Battlemind Page 4

  The Jefferson's had told their children that Grandpa Reggie was a famous cop who died fighting bad guys. Their story was only partly true. Yes, Reggie was a former cop, but he was more infamous than famous. He was also alive and well.

  Reggie had worked undercover in his past life, deep inside the West Side Scorpions, a ruthless local gang. One muggy summer night, years ago, the Dallas Police raided the gang's headquarters. A raging firefight erupted, and a blood bath ensued. When a police officer lost his life, the brass blamed Reggie, who happened to be in the house during the raid. The police claimed it was an ambush, and Reggie was their scapegoat. In reality, an overeager lieutenant prematurely launched the assault before their SWAT backup arrived.

  In the aftermath, Reggie took the fall for an array of trumped-up charges and went to prison. Sergeant Jefferson decided to cut ties with him. He had never been much of a father anyway.

  After Reggie served his time in the penitentiary, he found employment as a security consultant for gang-affiliated strip clubs scattered throughout Texas. His base of operations was Cheetaz Gentlemen's Club, a two-story building in West Dallas. Cheetaz had become legendary for having the most beautiful black strippers in Texas, a dinner buffet fit for a king, and the occasional stabbing.

  Gabby and the kids hopped into their minivan and followed Reggie's Escalade. After a short drive, they pulled into the Cheetaz parking lot. Before Reggie had time to kill the ignition, Gabby had leaped out of her van and snatched his door open.

  "You gotta be kiddin', Reggie," she shouted at him. "You brought my kids to a strip club."

  "This is where I work, Gabby. Don't worry, we don't open 'til four."

  Gabby shook her head and remotely opened the minivan door. Aliyah ran to Reggie. "Hi, grandpa," she said and hugged his thick leg. "I'm glad you're not dead."

  "Me too," Reggie said as he bent down, gently scooped her up, and squeezed her. After he unlocked the side entrance, Reggie led them inside. He turned on some music and flashing lights - distractions for the kids. Reggie and Gabby sat at a table, as the children ran up and down the catwalk.

  "Start at the beginning and tell me everything you know about Tyler's situation." Reggie folded his hands on the table and leaned back. Gabby recounted the night of the arrest as accurately as she could. Reggie listened intently; two decades of investigative experience started to process what he heard. "Where is Tyler now?" he asked.

  "He said something about being taken to El Paso."

  "Fort Custer. That's where they're going. That gives us something to work with. We gotta find out exactly what they're saying he did, and who is saying he did it."

  Gabby was struggling to keep it together. "What should I do?" she asked him.

  "Pack a bag and never go anywhere without your phone. When I call and say it's 'Go Time,' we won't have a second to waste."

  Chapter 10

  On my drive to work at Fort Arnold, South Carolina, I thought about how quickly my time in the Army had passed. It was November 2005, and my tour was coming to an end. Though my future employment plans were uncertain, I knew we were staying in South Carolina. With baby number three on the way, my wife, Annabelle, insisted that we live close to her family.

  What made South Carolina challenging was its proximity to my in-laws, Sterling and Martha Hillyard. Sterling owned a commercial real estate company. Martha was a homemaker and four-time president of the local Junior League. The couple spent most of their leisure time at the all-white Hunter's Glen Country Club. There, they played golf, bridge, and tennis, and bragged about their grandbabies. They made sure that everyone understood their son-in-law was only "half Latino."

  My dad still lived in Westfield, an hour north of Pittsburgh. He liked to keep to himself. Dad had been a bona fide door kicker, a grunt. He served 10 years as an enlisted infantryman, including two tours in Vietnam. Now, he was a taciturn man. The only way I'd ever found out anything about his Army career had been through his buddies.

  He met my mother, Marisol Rivera-Pérez, while he was stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, during the Cold War. She was the daughter of his former First Sergeant. On the rare occasions we talked, he reminded me that I took the easy way out by going to law school: "Real soldiers spend their time in the field, not behind a desk."

  I met Annabelle in college. I was a junior at Pitt, and she attended Chatham College, formerly Pennsylvania College for Women. I never did quite understand how Annabelle, a southern belle, strayed so far from her roots. Willowy and blonde, Annabelle radiated an allure of helplessness I later came to realize was carefully ingrained in "young ladies of genteel breeding," particularly in South Carolina. The "allure" could more accurately be called a "façade" because Annabelle was about as helpless as a female grizzly bear.

  With her dropped consonants, doe eyes, flirtatious smile, and drop-dead beauty, the moment she accepted my fumbling offer to get a coffee, I never dated anyone else. Eight months after our wedding, Ethan arrived, followed 10 months later by his baby sister, Eva.

  The autumn sun blazed against a searing, blue background, as I passed through Fort Arnold's entrance. A light breeze kissed against the Stars and Stripes, causing it to lap lazily against the flagpole. This morning, I was late for work, and the Army frowns on lateness. You can get locked up in the brig for being late. With 90 days and a wake-up before civilian life, I officially did not give a shit.

  I worked for the Army Trial Defense Service. TDS, for short. A TDS lawyer is the Army's equivalent of a public defender. TDS is the dumping ground for JAG lawyers deemed rebels, and rebels don't last long in the Army. I took whatever cases they gave me, from desertion to pot-smoking, and every so often, a serious crime. I spent my days defending drunk and disorderly cases, dereliction of duty cases, and general "I'm a fuck-up, so I joined the Army" cases. After three years in TDS, I was burned-out, and I counted down the days until my discharge.

  This morning, the parking lot was packed, except for the row closest to the building, which had a dozen empty spaces reserved for senior officers. I slid my hunter green Chevy Malibu into the vacant "Military Judge" spot. Her Honor was on vacation all week. She wouldn't mind. I hurried toward my place of duty, which was a Vietnam-era barracks converted into a law office. I used the rear entrance to avoid the inevitable crowd of soldiers waiting in the hallway.

  Today was Friday: walk-ins, low-level, ash and trash cases. Soldiers that showed up and were willing to wait long enough were guaranteed a chance to tell a genuine, Army JAG lawyer the story of how their fuck-up was not theirs but somebody else's fault. It was the same story, over and over again. My advice rarely changed: "Suck it up, take your punishment like a soldier and drive on."

  I was the office supervisor. So, the walk-ins went to my two junior colleagues. Both were fresh out of law school and brimming with the idea of "liberty and justice for all." Above my office door hung a sign: "Senior Defense Counsel," my official title.

  As I unpacked my briefcase, I heard a knock on my door. It was my loyal but slightly neurotic, second-in-command, Captain Julia Myers. Everybody called her Jules. Five-foot-ten, athletic, with a plain face framed by hipster Ray-Ban eyeglasses.

  Jules graduated from Brown University, where she was All-American in swimming, with a degree in Women's Studies. After graduating from Cornell Law School with honors, she joined the Army JAG Corps looking for adventure. Quickly identified as a misfit, Jules was sent to TDS. Apparently, she ranted one too many times to one too many superior officers about how women should be allowed in the Infantry. Now, she worked with me - the first one in and the last one to leave - every day.

  "Captain O'Donnell," she said, "do you have a moment? It's urgent."

  "Jules, don't call me Captain. We're the same rank," I said, not for the first time. "What's going on?"

  Jules dropped a stack of manila folders on my desk. "You need to delegate these cases," she said.

  Without looking at them, I handed them back to her. "Like I've told you before, spli
t the walk-ins between you and John. You don't need to wait for me to assign these cases. And, Jules, this is not urgent."

  "Yes, sir," she said and walked toward the door. Halfway out, she stopped and faced me. "Major Dill stopped by earlier." Her eyebrows arched. "He wanted to know where you were."

  Major Richard Dill was my supervisor. He had not stopped by my office in months, though I didn't mind. Dill's slothfulness was exceeded only by his ignorance of trial practice. On the rare occasions he showed up, I heard the same lame story about his last trial, his only trial, over 18 years ago. I would smile and act interested.

  "What did you tell him?" I asked Jules.

  "I told him your kid was sick."

  "Which kid?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Does it matter? He's not sure if you have two or twelve."

  I nodded in agreement. "What did he want?"

  "He didn't say. He avoids this place like the plague, so it must be something big."

  Chapter 11

  I wasn't in a hurry to see Major Dill. I considered putting off the confrontation until after the weekend. Still, I did not want him popping back into my office unannounced. Dill's sole job was to supervise and train young Army defense lawyers. He did neither. He merely bided his time until he could retire at the 21-year mark. Dill delegated most of his duties to me and spent his days going to medical appointments for a variety of mostly imagined ailments.

  I knocked on Dill's door, three times, in case he was asleep. From inside, I heard, "Yes?"

  "Captain O'Donnell, reporting," I said.

  "Get in here, Max," the voice said. I opened the door and entered. Dill's cluttered office smelled like a Burger King dumpster. Behind his desk sat a trashcan overflowing with fast-food bags, Doritos wrappers, and empty cans of Diet Pepsi.

  A dedicated nail biter, Dill was 52-years old, single, pudgy, and balding. He lived alone, unless you counted his three Siamese cats. His face, discolored by years of off-and-on chain-smoking, wore a constant frown. His resentment for the Army grew every time the promotion list came out, and his name wasn't on it. Lieutenant Colonel was not in the cards for "Why do you think they call him Dick" Dill.

  Dill wore a faded camouflage uniform and black boots that had not been shined in years. His shirt strained unsuccessfully to contain his beer gut. He didn't stand to greet me, nor did he shake my hand. He kept his feet on his desk as he flipped through a Maxim magazine.

  I stood at attention and saluted. "Sir, Captain O'Donnell reporting."

  "Enough with the high-speed shit. Sit." I sat, and Dill reached for a bowl of candy sitting on his desk. He fished around with his fingers, pulled out a piece of candy corn, and dropped it into his mouth. His chewing was loud and laborious. "Mmmm. Want some?" he asked.

  I held up my right hand. "No, thank you, sir."

  "Suit yourself," he said. "Halloween only comes once a year." I nodded as he chomped away. After he swallowed, he passed me the bowl. "Don't be shy," he said. "Take some for your little ones."

  Dill was notorious for wasting time, so I grabbed two boxes of Milk Duds, thanked him, and cut to the chase. "Sir, why did you want to see me?"

  Dill flipped through a stack of manila folders on his desk, then handed me a slim one. "Before you open that, be aware." Dill picked at his teeth with his left index finger. "This is delicate. Some reservists got into trouble in Afghanistan. Prison guards. They beat the shit out of some detainees. I'm sure it's all in the file. I only flipped through it. Been busy lately, you know, with the retirement. The VA takes forever."

  I opened the manila folder. Inside, there were maybe 20 pages. "Where's the rest of the file?" I asked.

  "The trial counsel will send it to you shortly."

  I read the first page and closed the folder. "This is a premeditated murder case."

  Dill didn't flinch. "The facts are cut and dry," he said.

  "Cut and dry?" I drew in a deep breath and released it. "Sir, I've never done a murder case."

  "You'll do fine, Max." I started to stand, but Dill's next sentence shoved me back into the chair. "Pack your bags," he said. "You got to get out to Fort Custer ASAP and get ahead of this situation."

  "What?"

  "You heard me," Dill said. "You're going to Texas."

  "Sir, if this case is in El Paso, couldn't they find a lawyer someplace closer than South Carolina?"

  "There aren't enough defense lawyers to go around."

  "There are dozens of JAGs in Texas."

  "They're all conflicted out, or they're otherwise unavailable."

  I squinted hard. Dill's explanation made no sense. Though he wasn't clever enough to be making this stuff up. I had a much more pressing issue. "My wife is due any day now with our third child," I said, raising my voice.

  "That's right!" Dill slapped his palm on his desk. "You already have two. Damn. Are you trying to start a basketball team? Ever give that girl a rest?"

  What an asshole, I thought.

  "Captain Julia Myers is perfect for this case," I said. "She's an excellent trial lawyer."

  Dill didn't look up from his hot pursuit of another piece of candy. "I appreciate the glowing endorsement of your colleague," he said. "However, this case requires experience."

  "Sir, I only have a couple of months left in the Army, and I haven't found a job yet." I waited for him to make eye contact. He didn't, so I continued, "You told me I could take my excess leave when the baby is born."

  "Duly noted, Max. This case should be resolved well before that time."

  The voice inside my head screamed, let it go. The voice out of my mouth had other ideas. "Sir, I don't want this case," I said. "Even if we get an expedited trial, which I doubt, I don't have time for this."

  I prepared for an ass chewing. It didn't come. Instead, Dill smiled. "Ah, that's the catch. The prosecution is offering a once-in-a-lifetime plea deal. If your client takes a dive, he'll get a light sentence."

  "Something's not right about that," I said.

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning, I have not seen the evidence or spoken with my client, and they want me to cut a deal?"

  "You can review the evidence later. Strike while the iron's hot. If you fly out there and save this man's life, especially without seeing the evidence, I'll put you in for an Army Achievement Medal."

  "Why would they cut this guy a break?" I asked.

  Dill tried hard to look wise. He folded his hands and leaned back in his chair. "These detainee abuse cases are getting too much media attention. Truth is, nobody gives a shit about these jihadi terrorists, except the media and left-wing liberals. The press acts like these prisoners are saints, while making our boys look like Nazis. They're making us all look bad. The Army wants to wrap this up quickly and with discretion. Nobody wants a messy trial. I am sure you understand."

  I didn't. "Premeditated murder in the military carries a mandatory life sentence," I said. "Sometimes, murder gets the needle."

  "Max," Dill interrupted. "These cases involve some half-wits who opened up a can of whup-ass on a prisoner or two . . . or five. I can't keep track of all this. I assigned you to one of them: Jackson, Jordan, something like that. Hell, I don't know, and I don't care. All I know is someone, somewhere, who has a lot more rank than I do, is trying to make a point. Plead the damn thing out and come home in time for your leave. That is all."

  I sat silently in the chair, thinking of how I would explain this situation to my wife.

  "What part of 'that is all' do you not get?" he said. "You are dismissed."

  I stood, holding the file and my Milk Duds. "How do I contact my client?" I asked.

  "Don't worry. The prosecution will get you that information in due course."

  "Take something for the road." Major Dill pointed at the candy bowl.

  "No, thank you. I have a PT test coming up."

  "Good luck with that." Dill laughed. "I haven't taken one in 10 years."

  I glanced back at him.

  "You know, because of
my bad hip," he said.

  "Roger, sir," I said and walked out the door.

  Chapter 12

  The Pentagon briefing room felt energized. Reporters hoping for some kind of news story hurried to their seats. An intense man stood at the edge of the stage, repeating his lines, like a thespian on opening night. If ever a man were born to wear an Army uniform, it was Colonel Covington Spencer Paine.

  Paine, 45, with a skeleton-like face, stood erect with a fresh high and tight haircut. A backup quarterback while at the Military Academy at West Point, he lost partial vision in his right eye when a mortar exploded near him during a training accident. Paine never fully recovered, so the Army sent him to law school. Upon graduation, Paine had been immediately promoted to Major. Though he had limited courtroom experience, he was named Chief Prosecutor at "The Home of the Infantry," Fort Benning, Georgia. He hit the ground running.

  A model government hack, Paine followed the Army's unwritten mantra: Always Be Charging. He would indict anyone, charge anything, and, somehow, make everything so Velcro-like in its stickiness that defendants begged for mercy like nuns confessing their sins.

  He took sick pleasure in destroying the careers of officers accused of minor military offenses, like fraternization. He hammered into his subordinates the idea that "perception is reality," and "where there's smoke, there's fire," whether sufficient evidence existed or not. Paine always found a way to tank the officer's career, even when investigators found only rumor.

  After the shit from Abu Ghraib hit the fan, the Army hand-picked Paine to lead the Pentagon's newly formed War Crime Prosecution Team. Paine possessed enough savvy to recognize a potential minefield when he saw one. Yet, his arrogant confidence led him to know he would come through on the other side with nary a hair out of place.

  At precisely 0900 hours, Paine walked to the podium and commenced a well-rehearsed speech. "According to the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention, all prisoners of war shall be treated humanely. This includes prisoners captured in the War on Terror."