[TWO]
The Malaga Suite
Portofino Island Resort & Spa
Pensacola Beach, Florida
0620 7 January 2006
Castillo, carrying fresh linen and his toilet kit, quietly closed the door of the second, unused bedroom of the suite, then turned to head for its bathroom. He immediately saw that the bedroom in fact was in use.
Max was stretched out—not curled up—on the bed.
“Don’t let me disturb you, buddy. I am in my kindly don’t-wake-the-weary-sleepers mood.”
Charley had not disturbed Svetlana, who was soundly asleep in the master bedroom. He had thought—but of course did not tell her—that the way she slept was like Max slept: completely limp, sort of melting into the sheets and mattress.
Max took him at his word, closed his eyes—the only part of him that had moved when Castillo came into the room—and went back to sleep.
Castillo moved to the bathroom, where on the sink he found a coffeemaker beside a hair dryer. He got the coffeemaker going, then performed his morning ablutions, which included shaving under the running water of the shower.
The coffee was ready when he was finished, and tasted as bad as he had been afraid it would.
The options were calling room service, or drinking it. Calling room service would mean a waiter would eventually appear and make enough noise to wake Svet. Perhaps worse, there was no guarantee the room-service coffee would taste any better than what he had.
He left the bathroom, carrying both the coffeepot and a plastic mug, and headed for the balcony that overlooked the beach.
Max followed.
It was a beautiful day. A little chilly, but going back in their bedroom for one of the terry-cloth robes probably would wake Svet. And there were no robes in the second bathroom; he had looked.
He took another sip of the coffee, grimaced as he swallowed, set down the cup, and then, resting his hands on the balcony railing, looked down at the beach.
A group of sturdy souls in T-shirts and shorts were double-timing down the beach, headed by Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab.
Immediately, memories came to him of Second Lieutenant Castillo jogging after Brigadier General McNab all over picturesque Fort Bragg. General McNab was a devotee of physical conditioning in general and early-morning jogging in particular.
“I wonder how I got excused from this morning’s jaunt?” he asked Max, who didn’t reply.
He had just acquired the answer—If the general thinks the FBI is watching the airplane, to locate if not detain me, the general thinks there is a strong possibility they might be watching the Portofino Island Resort & Spa for the same purpose— when a bonging announced that someone was at the door.
“That, Max, is either the FBI or, more than likely, someone McNab sent to summon me for the morning run.”
Castillo worried more than a little about the former possibility—particularly as it might apply to Svetlana—while he rushed to open the door before the chimes bonged again and awoke her.
He pulled it open.
“Good morning, sir,” a trim, dark-haired young man of fourteen said. He wore khaki pants and an obviously brand-new T-shirt bearing Naval Aviator wings and the legend U.S. NAVAL AVIATION MUSEUM.
“Did I wake you, sir?” Randolph J. Richardson IV said politely.
“No, Randy. I had to get up to answer the doorbell. Come on in.”
They somewhat formally shook hands.
“Thank you, sir.”
Max put his front paws on Randy’s shoulders and enthusiastically lapped his face.
“You’re with your dad?” Castillo asked.
“He had to come here to get wheels to meet some guy at the airport.”
“Yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten.”
Colonel J. Porter Hamilton of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute is due in at 0815.
McNab sent Righteous Randolph to meet him.
“I told him that you had called and said you wanted to introduce me to General McNab.”
What the hell?
“Why did you do that, Randy?”
“Otherwise, he wouldn’t have brought me over here.”
“Why did you want to come over here?”
“I have a couple of questions, sir.”
Castillo waved the boy onto a couch.
“Have you had your breakfast?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither have I. There’s a room-service menu on the table there.” Castillo gestured to it. “Order up.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He took the menu from the coffee table and began to study its possibilities.
“See anything you like?” Castillo asked after a moment.
“Yes, sir. They have buckwheat pancakes with genuine Vermont maple syrup, not that usual molasses crap they call pancake syrup.”
“Well, that sounds good. Then that’s what we’ll have.” He paused. “What kind of questions, Randy?”
“Like, what’s going on here, sir?”
“I don’t understand.”
Randy shrugged. “The last thing I heard was that you were getting kicked out of the Army.”
Jesus H. Christ!
“Where did you hear that?”
“Last week my father came home . . .”
He’s not your father.
I am.
“. . . and told Mom that you were getting kicked out of the Army. Some guy he used to work for in the Pentagon . . . Colonel Remley? . . .”
“I know Colonel Remley,” Castillo said evenly.
“. . . told him General McNab was sending him to Argentina to get you to sign the papers.”
Castillo didn’t answer.
“And here you are,” Randy finished, “with General McNab.”
“Randy, what you got, what your father got, is called ‘a garbled message.’ I’m retiring from the service.”
“And when he came to the motel last night, I was in the bathroom. I heard him tell Mom that she wouldn’t believe it, but you were having a party with General McNab in McGuire’s restaurant.”
“And so we were. Your father was invited, of course, but he wanted to be with you and your mother.”
“How are you going to retire? You don’t have enough service to retire; you’re a classmate of my father’s.”
I will be goddamned if I’ll lie to my son and tell him I’m “psychologically unfit to remain on active service.”
Damn that paper-pushing, straight-leg-chair-warming sonofabitch Remley!
“Medically,” Castillo said. “I’m being medically retired.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Sonofabitch!
There was the sound of a door opening, and both automatically looked toward it.
“Good morning,” Svetlana said from the doorway to the master bedroom.
She was wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, running a heavy wooden-handled brush through her lustrous hair.
Randy politely got to his feet.
“Randy, this is Miss Barlow,” Castillo said. “Svet, this is—”
“I know who he is,” she said, smiling warmly and looking between them. “One look at those eyes and I’d know him anywhere!”
Oh, shit!
Svetlana saw something on both their faces but didn’t know what it was. Her smile disappeared.
“Oh? You are not Carlos’s son, his son who lives with his mother and her husband?”
Where the hell did she get that?
From me, of course—that’s where the hell she got that, stupid.
I told her—and Pevsner and damn near everybody else—that I had a son who lived with his mother.