Court Martial (19 page)

“Remember back in the hotel? You called me a boy in front of Mary… remember?”

“Yep…
boy
… I remember.” David braced himself for the attack that followed.

Arnason rose and began heading toward the barracks to take a cold shower. It was too hot even to watch them.

“You’d better stay here and save this Nebraska punk from a sure death!” Spencer spoke from his position on the bottom as he
tried bucking to keep his shoulders from being pinned.

“Kill yourselves… you’ll dehydrate first!” arnason came back and changed the direction of the fan so that it blew over the
two men wrestling. He didn’t know how much good it would do either of them, but at least he had done something thoughtful.

Spencer lay flat on his back, looking up at the cloudless blue Carolina sky. Woods lay on his stomach a few feet away, spitting
out the sand that had gotten into his mouth.

“Shit… I’m going to die!” Spencer spoke at the sky.

Woods gagged, struggled to his feet, and lunged toward an outside hose for some water. Spencer had been raised in the South
and could almost predict what was going to happen next. He rose on one elbow and started laughing as Woods turned on the faucet
and held the end of the hose up over his head. The first rush of water was
hot.

“Oh fuck!” David dropped the hose in the sand and tried brushing the hot water off his matted-down hair.

“Use the hose now, you dumb ass.” Spencer roared with laughter at the stupidity of his northern-born teammate; everybody down
South knew that the sun baked the water trapped in a rubber hose. “It’s cold now after you used up all the
hot
water!”

“Spence, you
knew that
was going to happen!” David picked up the rubber hose and wet himself down. The water felt great after wrestling in the rough
sand. “Shit, I’ve got sand burns all over me!”

“Baby!” Spencer could feel his skin burning from the same thing.

“What’s going on back here?” The familiar voice caught Spencer’s ear.

“Colonel!” Spencer jumped up from the ground and rushed over to shake hands with the Air Force major general.

“Don’t you dare, Spencer Barnett!” The general pushed the soldier’s hand away and hugged him.

The general’s aide-de-camp was a couple of feet behind the old fighter pilot, followed closely by the psychiatrist, who tried
shoving his way around the aide so that he could see the reunion between the two POWs.

“I brought you something.” Garibaldi waved for his aide to bring forward the large box that was being carried by his driver.

Spencer smiled the instant he saw what the driver was carrying. “Colonel! Damn, you do keep your word.”

The driver set the case of Del Monte fruit cocktail down on the picnic table.

“I don’t understand.” The psychiatrist looked puzzled.

“I promised…” The general began to explain, then decided that it would be better if it remained between him and Spencer. “It’s
a
private
joke.”

“So how have you been, Colonel?” Spencer patted the gen eral on his shoulder. The aide smiled. He had been briefed by the
general about Spencer.

“Fine, just fine, Spencer... but you don’t look so good right now… and who’s your friend?”

Woods stepped forward shyly, wearing only his wet underwear in front of the senior officer. He held out his hand and tried
smiling. “I’m Sergeant Woods, sir. I was with the team that…”

“Damn Sam! I’m sorry! I didn’t recognize you without… all of your make-up on!”

“That’s
camouflage paint…
Colonel!” Spencer corrected the Air Force general. “Anyone who flies Piper Cubs should know the difference.”

“Well, excuse me… Spencer!” The general sat down on the edge of the picnic table. “If you have something cold to drink, we’ll
wait out here until you two shower and get some clothes on and then we have to talk some business.”

“We can handle that, Colonel.” Spencer waved for the aide to follow them inside the barracks and showed him where the food
refrigerator was against the back wall.

The psychiatrist waited until the aide and driver had departed before asking the general the question that was burning on
his tongue: “Well? How do you feel?”

“Not as good as I had hoped for and not as bad as I had feared.” The general kept his eyes glued on the open doorway where
Spencer had disappeared. He could hear the showers running in the building.

“What do you think of Corporal Barnett?”

“He looks good! I can’t believe he’s filled out so much!” The general was amazed at how fast Spencer had gained back his body
weight. “Of course, he’s only a kid… seventeen years old.”

“Do you think he’ll crack in the courtroom?”

“No… he’s a tough young man.”

“Are you
sure,
General?”

Major General Garibaldi turned slightly on the picnic table and stared hard at the psychiatrist. “You know, you might have
some book-smarts, but you sure don’t know
people.
That boy in there kept
me alive
when I was ready to quit! He went through some torture that I
know
I couldn’t have withstood.... Yes, Dr. Martin, I’m
quite
sure he can handle a courtroom drama.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude, General.”

“You never do, Doctor, but you always are.” Garibaldi saw his aide returning carrying two Mountain Dew sodas. “We’d better
change the topic, but rest assured that Spencer won’t let us down. I think after the initial shock of seeing James wears off,
he’ll be fantastic. We have to be ready for that first encounter, though.”

“Do you think we should give Corporal Barnett some Valium before he appears before the court-martial?”

“You really don’t know your patients, do you?” Garibaldi shook his head. “Don’t be here when Spencer returns.”

“It’s my job, General!” Martin’s professional competence was being challenged.

“Not anymore. Spencer doesn’t even take aspirin, let alone a depressant and mind-controlling drug!” Garibaldi waved the psychiatrist
away. “I tolerated your bullshit because you were supposed to be the best psychiatrist in the Army… but obviously that decision
was based on your grade point average and not your common sense!”

The psychiatrist left, boiling mad and blaming Spencer for his failure.

Major General Garibaldi sat
under the
loblolly pines and thought about his session in the courtroom. He had feared a personal attack from James’s lawyers, and
when it had come he was surprised that it was based on James’s charges that
he
had also collaborated with the enemy and therefore was not qualified to testify against him. That had been easy to defend
against; the hardest part had been looking at James sitting so near to him with that arrogant grin plastered on his face.

“Where did our
friend
go?” Spencer stepped through the doorway. “I saw him leaving.”

“He’s got some business elsewhere.” Garibaldi smiled. It was good seeing the young warrior again. “I didn’t have a chance
to make it to your awards ceremony.... You know that I would have given anything to be there.”

“Sure… I understand, Colonel.”

“I’ve been given command of an important F-16 fighter unit and we were conducting something very secret at the time.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Colonel.” Spencer curled his mouth in a wide grin.

“True, I knew you’d understand. Now, about our
buddy in
there.” Garibaldi nodded toward the building that had been modified for the court-martial. “They’re going to bring you in
the first thing tomorrow morning. The defense lawyers wanted to bring you in later this afternoon but the law officer ruled
that it would be in the best interest of the court that you appear in the morning.” Garibaldi saw the puzzled look on Spencer’s
face. “They figure that you’ll be tired and easy to break after having to wait around all day wondering what’s going on inside.”

“It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“I know.” Garibaldi finished his Mountain Dew and set the can down on the wooden tabletop. “I’ll be sitting in the back of
the courtroom if you need a friendly face to look at.”

“Thanks, Colonel.”

“No problem.” Garibaldi felt his throat begin to tighten up and quickly added before he lost the ability to talk, “Spencer…
thanks
.”

Spencer smiled his wide, heart-winning grin. “You’re welcome… anytime, Colonel.”

The gray-haired general just nodded. A lot of emotion and understanding had been passed between the two warriors in just a
few words.

The Army trial counsel had made sure that Corporal Barnett and the other witnesses he planned on using for the morning session
were in the courtroom a couple of hours before the trial was due to start. The tactic was an excellent one on the part of
Brigadier General Heller. He knew that one of the best ways to break a witness was to catch him disoriented in unfamiliar
surroundings. The extra time in the courtroom setting would give his witnesses time to relax and prepare themselves mentally
for the arrival of Specialist James and his defense counsel, Brigadier General Talton, and his dozen assistant lawyers from
the civilian sector.

General Heller sat across the table from Spencer and played with a triangular piece of toast in the yoke of a partially eaten
egg. “Let’s review it one more time.”

Spencer nodded in agreement and kept eating.

“The tactics that General Tallon will use aren’t going to be very nice. Their only hope is to get you to lose your temper
or even break you on the witness stand so that they can rule you mentally incompetent as a witness. They tried that yesterday
on General Garibaldi and it backfired on them; that’s why they’ve recalled him as a witness this morning, along with the trick
they tried pulling yesterday.”

Spencer swallowed a mouthful of chipped beef on toast. “What trick, sir?”

“They want you to testify late in the day so that you’ll be tired and nervous after having to watch and wait all day.” Heller
sipped his orange juice. “I think that’s why they called for General Garibaldi to return to the witness stand this morning.”

“Fine. It isn’t aoina to bother me at all.”

“Are you sure?” Heller was secretly worried. Lieutenant Colonel Martin had briefed him on Barnett’s mental condition and refusal
to cooperate.

“Tell me what to do, General, and I’ll do it.” Spencer smiled over his fork.

“Great!” Heller leaned back in his chair and looked at his watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes to have these breakfast trays
taken back to the mess hall.”

Sergeants Arnason and Woods stacked the trays and handed them to the guards. Arnason looked at Spencer and saw that the star
witness was relaxed. General Heller was a very smart military lawyer, having them eat breakfast in the courtroom. It made
them all feel like they were now in their own homes, instead of a mysterious courtroom.

Woods lit a cigarette in the hallway outside the courtroom and blew the first lungful of blue smoke against the row of windows.
“Do you think they’ve got enough guards around this place?”

Arnason answered, “You’re just seeing the MP detachment.... There are two battalions of infantry circling Camp McCall from
the Eighty-second Airborne Division and nine Special Forces A-teams deployed in the swamps and along the streams
and rivers within five miles of here.”

“I feel like I’m the prisoner instead of James.” Spencer put his head against one of the windows and looked up at the light
blue sky. It was still very humid and hot outside, but the Army had installed a huge air-conditioning system in the courtroom
building almost overnight. “Here come the press.”

Woods blew another lungful of smoke against the windows. “Fucking commies… The KGB couldn’t have better friends during this
fucking war.”

“Be nice now, Woods!” Arnasao’s voice was mocking. “Remember the First Amendment rights of the press.”

“I’ve never read that they have the right to push wounded men off helicopters so that they could fly along and get pictures
for their damn magazines!” Everyone standing in the group knew what Woods was referring to. During the battle of the la Drang
Valley, a reporter-photographer had shoved two walking wounded out of a helicopter so that he could fly back to the hospital
and photograph the arrival of wounded American soldiers from the
soldiers’ perspective.
One of the men he had shoved off the Medevac had died shortly thereafter from shock; and the photographer had won an award
for the
realistic
series of photographs, complete with blood covering the bed of the chopper.

“We’d better get back inside the courtroom and take our seats.” Arnasao nodded in the direction of the stained double doors.

“I’ve got to take a shit first.” Spencer patted his stomach. “I ate too much.”

“I’ll go with you.” After what had happened at the cabin, Woods and Arnasao had decided on their own that they wouldn’t leave
Spencer alone until the court-martial was over.

The door to the latrine swung open and then slammed shut. Spencer and Woods could hear the water get turned on in one of the
sinks and someone using one of the urinals.

“I can’t believe that damn Heller! The nerve of that bastard!”

“Take it easy, General.... He’s a smart son of a bitch—we knew that all along.” The second voice was a deep bass.

“I can’t believe he brought that little bastard here already and they had
breakfast
in the courtroom!”

“Smart… if you ask me,” the bass voice echoed in the large latrine.

“You know that screws up our game plan.” The urinal was flushed by the unseen man and a second faucet was turned on.

“A little, but we shouldn’t have a problem breaking him. The psychiatrist’s report stated that he was very unstable and prone
to violent temper tantrums.” The bass voice sounded very confident.

“You’ve got a point there. That’s all we’ll have to do is bait him a little.”

“Bingo, General.”

Spencer had heard enough. He flushed the commode and stepped out of the booth. Woods hurried to fasten his pants. Spencer
walked over to a sink near the brigadier general and a black man dressed in a very expensive suit. The black man had his suit
coat off and was washing his face and hands. The general glanced at Spencer, not quite sure what to make of him and not recognizing
who he was.