W. Griffin - By Order of the President

"What the hell are you doing, Gringo?" Fernando asked.

"I would have liked to use the other bed for my nice clothes, but I took pity on a homeless wetback and told him he could use it. I don't want to waste any time when we get the call in the morning."

"It's already morning," Fernando said.

"With all possible tenderness and affection, Fernando, go fuck yourself. I can tell the big hand from the little hand."

Fernando chuckled, smiled, and went to his suitcase and started to lay out clean clothes on the floor next to his bed.

Charley took off his uniform and, trying to ignore the body odor that the miracle fabric now gave off, folded it and put it in his luggage. His feet and legs felt strangely light when he walked into the kitchen without his jump boots.

He made ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches. There was neither butter for the bread nor mustard for the ham and cheese. He carried one to Fernando in the bedroom. Fernando wolfed it down, commented, "That's a really lousy sandwich," and then asked if there was any more.

Charley made two more sandwiches and gave one to Fernando. As he ate the other, he stripped and put his T-shirt and shorts in one of the suitcases. He took his toilet kit into the bathroom, showered, shaved, and then crawled naked into bed.

He saw that Fernando was already in the other bed, lying on his side and probably asleep.

Charley turned off the lamp on the bedside table, rolled onto his side, and went to sleep remembering the touch of Betty's hand on his face and the soft warmth of her lips.

[THREE]

Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina

0735 10 June 2005

Major General H. V. Gonzalez was at the wheel of the Dodge Caravan outside the VIP guest quarters when Charley Castillo and Fernando Lopez walked out of the building. Captain Brewster had called ten minutes before-as Charley and Fernando were finishing their breakfast-to tell Castillo he had a firm 0745 ETA on General McNab's C-17 III Globemaster.

"Good morning, General," Charley said after he had loaded their luggage and gotten inside. "This is my cousin, Fernando Lopez."

Gonzalez out his hand over the back of the font seat and said " Bienvenida a Fort Bragg, Senor Lopez. "

"Thank you, sir," Fernando replied, in Spanish.

"I assume, Castillo," General Gonzalez said, switching to English, "that you have considered the question of giving Mr. Lopez access to classified material."

Well, fuck you, General!

"I have the authority, General," Castillo said, coldly, "to tell my cousin, or anyone else, what I think they have to know about this situation."

He spoke not only in Spanish but in the Tex-Mex patois peculiar to the San Antonio area.

Fernando picked up on his tone of voice, gave Charley a surprised look, and said to Gonzalez, in Spanish, "I don't know if this is pertinent or not, sir, but I'm a captain in the reserve and hold a top secret clearance."

Gonzalez grunted but did not reply.

When they got to the hangar at the airfield, Vic D'Alessandro was there, and so was another general officer, a major general, and his aide-de-camp, a captain. Both wore desert pattern BDUs and green berets.

"You're Castillo, I presume?" the two-star said, offering his hand to Fernando. "I'm General Chancey. I command the Special Warfare Center."

"No, sir," Fernando said and pointed at Charley. "He is."

"Sorry," General Chancey said, now offering his hand to Castillo.

"That's Fernando Lopez, General," Castillo said. "He's working with me on this."

General Chancey nodded and came up with a very faint smile.

Not another word was exchanged until D'Alessandro, after answering a wall-mounted telephone, announced, "The Globemaster's on the ground."

As Castillo watched from inside the hangar, the huge C-17 rolled slowly down the taxiway. The driver of the tug sitting just inside the hangar door started his engine.

The ground handler on the taxiway waved his wands for the aircraft to stop and cut its engines. The airplane stopped, but the two engines the pilot had not turned off continued to run. A door in the side of the fuselage opened and two men got out.

One was Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, wearing a desert camouflage battle dress uniform-and a green beret, Castillo noticed. The second man was wearing an Air Force flight suit. He went to the ground handler with the wands and spoke briefly to him. The man with the wands tucked them under his arm and gestured to the driver of the tug, who revved his engine and drove out of the hangar.

When the tug reached the ground handler, the ground handler climbed onto the tug, sat down on the back of it-facing the Globemaster-took out his wands, and made the prescribed "come ahead" gesture with them. The tug started to move down the taxiway, with the enormous Globemaster following it.

The Air Force officer trotted after General McNab and caught up with him just as he reached the hangar.

Castillo saluted. McNab returned it.

"Forgive me for mentioning this," McNab said, "but you're not supposed to do that, you know. I've just finished telling Colonel Torine how honored we are to have such a high-ranking civilian, the personal representative of the president, here to guide us in the accomplishment of our assigned tasks."

Castillo felt like a fool for saluting-it had been a Pavlovian reaction-but, on the other hand, sensed there was something in McNab's tone of voice that gave meaning-other than sarcasm-to what he'd said.

"Welcome home, sir," Castillo said.

"Goddamn, two senior civilians here to meet us," McNab said, spotting Vic D'Alessandro. "I didn't know you got out of bed this early these days, Mister D'Alessandro."

"Good morning, General."

"You got a secure place for us, Vic?" McNab asked.

D'Alessandro pointed to the door of the hangar's interior office.

"Last swept half an hour ago, General."

"Okay, let's go swap war stories," McNab said. "D'Alessandro, Torine, the generals, and, of course, Mr. Castillo."

Fernando looked at Charley, wordlessly.

Fernando gets left out here with the aides? No fucking way!

"Unless there's some reason he shouldn't, I'd like Mr. Lopez with me," Charley said.

"Yes, sir, of course," McNab said, putting out his hand. "My name is McNab, Mr. Lopez."

"Yes, sir"? What the hell is that all about?

"How do you do, sir?" Fernando said.

I may nave to kill mm, General, D'Alessandro said as they walked across the hangar. "Charley's told him everything."

"Hold off on that until we don't need him anymore," McNab said.

The Air Force officer-the leather patch on his flight suit was silver-stamped with command pilot wings and the legend COL J.D. TORINE, USAF-smiled and shook his head.

When they were inside the office, McNab sat down at a desk as D'Alessandro closed the door.

"For the benefit of Mr. Castillo and Mr. Lopez," McNab began, "Colonel Torine commands the Seventeenth Airlift Squadron at Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. Before the Air Force-scraping the bottom of the barrel-promoted him, he was in charge of our C-22 here. When General Naylor laid this requirement on the 117th, Torine couldn't find enough sober Air Force types to drive the C-17 and had to do it himself."

Torine put out his hand to Castillo. "Were you really the worst aide-de-camp in the Army?" he said with a smile.

"If General McNab said so, it must be true, sir," Castillo said.

Torine and Fernando shook hands.

"I like your airplane, Mr. Lopez," he said.

"Thank you," Fernando said.

"If you would, Mr. Castillo," McNab said, "fill us in. General Naylor being General Naylor, we're all still pretty much in the dark."

What's with the "Mr. Castillo"? Everybody knows I'm a major.