The shooters pa-4 Page 9

  "I'm in the kitchen, Pete," Prentiss called. "Be right there."

  When he came into the living room, Prentiss said, "Jesus, that was quick."

  "Well, you said you needed a favor," the man said.

  "Do you know Miss Wilson?" Prentiss asked.

  "I know who she is."

  "Beth, this is Mr. Kowalski. He was my instructor pilot when I went through Blue Flight. He was with Lieutenant Castillo in the desert."

  Beth nodded coldly at Kowalski.

  Kowalski looked at Prentiss.

  "How'd you hear about that?" Kowalski said.

  "From him," Prentiss said. "What he told the general was something like 'There we were, the best Apache pilot in the Army and the worst one, flying an Apache over the Iraqi desert at oh dark hundred with people shooting at us.'"

  Kowalski chuckled.

  "Well," he said, "that's a pretty good description. Except, as he shortly proved, he was a much better Apache pilot than he or I thought he was."

  "Would you please tell Miss Wilson about that?"

  Kowalski glanced at her, then looked back at Prentiss and said, "What's this all about, Tom? Did somebody tell the general what Charley's really doing here?"

  "I don't know what he's really doing here," Prentiss said, "but I'll take my chances about learning that, too. Start with the desert, please, Pete."

  "It would help if I knew what this is all about, Tom."

  "Okay. A source in whom Miss Wilson places a good deal of faith has implied that the only reason Castillo was in an Apache in the desert was because his father had the Medal of Honor."

  "Absolutely true," Kowalski said. He shook his head. "Jesus Christ, I'd pretty much forgotten that!"

  Beth flashed Prentiss a triumphant glance.

  Then Kowalski went on: "What happened was a week, maybe ten days before we went over the berm, the old man, Colonel Stevens? He was then a light colonel"-Prentiss nodded-"Stevens called me in and said I wasn't going to believe what he was going to tell me."

  "Which was?" Prentiss said.

  "That I was about to have a new copilot. That said new copilot had a little over three hundred hours' total time, forty of which were in the Apache, and had been in the Army since last June, when he'd graduated from West Point. And the explanation for this insanity was that this kid's father had won the Medal of Honor, and they thought it would make a nice story for the newspapers that the son of a Medal of Honor guy had been involved in the first action…etcetera. Get the point?"

  "Now, Tom, isn't that very much what Randy said?" Beth asked in an artificially sweet tone.

  "I'm not finished," Kowalski said. "Tom said I was to tell you what happened."

  "Oh, please do," Beth said.

  "Well, I shortly afterward met Second Lieutenant Charley Castillo," Kowalski continued. "And he was your typical bushy-tailed West Point second john. He was going to win the war all by himself. But I also picked up that he was so dumb that he had no idea what they were doing to him.

  "And I sort of liked him, right off. He was like a puppy, wagging his tail and trying to please. So because of that, and because I was deeply interested in preserving my own skin, I spent a lot of time in the next week or whatever it was, giving him a cram course in the Kowalski Method of Apache Flying. He wasn't a bad pilot; he just didn't have the Apache time, the experience.

  "And then we went over the berm and-what did Castillo say?-'There we were flying over the Iraqi desert at oh dark hundred with people shooting at us.' "What we were doing was taking out Iraqi air defense radar. If the radar didn't work, they not only couldn't shoot at the Air Force but they wouldn't even know where it was.

  "I was flying, and Charley was shooting. He was good at that, and like he said, he wasn't the world's best Apache pilot.

  "And then some raghead got lucky. I don't think they were shooting at us; what I think happened was they were shooting in the air and we ran into it. Anyway, I think it was probably an explosive-headed 30mm that hit us. It came through my windshield, and all of a sudden I was blind…

  "And I figured, 'Oh, fuck'"-he glanced at Beth Wilson-"sorry. I figured, 'We're going in. The kid'll be so shook up he'll freeze and never even think of grabbing the controls'-did I mention, we lost intercom?-'and we're going to fly into the sandpile about as fast as an Apache will fly.' "And then, all of a sudden, I sense that he is flying the sonofabitch, that what he's trying to do is gain a little altitude so that he can set it down someplace where the ragheads aren't.

  "And then I sense-like I said, I can't see a goddamned thing-that he's flying the bird. That he's trying to go home."

  "When he really should have been trying to land?" Beth asked.

  "Yeah, when he really should have been trying to land," Kowalski said. "When most pilots would have tried to land."

  "Then why didn't he?" Beth asked.

  "Because when he had to wipe my blood from his helmet visor, he figured-damned rightly-that if he set it down, even if there no were ragheads waiting to shoot us-which there were-it would be a long time before anybody found us, and I would die.

  "From the way the bird was shaking, from the noise it was making, I thought that we were going to die anyway; the bird was either going to come apart or blow up."

  "So he should have landed, then?" Beth asked.

  "Either I'm not making myself clear, young lady, or you don't want to hear what I'm saying," Kowalski said, not pleasantly. "If Charley had set it down, he would have lived, and maybe I wouldn't have. He knew that all those long miles back to across the berm. And he had enough time in rotary-wing aircraft to think what I was thinking-Any second now, this sonofabitch is going to come apart, and we'll both die. Knowing that, he kept flying. In case there is any question in your mind, I am the founding member of the Charley Castillo Fan Club."

  "That's a very interesting story," Beth said.

  "Well, you asked for it," Kowalski said. "I don't know where you got your story, but you got it wrong."

  "What happened then, Pete?" Prentiss asked.

  "Well, when I got out of the hospital-I wasn't hurt as bad as it looked; there's a lot of blood in the head, and I lost a lot, and that's what blinded me-I went looking for him. But he was already gone. I asked around and found out that when the public relations guys learned that Colonel Stevens had put Charley in for the impact award of the DFC-which he damned sure deserved, that and the Purple Heart, because he'd taken some shrapnel in his hands-they'd arranged to have him flown to Riyadh, so that General Schwarzkopf could personally pin the awards on him. A picture of that would really have gotten in all the newspapers.

  "But at Riyadh, one of the brass-I heard it was General Naylor, who was Schwartzkopf's operations officer; he just got put in for a third star, they're giving him V Corps, I saw that in The Army Times-"

  "I know who he is," Prentiss said.

  Kowalski nodded. "Anyway, someone took a close look at this second lieutenant fresh from West Point flying an Apache and decided something wasn't kosher. What I heard first was that Charley had been reassigned to fly Hueys for some civil affairs outfit to get him out of the line of fire, so to speak-"

  "I don't understand 'what you heard first,'" Beth interrupted.

  "-then I heard," Kowalski went on, ignoring her while looking at Prentiss, "what Charley was really doing was flying Scotty McNab around the desert in a Huey. The story I got was that was the only place Naylor thought he could stash him safe from the public relations guys, who couldn't wait to either put Charley back in an Apache or send him on a speechmaking tour."

  "You said something before, Pete, about what Castillo is 'really doing here'?" Prentiss asked.

  "You really don't know?"

  Prentiss shook his head.

  "And the general doesn't know either? Or maybe heard something? Why the questions?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Prentiss said. "I heard he was getting Blue Flight transition into the King Air."

  "Then I think we
should leave it there," Kowalski said. "If you don't mind."

  "If I tell you, and Miss Wilson agrees, that anything you tell us won't go any farther than this room…"

  "I really would like an explanation of that," Beth said.

  "Okay, with the understanding that I'll deny everything if anybody asks me," Kowalski said.

  "Understood," Prentiss said.

  "Agreed," Beth said.

  "Well, the original idea, as I understand it, was to stash Charley where he should have been all along-flying in the left seat of a Huey in an aviation company. Christ, he'd just gotten out of flight school, and he didn't even go through the Huey training; they just gave him a check ride. In a company, he could build up some hours. But Naylor figured if he sent him to a regular company, the same people who'd put him in an Apache would put him back in one. So he sent him to McNab, who had this civil affairs outfit as a cover for what he was really doing in the desert."

  "Which was?" Beth asked.

  "Special Forces, honey," Kowalski said. "The guys with the Green Beanies."

  "Oh," she said.

  "But it didn't work out that way. McNab heard about the kid who'd flown the shot-up Apache back across the berm, went for a look, liked what he saw, and put him to work flying him around. I understand they got involved in a lot of interesting stuff. And then McNab found out that Charley speaks German and Russian. I mean really speaks it, like a native. And that was really useful to McNab.

  "So the war's over. McNab gets his star…there were a lot people who didn't think that would ever happen-"

  "How is it that he speaks German and Russian like a native?" Beth interrupted.

  "His mother was German; he was raised there. I don't know where he got the Russian. And some other languages, too. Anyway, McNab is now a general. He's entitled to an aide, so he takes Charley to Bragg with him as his aide…"

  Kowalski stopped and smiled and shook his head.

  "Why are you smiling?" Beth asked.

  "Charley thought he was really hot stuff. And why not? He wasn't out of West Point a year, and here he was an aviator with the DFC, two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and the Combat Infantry Badge. And now a general's aide."

  "I didn't know about the CIB and the Bronze Star," Prentiss said. "Where'd he get those?"

  "I saw the Bronze Star citation," Kowalski said. "It says he 'distinguished himself while engaged in intensive combat action of a clandestine and covert nature.' I guess he got the CIB and the second Purple Heart from the same place."

  "That's all it said?" Prentiss asked.

  "God only knows what McNab did over there, all of it covert and clandestine. He came out of that war-and you know how long it lasted; it took me longer to walk out of Cambodia-with a Distinguished Service Medal, a Purple Heart, a star for his CIB, and the star that most people never thought he'd get.

  "Anyway, when Charley got to Bragg, McNab quickly took the wind out of his sails."

  "I'd like to know how he managed to do that," Beth said sweetly.

  Kowalski gave her a look that was half curiosity and half frown, then went on, "When I heard Charley was at Bragg, I went to see him the first time. He wasn't in McNab's office; he was out in the boonies, at Camp Mackall, taking Green Beanie qualification training. Eating snakes and all that crap, you know? And before that, McNab had sent him to jump school. That'll take the wind out of anybody's sails."

  "I thought he was General McNab's aide," Beth said.

  "Oh, he was, but first he had to go to Benning and Mackall. Then, as an aide, McNab really ran his ass ragged. What he was doing, of course, was training him. But Charley didn't know that. He decided that God really didn't like him after all, that the fickle finger of fate had got him, that he was working for one mean sonofabitch.

  "He told me that when his tour as an aide was up, it was sayonara, Special Forces, back to Aviation for him. McNab was of course one, two jumps ahead of him. I was up there to see Charley maybe two, three months ago on a, quote, Blue Flight cross-country exercise, end quote. McNab sent for me, told me the conversation was private, and asked me what I thought of the 160th."

  "The Special Forces Aviation Regiment?" Beth asked.

  Kowalski nodded.

  "Special Operations Aviation Regiment. SOAR. I told him what I thought-which is that it's pretty good, and I would much rather be at Campbell flying with the Night Stalkers than teaching field-grade officers to fly here.

  "He said he thought it would be just the place for Charley to go when his aide tour was up. I told him I didn't think that with as little time as Charley had-either total hours or in the Army-they'd take him. He said what he was thinking of doing was sending Charley over here for Blue Flight transition into the King Air-which he already knew how to fly-and what could be done while he was here to train him in something else, something that would appeal to the 160th?

  "He said he knew two people who were going to have a quiet word in the ear of whoever selected people for the 160th saying that they'd flown with him in combat, and thought he could make it in the 160th. Then he pointed to me and him.

  "And he said, 'If I hear you told him, or even if he finds out about this, I will shoot you in both knees with a.22 hollow-point.'" Kowalski laughed. "McNab really likes Charley. They're two of a kind."

  "So what are you doing for him here?" Prentiss asked.

  "If it's got wings or rotary blades, by the time I send him back to Bragg, he will be checked out in it as pilot-in-command," Kowalski said. "I've even checked him out in stuff the Aviation Board has for testing that the Army hasn't even bought yet."

  "How do you get away with that?" Prentiss asked.

  "I'm the vice president of the Instrument Examiner Board and the training scheduler for Blue Flight," Kowalski said. "Very few people ask me why I'm doing something. And a lot of people owe me favors. Like I figure I owe Charley several big ones."

  Prentiss nodded

  "Thanks, Pete," he said.

  "This is the favor you wanted? Telling you about Charley?"

  "Yeah. And now I need one more. You going home from here?"

  "Yeah," Kowalski said.

  "How about dropping Miss Wilson at Colonel Gremmier's quarters? I have the feeling she'd rather be with anyone but me right now."

  Kowalski looked at the girl, then back at Prentiss.

  "You going to explain that?" Kowalski said.

  "You don't want to know, Pete."

  "Yeah, sure. Gremmier's house is right on my way."

  [-VI-] 2002 Red Cloud Road

  Fort Rucker, Alabama 1955 6 February 1992 "These are really wonderful photos," Juan Fernando Castillo said. He glanced up from the thick photo album on the coffee table in the Wilsons' living room and met Brigadier General Harold F. Wilson's eyes.

  "They mean a lot to me, Don Fernando," the general said.

  The last snapshot that Don Fernando was looking at was a five-by-seven color photograph of Second Lieutenant Harold F. Wilson and WOJG Jorge A. Castillo standing by the nose of an HU-1D helicopter of the 322nd Attack Helicopter Company. Both were smiling broadly.

  Don Fernando-no one had ever dared call him Don Juan, for the obvious reason-was a tall, heavyset man with a full head of dark hair. He wore a well-tailored nearly black double-breasted pin-striped suit. He looked very much like one of his grandsons, Fernando Manuel Lopez, who sat on one side of him on the Wilsons' couch, and not at all like his other grandson, Carlos Guillermo Castillo, who sat on the other side of him.

  "Let me tell you what I've decided to do with those photos, Don Fernando," Wilson said. "And a good decision is a good decision, even if it is made much longer after it should have been."

  "Excuse me?" Don Fernando said.

  "I have decided that many of them should be hanging, suitably framed, in the Jorge Castillo Classroom Building. The first thing Monday morning, I will take them to our state-of-the-art photo lab."

  "I think that's a very good idea, General," Don Fernando said.


  "You're not going to stop that, are you? Calling me 'General'?"

  "You have to understand, Harry," Don Fernando said, "that I never got any higher than major, and never very close to general officers."

  "When Jorge and I were in 'Nam, we thought majors were God," Wilson said.

  "So did we majors in Korea," Don Fernando said.

  They laughed.

  "I never thought majors were God, did you, Gringo?" Fernando Lopez asked Charley in a mock innocent tone.

  "Fernando!" Dona Alicia Castillo said.

  The wife of Don Fernando-and grandmother of Fernando Lopez and Charley Castillo-was a slight woman, her black hair heavily streaked with gray and pulled tight around her head. She wore a single strand of large pearls around her neck. Her only other jewelry consisted of two gold, miniature branch insignias-Armor and Aviation, honoring Fernando and Charley, respectively-pinned to the bosom of her simple black dress and her wedding and engagement rings.

  She was an elegant, dignified, and formidable lady.

  Don Fernando smiled. "My darling, Fernando's been calling him that from the moment Carlos got off the plane. What makes you think he'll stop now?"

  "Actually, Fernando," Charley said, "now that I think about it, no, I never thought majors were God-like. Other comparisons, however, have occurred to me from time to time."

  Dona Alicia shook her head.

  "May I finish, gentlemen?" Wilson asked. "As I was saying, I will order that they be copied with great care, enlarged, and three copies made of each. You should have your complete set in San Antonio by Friday."

  "Oh, my God, you don't have to do that," Don Fernando said.

  "Oh, yes, I do," Wilson said. "I'm only sorry that I didn't…"

  "What happened, happened," Don Fernando said. "You tried."

  "And our number is unlisted," Dona Alicia said. "You couldn't be expected to find someone who isn't in the book."

  "My wife and I were deeply touched by your letter," Don Fernando said.

  "Yes, we were, Harry," Dona Alicia said. "It was heartfelt. And then the maid threw it out before I could reply. Things happened that kept us from getting together before this. I'm just so glad it finally happened."

  "General," Castillo said, "may I ask a question?"