The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

The four of them got into a waiting Dodge Caravan and were driven back to Cairns Field.

Then, as Castillo was doing the walk-around and as Miller was returning from filing their flight plan, two Army Chevrolet sedans and two Army Dodge Caravans drove onto the tarmac in front of Base Operations.

General Allan Naylor got out of one of the sedans and Lieutenant General McNab got out of the other. Major General (Retired) Miller got out of one of the Caravans, and Major General (Retired) Wilson, and his grandson, Randolph Richardson III, got out of the other.

It was an awkward moment all around.

“I wanted to say goodbye and good luck,” General Naylor said.

There was a chorus of “Thank you, sir.”

“Well, I suppose if you castrate too many bulls,” General McNab said, “you’re going to get gored, sooner or later. Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out.”

General Naylor looked askance at General McNab.

General Miller took his son to one side for a private word.

General Wilson took his grandson and Castillo to one side for a private word. General Wilson had known all along that Castillo was the natural father of his grandson. The boy and Castillo had learned of their real relationship only recently.

“Sir,” Randolph Richardson III asked, “where are you going?”

“Randy, I just don’t know.”

“Am I ever going to see you again?”

It took Castillo a moment to get rid of the lump in his throat.

“Absolutely, positively, and soon,” he managed to say.

Randy put out his hand.

Castillo shook it.

Fuck it!

He embraced his son, felt his son hug him back, and then let him go.

He wanted to say something else but this time the lump in his throat wouldn’t go away.

“Your mother’s waiting lunch for us, Randy,” General Wilson said, and led the boy back toward the Caravan.

Gulfstream 379 broke ground about four minutes later. It flew to Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, where it took on fuel and went through Customs and Immigration procedures, and then flew to the seaside resort city of Cancún on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

Colonel Jake Torine and Captain Dick Sparkman, who had been retired that day from the USAF with considerably less panoply—each had received a FedEx package containing their retirement orders and their Distinguished Service Medals—were already there. Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC, had received a similar package from the Department of the Navy.

The Gulfstream refueled, Torine and Sparkman took off for Las Vegas,

where the plane came to be parked in one of the AFC hangars until a decision about its future could be reached.

At the moment, Gulfstream 379 was leased “dry” from Gossinger Consultants, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., of Fulda, Germany, which had bought the aircraft from Lopez Fruit and Vegetables Mexico, a wholly owned subsidiary of Castillo Agriculture, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, whose president and chief executive officer was Fernando Lopez, and whose corporate officers included one Carlos Castillo.

That status would have to be changed, Two-Gun Yung had announced, no matter what decision was reached about the offer of “those people” in Las Vegas.

At Cancún Airport International several hours later, CWO5 Leverette (Retired) and Sergeant Major Davidson (Retired) boarded a Mexicana flight to Mexico City. There, Leverette, now traveling on a Honduran passport under another name, would board a Varig flight to São Paulo, Brazil, and Davidson, traveling under his own name on an Israeli passport, would board a Mexicana flight bound for Lima, Peru.

Castillo had watched the takeoff of the Mexicana flight to Mexico City from the tarmac on the cargo side of the Cancún airfield. Then he had climbed into a Peruaire 767 cargo plane.

The 767 had flown up that morning from Santiago, Chile, with a mixed cargo of Chilean seafood and Argentine beef, citrus fruits and vegetables. The food was destined for Cancún Provisions, Ltda., and would ultimately end in the kitchen of The Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort, and in the galleys of cruise ships which called at Cancún.