“I don’t have the time to wander down memory lane. Give them my compliments,” McNab said, and a faint change in the background noise told Castillo that McNab had broken the connection.
Castillo pushed the OFF button and handed the handset back to Neidermeyer.
“That was General McNab,” Castillo said. “His compliments to you, gentlemen, and his apologies for having to take another call right now. The truck has just refueled at Fort Benning. What is that, an hour, hour and a half from here?”
Both Wilson and Crenshaw nodded.
“He was checking to make sure the truck driver and his crew—total of three—are taken care of.”
“I’ll take care of that, General,” Richardson said before Crenshaw could give the order.
And now, Castillo thought, I can get out of here.
“Beth, thank you for a delightful meal,” he said. “But I’m afraid that Jamie and I are going to have to be the infamous guests who eat and run. We’ve got a lot on our plate tonight and a first-light flight tomorrow.”
“I understand,” she said. “We’ll have to do it another time.”
“I’d like that. I accept.”
And with that exchange of polite lies, I really can get out of here.
“Charley, do you know how to find the airport in Ozark?” General Wilson asked.
“I’m sure I can find it, sir.”
“I’ll take you,” Wilson offered.
“That’s unnecessary, sir.”
“I’ll take you,” Wilson insisted.
He’s trying to be nice, sure. But there’s more to it than that.
Hell, he wants to go. Why didn’t I think of that?
“Sir, would you like to go along? What I have to do there won’t take long—it just has to be done in person. We should be back here at, say, four or five.”
“I don’t want to intrude, Charley. But I really would like to see the damage along the Gulf Coast.”
“Then you’ll go. And there’s room for one more in the airplane. Any takers? It would be something to see.”
“Can I go?” Randolph Richardson IV asked.
“Of course not, son,” Randolph Richardson III said quickly.
The look on Beth’s face showed that she firmly supported that parental decision.
“Why not?” General Wilson said.
“This is none of my business, of course,” General Crenshaw said. “But think it over, Richardson. It’s one hell of an opportunity for the boy. For the rest of his life he’d remember that right after the hurricane, he flew over the area with his grandfather and saw everything.”
“Well, viewed in that light,” Randolph III said.
“I don’t think so,” Beth announced. “It would be dangerous.”
“But General Crenshaw is right, honey,” Randolph III said. “It would be something he would remember all his life. Are you sure of your landing field, Castillo? It’s safe to use?”
Castillo nodded.
I don’t want to take the kid.
I don’t even want to take General Wilson.
I was just being a good guy. No good deed ever goes unpunished.
“Okay, then, it’s settled,” General Wilson said. “Randy and I will pick you up at oh dark hundred at the Magnolia House. That way you won’t have to leave the Army van at the airport.”
[FOUR]
Ozark Municipal Airport
Ozark, Alabama
0655 5 September 2005
J. G. Jenkins, the somewhat plump proprietor of the Greater Dale County Funeral Home and Crematorium, Inc., incongruously attired in a loud flowered Hawaiian shirt and powder blue shorts, did insist on taking a ride around the pattern with Castillo before turning over his Flying Hearse to him.
In the end, Castillo was glad he did.
As Castillo turned on final, Jenkins idly mentioned that he was sure Castillo was aware that the Rucker reservation—and Cairns Field—was restricted airspace.
“You’re going to have to go to either Dothan or Troy before heading for the beach.”
“Yes, I know. Thank you.”
And another lie leaps quickly from my lips.
I’d forgotten that. And, if you hadn’t reminded me, I would’ve taken off and flown the most direct route to the Gulf—right over both the base and the airfield.
I doubt they would’ve scrambled jets to shoot me down. But there damned sure would have been a lot of FAA forms to fill out.
“Explain in two hundred words or less why you have done something really stupid like this.”
He set the single-engine, high-wing T206H down smoothly on its tricycle gear, then taxied to the hangar where General Wilson, Randy the Fourth, Neidermeyer, and Max were waiting.
Castillo was a little surprised that Jenkins hadn’t at least asked questions about Max getting into his pristine airplane—it was painted a glossy black, like a hearse, and the tan leather interior spotless. He concluded in the end that Jenkins had decided in view of the three hundred fifty dollars an hour that he was charging for the use of his hearse—dry, as Castillo had to fuel it himself—it was necessary to accommodate the customer.
“Well, I guess you’re my copilot, General,” Castillo said after he’d shut down the engine and his passengers approached the aircraft.
“Charley, I’d be useless in the right seat. I haven’t flown in years, and…”
General Wilson held up a Sony digital motion picture camera. Neidermeyer had an almost identical one hanging from the lanyard around his neck.
When Castillo looked at him, Wilson said, “I’d really like to get pictures of the damage, Colonel.”
Castillo looked at the boy.
“Well, I guess you’re my copilot, Randy.”
“Yes, sir.”
Castillo motioned to the double doors on the starboard side of the fuselage and said, “Then hop in and make your way forward to the right seat.”
Wilson and Neidermeyer would take the middle-row bucket seats.
The bench seat in the rear was just wide enough for Max to lie down, if he wanted.
“What do I do about a seat belt for him?” Castillo wondered aloud.
“Try to fly smooth and not come to a sudden stop,” General Wilson said.
Castillo sensed the boy’s eyes on him as he trimmed out the airplane and set the autopilot on a more or less southwesterly course for Pensacola, Florida.
“Back in the dark ages when your grandfather and my father were flying, they had to do this just about by themselves,” Castillo explained to Randy over the intercom, his voice coming through the David Clark headsets that everyone wore. “Now we just push buttons and computers do all the work.”
He showed him the Global Positioning System, then pointed to the screen with its map in motion.
“Here we are, south of Fort Rucker. There’s where we’re going, Pass Christian, Mississippi. The computer tells me we have one hundred eighty-four miles to go, that we’re at five thousand feet, and making about one hundred fifty miles an hour over the ground.”
The boy soaked that all in, then asked, “Wasn’t it more fun when you did it yourself?”
Without really thinking about it, Castillo disengaged the autopilot, said, “Find out for yourself,” then, imitating the tone of a commercial airliner pilot, raised his voice: “Attention in the passenger compartment. The copilot is now flying.”
The boy looked at him in disbelief.
“If you’re going to drive, it might be a good idea to put your hands on the yoke,” Castillo said. He pointed. “That’s the yoke.”
“The thing to remember, Randy, is to be smooth,” General Wilson said, leaning over his grandson’s shoulder. “Don’t jerk the wheel. A very little goes a long way.”
The boy put his hands on the yoke.
“Can you reach the pedals?” Castillo asked.
The boy tried, then nodded.
This probably isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but what the hell.
&nb
sp; General Crenshaw was right last night: The kid will never forget that he went flying with his grandfather to see what Hurricane Katrina did to the Gulf Coast.
And we have plenty of fuel.
“Keep your feet on the pedals,” Castillo ordered. “But don’t move them till I say. What you’re going to do now is make it go up and down. When you’ve got that down pat, you’re going to turn us dead south.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said.
“Just ease the yoke forward, Randy,” his grandfather said. “And try to keep the wings level.”
The hurricane damage—a lot of it—became worse as they came closer to the coast. When they were over Pensacola Beach, Florida, the damage was so bad that Castillo decided they needed a closer look.
“I’ll take it now, Randy. I want to get down for a better look, and I don’t think you’re quite ready to make low-level passes.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, reluctantly taking his hands off the yoke.
The damage to Pensacola Beach was worse than anyone expected.
General Wilson and Jamie Neidermeyer got their video, then Castillo adjusted the flaps and throttle in preparation for the aircraft to climb.
“I’m going to give it back to you, Randy,” Castillo said. “What you’re going to do now is climb, slowly, to five thousand feet and steer two seven zero.”
“Just ease back on the yoke,” Grandpa Wilson said. “You’re doing fine.”
He is. What the hell, his father and grandfather are pilots.
What was it Don Fernando used to say? “Genes don’t teach you how to do anything, but they damn sure determine whether or not you can learn.”
How big were we when he taught Fernando and me to fly? About as big as this kid, I guess.
God, Fernando and I had flown all over Texas and Mexico by the time we were old enough to get a student’s license.
Over Mobile, Alabama, Castillo ordered the boy to turn south and fly to the Gulf, and when they were over it, to turn right and start a gentle descent to fifteen hundred feet.
By the time they reached that altitude, they were over Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the damage was literally incredible. Along the beach, the storm had either destroyed or floated away everything within a quarter-or half-mile of the normal waterline.
“Take it down another five hundred feet, copilot, and then I’ll take it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The damage got worse as they flew along the beach. They saw where two floating casinos had been moved five hundred yards from where they had been moored on the beach.
“Now, Randy, since I don’t know where I am, or exactly where it is that I want to go, we will now let the computer take over.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ten minutes later they were over the landing strip of the Masterson Plantation.
There was clear evidence of hurricane damage—tall pines snapped and huge oaks, some of them obviously hundreds of years old, uprooted—but the airstrip and the house and its outbuildings seemed intact.
There were a number of cars and trucks parked around the house.
Castillo made two low passes over the runway to make sure it was clear. As he pulled out of the second pass to gain altitude to make his approach, he happened to glance at the boy’s face. Randy clearly was excited, grinning from ear to ear.
Damned shame the general stopped flying. He could have done this, and the kid could remember that.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop it!
You’re here on business, not to pretend you’re the kid’s loving uncle.
As Castillo completed the landing roll, he saw three SUVs quickly approaching the field. Then, as he taxied back to the single hangar where a sparkling V-tail Beechcraft Bonanza was tied down, he saw people. He recognized
Winslow Masterson and his wife, and their daughter and her three children. There was an older couple standing with them. Logic told him they were the other grandparents, Ambassador Lorimer—the man he had come to see—and his wife.
And logic told him, too, that the two approaching-middle-aged men in business suits were members of China Post No. 1 in Exile, the retired special operators whom Castillo had arranged for Masterson to hire to protect his daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
Winslow Masterson was a tall, slim, elegant, sharp-featured man. He had told Castillo that he suspected his ancestors had been Tutsi.
The men in business suits watched carefully as Castillo parked the airplane, and then one of them nodded—but didn’t smile—at Castillo when he apparently recognized him. Both men then leaned against the fender of their SUV as everybody else walked up to the airplane.
“Welcome back to the recently renamed Overturned Oaks Plantation, Major Castillo,” Masterson said when Castillo climbed out of the airplane. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Good to see you, sir,” Castillo said. “Anybody afraid of dogs?”
The question seemed to surprise everybody, but no one expressed any concern.
Neidermeyer opened the aircraft’s rear double door, stepped out, commanded, “Okay, Max,” and let loose of his collar.
At the command, Max jumped out of the plane, headed for the nose gear, and relieved himself.
The older Masterson boy laughed.
“It took months to train him how to do that,” Castillo said after everyone else had crawled out of the airplane through the same double door.
Jesus Christ it’s hot! Castillo thought. And the humidity is damn near unbearable. Worse than at Rucker.
“I’m not going to call you Major,” Elizabeth Masterson, a tall, slim, thirty-seven-year-old, said. “You’re a friend, Charley.”
She advanced on him and kissed his cheek.
“Actually, I’m a lieutenant colonel, he announced with overwhelming immodesty.”
“Good for you,” she said. “And is this your son, Charley?”
“No. Randy is General Wilson’s grandson.”
Castillo made the introductions.
“General Wilson,” Castillo then went on, “flew with my father in Vietnam. I bumped into him at Fort Rucker, and since we were going to fly over what used to be the beautiful Gulf Coast, and there was room in the plane…”
“Welcome to Overturned Oaks, formerly Great Oaks, General,” Masterson said. “Any friend of Colonel Castillo is welcome here. We’re all indebted to the colonel. And in that connection, Colonel, let me say that whenever your promotion came through it was long overdue.”
“I am ready and willing to sign autographs,” Castillo said.
Max had already discovered the Masterson children, and they him.
“Where’d you get the dog, Colonel?” J. Winslow Masterson III asked, as he shook Max’s paw. “He’s awesome!”
“My grandmother told me that since I didn’t have a family, I should get a dog. And I always do what my grandmother says.”
“Pay attention,” Mrs. Winslow Masterson said.
“And speaking of grandparents,” Betsy Masterson said. “Dad, Mother, this is Charley Castillo, who took such great care of us in Argentina, and brought us home.”
“My wife and I are very grateful to you, Colonel,” Philippe Lorimer said. He was a very small, very black man with closely cropped white hair and large intelligent eyes. If there was visible evidence of his heart condition, Castillo couldn’t see it.
“How do you do, sir? Ma’am? Mr. Ambassador, the secretary of State sends her best regards to you and Mrs. Lorimer.”
“That’s very kind of her,” Lorimer said. “But why do I suspect that’s not all she sent?”
“Sir, in fact, the secretary hopes that you’ll be willing to have a private minute or two with me. Perhaps out of this heat?”
“Of course. But why do I suspect that’s going to take a lot longer than a minute or two?”
Castillo was aware that General Wilson was taking all this in but had absolutely no idea what anyone was talking about.
Ambassador Lorimer looked at Jamie Ne
idermeyer, then at Castillo.
“I’m surprised that someone like you, Colonel, needs a bodyguard,” Lorimer said.
“Dad!” Betsy Masterson protested.
“The one advantage to being an old and retired ambassador, sweetie,” he said, “is that after a lifetime of subtlety, evasion, and innuendo, you can just say whatever pops into your mind.”
“The same thing is true of being a retired general, Mr. Ambassador,” General Wilson said.
“Actually, sir, Jamie is my communicator,” Castillo said. “They keep me on a short leash to make sure I don’t say whatever pops into my mind.”
Lorimer laughed.
“He’s got one of those satellite telephones in that suitcase?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With which you have direct contact with the secretary of State?”
“Yes, sir, if you’d like to.”
“Don’t plug it in yet, young man,” Lorimer ordered. “I don’t wish to speak to Secretary Cohen until after the colonel and I have had our two-minute chat.”
“You have a beautiful home,” General Wilson said when they were in the foyer of the house.
Castillo thought the house made Tara, of Gone With the Wind, look like a Holiday Inn. Off of the foyer, a curved double stairway rose to the second floor. It was not hard to picture Clark Gable carrying Whatshername, the English actress, up the steps to work his wicked way on her.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Masterson said. “It’s been here a very long time, and God spared it.”
“I told her that was God’s reward for her unrelenting battle against the gambling hells of the Mississippi Gulf Coast,” Masterson said.
“Don’t mock me, Winslow!” she said. “But you’ll notice what did happen to the casinos.”
“Faulty argument, darling. Katrina also wiped out Jefferson Davis’s home, and you know that he was a God-fearing gentleman always battling the devil and all his wicked works.”
“That’s right,” General Wilson said. “I’d forgotten that. My wife and I went to his home twice when I was at Fort Rucker. That was damaged?”
“Wiped out,” Masterson said. “Utterly destroyed.”
“Then you were very lucky here,” Wilson said.
The Shooters Page 29
