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"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."
