“Sir, if it’s all right with you—you know how the wives are—I’d rather go out to the stockade with Mr. D’Alessandro. ”
“Your call, Sergeant,” Castillo said.
“Okay,” D’Alessandro said, “Brewster will take you to your quarters. I’ll take Sherman to the stockade. And when I get a good—say, forty-five-minute—ETA on McNab, I’ll call Brewster and he’ll bring you out here. Okay with everybody? ”
Everybody nodded. Captain Brewster and Sergeant Sherman said, “Yes, sir.”
In Brewster’s van, on the way to the VIP quarters, Fernando
said, “That was sad, what the sergeant said.”
“What?” Charley asked.
“He said he didn’t want to go home because of his wife,” Fernando said. “He’s going off, God knows where, on something like this and he’s having a scrap with his wife.”
“That’s not what he said, Fernando,” Castillo explained. “What happened was that he went home earlier—when D’Alessandro picked him as one of the communicators. He told his wife he was going operational. She knew what that meant. He’s going somewhere to do something he can’t tell her about. He’s Delta Force, so she knows that means he’s going someplace probably unpleasant and he doesn’t know when—or if—he’ll be coming back. Special ops wives learn to deal with that. It’s not easy, but they deal with it. He didn’t want to go home, wake her up, get her all excited that he was back, and then have to put her—and himself—through the same thing again a couple of hours later.”
“Jesus Christ!” Fernando said, softly.
“I don’t remember the last time I had something to eat,” Castillo said.
“Sir,” Brewster replied, “there’s probably ham and Swiss cheese in the fridge in your quarters. And bread. But I don’t know where else you’ll be able to find something to eat tonight. Unless you want to go home with me.”
“Thanks but no thanks. What I was thinking was breakfast. Can you get that sergeant to come by, say, at quarter to seven, with stuff to make breakfast? I’d go find a mess hall but I’ll be in civvies, and we’ve got Fernando.”
“Done. He’ll be there.”
When they went into the VIP quarters bedroom, Charley went to his luggage, took out clean linen, a tweed jacket, light brown trousers, a knit shirt, and loafers and laid everything carefully on the floor next to one of the beds.
“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 put his hand over the back of the front seat and said, “Bienvenida a Fort Bragg, Señor Lopez.”