The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

"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.