The Blockade

by Darrell Maloney

  She went in to comfort her friend, but he turned the tables on her.

  “Shhh. You came forward with the information you had on behalf of the people of San Antonio. You thought Montgomery was stealing their food and putting it aside for himself and his cronies. You could not have known there might be another explanation. How could you have known? As a civilian you didn’t have a clue what a reconstitution team was or what its mission might be.

  “You are not to blame, Hannah, I promise you that. It just is what it is.”

  He looked to Wright and said, “Good morning, Captain. Any change in the case?”

  Captain Wright kept his composure, even as a single tear rolled down Hannah’s left cheek.

  He began, “Yes, sir. As a matter of fact there is.

  “Mrs. Snyder and I met with General Mannix yesterday and again today. And apparently he’s been seeking counsel with others as well.

  “Mrs. Snyder was able to sway the general to change his way of thinking.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, sir. He has given the Detainment Officer instructions to release you as soon as written orders are prepared and delivered, sometime in the next couple of hours. In the meantime, your cell door is to remain open and you’ll begin the release process. I understand they’ve sent someone to their storage facility to retrieve your uniform and other belongings.”

  The colonel’s jaw quite literally dropped.

  He looked at Hannah, who by now was crying buckets of tears and blubbering like a baby.

  He reached out to her and she leaned into his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed between tears. “I’m gonna make your shirt all soggy.”

  “I don’t care. Soggy it all you want.”

  Captain Wright looked away, then pretended he had something in his eye.

  They both knew better.

  Colonel Morris A. Medley was the only one of the three who did not cry.

  He was stoic and stonefaced.

  It was a lot to take in.

  And he wasn’t totally convinced this wasn’t a dream.

  “There’s more,” Captain Wright told him.

  He paused, waiting until the colonel was ready to process additional news.

  When Medley looked at him with a face which read, essentially, “Go ahead,” he proceeded.

  “The general has set aside an hour the day after tomorrow, at ten hundred hours, and would like to meet with you.

  “He says to tell you it’s a request and not an order, and that he will fully understand if you decline to show up.

  “He said he’d like to apologize to you personally and to help you get past this. He said he’s not a perfect man and that he’s flawed like everyone else. Perhaps more so, he said.

  “He said he knows he cannot bring Colonel Wilcox back, and he cannot make you whole again for what he’s done to you. But he wants to find out what you need and do whatever he can to make it better.”

  While the three were talking a new face appeared in the open doorway.

  It was a face Hannah had never seen before, but one the other two knew well. A striking man in an Air Force blue uniform, with silver eagles upon his epaulets.

  A silver nametag adorned the right side of his chest, just above the pocket.

  In blue letters were emblazoned his name: Andrews.

  It was the man who replaced Colonel Wilcox after his arrest.

  It was the base commander.

  “I came running as soon as I got the word,” he said to Medley.

  He wasn’t kidding. He was out of breath.

  “Are you okay? What can I do to help?”

  Medley, still in a condition bordering on shock and trying to make sense of it all, said, “Nothing. Except maybe take me home.”

  “I’m sorry, buddy. But that’s the one thing I cannot do. You still live on Piney Bluff Avenue?”

  “Yes, why? Did my house burn down or something?”

  “No. The blockade.”

  The puzzled look on Medley’s face made Colonel Andrews realize he was hearing of the blockade for the very first time.

  General Mannix put a sweeping gag order into place early on.

  The order prohibited both counsels, as well as jail personnel, from speaking to colonels Wilcox and Medley on any matter not directly pertaining to their case. That included anything going on in the civilian community.

  It also prevented the colonels from having any contact with any military personnel outside their counsel, lest they might try to coordinate fake alibis.

  That part was especially disheartening for Colonel Andrews, as he and Medley were old friends.

  But that was all over now.

  As the men talked, a written order for the colonel’s release arrived at the brig via runner.

  General Mannix kept his word. Colonel Medley was a free man and could walk out whenever he wanted.

  Normally the brig was as quiet as a tomb. Heavy steel doors were made to mask sounds and voices, not amplify them.

  Since the door directly across from his was left open, though, Marty could stand at his own door and hear much of the conversation going on in Medley’s cell.

  It wasn’t that he was nosy; it was that… well, yes it was. He was nosy.

  He heard one voice in particular which piqued his interest, for it was a voice he knew and loved. He’d had something of a crush on Hannah since the day they met. He never acted on it because he was a bit older than her and she was kinda married. Now he was too, so it was a romance that was doomed from the start.

  He’d always have a fondness for her though, as we all know once smitten it’s hard to extricate oneself.

  It was Hannah’s voice which made him take his ear off the door and look out the tiny window. For a minute or two he saw absolutely nothing.

  Then, after Colonel Andrews arrived, Hannah stood in the doorway to make room for the colonel in the tiny cell.

  Once he saw her, Marty started pounding on his own door and shouting her name.

  She turned and saw his face and was understandably surprised.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered loudly.

  “Get me and my Snickers bar out of here and I’ll tell you.”

  -51-

  Word leaks on a military base.

  It always does.

  Oh, not the important stuff.

  Information about upcoming deployments or military actions is kept tightly secret.

  Loose lips sink ships and all that…

  Information which boosts morale, on the other hand, always gets out.

  When a USO show is coming to town, every troop on base knows about it long before the news is publicly released.

  Classified info of any kind is kept close to the vest and only shared with those who need to know about it.

  Information about Colonel Medley being released, on the other hand, violated no deployment plan. No war plan. No general order.

  That information spread like wildfire, for Medley was quite possibly the most popular man on base.

  While Hannah and Captain Wright sat in his open cell bringing him up to speed, they began to gather.

  On a base where few vehicles were running, dozens of people began walking toward the brig.

  At the fire station the shift commander chose that particular time to “exercise” his vehicles. By regulation, emergency vehicles had to be exercised twice a day anyway. What better time than this?

  Cruising along on the icy roads at the turtle’s pace speed of five miles an hour, the fleet was easy to latch onto. Before they got halfway to the brig, twenty people had climbed onto the ladder truck alone.

  The fire crew gave them plenty of time to let them know they were coming by, with their sirens wailing and lights flashing.

  Not all the security forces police cars followed suit, but several did.

  Privately owned vehicles are called POVs on an Air Force base. The Air Force has an acronym for darned near everything. There we
re plenty of those too, as off duty personnel jumped behind the wheel and followed the parade.

  Not a single one had an empty seat, for they stopped to pick up pedestrians along the way.

  Outside the base brig is a long sidewalk of eighty feet or so which cuts a path to the nearest parking lot.

  Luckily it’s an extra wide sidewalk, and luckily it was shoveled. Otherwise Medley would have had a difficult time getting through the crowd.

  He walked out the door with the base commander at his side. Hannah and Captain Wright stayed behind to negotiate Marty’s release. It was too bad, because they missed an almost magical event.

  Medley looked the part of a high ranking officer. He was wearing the same uniform he was arrested in several weeks before, but it had been cleaned and pressed.

  He’d accepted Colonel Andrews’ invitation to stay at Andrews’ base housing unit with him and his wife until the blockade was lifted.

  He’d expected to get there with no fanfare, but this morning was just full of surprises.

  The clapping started as soon as he stepped out the door.

  Slowly at first, but it reached a crescendo as he made it halfway down the walk. People lined both sides of the sidewalk, making it impossible for the party to stay two abreast. They broke into a single file, with Medley taking the lead.

  And every step of the way people shook his hand, patted him on the back and wished him well.

  He’d tell his friend Winston later he felt like a rock star.

  The parking lot was full of emergency vehicles, sirens now off but lights still flashing, and two hundred more spectators who wouldn’t fit onto the sidewalk.

  As Andrews’ staff car eased through the crowd those in uniform offered crisp salutes. Many of the spectators reached out and patted the roof of the car as it went by to show their support.

  It was a spectacle likely never before seen on a military installation.

  And probably never would be again, either.

  -52-

  As far as Marty was concerned, the jailers were at a loss as to what to do with him.

  Military brigs aren’t meant to hold civilians. Normally civilians arrested on a military base are turned over to civilian authorities. There they meet a judge for their arraignment, enter a plea and are given an opportunity to post bond until their trial date.

  The military justice system isn’t set up that way. There is no arraignment, nor is there a bond. Whether a defendant is set free pending adjudication is up to his commanding officer and the Staff Judge Advocate, or SJA.

  Unfortunately the blockade of the base prevented Marty from being handed over to the San Antonio Police Department.

  Base law enforcement couldn’t get out to deliver him; SAPD officers couldn’t get in to pick him up.

  Marty was in limbo since his arrival at the brig while officials at SJA tried to decide how to handle him.

  Another problem was that they didn’t feel comfortable trying to negotiate with him without legal counsel.

  Oh, they could have shot him. But then they’d have a mess to clean up and might have a hard time explaining that to the local press.

  Hannah and Captain Wright showing up made their dilemma a bit easier. Though the captain could not legally represent Marty, he was familiar with applicable laws and could advise him informally “as a friend.”

  At least his rights wouldn’t be violated.

  Marty was taken to an interrogation room, where he was locked in with Hannah and watched over by a guard while Captain Wright made several phone calls to come up to speed.

  After half an hour or so he rejoined them with an offer.

  “They’re charging you with destruction of government property,” he told Marty.

  “I didn’t destroy anything. I cut a damned fence.” He was adamant and grouchy, mostly because he got little sleep the night before.

  “Don’t make light of it,” the captain told him. “The line at the bottom of the fence was embedded with a sensor wire. Basically a communications wire. It costs a considerable amount to repair.

  “In addition, any crime committed on a military base is a felony and a federal crime. They could have gotten the FBI involved. You’d have a felony record for life, which would prohibit you from ever voting or owning a firearm again.”

  “Darn it. And I was gonna stop and vote on my way to the firing range.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t help. I worked out a deal for you if you want to hear it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “They’re sending a crew of civil engineers and communications repair people out to repair the fence in about an hour or so. Since you did the damage, you should be willing to help fix it. If you go out and help them make the repairs they will drop the charges.

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing. Once the blockade is lifted you have to agree in writing never to come on the base again. And if you do they’ll arrest you for trespassing.”

  “I have a counteroffer for them.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll go fix the damn fence, and I’ll sign any damn document they want me to sign. As long as I get my wedding ring and my Snickers bar back.”

  Hannah asked her own question.

  “David, I don’t think this big dummy has ever done any honest work in his life, other than drive a truck. How’s he gonna help them if he doesn’t know how to repair a fence?”

  Marty, his feelings hurt, looked at Hannah with a face which read, in essence, “Seriously?”

  “I don’t think they’re going to expect him to actually make the repairs. They’ll have technicians there to do that. They might have him drag cable or chase tools from their truck or something. I think they mostly want to make him stand out in the cold while they’re working to teach him a lesson.”

  He turned back to Marty.

  “And by the way, your Snickers bar is long gone. They said they had to test it to make sure it was real, since nobody could attest to it being a legitimate candy bar. None of them had seen one in years, you see, and they thought it might be a bomb made to look like a Snickers bar.

  “So they had it tested and determined it was real. But unfortunately it was all consumed during the examination process.”

  “So in other words, somebody ate it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But hey, you can look at it this way. A Snickers bar is a small price to pay for your freedom.”

  “Says you. Looking forward to getting that bar back was the only thing that kept me going during my long incarceration.”

  “All sixteen hours?”

  “Seemed longer than that. Seemed like a lifetime.”

  “So you’ll go help them fix the fence?”

  “Sign me up. I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll make the necessary arrangements. They’ll come and get you shortly and escort you to the main gate.”

  He turned to Hannah and asked her, “I have to go back to my office. I have a new mountain of paperwork to do. I can drop you off at the hospital if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay. It’s only a few blocks.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “It’s treacherous out there.”

  Marty seized the opportunity.

  “After they release me would you pick me up and take me to the hospital?”

  “No. It’s only a few blocks. You can walk.”

  “But you just said it’s treacherous out there.”

  “You walked a lot farther than that yesterday and survived.”

  It was a point Marty couldn’t argue.

  So he surrendered.

  -53-

  Johnny Connolly put a lot of thought into his Plan B.

  And he saw no possible way it could go wrong.

  Frank Woodard drank a lot of water.

  He’d always been that way.

  Doctors tell their patients they should drink eight glasses of water a day, each and every day.

  Ninety percent of those patients nod their heads up an
d down like they’re listening.

  And then forget the instructions as soon as they leave the office.

  Who can blame them? Eight glasses of water is a lot.

  Frank, though, was one of those people who followed the doctor’s advice explicitly.

  He firmly believed that his internal organs had to be well lubricated to work properly. And as old as he was, he was still in pretty good health.

  So perhaps the doctor was right after all.

  Here’s the thing, though: when all that water goes into a body, most of it has to come back out again.

  That’s why Frank frequently stopped for what Josie lovingly called, “potty breaks.”

  He was pretty regular about it too. Every hour and a half to two hours he brought the big Hummer to a dead stop and stepped outside into the cold.

  He closed the driver’s door so he didn’t let any frigid air in and moved forward to the front of the vehicle.

  With his back to Josie and Eddie, and to Johnny and Tina in the pickup behind them, he did his thing.

  Then he got back in the vehicle and was back on his way.

  Johnny’s plan was simple, yet foolproof.

  He’d pull his AR-15 out of the back seat during one of Frank’s potty breaks. With his back turned there was no chance of Frank seeing him.

  Frank would pull away and Johnny would follow.

  That would give Tina ninety minutes to an hour to load the rifle and ready it.

  When Frank stopped again, Johnny would wait until Frank was doing his thing. Then he’d merely step out of his own vehicle and fire two quick rounds into Frank’s back.

  Short and sweet, pure and simple.

  There really was no way to mess this up.

  And using a long rifle on a target just sixty feet away it was impossible to miss.

  Like taking candy from a baby.

  Or, more accurately, taking a Humvee from a dead man.

  Once Frank was down and dead all Johnny had to do was roust the other two out of the vehicle. He already knew they were unarmed so that should be a piece of cake.

  When they were out he’d give them a choice. They could say a final prayer before he shot them dead, or they could walk back to the last little town they passed through and ask somebody for help.