"That'd work, Charley," Danton said. "And I'm so personally pissed as a taxpayer about that bullshit that I will even arrange for C. Harry Whelan, that sonofabitch, to be there with me."
"Then why not do it?" Kingsolving asked.
"One small problem, sir. Who would fly it out to the Bataan? Jake and I'll be flying the Tu-934A back to the land of the free and home of the brave with only a fuel stop at Drug Cartel International."
"I'll fly it," Kingsolving said.
"Sir, I have painful memories of standing tall before you while you lectured at length on the inadvisability of flying UH-60 aircraft without a co-pilot. I seem to remember you telling me with some emphasis that anyone who did so was an idiot."
"Charley, if I went in with you on the Mexican UH-60, and then flew it back out here, that means we would have to land only one of the 160th choppers in there to take your Spetsnaz back to the Bataan. That would reduce the danger that one of my guys would dump one of ours at La Orchila, causing God only knows what consequential collateral political damage."
"You don't see any risk like when your guys take out the commo building?"
"As I understand your plan, Colonel, the idea is for my guys to hit the commo building in the dark, so they will never learn what happened to them, or who did it."
Castillo was silent for a moment.
Next came dissension in the ranks of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment pilots.
Four of the Night Stalkers, just about simultaneously, spoke without permission. They all said about the same thing: "Colonel, let me fly that fucking Mexican chopper."
To which Colonel Kingsolving replied, "Zip your lips, or nobody gets to go."
There was another period of silence.
"Vis-a-vis my counseling you on the inadvisability of flying UH-60 aircraft without a co-pilot, Colonel," Kingsolving said, "I meant every word of it. But there is an old military axiom that I'm really surprised you did not learn at our beloved alma mater. To wit: When you are the senior officer, you are, in certain circumstances, permitted to say, 'Do as I say, not as I do.'
"I'm going to fly that Mexican UH-60 back and forth to the island of La Orchila, Charley. Period."
"There goes your star, you realize."
"That thought did run through my mind, frankly. But what the hell. If they made me a general, they'd say I was too valuable to fly myself anywhere, with or without a co-pilot. And I don't want to fly a desk in the Pentagon."
Then he looked at Captain Lowe.
"I think we're through here, Captain. Is the Navy planning on feeding us lunch?" [FIVE] The USS Bataan (LHD 5) The Caribbean Sea 2055 12 February 2007 Former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva was not in sight when Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo entered the stateroom.
He was not really surprised. She had not spoken a word to him at lunch, then had spent the entire afternoon with the Spetsnaz somewhere below deck, presumably checking their equipment and seeing to it they understood their roles in the operation.
They had had a conversation of sorts at dinner.
"May I please have the butter?" she had asked him.
"Of course," he had said. "My pleasure."
"Thank you," she had said, ending their conversation.
Now, alone in the stateroom, Castillo decided that she had run down the old chief and told him she had changed her mind about sharing his quarters. Earlier, Captain Lowe had shown him the Bataan's sick bay-actually a small, fully equipped hospital-and while doing so, Castillo had noticed there were sleeping quarters for nurses.
She's probably in one of those.
He took off his Walmart battle dress, and lay down on the lower of the two bunks the room offered.
I'll take a shower at 0230, he decided, not now.
Taking one then will wake me up.
He closed his eyes.
"If you think we're going to make love without you taking a shower, think again," former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva announced not sixty seconds later.
He opened his eyes. She was standing beside the bunk bed wearing a thin cotton bathrobe. "Am I permitted to say I'm a little surprised?" Charley asked, after having regained his breath perhaps ten minutes later.
"In eight hours, the Venezuelans may have the both of us stretched out on a wooden table, the way your Green Berets stretched out Che Guevara," Svetlana said. "I did not want to spend all eternity knowing that I had had the chance to spend my last hours making love with you, and threw it away."
"Good thinking," he said.
"Right now, I don't like you very much-how dare you talk to me the way you did?-but I love you."
He had a wildly tangential thought. "Where's Max?"
She pointed.
Max was lying with his head between his paws on the stateroom's small desk, nearly covering it, and looking at them.
"How long's he been there?" Charley asked.
"He was sleeping under the bunk. But you were making so much noise, I guess you woke him up." [ONE] The USS Bataan (LHD 5) North Latitude 12.73, West Longitude 66.18 The Caribbean Sea 0355 13 February 2007 "I have a confession to make, sir," Castillo said as a man wearing a soft leather helmet and goggles and holding illuminated wands crossed on his chest approached the UH-60 with Policia Federal Preventiva markings. The Black Hawk helicopter was sitting, with rotors turning, at the extreme aft portion of the Bataan's flight deck.
"This is not the place, my son. But make sure you see me before you take communion," Colonel Kingsolving said, playing along.
"I think you better follow me through, sir," Castillo went on, his tone serious.
"Something wrong, Charley?" Kingsolving asked, now with concern in his voice.
"I think you better follow me through, sir," Castillo repeated. "Or take it."
"Too late to take it," Kingsolving said. "There's the 'go' signal. If you don't want to abort, I'll follow you through."
"Here we go," Castillo said.
He lifted off, hovered for a moment, and then reduced forward speed from twenty knots to ten. The deck moved out from under the aircraft at a speed of ten knots, and a moment later, he was looking at the stern of the Bataan.
The UH-60 dipped its nose toward the sea, picked up speed, and then began a steep climbing turn to the right into the dark sky.
"You all right? You want me to take it, Charley?"
"I've got it. I'm all right now," Castillo said.
Out his window he could see one of the 160th's Black Hawks being quickly pushed to the aft of the flight deck.
"Interesting departure," Kingsolving said. "Where'd you learn how to do that, at Pensacola?"
"What I was going to confess, sir, was that I don't have very much experience in night-launching a UH-60 from a carrier."
"Oh, shit!" Kingsolving said, after considering that for a moment. "Please don't tell me that was your first."
"Yes, sir. I won't tell you that."
"I had a look at your flight records, Charley, while they were trying to make up their minds whether to give you The Medal or court-martial you the last time you manifested suicidal behavior involving a UH-60. You remember that? When you went after Dick Miller?"
"If I thought that going after Dick was suicidal, I wouldn't have done it."
"You were the only aviator in Afghanistan who didn't. I was astonished to see that as long as you've been flying, you've never dinged a bird-getting shot down not counting. Never. Not any kind of a bird. Do you have an explanation for that?"
"Clean living and a pure heart?"
"You don't think what you did just now was suicidal?"
"Straight answer?"
"Please."
"No, I didn't. You following me through on the controls took care of the safety factor, and now I know how to launch at night in a UH-60 from a carrier. You never know when that might come in handy."