybe we could put an ad in the Army Times and see if we could find a retired sergeant and his wife. Maybe they'd have security clearances."

  "What would I do without you, Agnes?"

  "I shudder to consider the possibility," she said.

  "Unless you've got something else, we'll see you tomorrow," Castillo said.

  "Can't think of anything that won't wait," she said.

  When it became evident that Miller wasn't going to say anything, Castillo ordered, "Break it down, Lester."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Castillo hung up the phone.

  "Okay," he said, "in the immortal words of General George S. Patton, let's saddle up and get this show on the road."

  "I don't think Patton said that, Ace," Edgar Delchamps said.

  "If he didn't, he should have," Castillo said.

  "What about the steaks?" Susanna Sieno said.

  "Fire should be ready about now," Paul Sieno added.

  Castillo considered that a moment, then said, "Good idea, Susanna. 'An Army marches on its stomach.' I don't know if Patton said that or not. And I don't care-I'm hungry. Let's eat."

  II

  [ONE] 29.88 Degrees North Latitude 86.39 Degrees West Longitude Over the Gulf of Mexico 1750 1 September 2005 They had gone wheels-up at Jorge Newbery Airport in Buenos Aires a few minutes after six that morning. They'd flown diagonally across South America to Quito, Ecuador, where they had taken on fuel and had lunch. From Quito, they'd flown north, passing over Panama into the Gulf of Mexico, skirted around the western tip of Cuba, and then flown almost straight north to the Panhandle of Florida.

  The flight plan they filed gave Hurlburt Field, near Destin, Florida, as their destination. Hurlburt was headquarters of the Air Force Special Operations Command. Far fewer questions, Jake Torine had suggested, would be asked there than anywhere else, and even if questions were asked, Hurlburt had instant communication with the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, where they could be quickly-and, as important, quietly-answered.

  It now looked as if that logical plan wasn't going to work.

  "Aircraft calling Hurlburt Approach Control, this is Eglin Approach."

  "Uh-oh," Castillo said, and then triggering his mike, replied, "Eglin Approach Control, Gulfstream Three Seven Nine."

  "Gulfstream Three Seven Nine, be advised that Hurlburt Field is closed to all traffic. Acknowledge."

  Jake Torine made an impatient gesture for Castillo to take control of the airplane.

  "Eglin, Three Seven Nine, this aircraft is in the service of the United States government. Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF, is pilot in command. We wish to land at Hurlburt."

  "Sir, Katrina knocked Hurlburt out."

  Castillo and Torine exchanged What the hell? glances.

  "Okay," Torine replied. "Turning on transponder at this time. We are approximately a hundred miles south of your station. Let me know when you have us."

  Fifteen seconds later, Eglin Approach Control reported, "Three Seven Nine, I have you at flight level 30, 450 knots, approximately nine five miles south."

  "Okay, Eglin Approach. Give me approach and landing, please."

  "Three Seven Nine, be advised that Eglin is closed to all but emergency traffic."

  "Son, did you hear what I said about this aircraft being in government service?"

  "Yes, sir. Do you wish to declare an emergency at this time?"

  Castillo triggered his microphone.

  "Eglin," he said, "is Cairns Army Airfield open?"

  "Three Seven Nine, I believe Cairns is open, but be advised it is closed to civilian traffic."

  "Thank you, Eglin," Castillo said. "Three Seven Nine is not, repeat not, declaring an emergency at this time."

  He turned to Torine.

  "Jake, if you'll take it and steer about thirty-five degrees, I'll see if I can find the approach charts to Cairns."

  "I gather, first officer, that you have been to this place before?"

  "Once or twice, pilot in command, sir," Castillo said, as he began rummaging through his Jeppesen case.

  THIRTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  [-I-]

  Base Operations

  Cairns Army Airfield

  The Army Aviation Center Fort Rucker, Alabama 1145 2 February 1992 Lieutenant Colonel F. Mason Edmonds, Aviation-a starting-to-get-a-little-chubby thirty-nine-year-old who sported a bushy mustache-stood behind one of the double plateglass doors of Base Operations, looking out at the airfield.

  On the wall behind him was an oil portrait of Major General Bogardus S. Cairns, for whom the airfield was named. General Cairns, a West Pointer and at the time the commanding general of Fort Rucker, had crashed to his death in an H-13 Sioux helicopter on 9 December 1958. There was an unpleasant story that the crash had been due to General Cairns's failure to turn on his aircraft's pitot heat.

  True or not, Colonel Edmonds did not like the story. It tended to detract from the positive image of Army Aviation, and Colonel Edmonds considered himself to be probably the most important guardian of that image. He was the information officer of the Army Aviation Center and Fort Rucker, Alabama.

  A year before, the fact that Colonel Edmonds had been granted a bachelor of fine arts degree in journalism by Temple University had come to light when personnel officers in the Pentagon were reviewing his records to see what could be done with him now that some sort of unpronounceable inner-ear malady had caused him to fail his annual flight physical examination and he could no longer be assigned to flight duty.

  Finding a round peg for the round hole had pleased both the personnel officers and Colonel Edmonds. He had been afraid, now that he was grounded, that he would be assigned to some maintenance billet, or some supply billet, or wind up in some other nothing assignment, like dependent housing officer.

  Being the information officer for the Army Aviation Center and Fort Rucker was a horse of an entirely different hue. He had always believed he had a flair for journalism and the written word, and had often wondered if he had made the right decision in staying in the Army after his compulsory-after-ROTC five-year initial tour. He could have gotten out and tried his hand as a journalist. Or perhaps even as a novelist.

  His experience since he'd become the IO had confirmed his opinion of his ability as a journa
list. Surprising most his staff-made up of half civilian, half military-instead of just sitting behind his desk supervising things and reviewing press releases to make sure they reflected well on Army Aviation, he had gotten right down to his new profession and gotten his hands dirty.

  That was to say, he took it upon himself to write some of the stories that would be published in The Army Flier, the base newspaper, or sent out as press releases. Only the important stories, of course, not the run-of-the-mill pieces.

  He was on such a yarn today, one that he intended to run on page one of The Army Flier, and one he was reasonably sure would be printed in newspapers across the land. In his judgment, it had just the right mixture of human interest, military history, and a little good old-fashioned emotion. And, of course, it could not help but burnish the image of Army Aviation and indeed the Army itself.

  A sergeant walked up to him.

  "Sir?"

  Edmonds turned to look at him and nodded.

  "Colonel, that Mohawk you've been looking for just turned on final."

  "And it will park on the tarmac here?"

  "Yes, sir. It's a Blue Flight aircraft, Colonel. They always park here."

  "Thank you, Sergeant."

  "Yes, sir."

  Blue Flight was the name assigned to a special function of the Aviation School's flight training program. If, for example, it was determined for some reason that a nonflying field-grade officer-sometimes a major, most often a lieutenant colonel-needed to learn how to fly, he was sent to Rucker and assigned to Blue Flight.

  He-or she, as the case might be-was then subjected to what amounted to a cram course in flying.

  This was not to suggest that the course of instruction was less thorough in any way than the regular flight training programs of the Aviation School. If anything, Blue Flight instruction-the best instructors were assigned temporarily to Blue Flight as needed-might just be a little better than that offered by the school.

  As Colonel Edmonds thought of it, there were several factors driving the philosophy of Blue Flight instruction. High among them was the realization that it was in the Army's interest to send a senior officer student back as a fully qualified pilot to whatever assignment had necessitated that he or she become a pilot as quickly as possible.

  Further, if the Army felt an officer in midcareer needed to be a pilot, it made little sense to send them to Rucker only to have them fail the course of instruction. With this in mind, Blue Flight students were tutored, rather than simply taught. It was in the Army's interest that they earn their wings.

  While most Blue Flight students were majors or lieutenant colonels, there were exceptions at both ends of the rank hierarchy. Most of these officers were colonels, but there was-far less commonly-the occasional captain or even lieutenant.

  In the case of the junior officers, they were most often aides-de-camp to general officers who were already qualified rotary-wing aviators. They were assigned to Blue Flight for transition into fixed-wing aircraft. It made sense to have an aide-de-camp who could fly his general in both a helicopter and in the C-12 Huron, a twin turboprop, used to fly senior officers around.

  "Huron" was the Army's name for the Beechcraft Super King Air. It annoyed Colonel Edmonds that Army Aviators almost invariably called the aircraft the King Air rather than the Huron, but he couldn't do much about it except ensure that the term "King Air" never appeared in news stories emanating from his office.

  Such a junior officer-this one a lieutenant, a general officer's aide-de-camp sent to Blue Flight for transition training into the C-12 Huron-was to be the subject of the story Colonel Edmonds planned to write today.

  Colonel Edmonds was more than a little annoyed that he had had to dig up the story himself. He should have been told, not have had to hear a rumor and then run down the rumor.

  He had happened to mention this to the post commander, when he suggested to the general that if he were to release a photograph of the general standing together with the lieutenant before a building named for the lieutenant's father, it would more than likely be printed widely and reflect well upon Army Aviation and the Army itself.

  Two months before, Colonel Edmonds had thought he was onto another story, one just as good, perhaps, as the one he was onto today. That one, however, hadn't worked out.

  What had happened was that Colonel Edmonds had seen a familiar name on the bronze dedicatory plaque of the building. He had inquired of Brigadier General Harold F. Wilson, deputy commander of the Army Aviation Center and Fort Rucker, if there was any connection between himself and Second Lieutenant H. F. Wilson, whose name was on the dedicatory plaque.

  It had been too much to hope for, and asking General Wilson had been a mistake.

  "Colonel, I have been asked that question many times before," the general had said. "I will tell you what I have told everyone else who's asked it: Don't ask it again, and whenever you hear that rumor someplace else, repeat this conversation of ours."

  Obviously, General Wilson, himself a highly decorated Army Aviator, was anxious not to bask in the reflected glory of another hero who happened to have a similar name.

  With that encounter with General Wilson in mind-and knowing the odds were that General Wilson would not be enthusiastic about what he had in mind-Colonel Edmonds had taken his idea directly to Major General Charles M. Augustus, Jr., the commanding general of the Army Aviation Center and Fort Rucker.

  General Augustus, not very enthusiastically, agreed that it was a good idea, and told Edmonds to set it up. But he didn't respond to Edmonds's complaint that he had not been advised, as he should have been, that the lieutenant was a member of Blue Flight.

  Edmonds further suspected that the Blue Flight people were either unaware of what the lieutenant was doing or didn't care.

  When he called Blue Flight to ask that the lieutenant be directed to report to him at his office, in Class A uniform at 1300, they said that might be a little difficult, as the lieutenant was involved in a cross-country training flight in the Mohawk under simulated instrument conditions, and that he might be back at Cairns a little before noon, and then again he might not. No telling.

  Like the C-12 Huron, the Grumman Mohawk also was a twin-turboprop aircraft, but not a light transport designed to move senior officers in comfort from one place to another. It was, instead, designed as an electronic surveillance aircraft, normally assigned to military intelligence units. The only people it carried were its two pilots.

  The military intelligence connection gave it a certain elan with Army Aviators, as did the fact that it was the fastest airplane in the inventory. The pilots assigned to fly it were most often the more experienced ones.

  So, Edmonds concluded, there was something extraordinary in a lieutenant being trained by Blue Flight to fly the Mohawk.

  The only thing Colonel Edmonds could think of to explain the situation was that they might be using the Mohawk as an instrument flight training aircraft. Yet when he really thought some more about that, it didn't make sense.

  He looked up at the sky and saw a triple-tailed Mohawk approaching, and he followed it through touchdown until he lost sight of it. And then suddenly there it was, taxiing up to the tarmac in front of Base Ops.

  He remembered only then that it was said of the Mohawk that it could land on a dime. This was accomplished by reversing the propellers' pitch at the instant of touchdown-or a split second before.

  Ground handlers laid ladders against the Mohawk's bulbous cockpit. The two men in the aircraft unbuckled their harnesses and climbed down and then started walking toward Base Operations.

  One of them was an older man, and the other-logically, the lieutenant whom Edmonds was looking for-was much younger.

  As they came closer, Colonel Edmonds had doubts that this was the officer he was looking for. He was a tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed young man who didn't look as if his name was Carlos Guillermo Castillo. One would expect someone with a name like that to have a darker skin and more than likely dark
eyes.

  Edmonds now saw the older man was Chief Warrant Officer-4 Pete Kowalski, who was not only a master Army Aviator but vice president of the Instrument Examiner Board. Edmonds was surprised that Kowalski was teaching a lowly lieutenant.

  Both saluted Colonel Edmonds as they got close to where he stood by the Base Ops door.

  "Lieutenant Castillo?" Colonel Edmonds asked.

  Castillo stopped and said, "Yes, sir."

  Maybe this isn't the right Castillo. It's not that unusual a name.

  "Carlos Guillermo Castillo?" Edmonds challenged.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Lieutenant, I'm Colonel Edmonds, the information officer. Between now and 1300, we have to get you into a Class A uniform and out to the Castillo Classroom Building on the post."

  "Sir?"

  "Where you will be photographed with the commanding general standing by the building named after your father," Edmonds explained.

  "Sir, with respect, what's this all about?"

  "I'm reasonably confident that the photograph will shortly appear in several hundred newspapers across the country."

  "Colonel, I'm Special Forces," Castillo said. "We try to keep our pictures out of the newspapers."

  Edmonds thought, What does he mean, he's "Special Forces"?

  He's a pilot; he's Aviation.

  He may be assigned to support Special Forces, but he's Aviation.

  "Be that as it may, Lieutenant," Edmonds said, "you will be photographed with the commanding general at the Castillo Building at 1300."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you have a car here?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, in that case, I will follow you to your BOQ. But in case we become separated, which BOQ is it?"

  "Sir, I'm in the Daleville Inn."

  The Daleville Inn was a motel in a village crammed with gasoline stations, fast-food emporiums, hock shops, trailer parks, and used-car lots. It lay between Cairns Army Airfield and Fort Rucker.

  "You're not in a BOQ? Why not?"

 

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