"Which I will deny ever telling you, of course, should someone ask. The point of me telling you this war story was so I could explain why, before we got back here, I could see a hundred places where Charley would be useful with his languages, and then when we took the Russians to Vienna and I saw him working with them I decided I wanted him. Had to have him."

"What he should be doing is time with troops, now that this war is over," Naylor said. "You did it, and I did it, when we were second lieutenants, and he should, too."

"I thought it was a waste of my time when I did it," McNab said. "I knew I wasn't going to spend thirty years of my life with cannons going off in my ears. And you know as well as I do if Charley goes back to Aviation they'll pull this 'like father, like son' bullshit all over again. He'll spend his time giving speeches to Rotary Clubs and you know it. And I'm not kidding about needing him. If I had to come up with the two most important skills for an aide to a Special Forces general, they would be: fly a helicopter, and speak as many languages other than English as possible."

"And what if I say no, Scotty? What if I say, 'This young officer has done too many unusual things already in his brief career and now it's time that he had a large dose of normal.' "

"I hope you don't, Allan. I would hate to remember this so far heartwarming reunion of ours with rancor."

As if on cue, Master Sergeant Dunham put his head in the door.

"Sir, Second Lieutenant Castillo wonders if you can spare him a moment?"

Naylor made a send-him-in gesture with his hands.

Except that he wasn't wearing an Arabian headdress, Castillo was dressed very much like Colonel McNab. The buttons of his khaki African Hunter's Safari Jacket were closed, but he was wearing shorts and knee-high stockings. A CAR-16, the "carbine" version of the standard M-16 rifle, was slung from his shoulder.

Naylor didn't see any grenade outlines.

But he saw enough to realize that the young lieutenant had fallen under the spell of-as he thought of it, had been corrupted by-Scotty McNab and there was no way he would be happy doing what he really should be doing.

Castillo saluted and then saw Colonel McNab.

"I didn't expect to see you here, sir."

"You can hug that ugly old man, Charley," McNab said. "I did."

"God, it's good to see you, Charley," Naylor said and spread his arms.

"It's good to see you, sir."

They embraced.

"I just told Colonel McNab, feeling like a father selling his daughter to a brothel keeper, that if you're insane enough to want to get involved with Special Forces I will give you my very reluctant blessing."

"I really would like to go, sir."

"It's done, then," Naylor said. "Colonel McNab, why don't you kill, say, thirty minutes-go slit a few throats; blow something up-and give Charley and me a few minutes alone?"

[ONE]

The Mayflower Hotel

1127 Connecticut Avenue NW

Washington, D.C.

1655 31 May 2005

"So you became this Green Beret colonel's fair-haired boy?" Fernando asked.

Castillo nodded. He asked with a raised eyebrow if Fernando wanted another drink. Fernando held out his empty glass.

" 'Fair-haired boy' does not accurately describe what I was," Castillo said. "But I went right to work for him."

"He could arrange your transfer just like that?"

"The C-5 landed us-and McNab's dune buggy-at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware," Castillo said. "McNab told me to get the dune buggy to the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg and when I had I could take ten days off after which I was to report to him at Bragg. I asked him how I was supposed to get the dune buggy off the air base, much less to Fort Bragg. He said he was sure I would figure something out and left me there, right then, standing beside the dune buggy on the tarmac, in my short pants, bush jacket, and ghutra."

"Short pants? Bush jacket? And what?"

"And knee-high stockings," Castillo said. "Don't want to forget those."

Fernando's face showed he wanted an explanation.

"I got the story from guys who were with him before I got there," Castillo said. "He lined them all up, said that he had looked into previous hostilities in the area, and learned that the Brit uniform had been short pants, bush jackets, and knee-high stockings. He had therefore purchased, with his discretionary operating funds, a supply of same from a hunting outfitter in Nairobi. They made, he said, a lot more sense than what the Army was issuing to ordinary soldiers."

"And the other thing? The goot-something?"

"That came next," Castillo said, smiling. "According to the story I got, he went on to say that Lawrence of Arabia, who had been a very successful irregular warrior in the area, always wore a ghutra an iqal , the standard Arab headdress." He made a circular movement around the front of his head.

Fernando's nod told him he had the picture.

"Actually, there's two kinds, one with a red-and-white headcloth. That's the shumagh," Castillo went on. "With a white headcloth, it's a ghutra. Since Lawrence had learned it was a practical item of military clothing for Arabia, that was good enough for McNab and his special operators. It obviously made more sense than a Kevlar helmet, since they were going to be out on the desert in the sun a lot. He had acquired a supply of them-one size fits all-in Riyadh."

"And you all actually wore this thing?"

"I admit, some heads turned when we showed up in Riyadh," Castillo said, chuckling.

"So how did you get the dune buggy to Fort Bragg?"

"I knew how far I would get if I went to the Air Force with my problem-especially in my Lawrence of Arabia uniform-so I went into Dover, rented a ton-and-a-half truck from U-Haul, loaded the dune buggy aboard, and drove to Bragg. Thank God for the American Express card. Then I went home, spent ten days with Abuela and Grandpa, and then went back to Bragg."

"While I sat in the goddamned desert," Fernando said, "drinking lukewarm bottled water and eating MREs."

"I admit I was really beginning to think that I was something special," Castillo said. "Which notion was promptly taken from me when I got to Bragg. By then, he was Brigadier General McNab. I expected either thanks or even congratulations for getting his damned buggy to Bragg. Instead, he chewed me out for not protecting the footlocker full of scotch and cognac:"

"What?"

"Before the Marines liberated Kuwait City, Special Ops guys were there. Including McNab. His first stop was the U.S. embassy, where he blew the door on the crypto room, and filled a footlocker with the booze the diplomats had locked up before getting out. I had forgotten it was still on the dune buggy.

"He said if I was going to be in Special Forces, I was going to have to understand that Special Forces people could be trusted with anything but somebody else's whiskey and I could consider myself lucky that nobody at SWC thought I could possibly have been stupid enough to leave it on the dune buggy and that it had still been there when he collected the buggy."

Fernando laughed.

"And then he said he was going to charm school:"

"What?"

"I didn't know what it was, either," Castillo replied. "What they do is gather all the just-promoted-to-brigadier-generals together, usually at Fort Leaven-worth, the Command and General Staff School?"

"I know about Leavenworth," Fernando said.

": and the chief of staff and some other really senior brass tell them how to behave as general officers. McNab said the real purpose was to make sure the new generals didn't get too big for their solid striped trousers:"