Jungle Rules (70 page)

“Major Danger!” Terry O’Connor called out, seeing Jack Hembee across from the chief of staff and the provost marshal. The former operations officer from Fire Support Base Ross turned his head and smiled, seeing the two defense lawyers with an unfamiliar third man accompanying them. He gave the men a quick wave, and returned his attention to the colonels who conferred with him.

“We’ve got the prisoners contained for the night,” Hembee said to the group as the three lawyers approached and listened. “With our reinforced reaction company covering every foot of that fence line, nobody’s going anywhere. I say let them fight among themselves, get good and tired, and we can start clearing them out sometime tomorrow. They’ll want to sleep by then.”

“I think Jack’s right,” Colonel Webster said, slapping the major across the shoulders. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. We start popping gas in the dark and no telling what kind of disaster we can stir up. Besides, we have all those prisoners of war right down the hill, and the smoke has them coughing up a storm as it is. Mix in a bunch of CS and we’ll have a riot over there, too.”

“Staff Sergeant Abduleses mentioned that we had some shooting from the towers when this thing started,” Lieutenant Schuller said, looking at the senior member of his guard staff present with the group.

“Right,” Colonel Webster said, and looked up at the towers. “First thing I did when I got here, after the staff sergeant told me what happened, and those jokers were still shooting, I had every man who pulled a trigger brought out of the towers and replaced. Those men are now supervising the working parties among the base parolees. Last thing we need is somebody getting shot. According to Abdul here, our illustrious Sergeant Turner had apparently told those men to start shooting over the prisoners’ heads if trouble broke out. Although they were just following Turner’s orders, I still replaced the men, just to make sure I don’t have any trigger-happy jocks remaining up topside.

“We did have a group of inmates that tried to cut through the fence, but ol’ Abdul the Butcher here, had one of the M60s walk a little machine-gun fire in front of them as an attention-getter. Needless to say, it turned them back in short order. So I left a standing order to do that again if anyone else attempts to escape. Major Hembee and the reaction force have orders to do the same. I just don’t want anyone opening up on people inside the wire.”

“What about our people, sir?” Schuller asked. “What’s the count?”

“Abdul says that they took hostage six of our men: Gunner Holden, Gunny MacMillan, Sergeant Turner, Corporal Todd, and Lance Corporals Brookman and Fletcher,” the colonel answered. “We have no idea of their status. Last word on Fletcher, he had escorted a prisoner up to control. Turner and Brookman got beaten, but the people in the tower said that they observed them moving inside the cell block with the others, walking on their own, apparently protected by a couple of pretrial prisoners, Fryer and Wilson, who fought back other inmates, keeping them off our guys. I’ve put people with cameras and long lenses up in the towers. If we shoot anything, let’s shoot pictures so we can learn who’s in charge down there and who’s helping our side. Apparently we have at least two good guys in the crowd.”

“Sergeant Donald T. Wilson, sir,” Kirkwood said, offering the name of his client after the colonel had finished. “He’s my client. A good Marine. Big guy. Tough as a boot. I don’t know about Fryer.”

“Fryer came to us from division,” Schuller said, looking at Captains Kirkwood, O’Connor, and Ebberhardt. “His unit charged him with attempted murder after he shot his battalion commander’s tent to ribbons. The major was in the crapper at the time. I talked to Fryer about it, and he volunteered to tell me what happened. He said he saw his major leave the tent, so he shot it all to hell to send the commander a message that the troops had reached the ends of their ropes with him. Apparently this major is a grade-A careerist asshole. I’ve had my share of dealing with the type. Not fun. While I don’t agree with Fryer’s methods, he certainly made his point clear. Remember me telling you about him? How his captain and first sergeant hugged him like family when they left him here?”

“Sure, now that you mention it,” Ebberhardt said, nodding.

“Yeah, right, I recall the tale,” O’Connor said, nodding as well.

“It’s right in character that Sergeant Fryer would try to help Sergeant Wilson protect the guards and get this riot settled down,” Schuller said, and looked at Colonel Webster and the chief of staff. “They may be able to help us segregate peaceful prisoners and our captive guards away from the troublemakers, so that if we go in there with force we can spare the men who aren’t part of the riot.”

“You really think we can trust those two?” Colonel Webster asked, and then looked past the blockhouse at the scene of chaos. “It would be nice if they got our guards and a few of the noncombative prisoners out.”

“Given what I know about those two men,” Schuller said, “and Captain Kirkwood can back me up at least on Wilson, I believe that if we give them the chance to bring people out, they will do it. In fact, sir, I’ll wager you that they are already trying to do something like it. Despite incarceration, they just don’t strike me as the kind of men to sit back and let things go to hell. I think them pulling Turner and Brookman out of the melee and protecting them demonstrates my point.”

“So if we see a group of inmates coming toward the blockhouse, and it looks like Wilson or Fryer have charge of the men, then we should open the doors and let them through?” Colonel Webster said, and looked at Staff Sergeant Abduleses and Lieutenant Schuller.

“Yes, sir, that’s my recommendation,” Schuller said, and took a deep breath.

“What about you, Abdul?” the colonel asked. “How do you size up this situation? You think those two men might work from the inside to help us?”

“I’m quite leery of just opening the gates for a gaggle of prisoners headed for the blockhouse,” the staff sergeant said, shaking his head. “I’d want guards to check the men through as they entered the building. However, the lieutenant is right about Fryer and Wilson. Despite their troubles, they seem like pretty solid Marines to me. I doubt very seriously if either of them had anything to do with this riot.

“My bet goes to that bunch of shitbirds that ganged around prisoners Harris, Pitts, and Anderson just before the movie was supposed to start. That’s where my people observed the whole thing starting. Pitts and Harris got in a shoving match, Fletcher took Harris upstairs, and then Anderson and two other inmates jumped Turner and Brookman. Then from right there in that same area, at that same moment, a whole mob of prisoners jumped up and went ballistic. It looked orchestrated. Planned.

“About the same time that some of the rioters set the hooches on fire, we saw Fryer and Wilson push their way into the circle around Turner and Brookman, and they started breaking up the fight. Fryer jumped on Anderson, and it looked like he hurt him pretty good because he backed right off our guards. Then Wilson and Fryer took our men inside the block.”

 
“HOW IT FEEL! Motherfucker!” James Harris ranted as he walked down the line of cells now containing the four guards, the deputy warden, and the watch commander. He carried Gunny MacMillan’s baseball bat on his shoulder and strutted, feeling charged on a handful of little white pills that he took when he and Randy Carnegie broke open the dispensary substation in the cell block, going after the supply of psychodrugs kept there. “How it feel, now you’s lookin’ out from that side of them cage doors? Huh, motherfuckers? Newspaper and TV gonna be here and show the black man in charge. Show him standin’ up for his rights and shit.”

“Shut up,” Michael Fryer yelled from inside the cage with Iron Balls and Bad John curled on the floor in a back corner and Paul Fletcher lying on the bunk, drifting in and out of consciousness. The incarcerated sergeant sat next to the lance corporal and spoke to him in a low voice. “Try to stay awake, man. You need to keep your eyes open and don’t let yourself go to sleep. We gonna get you some help soon as we can.”

James Harris peered through the steel front of the cell.

“I ain’t hit him that hard,” Mau Mau said, trying to rationalize the injured Marine into a better state of condition. “Just smacked him upside the head a little bit with gunny’s bat. He too big a motherfucker to take down any other way, you know.”

Michael Fryer looked out at Harris and shook his head. Then he walked to the cage door and spoke in a quiet voice.

“You know, this man will probably die tonight if he doesn’t get over to Charlie Med pretty soon,” the sergeant said, locking eyes with Mau Mau. “Let these guards go, so they can carry Lance Corporal Fletcher out and get him some help. Hostages ain’t doing a thing for you, and this man die, you’re looking at first-degree murder. I hear the feds still hang people for the death penalty. Pretty nasty way to go. Maybe they cut you a break, though, and shoot your sorry ass with a firing squad.”

Fryer walked back to the bunk, and sat again with Fletcher, holding his hand and checking his eyes. The injured Marine could say nothing, and his pupils had dilated and wandered in two different directions, uncoordinated and unseeing.

“Fletch, you hear me okay, give me a blink,” Fryer said, watching the man’s eyelids both slowly close and then reopen. “Good, boy. You stay with me, you hear. I don’t think you’re seeing right now, but you’re awake and responding to my voice. That’s real good.”

Mike Turner and Kenny Brookman both sat in the corner of the cell, their eyes swollen nearly shut and their faces bloody from the kicking they received. Both men bled from their ears, and Bad John had the crotch of his pants bloody, too. His belly ached worse than he had ever known, and he could hardly breathe due to the pain from his ribs. He felt sure that several of them had broken when Sam Martin kicked him.

“You know these other two boys ain’t doing much better than Fletch,” Sergeant Fryer said from the bunk, glancing at Harris, who still looked in the cage. “I think old Bad John might have a ruptured spleen, the way he’s bleeding out his ass. You see that puddle under him? That ain’t pee.”

“So what? The motherfucker can stand to lose a little juice,” Harris said and laughed.

“Look, a man can bleed to death from a ruptured spleen,” Chief Warrant Officer Holden called from the cell across the aisle. “You depriving these injured men medical attention constitutes complicity to murder if any of them die. Oh, and by the way, the armed forces correctional facilities both at Portsmouth and at Fort Leavenworth still do hang men for capital offenses.”

“Shut the fuck up, you cracker ass motherfucker!” Harris screamed, and slammed the bat across the front of the cell where the inmates had locked up Holden and Gunny MacMillan along with Nathan L. Todd and Donald T. Wilson. “I ain’t said nothing about you openin’ your honky-ass mouth. When I ask you something, then you can talk. Otherwise, stay the fuck out of a couple brothers’ conversation.”

The deputy warden went back and sat on the bunk next to Corporal Todd and Gunny MacMillan. Donald Wilson stood in the front corner of the cell and did not flinch when Mau Mau had swung the baseball bat into the cage door, only inches from his face. The sergeant just stared at Harris and said nothing.

“How come a brother be taking up for white trash like these dudes, man?” Harris asked Michael Fryer. The sergeant tilted his head and shrugged.

“We all children of the Lord, man,” the sergeant said, and looked back at Paul Fletcher. “Jesus said to do good to those who spitefully use you. Blessed is the peacemaker. I messed up back at my unit when I shot up my battalion CO’s tent. So when they locked me in this jail, I made a promise to the Lord that I’ll never pick up a gun again. I’m a peacemaker, man. These men here, they just doing their job. Lance Corporal Fletcher, you busted up his head, broke bones in his skull. I felt them crunch around when I helped him lay down here. He ain’t never done nothing but treat you and all these other prisoners right. He even called you mister. How many men call you mister in your life?”

James Harris looked down at the lance corporal and then glanced over at Nathan L. Todd.

“He call me mister, too, ol’ Chief over there,” Harris said, nodding across the aisle at the corporal. Then he looked back at Fryer. “You done fought my rangers. I think you broke a couple of Ax Man’s fingers, and I know you did in his nose, takin’ him down and gettin’ him and Jones and Martin off ol’ Bad John and Iron Balls there. That ain’t right.”

“What you’re doin’ ain’t right!” Fryer snapped back. “They’d ’a killed Sergeant Turner and Lance Corporal Brookman, had Wilson and me not pulled them off these boys. I don’t want no truck with you and your Black Stone Rangers. I just want to get on with my life, what I got left, when I ever get out of prison.”

Harris nodded, and looked at the man.

“Tell you what, bro,” Mau Mau said, and glanced back at Donald Wilson. “Your white brother over there, Wilson, him and Corporal Todd, they can carry out Lance Corporal Fletcher. I let them slide on out. They can get ol’ Fletch to Charlie Med if they want to go.”

“Bad John needs to go, too,” Wilson said, and nodded toward Kenny Brookman, who now lay on his side, doubled in a fetal ball. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to send him and Iron Balls out together. They paid their dues, man. You got your licks on them.”

Harris laughed.

“You got a voice after all!” Mau Mau said, and shook another handful of little white pills from a bottle he had stuffed in his pocket when he and the Chu Lai Hippie had raided the drug locker in the cell block sick bay. Then he popped the tablets in his mouth and looked at Turner and Brookman. “Wilson, you probably right. They done paid dues, and it look like they good Christian souls now. You boys done had a change of heart from your racist ways?”

“I’m sorry, man,” Turner mumbled, and then lay Kenny Brookman’s head in his lap.