Court Martial

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  Woods nodded toward the door. “Let’s go.” He waited until they were on the walkway headed toward their sedans before adding, “What an ass!”

  “The Army is made up of all kinds of people,” arnason replied as he stepped into a waiting car. He rolled down the window and called over to Spencer, who was riding with Mary, “I think we’re all going over to the Washington Sheraton for the rest of the day and then fly back to the cabin tomorrow.”

  Spencer nodded in agreement. He had been briefed that they would be staying in special reserved suites at the Washington, D.C., hotel for the night so that Spencer could meet with his family and friends, and then they would return to the cabin for a couple of days before flying by Army helicopter to Camp McCall for the opening of James’s court-martial.

  It was raining in Detroit, which made the funeral ceremony for the four Death Angels even more dreary. Master Elijah stood under a large black umbrella that was being held by a twelve-year-old acolyte. The boy had green eyes and medium-brown skin and did not adhere to the pure racial standards that Elijah had personally set for acolytes to the Brotherhood, but he had made an exception in the boy’s case to show his congregation that even diluted black blood was stronger than pure white blood. The boy suffered from a great deal of harassment by the pure black acolytes attending classes at the mosque, but Master Elijah could see that it was making the boy tougher. He would never admit even to the child that he was very partial to him, especially the child’s fine features and soft wavy hair. The boy could easily have been a high-paid model in any agency in Detroit. Master Elijah looked out over the crowd surrounding the four closed caskets, then paused to look at the boy’s face before returning his attention to the assembled ministers standing in a row to the right of the caskets. He smiled pleasantly to himself as he considered what they would think if they knew that the mixed-blood acolyte standing next to him was his son by one of his white mistresses.

  The minister from the mosque in Atlanta looked around the gathering in the cemetery for his bodyguards. He didn’t like standing so long out in the open, especially in a downtown Detroit cemetery. He located his men and nodded toward his limousine. He wanted them to be ready to leave the instant the burial was finished. He sneaked a glaring look over at Master Elijah and was caught by the penetrating glare of the Supreme Minister. It was too late for him to change the expression on his face, so he allowed his hate to show through. He, along with all the other ministers from around the country, had told Master Elijah that it would be stupid to all show up together for the funeral of the four Death Angels, but Master Elijah had insisted that they appear together as a show of unity to the congregation. He was sure that very few people inside the church knew that the Death Angels even existed, and those who weren’t Death Angels or pledged to become Death Angels had no idea of what they really did for the mosque leaders. The word had been spread through the congregation that the deaths were due to a drug war between the Brotherhood and the devilbeasts.

  The two black FBI agents blended in perfectly with the crowd standing around the caskets. They wore modest business suits and tan raincoats. A team of special photographers was set up on the roof of a large warehouse across the street from the Brotherhood. When they returned to their headquarters and developed the photographs, they would be in for a very pleasant surprise. The leader from Atlanta had passed out to each Death Angel present at the funeral a small silver angel earring to wear in honor of their fallen comrades. Master Elijah had forbidden even mentioning association with the Death Angels outside of the mosques and would have had the minister shot on the spot if he had known about the earrings. The FBI agents would notice the silver angels and within a few weeks identify all of them as criminals wanted for other crimes.

  * * *

  Spencer Barnett looked out of the seventh-floor window at the darkening sky. He held a glass of Coke in his hand. Mary approached him from behind and wrapped her arms around his waist. He smiled and turned around to hug her. “Thanks for coming today. I needed to see your face there.”

  “It was my pleasure, Spencer Barnett.” She kissed him.

  “Please!” Woods set his beer down on the glass coffee table and exaggerated with his hands. “Wait until I leave for my R and R back in Nebraska before you cause me to bust!”

  Mary smiled shyly. “For you, David… we’ll wait.”

  Spencer glanced over at his foster brother, who had fallen asleep curled up on the dark maroon sofa in the luxury suite. The fourteen-year-old was wearing Spencer’s Medal of Honor around his neck and held the medallion clenched tightly in his hand.

  “We’d better get him back to our motel room.” The father set his finished drink down on the bar and looked over at his wife.

  “Where are you staying?” The tone in Spencer’s voice told the Callams that he didn’t want them to leave.

  “Somewhere down the street a piece…The Mayflower?” The man looked at his wife, who nodded.

  “Look… I’ve got a double suite here....” Spencer went over to the double doors that led off the main living’ area and opened them to reveal a large double bed and a private bath. “You can use this bedroom and I still have mine on the other side.” Spencer nodded at the double doors opposite the ones he had opened.

  “I don’t know… bothering you with all of your friends…”

  “You’re not bothering us,” arnason said, coming to Spencer’s rescue. “We’re living just down the hall a piece, so in fact we’ll be bothering you.”

  The father looked down at his sleeping son. “He’s all tuckered out and I hate to move him....”

  “Then it’s settled! You’ll stay with us tonight!” Spencer was happy. lie needed to have family around him.

  “Well, seeing’s that we’re not traveling tonight, Mother...” The father picked up his glass and held it in the air. The pleading look in his eyes brought a smile to his wife’s face.

  “If you mind yourself and don’t make a fool out of the Callam family name!”

  “I feel a good drunk coming on!” The father chuckled and went back to the bar.

  “While you’re drinking all of Spencer’s liquor, I might as well go over to the other hotel and get our things.” She looked at her son and smiled. “He’ll sleep until next Sunday if we let him, and then he’ll be mad for a week because he’s missed everything.... Pa, you’d better wake him up.”

  “In a minute…” The father poured his glass three-quarters full of Wild Turkey. It had been almost a year since he’d put on a good drunk, telling stories with friends, and he was looking forward to it.

  Arnason stood up and stretched. “I think I’ll tag along with Mrs. Callam, if she doesn’t mind.” The lookarnason flashed to Woods told him that he would watch the woman and that Woods should stick with Spencer. The FBI had agents covering every entrance to the whole wing they occupied andarnason knew that the woman wouldn’t be allowed to return unless she was escorted.

  Woods nodded his agreement and winked.

  Spencer refilled his glass with ice cubes and Coke and leaned over to whisper in Woods’s ear, “Did anyone ask my mother to come today?”

  Woods felt his stomach knot before he answered. “She wanted to come, but your stepfather wouldn’t let her.”

  Spencer clenched his jaws and went back to sit next to Mary. He couldn’t hide from her the hurting inside and she gently ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. He felt a burning desire to make love to her to hide the hurt he was feeling. She sensed his need and nodded toward the closed bedroom door.

  Spencer looked at Woods, who nodded for him to leave. “Your foster father and I can keep each other company for two minutes… go ahead.”

  Spencer reverted to his old self. “Two minutes! We’ll see! You are talking to a South Carolina—bred boy now!”

  “Boy is right!” Woods laughed.

  “Those are fighting words, David!”

  Mary tugged at Spencer’s arm. “What do you want to do�
� make love or war?”

  Spencer paused, and an expression of great dilemma was exaggerated on his face.

  Mary swatted his arm. “Spencer Barnett! If you don’t—”

  “Love… let’s make love.” He started laughing and slipped into the bedroom behind Mary. The door opened as soon as it had closed and Spencer pointed his finger at David and mouthed the word WAR!

  Woods laughed along with the foster father, who made a very appropriate remark: “It’s hard not to love that boy.”

  Spencer lay on the bed with his arm around Mary. She was sleeping deeply from the exhausting day’s events. He looked out the window at the reflected lights coming up from the brightly lit entrance to the hotel. He had been lying there awake for hours. He knew what he had to do and got out of bed to 2et dressed. The zipper on his suitcase seemed to sound like a train as he opened the case and removed a pair of Levi’s and a checkered flannel shirt. He left his western boots in the suitcase and removed his Reebok running shoes instead. He needed footwear that was practical in case he had to run.

  The door to his bedroom opened quietly and he slipped out into the living room of the suite. His foster brother was still sleeping on the couch, with the medal around his neck. Spencer gently tried to unlatch the medal, but the boy woke up.

  “Shhhh…” Spencer placed the palm of his hand over the fourteen-year-old’s mouth and then removed it. “I need to borrow that medal for a little while.”

  “Sure, Spence…” The boy reached behind his neck and unlatched the clasp. He handed the medal to his hero, who was only a little more than three years older than he was. “Where are you going, Spence?”

  “To visit a friend.” Spencer placed the Medal of Honor in its box and tucked it away in his shirt.

  “Can I come along?” the boy whispered.

  Spencer shook his head no and went to the bar. He hopped up on the Formica top and pushed up against one of the deco?rative plastic panels suspended from the ceiling. The panel moved easily and Spencer stuck his head up through the opening. It was exactly as he had hoped: the false lowered ceiling opened up wide enough for a man to crawl between it and the roof. He looked back at his foster brother sitting on the couch and saw the hurt look in his eyes. Spencer smiled and nodded for the boy to join him. The fourteen-year-old hurried to slip on his tennis shoes and hopped up on the bar with Spencer.

  “You’ve got to be super quiet so that we don’t get caught.” Spencer pulled himself up through the opening and moved over so the boy could join him.

  The roof creaked slightly but not enough to alert the FBI agents who were on guard outside the suite. Spencer and his foster brother crawled all the way over to the opposite wing of the hotel floor, then Spencer removed another of the lightweight ceiling panels and dropped down into the hallway, followed by his partner. The excitement in the boy’s eyes told Spencer that the kid didn’t care why they were sneaking out or, for that matter, where they were going.

  Spencer adjusted the case tucked in his shirt and hurried down the fire-exit stairs to the ground floor of the hotel. He paused at the exit and searched the corridor both ways before exiting. He was sure that the FBI would have even the ground floor of the hotel watched. They slipped out of the building and Spencer led the way back to a side street where they caught a taxi.

  Spencer leaned forward and spoke through the holes in the Plexiglas that separated the driver from the passengers. “Arlington Cemetery, please.”

  The driver looked back at him as if he were crazy. It was two o’clock in the morning. “The place is chained shut.”

  “Take us to one of the side gates.” Spencer smiled. “For an extra ten bucks?”

  “Done!” The driver slipped the old taxi into gear and turned onto Massachusetts Avenue.

  Spencer looked up at the tall iron gate in the dark. The thick black bars would be easy to climb. He looked over at his foster brother. “You think you can make it?”

  “Sure!” The boy grabbed hold of the bars and was up and over the fence before Spencer had gotten a decent foothold. “Why do we want to come here at night?” The excitement was still present in his voice. He was loving the adventure.

  “Like I said, to see a friend.” Spencer looked around for a couple of minutes before he decided which direction to take in the large cemetery and then started walking at a fast pace. His foster brother kept close to him, not that he was scared or anything like that, for he was a country boy from South Carolina and they weren’t scared of anything, except maybe a haunt or two.

  Spencer saw the raised mound of fresh earth in the dark and looked around again. He recognized a large tomb in the background and was sure of where he was. He dropped back down on his rear in the loose soil and smiled. “Hi, Sarge I brought my little brother with me to see you.”

  The fourteen-year-old’s teeth gleamed brightly in the moonlight.

  “I thought you might want to see this, too.” Spencer unbuttoned his shirt and removed the case. The moonlight reflected off the Medal of Honor. “Have you ever seen one of these before?” Spencer paused as if he were being answered and then added, “Me neither, until today.”

  The fourteen-year-old took a seat on the damp grass and listened to the one-sided conversation between Spencer and the grave. Anyone else who might have been there would have thought the young soldier had gone totally crazy, but the boy figured if Spencer wanted to talk out loud to a grave, that was his business; after all, he talked to his black-and-tan hounds all the time and he knew he wasn’t crazy.

  Spencer talked for over an hour to the sergeant’s grave, telling the dead warrior about his plans with Mary and asking his opinion a half-dozen times about what he should do. Each time Spencer asked a question, he paused as though listening to an answer.

  Mary woke up and found Spencer missing. She looked over at the bathroom door and didn’t see any light around its edges. She listened for conversation in the living room but heard nothing. Fear burst in her heart and she rushed from the bed. The suite was empty. She ran to the telephone and dialed Woods’s number. It rang only once before he picked it up.

  “Hello?” There wasn’t any sleep in his voice.

  “David, is Spencer with you?”

  “No…” Caution filled the sergeant’s voice.

  “How about witharnason?”

  “He’s here.”

  “David, Spencer is missing!”

  “Have you checked the rest of the suite?”

  “Yes!”

  “How about the Callams’ room?”

  “No… But the boy is gone too!”

  “Unlock the door—we’ll be right there!” David hung up the telephone, followedarnason out of the room, and reached the suite before Mary could walk over and unlock the door. The two FBI agents on duty saw the concern on the sergeants’ faces and started walking toward them.

  “Where do you think he went?” Mary’s voice was near panicking.

  “The boy is with him. Spencer probably took him downstairs for a midnight snack in the lounge.” arnason was trying to calm her down as his eyes searched the room.

  “The guards outside would know.” Mary opened the door and asked the agents if they had seen Spencer leave the suite. Both of the FBI men became extremely alert. The senior man called an alert over his hand-held radio.

  “Don’t worry, Mary....” Woods walked over to the bar and looked behind it. “Spencer would never endanger the boy. He’s nearby.” David saw the loose fiber dust on the bar top and looked up. He noticed that the ceiling panel directly above the bar was slightly raised in one corner. Spencer had left through the roof. He nodded atarnason and then up at the ceiling. The recon sergeant picked up instantly what Woods was telling him.

  The room filled with a dozen agents who began searching all the closets and waking the Callams to search their room. The senior agent approachedarnason. “Do you know where he might have gone?”

  Arnason put his arm over Mary’s shoulder and hugged her. “I’m pretty
sure I can find him.”

  “Please! Let’s go!” The agent’s voice was urgent. He had read the secret Agency reports and knew that the soldier’s life was in extreme danger. Teams of black hit men had been searching the Washington area trying to locate the hotel or residence where Spencer and the other witnesses were being kept.

  Spencer was still sitting on the damp mound of earth talking to his sergeant when the headlights lit up the narrow asphalt road leading back into the cemetery. He stood up and brushed the seat of his Levi’s before slipping the medal back inside his shirt. His foster brother rose and looked at Spencer’s face, trying to determine if he should run or stay there.

  The lead-car door opened andarnason stepped out of one side while the agent jumped out of the other.

  “Hi, Spence… You ready to come back now?” Arnason walked slowly toward Master Sergeant McDonald’s grave.

  “Yeah, we were just about done.”

  “What were you doing out here?” The FBI agent swept the gravestones with his eyes as he spoke.

  “Talking to a friend,” Spencer’s foster brother answered the FBI agent.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Court-Martial

  There wasn’t even a breeze to move the hot, humid air outside the small wooden buildings at Camp McCall.arnason had carried one of the large military fans outside and had it blowing over the stained redwood picnic table they were all sitting around under a stand of loblolly pine. The three of them were wearing T-shirts to absorb their sweat, but they had removed their khaki short-sleeved shirts to keep them from getting wrinkled and sweat stained.

  Woods ran his finger down the side of his Coke can and watched as the condensation was absorbed almost instantly into the dry wood. “When do you think they’ll call us?”

  Arnason twisted his mouth before answering, “This shit can go on forever.”

  “Where do you think they’re keeping James?” The tone in Spencer’s voice was deadly.