Charley got in the airplane and went into the cockpit.
[TWO]
Philadelphia International Airport Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 0205 10 June 2005
Philadelphia ground control had directed them to the Lease-Aire hangar, so Castillo wasn’t surprised to see, as they taxied up, two Ford Crown Victorias, with all the police regalia, and a third, unmarked Victoria.
Is that Betty’s unmarked car?
As the Lear parked, Sergeant Schneider and Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., got out of the unmarked car. Miller was still wearing the ragged clothing from his father’s garage that Betty had suggested he wear while meeting the undercover cops.
That triggered an uncomfortable thought: Jesus, I’ve been telling these people I’m Secret Service and/or Hall’s executive assistant and here I am in my Class A’s.
Three cops got out of the police cars. All were wearing the leather jackets of the Highway Patrol. One of them was a burly man with a lieutenant’s bars on his jacket epaulets.
Ah, the brother who’s going to break both my legs. I told him—or at least let him think—I’m in the DEA.
Shit!
As Fernando was shutting down the Lear, Castillo took off his headset, put on his beret, and went into the cabin. He found the Delta team arranging their gear and said, “You guys made up your mind which of you will stay here and which will go wherever the ever-changing winds of fate are going to take me?”
Sergeant First Class Seymour Krantz, who wasn’t much over the height and weight minimums for the Army, smiled at him.
“I was with Major Miller in Afghanistan, sir, so if it’s all right with you . . .”
“You’ll go anywhere he’s not, right?”
Krantz chuckled.
“Major Miller and I get along pretty good, sir.”
“Okay. What I’m going to do is try to get a cop to sit on the airplane and then take Sergeant Sherman with us to help you get the radio set up.”
They nodded and said, “Yes, sir,” almost in unison.
Castillo opened the door and stepped down from the Lear.
“Where the hell did you get the airplane?” Miller asked by way of greeting.
“It belongs to my cousin Fernando,” Castillo said. “Good morning, Sergeant Schneider.”
“Good morning,” she said, avoiding looking at him, and formally—and more than a little awkwardly—shaking his hand. “This is my brother, Lieutenant Frank Schneider, of the Highway Patrol.”
Lieutenant Schneider was standing with his arms folded, looking the opposite of friendly. The other two Highway Patrolmen, both of them large and mean looking, stood behind him. One of them was the sergeant who’d driven him to the airport earlier.
And I wonder how long it took for you to tell Ol’ Break My Legs that the Secret Service calls me Don Juan?
“Good morning,” Castillo said. “Or, good middle of the night.”
Lieutenant Schneider neither smiled nor offered his hand.
“You told me you was DEA,” he accused.
“And you told me you were going to break both my legs,” Castillo said. “One good lie deserves another, right?”
“What did he say to you?” Betty asked, aghast. “Frank, damn you!”
Castillo saw Sergeant Krantz, all five-feet-four and 130 pounds of him, struggling to get his huge hard-sided suitcase down from the Lear.