Court Martial
Page 1
“WE HAD SET UP A CLAYMORE AMBUSH…”
“Please continue,” the lawyer prodded the black soldier. “Remember why you are here today.”
“We were just about ready to break down the ambush when this black soldier just walks out of the jungle.”
“Can you identify this black soldier? Is he in this room?” Heller’s voice was commanding.
“Yes, sir.”
“Please point him out to the members of the Board.”
Barker slowly raised his hand and pointed directly at James. The soldier’s finger shook but he held his arm up and spoke. “It was him.”
“Are you sure?” Heller needed a positive identification.
“Absolutely… he talked to me and told me to take off after he had shot my squad leader in the back of the head and two more of my squad.” The black soldier stood up and his voice rose. “What do you think I am!” He was yelling at James. “They were my buddies!”
James sprang to his feet. “They were devilbeasts!”
Barker’s voice rose to a scream. “You’re the devil!”
“You’re dead! Do you hear me! Dead!”
ALSO BY DONALD E. ZLOTNIK
Survivor of Nam #1: Baptism
Survivor of Nam #2: P.O.W.
Survivor of Nam #3: Black Market
Published by
POPULAR LIBRARY
Copyright
POPULAR LIBRARY EDITION
Copyright © 1988 by Warner Books, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Popular Library® and the fanciful P design are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.
Publisher Library books are published by
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56680-3
Contents
“WE HAD SET UP A CLAYMORE AMBUSH…”
ALSO BY DONALD E. ZLOTNIK
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE: The Devilbeasts
CHAPTER TWO: Recon Reunion
CHAPTER THREE: Secrets
CHAPTER FOUR: Montagnards
CHAPTER FIVE: A Gathering of Warriors
CHAPTER SIX: The Rose Garden
CHAPTER SEVEN: Court-Martial
CHAPTER EIGHT: Cold Teeth
CHAPTER NINE: Sharp Teeth
DEATH COMES HOME
Hello Spence!
I hope you’re getting better. We were beginning to worry there for a while.
The war is still going on. I miss having you watch my rear.
I hear that you’ve won the Big On & Congratulations, I know you’ve earned it.
Well, Spence, the war calls.
David
CHAPTER ONE
The Devilbeasts
She hunted by touch in the early morning darkness. A small Ord’s kangaroo rat held a sunflower seed between its paws and nibbled cautiously while it squatted close to the base of the tall plant. She walked slowly in the loose gravel that bordered the hot asphalt road, stopping often to touch dead insects with her pedipalps before continuing on her journey. She preferred live prey.
The rat twitched its tail and nervously took another bite from the seed. The darkness prevented the kangaroo rat from seeing her approach, but the small mammal sensed danger. She brushed against the edge of the asphalt and quickly moved away from the heat. The surface of the semiarid desert highway reached 150 degrees during the day and would cool down enough during the evening to attract rattlesnakes. She didn’t like the sudden change in surface temperatures and stayed on the gravel near the low tumbleweeds and sunflowers.
The kangaroo rat finished the sunflower seed it had been eating and reached over for another one on the ground nearby just as her right pedipalp touched the brush end of its tail. The instinctive reactions from both the kangaroo rat and the four-inch desert tarantula were instantaneous. The tarantula jumped
“Pull over at that rest stop so I can take a piss.” The passenger in the car pointed.
“I can use a stretch.” The driver eased the car off the road and around the orange barrels that blocked the portion of the entrance waiting to be paved. “It doesn’t look like it’s open yet.”
“Just pull over so I can piss.”
The driver stopped the car but left the engine running so that the interior would stay cool from the air conditioner. He stretched and felt his muscles loosen. Years of weight lifting and kick boxing had given him a heavy layer of muscles over his large frame. He was a big man by anybody’s standards, but so was his partner.
“I’m going to take a little walk and loosen up a bit.... It would be nice if they would design cars for men.”
The passenger ignored the comment and tried directing his stream of urine so that it would hit a small lizard that was dozing on a nearby rock. He missed by only a couple of inches but a fine spray hit the reptile and it went scurrying off over the sand. The man smiled.
“Fuck! Come here and look at this!” the driver yelled over his shoulder from fifty feet away.
The reaction from his partner was initially centered around alarm and he reached under his loose-fitting jacket and touched the handle of his pistol before realizing that the driver was waving to indicate that he had found something.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Open the car trunk and get me a box or sack—quick!”
“How do you open the trunk?”
The driver started running back to the car. “You’ve got to be the dumbest nigger in Los Angeles!”
“Watch who you’re calling a nigger… motherfucker!”
The driver ignored his partner and reached into the glove compartment and pushed the button that opened the electric trunk. He ran around to the rear of the vehicle and saw that it was empty except for their small suitcases. “Shit!”
“What are you looking for?” The passenger lit another cigarette and watched.
The driver didn’t answer. He saw a small box that contained a set of tire chains and dumped out the contents. “What the fuck do they need snow chains for in California?” The driver held one part of the chain box in his left hand and the top portion of the box in his right hand as he ran back to where he had been standing. The passenger became curious and followed him.
The male tarantula had convinced the female and they were mating when the driver returned to the slab of concrete where the two large spiders were locked together.
“Man! What the fuck are those things?” The passenger took a step backward and pointed with the glowing tip of his cigarette.
“Tarantulas.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Catch them…”
“You crazy, man!”
“The minister for leadership in Detroit will like them. They’ll make a nice present....” The driver held the bottom half of the chain box on its side near the mating tarantulas and used the top of the box to scoop them up. He slipped the heavy cardboard top over the bottom half and heard the large spiders bump against the sides, trying to escape. The darkness inside the box calmed the large arachnids once the driver had placed the box in the trunk and punched a couple of air holes in the top.
“You going to give the minister… spiders for a present?” The passenger looked scared.
“He likes that kind of stuff… but first we’ve got some work to do.” The driver nodded and they got back into the car.
The olive drab military sedan was parked in front of the gate leading into the Federal Correction Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The rear doors of the vehicle were open and the driver stood next to the closed gate holdi
ng a riot shotgun with its butt on his hip and its barrel pointed up in the air. The driver was bored. He had been waiting for over an hour for the interior guards to deliver the prisoner so that he could drive them over to the airstrip.
A door opened on the side of the long building and a captain accompanied by two military policemen exited the narrow doorway followed by a single prisoner wearing unironed military fatigues and lightweight waist and leg chains. A single MP carrying a shotgun brought up the rear of the routine prisoner-transfer procession.
The military policeman waiting by the main gate sighed when he saw the prisoner exit the building. He wanted to get the detail over with so that he could pick up his girlfriend and spend the afternoon water skiing on Perry Lake. He lowered his shotgun and looked up at the tower; the guard on duty there had his back toward him and it looked like he was dancing with himself. The MP driver pushed the buzzer switch that was mounted on the fence next to the gate.
The duty MP in the tower heard the sound of the buzzer over the music that was blaring in his ears from his Sony Walkman. He pulled off the headset and looked down at the gate and smiled when he saw that it was only an enlisted MP. He had been warned by the captain that if he was caught again listening to music while he was on duty, he would be given an Article 15.
The tower guard reached over and pushed the intercom switch. “Yeah?”
“The captain is bringing out that motherfucking traitor.” The driver nodded back toward the administration wing of the prison.
The tower guard turned so that he could look back down the long sidewalk. “Thanks, man…”
“You’re not listening to your tape player again, are you?” The detail driver’s voice was filled with resignation. “What’s it going to take for you to learn a fucking lesson?”
“It’s boring up here!” The young MP could hear the music coming from the headset hanging around his neck and did a quick dance step. “I can’t handle it without something to pass the time away!”
“Well, you’d better hide that headset or the captain will nail your ass!”
“Can you see it from down there?”
“I wouldn’t have told you to hide it if I couldn’t!” The MP driver looked over at his sedan to make sure that it was parked in the right spot and everything was set up according to regulations. He didn’t want the captain to ride his ass. “And you’d better get your ass out on the catwalk before he gets here! Damn, man! You’d better start waking up or the captain will transfer your skinny ass over to maximum security for duty, where the guards suffer more than the prisoners!”
The MP driver made sense. The tower guard released the talk button, hurried to hide his Walkman, and removed his M-16 from its rack. He looked over at his ammunition belt and decided that he had better put the damn thing on or the captain would ride his ass. The heat outside the air-conditioned tower would already be up to the sweating level even though it was still early in the morning. He opened one of his ammo pouches and removed one of the twenty-round magazines. Regulations didn’t allow for a magazine to be inserted into a weapon unless there was probable cause for that kind of precaution. He looked over at the approaching officer and decided to break up the boredom by inserting a magazine into his M-16, then he smiled to himself and pulled back the charging handle, chambering a round. He felt the excitement growing and flipped off the safety switch using his thumb. His M-16 was fully loaded and ready to fire at the slightest pull from his index finger. He felt the adrenaline rushing to his head as he placed the butt end of his rifle on his right hip and walked around the catwalk until he was standing directly over the fence. A weatherproofed switch had been installed on the railing so that the tower guard could ensure that the area surrounding the gate was clear before opening it for visitors or for exiting prisoners.
The two black military policemen stepped out from behind the building a hundred meters away from the fence. They had been waiting since dawn for the prisoner to be moved out to the waiting military sedan. The driver of the canary-yellow Cadillac glanced over at his partner, who was dressed in an identical set of military fatigues, and smiled. He reached over with his right hand and adjusted his black armband with the large white MP letters and then started walking fast to intersect the prisoner party before they reached the waiting sedan. Only a very close inspection of the two black MPs would reveal that they carried fourteen-round Browning 9mm pistols in their government-issue holsters instead of the U.S. Army .45s that they were supposed to carry; everything else about their uniforms was perfect.
The captain started looking up at the tower guard as he neared the gate but then his attention was drawn to the approaching pair of MPs. The tower guard felt the excitement in his stomach as the captain drew closer. The magazine stuck out from the receiver of his M-16 like a telephone pole and appeared to be growing longer the closer the captain got to the tower. He was starting to think that it might not have been such a good idea to screw with the captain, but it was too late to try to remove the magazine from his weapon.
The captain stopped at the gate and noticed that the two black MPs had slowed down. He didn’t like the way they were acting and noticed that they didn’t carry their M-16s as though they were comfortable with them. He glanced up at the tower guard and noticed instantly that the MP had a magazine inserted in his weapon. The captain clenched his jaws. He had just taken the last straw from the young soldier. The man was way too immature to work the prison. He had told the colonel that all the military policemen assigned to the federal prison should be at least twenty years old. The civilian captain for the federal guards had complained already about the young soldier’s conduct while on duty. The captain didn’t have to try to guess whether the magazine was full—he knew the kid was dumb enough to use a full magazine. He probably even had a round in the chamber! The captain gave the tower guard a quick, threatening glare; if that kid had a round in the chamber of his weapon, he was going to personally shoot the dumb bastard!
The approaching MPs again drew the captain’s attention away from the tower guard. Something was wrong. He reached up and laced his fingers through the Cyclone fence and held the palm of his right hand out to stop the MPs escorting the prisoner.
“Hold the prisoner right there until I check something out.” The escort MPs obeyed. The captain then glanced up at the tower guard. “Hit the buzzer and let me out.”
The tower guard felt his stomach roll. He knew that the captain had seen the magazine in his weapon, just by the tone in the officer’s voice. “Yes sir!”
The huge black MP sensed that something was going wrong when he saw the captain hold up his hand and stop the prisoner. He looked over at his partner and whispered, “The gate is open. We’ve got to take them out now if that flicking captain suspects us… hear!”
The other black MP nodded and slipped his thumb along the receiver of his M-16 and pushed against the safety.
The captain saw the slight movement of the man’s thumb as he approached the pair. He started dropping down into a squat and pointed at the two men with his left hand. “Hold it right there!” He reached for his .45 with his right hand as the bigger black MP lowered the barrel of his M-16 and fired.
The captain took a round high up in his left shoulder and spun around from the impact. The second black MP fired at the MP driver and killed him before he knew what was going on. The driver’s body caught the edge of the open gate as he fell and started it moving toward the electric lock.
“Stop that gate!” the black driver screamed at his partner, who was closer to the closing gate.
The prisoner saw the gate closing and started hobbling toward it. He knew that his guards were carrying empty weapons and it would take them a couple of minutes to load their shotguns. Regulations at the federal prison stated that all guards would carry ammunition on their person, but not loaded in the weapons unless there was an actual threat to their persons. A dumb regulation.
The tower guard heard the black MP screaming and saw th
e prisoner hobbling toward the closing gate. He raised his M-16 to his shoulder and fired a short burst at the thick steel frame. The impact from the rounds slammed the gate shut just as the prisoner’s fingers clawed the mesh steel. The tower guard switched his attention to the surprised pair of black MPs; they had been told that the guards didn’t carry loaded weapons. The second burst from the tower guard’s M-16 ripped across the chest of the black man who stood closest to the gate. The other black man fired up at the catwalk, sending sparks flying when his rounds impacted the steel frame.
The escort MPs had loaded their weapons and began returning fire. The black phony military policeman realized that there was no way he could break through the fence and take the prisoner with him. He had failed, so now it was only a matter of trying to save his own life. He fired as he ran back across the open asphalt parking area. The MPs inside the prison compound returned his fire, but most of their rounds were deflected by the Cyclone fence. The tower guard dropped down on one knee and changed magazines. He was the only one who had a clear shot at the escaping man.
One of the escort MPs ran forward and shoved the hot barrel of his shotgun against the prisoner’s neck. “Make one move, James, and I’ll blow your shit away!”
“I ain’t going anywhere… honkie!” The prisoner spit out the words. He was more pissed at his brothers who had screwed up his escape than at the MP holding the burning barrel against his neck.
The tower guard threw his M-16 to his shoulder and fired a wild volley at the escaping phony MP The black man slipped around the corner of the building just as the prison siren went off. The whole shooting incident had lasted less than thirty seconds.
The driver of the canary-yellow Cadillac threw his M-16 into the unlatched trunk, followed by his pistol and the top part of his fake MP uniform. He reached into the trunk and pulled out one of the uniquely tailored suit jackets that had a shirt and tie attached in one single piece. One of their Hollywood mosque brothers who worked for the studios had made them for this special mission. It took the black man less than ten seconds to slip the suit jacket on and fasten the Velcro strips inside the jacket. He opened the Cadillac door and slipped over the seat. The keys were still in the ignition. He took a deep breath and drove away. Anyone looking inside the Cadillac would only see a very well-dressed black businessman, but if they leaned inside the car they would see his fatigue pants bloused into his boots.