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“I understand,” she said.
“I’ll see you soon, Abuela,” Castillo said. “I promise.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will,” Doña Alicia said. “Via con Dios, mi amor.”
“You can break it down, Bob,” Castillo said to Sergeant Kensington.
“Yes, sir.”
Castillo looked out the plateglass window of the quincho and saw that Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC, was again playing with Max.
“Keep an eye on Lester, will you, Bob?”
“The kid’s going to be all right, Colonel,” Kensington said.
“‘You don’t need to be all muscle to be a good special operator’—is that what you mean?”
“Yeah, that, too, Colonel. Kranz was even smaller than Lester, and he was a one hell of a soldier until these bastards got him…”
“Operative words, Bob: ‘until these bastards got him.’ Keep an eye on Bradley.”
“…but that’s not what I meant.”
Castillo looked at him, then made a Well, let me know what you do mean gesture.
“He knows how to handle tough situations.”
“Well, he certainly performed at the estancia, didn’t he?”
“I was talking about Mackall. No orders, except from you and Vic D’Allessando not to say one word about what went down here and what he was doing there. A—what?—hundred-and-thirty-pound Marine? A corporal and everybody else is a sergeant or better. You do know what happened there?”
Castillo shook his head.
Kensington grinned. “Jack Davidson told me. He thought some jarhead sergeant major was pulling his chain, that Lester was sent there as a joke. So he asked Lester how come he got sent to the Q course. When Davidson asks somebody something, he usually gets an answer. What Lester told him was, he didn’t know. Davidson asked him where he came from and Lester told him he’d been sor
t of the clerk typist for the Marine guard detachment at the embassy here. So Davidson told him he’d better forget about taking the course, nothing personal, he just didn’t have what it takes. He hadn’t even been to jump school, for one thing. But since he was a clerk typist, until Davidson could straighten things out, that’s what he would do. Punch keys on a computer keyboard. Lester didn’t even tell him he’d done a tour in Iraq.
“So that’s what he did, until General McNab and Vic showed up at Mackall to take him to Kranz’s funeral and McNab thanked him for saving your ass with those two head shots in the Ninjas.”
Castillo chuckled. “I would like to have seen Sergeant Major Davidson’s face when McNab told him that. But Jack is formidable…”
“Yes, he is.”
“…and maybe Lester was just afraid to say anything.”
“Oh, no. I asked him why he hadn’t said anything, and what he said was that he knew you and Vic didn’t want him to make waves, so he didn’t. He said he knew everything would come out sooner or later. That’s my point. He’s a smart little sonofabitch and I like him.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“You still have some clout with McNab, Colonel?”
“Nobody has clout with McNab.”
“I was hoping maybe you could get Lester a waiver—probably, waivers—and let him take the Q course. He really wants to.”
“He wants to take the Q course?” Castillo asked, dubiously.
“He wants in Special Ops. Bad. And as far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome.”
