Covert Warriors

“Bull’s-eye, Admiral,” Castillo said.

“Actually, I was a commander,” Annapolis said. “All right, Colonel, we’re guilty as charged. What would you have us do? Commit seppuku?”

“That’d work for you,” Castillo said. “But I don’t see any VFW buttons on your pals.”

“What are you talking about?” Sweaty demanded.

“Seppuku, my love, also known as hara-kiri, is what defeated samurai-warriors-do to atone for their sins. It involves stabbing yourself in the belly with a sword and then giving it a twist. But only warriors are allowed to do that.”

Delchamps chuckled.

“I don’t have a VFW pin, Colonel,” Radio and TV Stations said. “But I do have a baseball cap with the legend PALM BEACH CHAPTER, VIETNAM HELICOPTER PILOTS ASSOCIATION embroidered in gold on it. Would you say that gives me the right to disembowel myself?”

“Only if you didn’t buy the cap at a yard sale,” Castillo said.

Radio and TV Stations did not look anything like what comes to mind when the term warrior was used.

“I got mine after I showed them my DD 214 and gave them fifty bucks,” Radio and TV Stations said.

DD 214 was the Defense Department’s form that listed one’s military service, qualifications, and any decorations.

“You were a helicopter pilot in Vietnam?” Castillo asked, but even as the words came out of his mouth he knew that was the case.

Radio and TV Stations met Castillo’s eyes and nodded.

“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Castillo said.

“It gets better than that, Castillo,” Annapolis said. “Tell him, Chopper Jockey.”

“I’d planned to tell you this at some time, but not under these circumstances,” Radio and TV Stations said, “but what the hell. I would guess you’ve heard of Operation Lam Son 719?”

Castillo nodded.

“I was shot down-and wounded-during it,” Radio and TV Stations went on. “My co-pilot and I were hiding in a rice paddy, wondering if we were going to die right there-or after the VC found us and put us in a bamboo cage- when a pretty well shot-up Huey flew through some really nasty antiaircraft fire and landed next to us. The pilot and his co-pilot jumped out, threw us onto the Huey, and got us out of there.

“I later learned the pilot was a young Mexican-American from San Antonio who had flown fifty-odd such missions before his luck ran out. He became a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor.”

“He wasn’t a Mexican-American,” Castillo said. “He was a Texican, a Texan of Mexican heritage.”

“You knew this man, Karl?” Berezovsky asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Castillo said.

“Don’t stop there,” Annapolis said. “Tell him the rest.”

Radio and TV Stations considered the order, nodded, and went on: “Fast forward-what? Twelve, thirteen years? Maybe a little longer. I was in San Antone on business. I own one of the TV stations there, an English FM station, and one each Spanish-language AM and FM station.

“I found myself with a little time to kill, and finally remembering the man who saved my life just before he got blown away was from there, thought they might have buried him there in the Fort Sam National Cemetery. I called them, they said he was, so I stopped by a florist, and went to the cemetery and laid a dozen roses on the grave of Warrant Officer Junior Grade Jorge Alejandro Castillo, MOH.”

“Your father, Carlito?” Sweaty asked softly.

Castillo nodded.

“Who, according to his tombstone had left this vale of tears when he was nineteen years old,” Radio and TV Stations went on, “which caused me to think, what am I doing walking around with more money than I know what to do with, and this Mexican-excuse me, Texican-kid who saved my life is pushing up daisies?

“Inspiration struck. What I could do to assuage my guilt was throw money at his family. I even thought that might be the reason God or fate or whatever had let me make all the money, so I could do something good with it.

“So I called the guy who does security for my stations-he’s an ex-cop-and told him to get me an address for Mr. Castillo’s family. In ten minutes, I had it, so I told the limo driver to take me there.

“Great big house behind a twelve-foot-tall cast-iron fence. The Castillos were obviously not living on food stamps. On the lawn, a blond teenage boy and a great big fat Mexican teenage boy were beating the hell out of each other. I later realized that was probably you, Colonel.”

“And my cousin Fernando, also a Texican,” Castillo said.

“So I called the security guy back and got the skinny on the Castillo family. They could buy and sell me. So I told the driver to take me to the airport.”

“You didn’t go in the house?” Sweaty asked.

“Sweaty. . is it all right if I call you that?”

Svetlana considered that for a full ten seconds, then nodded.

“Sweaty, I’m a coward with an active imagination. I could see myself introducing myself to Mr. Castillo’s father and mother and maybe his kid, telling them their dead son had saved my life in Vietnam, and then them asking, ‘So where the hell have you been for the past thirteen, fourteen years? You had more important things to do?’ ”

“They wouldn’t have done that,” Castillo said. “My father’s co-pilot-my father kicked him out of his Huey just before he took off and got blown away-is practically a member of the family. He’s a retired two-star.”

“Like I said, Colonel, I’m a coward,” Radio and TV Stations said. “What I’m hoping is that this trip down memory lane will convince you there were two of us who said ‘over my dead body’ when it was suggested that turning you over to Ambassador Montvale so that he could turn you over to the Russians was the best solution to the Congo-X problem.”

Castillo looked first at Sweaty, who shrugged, which he interpreted to mean “Maybe, why not?” and then at Delchamps, who did the same thing, and finally at Annapolis, who nodded.

“Okay,” Castillo said. “Two good guys out of four. Or are there any more of you?”

“There’s more,” Annapolis said. “The proponents of letting Montvale turn you and Sweaty and Colonel Berezovsky over to the Russians felt their presence here today might be a little awkward.”

Castillo snorted, and then asked, “How many more?”

“Well, counting Aloysius and Colonel Hamilton. .”

“Don’t count either one of us,” Casey said. “Hamilton’s as pissed with you people as I am. More. He was the one who let me see how you regarded us as employees.”

“Does that mean you are permanently shutting down our communications?” Annapolis asked.

“It means I’m with Charley, whatever Charley decides.”

“How many others?” Castillo pursued.

“In all, there are nine of us,” Annapolis said.

“Which means that five of you wanted to throw Charley to the lions?” Mrs. Agnes Forbison asked. It was the first time she’d opened her mouth.

“Unfortunately,” Investment Banker said, “five of us were considering that option.”

“But were dissuaded from doing so,” Agnes said. “The question then becomes, how can we be sure they can be dissuaded the next time a situation like that comes up?”

“The question, Mother Forbison,” Delchamps said, “is whether or not, having indulged the Irishman by coming here in the first place, we decide we’ve heard enough, give these people the finger, and walk out of here.”

“Is that what you want to do, Edgar?” Castillo asked.

“It was when I walked in here,” Delchamps replied. “Now I’m not so sure. And neither, to judge by Mother Forbison’s question, is she.”

“You want to discuss this privately?” Castillo asked.

“That was the first thing that popped into my mind,” Delchamps said. “But I’ve sort of changed my mind