"Everyone has some major failings, Sergeant Major," George answered. I, for example, am having a hard time getting over the fact that while you stopped at being a battalion command sergeant major, I was sergeant major for a brigade and I should probably have your job now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The cruel-tyrant-sergeants . . .
-Kipling, "The ‘Eathen"
D-91, International Airport, San Antonio, Texas
By dint of sheer hard work, Cazz, Reilly, and Phillie Potter had gotten the hundreds of men ready and moved from scores of different locations around the United States to Georgetown, Guyana. (And by dint of much harder and hotter work in Georgetown, Harry Gordon and his assistant-with a considerable assist from the aviation company-had gotten them all moved onward to Base Alpha.) Now it was time to close shop and move on. Cazz was heading straight to Brazil, as was Phillie, the latter having a container of inoculations on dry ice in her baggage, for anyone who was missed. Reilly had one more stop to make, to an old Titan missile base not so very far from Spokane, Washington. He'd promised Gordo that he'd see to getting the assembled light aircraft containerized and moved to port. Gordon basically didn't trust aviators to get anything right except the actual assembly and flying. And he, rightly, considered Reilly to be almost as good a loggie as he was, himself.
Reilly wasn't quite so skeptical about the Air Force but, since he did speak Spanish, since all the aircraft assemblers were Mexican, since it was a potential failure point for the mission, he'd agreed to go. Besides, he wanted to get to know some of the pilots who would be provided recon, close air support-sorta, kinda, maybe-and medevac. And those were all up in Spokane, at a long since abandoned, sold, re-sold, and re-re-sold Titan missile base, helping the Mexicans.
They could have flown the CH-801s out of the former airbase, now Grant County International Airport, to the port. Or they could have built them at widely divergent places. But the former-having eight "homebuilt" aircraft with a hell of a lot of Fieseler Storch in their ancestry, all leaving from the same place, then landing on the same place, then being partially broken down and packaged to sail on the same ship-might have attracted a little too much of the attention they'd built the things underground to avoid. And building them dispersed would probably have meant quality control problems, to say nothing of the not inconsiderable cost of redundant tools. Of those two factors, only the former had really counted as the cost of the old Titan complex dwarfed the cost of eight sets of tools.
And the other thing, thought Reilly as he sat with Cazz and Phillie waiting for their flight to board, is that, although Wes never said a word about it, I'd be really surprised if he's going to be willing to let the group we've assembled just disintegrate once this mission's done. No . . . he's too desperate never to be a civilian again for him to let that happen lightly. Building the thing in Washington state, with the title being in Wes' name, gives us an asset we can use later on.
Then, too, he was a lot more intimate with the special operations community than I ever was. I looked up ‘Grant County International Airport' and the unusual thing is that nobody flies out of it. Staging area for Special Operations Command for the Pacific region? It's possible, anyway.
I could see that, could see our little group getting a contract to provide long term support to a staging base. Might even be kind of fun.
Unlike most, Reilly hadn't come mostly out of boredom or mostly to find some adventure. Oh, he let on that he had, because that was what everyone else let on. In fact, his reasons were much stronger. God, I was so lonely, all these years. Nobody I cared about and nobody who gave a shit about me, either. And if Stauer can keep us together, I'll never be alone again. Not that I'm ever going to let anyone see that, of course.
The loudspeaker nearby boomed, "Continental Flight One Seventy-eight for Houston-Hobby, now boarding."
Reilly immediately stood, made the most cursory of nods, and said, "Cazz, Miss Potter, see you at base." With that he turned and pretty much marched down a dozen or so waiting areas, before taking his seat to wait for his own flight to Spokane.
"I'm not sorry to see him go off on his own," Phillie said, once the plane had settled into smooth flight.
"Reilly? A lot of people feel that way," Cazz said. His voice didn't sound as if he was one of them. Phillie said as much.
"He's pretty harsh," Cazz said. "But if it helps any he's at least as hard on himself as he is on everyone else. He's Athenian, so to speak."
Phillie looked confused. "Athenian? I thought he was Irish."
"Oh, he is. And if you don't believe it pour a few drinks into him." Cazz almost giggled, a most unMarine-like thing to do, and added, "He does a pretty good rendition of Rising of the Moon, as a matter of fact. Along with any of about another thousand Irish rebel songs . . . and a fair smattering of American Civil War, Russian, German-heavy on the German, Italian . . ."
"He sings?"
"Pretty well, actually, but generally only when he's drunk." That, or in training, or in action. When he's happy, in other words.
"Yes, well, ‘Athenian,' I believe you said."
"Oh . . . he was born into the world ‘to take no rest himself, nor to give any to others.' That's why he's so harsh. He just can't understand for a moment that someone might slack off, take a break, miss something important. Worst workaholic I've ever known."
"If you're telling me he's inhuman, I already knew that," Phillie said.
Cazz frowned. "He's human enough." He then laughed. "I'll admit, though, that he's pretty far out on the spectrum of ‘human.'"
"Well, I think he's obnoxious."
Cazz looked over at Phillie's face, then couldn't keep from a quick glance at her chest. He looked away and started to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"Well . . . if you weren't Wes' girl, Reilly would have been very charming-he can be very charming, you know, when he has a reason to be-in the hope and not unreasonable expectation of getting you into bed. Since you are Wes' girl, hence untouchable, in perpetuity, he treats you like everyone else. Which is to say, like shit."
Phillie looked shocked and a little insulted. "Bu . . . bu . . . but he has a wedding ring on."
Cazz lifted an eyebrow at her. "Such innocence. What would that have to do with anything?"
Phillie, having a few secrets here and there in her past, didn't comment further.
"Frankly, he never talks about his wife. He might be divorced and bearing a torch, or he might be a widower. Dunno. Never thought it was my business to ask."
D-90, Grant County International Airport (ex-Larson AFB),
Moses Lake, Washington
The senior of the CH-801 pilots, John McCaverty, met Reilly outside the main entrance to the old missile complex. This was no surprise; it certainly wouldn't have done to have one of the Mexicans standing guard. All kinds of issues with that.
McCaverty put out his hand as Reilly emerged from the rental car. "Just call me ‘Cree,'" he said. "All my friends do."
"Cree, it is," Reilly said, shaking the pilot's hand. They'd never met before. Cree was a bit taller than Reilly, intelligent looking, and fit. They were about of an age, though Cree's hairline had receded a bit more than had Reilly's. "What did you fly in the Air Force?" Reilly asked.