Damnable
CHAPTER 1
JAKE HATCHER KNEW HE WOULD SPEND THE REST OF HIS life right where he was, or somewhere just like it, if he rolled off his bunk, applied a rear choke hold, and snapped his cellmate’s neck. But he wouldn’t have to listen to the man’s babbling anymore, so at the moment it didn’t seem all that unfair a trade. He wondered what it took to wear out a set of vocal cords. Less than his sanity could stand, he was sure of that.
“And them Chinese, those are some strange fuckers, let me tell you. You know?”
Hatcher held a breath in his chest, felt the pressure grow, blew it out toward the ceiling a few feet above him. He had serious doubts as to whether Tyler Culp had ever shut up for one goddamn minute his entire life.
“You want to know what I read about ’em? Wanna hear something strange?”
Sleep tugged and teased, drawing his heavy lids closed. He saw Tyler emerging from the womb, pictured the swollen head of a redneck on a baby’s body, a flow of annoying goo-goos and ga-gas tumbling incessantly out of his mouth. The last half hour had been a stream-of-consciousness diatribe that started with Tyler recalling all the Korean “free corn” he’d seen, how he’d learned it popped up everywhere over there because farmers ate a lot of corn and shit in the rice fields. That annoying, forceful whisper of his scratched relentlessly at Hatcher’s ears as he’d gone on to explain in a variety of ways, illustrated by a variety of anecdotes, how he never, ever ate Korean vegetables after that. Would not eat them when in Seoul, would not eat them in a bowl. Wouldn’t eat the vegetables over there, or the tomatoes, which he pointed out was a fruit. Or pussy. Especially not the pussy. Figured any culture where shitting on crops was okay, you couldn’t trust the feminine hygiene. Japanese, that was different. He compared that to good sushi.
A monologue would have been bad enough, but Tyler didn’t seem to think of it that way. He expected his audience to pay attention, to listen. Listen and acknowledge. Constantly.
“I said, do you want to hear something strange?”
Hatcher tensed the muscles in his jaw, felt something pop near his ear. “It’s what I live for.”
“I read about these guys got arrested over there for killing these women, prostitutes mostly, but some poor village slopes, too. Gave the parents some yuan, or whatever the fuck they use over there, and ended up snuffing ’em. You know why?”
Tyler’s neck was pretty thick, Hatcher thought. It might take a lot of effort. “Can’t say I do.”
“To sell their bodies to marry dead guys. Ghost brides, they call ’ em. You ever heard of such a thing? I mean, ain’t that the damnedest thing you ever heard?”
Hardly, Hatcher thought. He’d heard worse. Way worse. Heard worse, seen worse. In the eyes of some, probably done worse.
“Sure is.”
“These families would, like, buy them, so they could bury them with their sons. So they’d have a wife. In the afterlife.”
He’d said it like it was three words. Af. Ter. Life. Hatcher smiled at that, in spite of himself. That’s exactly what kept him in check, and the thing that kept this ass-hat from puking blood and looking for his ribs. The hope of an afterlife. Fifty-eight days, and counting.
“That’s why they called ’em ‘ghost brides.’ Get it?”
“Yeah. I get it.”
It was no accident he’d been celled with Tyler; that much he knew. He had less than two months to go, and Gillis wanted him to fuck up. Wanted it badly. Tyler had showed up eight days ago, six foot three and about 285, with a short fuse and thin skin. Fifty-eight days. Hatcher knew he had to put up with him, had to find a way. The alternative was exactly what Gillis had in mind.
“How do you think those people came up with that shit? I mean, who’s the first one who plants his kid and says, ‘Hey, we gotta find some gal to bury with him, so he’ll have a wife over there’?”
The sun was coming up. Hatcher could see the light seeping in from the corridor through the bars, bathing everything it touched in a blue gray glow. They’d be forming for PT soon, then showering before the breakfast formation and work detail. Formations were good. A few minutes of standing in silence where he could sneak some shut-eye. A minute or two of it in the shower, another couple at breakfast. Sleep was a weapon. He was good with weapons.
He heard the first stirrings of the jailhouse, the faint clanging of metal, the creaking of heavy hinges. Since the run-in with Captain Gillis, Hatcher’s days had been designed to make him crack. He appreciated the irony of it, of being on the receiving end of sleep deprivation. Probably Gillis’s idea of a joke, or would be, if the guy actually knew. Gillis was big on jokes, had lots of them, none of them funny. Thanks to Gillis, Tyler shadowed him everywhere except for his afternoon motivational training, his daily penance for the run-in that started this whole thing. He assumed that’s when Gillis allowed the moron to catch up on his own sleep, because at night Tyler seemed to need an hour or two at the most. The rest of the time he talked. And talked. And kept talking. Tyler was beefy, thickly slabbed through the chest and in the arms. Not a chiseled, health-club body, but not just a mass of fat, either. It was the kind of size that would make the guy carrying it think he could take anyone. Make him think he could talk wherever, to whomever, and for however long he wanted.
Hatcher felt a thump through the thin, flimsy mattress. It was a hard enough poke to make him suck in a breath. “Are you listening? I said, who’s the first one who plants his kid and looks for some gal to bury with him?”
Fifty-eight days. Shutting him up meant hurting him, hurting him meant additional time. There was no way around it. Hatcher wiped a hand down his face, squeezing his eyes closed and inhaling deeply. He caught a whiff of something pungent in the air, realized it was the asshole’s breath.
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“I think it just goes to show you how scared everyone is. Scared of that big dirt nap. So they start acting like it’s not the end, hoping they can believe, believing they can make it not the end. You know?”
“Yeah,” Hatcher said. “I know.”
“It’s like all these people who assume there’s a Heaven, but they don’t believe in Hell. I mean, what’s up with that? You know? Hey!” A couple more thumps into Hatcher’s ribs. “You there? Hello, I’m talking to you.”
Hatcher had decided early on that Tyler was just a useful idiot, a pugnacious talker put there to bait him. Guys like Gillis didn’t have the balls to actually cut a deal, and certainly didn’t have enough sack to sanction the infliction of grievous bodily harm by one prisoner on another. At least, Hatcher didn’t think Gillis had the balls. His type would be too scared the guy would talk, too worried about an inquiry if someone got hurt. No, Gillis would have just dropped clues about what he wanted, mentioned in passing how he would be happy if Hatcher didn’t get much sleep. Hinted he’d like some trouble to come Hatcher’s way without actually suggesting it, and never at the same time he discussed Tyler’s upcoming prisoner review board. He probably figured Tyler would catch on, and the rest would take care of itself. Plausible deniability. If Hatcher got curb-stomped, great, but what Gillis really wanted was for Hatcher to buy himself another few years. Showed what a cocksucker Gillis was. All Hatcher had done was dislocate the fucker’s shoulder.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m just saying, you can’t have one without the other. Like when people say, ‘Oh, he’s in Heaven now, sweetie.’ How the hell do they know? Does anyone say, ‘Oh, so and so’s died and gone to Hell?’ Do they?”
They sure do, Hatcher thought. Sometimes. “Guess not.”
“So, who’s going to Hell, right? I mean, somebody’s got to be. What d’ya think?”
The recording of morning reveille crackled through the facility speaker system. Hatcher swung his bare legs over the side of the bunk. He felt cool in his T-shirt and boxers, but not cold. It was going to be a mild day, and he hoped they’d be on golf course duty, same as last Tuesday. Gillis always assigned the two of them to the same detail, and mowing the golf course meant separate mowers and loud engines. He could sneak some sleep behind a mower as he enjoyed its innocuous drone and not have to listen to Tyler’s incessant prattle. With any luck, the dickhead hadn’t realized that.
“You gonna answer me, or what?”
Hatcher pushed himself off, felt his feet slap against the concrete floor. “Somebody’s in Hell. No doubt about that.”
“You making fun of me?”
Tyler was being particularly belligerent this morning. The more Hatcher thought about it, the more it seemed Tyler had been escalating things for days. He wondered if Gillis had been applying more pressure, dangling something special in front of this lunk to make sure he was properly motivated.
“No,” Hatcher said. “None of this has been fun.”
Tyler stood, using his three-plus inches of extra height to look down at Hatcher as he pressed in close. “I think you’re making fun of me.”
So, this was it then. Either Gillis finally decided to force the issue, or Tyler Culp decided he needed the brownie points right away, that he couldn’t wait any longer. Review boards meet on Wednesday. Hatcher was willing to bet Tyler’s just got moved up to tomorrow.
As Hatcher saw it, the problem was his cellmate’s size. Joint locks or nerve strikes were risky with a guy that big. A choke could work, but the cell was small and getting behind him would be tricky. And also risky. Hatcher didn’t want to be hanging over him, arm constricting his neck, waiting for the lack of blood flow to knock him out while Tyler tried to buck him off. Big guy like that would spin and thrash, slamming him against the bunk or the bars or the wall. No, to subdue him, he was going to have to injure him. And he knew that was what Gillis was counting on. Whether Tyler realized it or not.
On the other hand, he could always just take a beating, possibly a serious one. The problem with that was there were no guarantees the story wouldn’t still be that he was at fault, his own injuries evidence of the fight, giving Gillis the ammunition he needed to get one of the JAGs to prosecute. If he was going to do time for it anyway, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be this jerk-off’s pinata. He stood there as Tyler’s blunt gaze hung over him, the man’s hot, rank breaths invading his nostrils, and decided to stop kidding himself. He was rationalizing, big time. No JAG in his right mind would prosecute a guy for getting his ass kicked, and no panel of officers would ever convict. But there was just no way he was going to let it happen. Turning the other cheek wasn’t in his nature, which was why he was in this situation to begin with. If anyone was going to get the shit kicked out of him, it was Tyler. But that would be giving Gillis exactly what he wanted.
Of course, another option was to kill the man, make it look like an accident. Have him crack his skull off the side of the bunk. Wouldn’t fool Gillis, but that wouldn’t matter because he wouldn’t have any witness to coach. He wouldn’t have any witness at all. And given that kind of situation, he’d probably want to distance himself from the whole ordeal as much as possible. From a purely practical standpoint, Hatcher knew that was the option that afforded him the most control over things. But he really didn’t want to send the guy packing for oblivion, as much as he had entertained himself with that very thought over the past few days.
Tyler poked a stiff finger into Hatcher’s pec. “I don’t like being made fun of.”
Hatcher glanced down at his chest and watched the hand hovering in front of it, thinking, sometimes you got to play the cards you’re dealt.
“Don’t do that again,” Hatcher said.
“What? This?”
Tyler stabbed his finger into Hatcher once more, harder this time. Hatcher grabbed hold before Tyler could pull it away, wedging his palm up against it, wrapping his thumb and forefingers around it. The man’s hand was large and sweaty, digits like greasy pistons.
For a big ugly, Hatcher realized that Tyler was fairly quick. He felt the man shift his weight, saw him coming over the top with a left. But Hatcher had already set his grip and started to curl his wrist forward and down, bending the man’s finger back. Tyler’s punch dropped like a dead bird and he fell to one knee, letting out a surprised noise somewhere between a dog’s yelp and a moan.
It wasn’t something he had planned on, but it occurred to Hatcher that breaking a finger wasn’t a bad idea. Clean and inconspicuous. Painful, but not disfiguring. It would swell and bruise, but not leave any real marks. In an inquiry, it would smack of defense, not offense. And most important, it probably lacked any sex appeal to a JAG. Courts-martial were boring enough when a real crime was involved. Gillis would look like a moron pressing the issue beyond the walls of the facility. Or more of a moron, at least.
And Hatcher also knew if he didn’t end the class with a bang, this guy just wouldn’t learn the right lesson.
“I’m afraid this is going to hurt,” he said.
The deep buzzing of the door to the corridor penetrated the cell block, causing Hatcher to stop and listen. Steel bars sliding. Multiple footfalls on the concrete. This was unusual. Procedure was for the cell doors to unlock and for the prisoners to form on the red line five minutes after reveille. Something was up and something being up was rarely good.
Gillis and two military police guards stopped in front of the cell. One of the guards was carrying a clutch of silver chains with cuffs. Hatcher waited a few seconds before letting go of Tyler’s finger, making sure Gillis was able to grasp what had taken place. Tyler shook his hand out and seized it with his other, rolling back onto the lower bunk and muttering curses. Gillis glared at Hatcher, then gestured back down the hall toward the closed-circuit camera. A mechanical sound echoed around them, followed by the clunk of the cell’s lock disengaging.
“Put your goddamn jumper on,” Gillis said. “Now.”
Hatcher glanced at Tyler and smiled as he pulled the dark blue coveralls from the end of his bunk, took his time stepping into them and buttoning up. He could feel Gillis’s eyes burning into him, so he took even longer putting on his socks and shoes.
“Shackle him.”
Both guards stepped forward. Hatcher knew the drill. He turned and raised his hands to his head while one of them looped the waist chain and the other fettered his ankles. When they were done with those, they spun him around and he lowered his hands to be cuffed, one at a time.
They pulled him forward a few steps until he was face-to-face with Gillis. “Don’t I get one of those hockey masks, too?”
“Shut up.”
Gillis looked at one of the guards and jerked his head. He started back up the corridor as the guards led Hatcher out of the cell.
Behind him, Hatcher heard the bunk creak. Tyler’s voice tried to recapture some its bravado, but failed.
“I’ll be here when you get back, punk.”
Hatcher slowed and looked over his shoulder, the MPs pulling on his arms. “For chrissakes, open your eyes,” he said. He resumed his shuffle, sensing the looks peering out from the cells on either side, watching Gillis open the fortified metal door to the block. Under his breath he added, “They’ve already gone to Plan B.”
GILLIS LED THEM THROUGH THE INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR checkpoints of the confinement unit, past the glass cubicle housing the gatekeepers, and into the adjacent administrative building. They paused in a small reception area as Gillis keyed a coded lock to open a heavy door, then filed in behind him.
Hatcher hadn’t been in this building before, but in a sense he had. Virtually all army offices looked the same. Government-issue furniture, plain black safes and beige filing cabinets, drab, tan, utilitarian paint jobs over cracking, sagging wood. Three admins sat behind desks in a bullpen just inside the entrance, two men and a woman, staring at computer screens and pecking on keyboards. The two that bothered to look up as Hatcher passed didn’t register any interest.
Gillis cleared the bullpen and entered a corridor lined with doors. One of the doors was marked as a restroom, and Hatcher suddenly wished he’d had a few more seconds to break Tyler’s finger and then take a leak before Gillis had come for him. The hall cornered and Gillis stopped near the back of the building. Gillis tugged on the key ring attached to his belt and stretched it out on a reel, unlocking a door to the interior side of the corridor. That meant no windows, Hatcher thought.
They entered a large room with a holding cell in the corner, sturdy round bars bolted to the walls and forming the other half of a large square. At the opposite end was an empty desk with a computer on it. Stacks of plastic chairs with chrome legs stood along the wall opposite the cell. The middle of the room was empty. There were no windows.
There was a man in the holding cell. Early twenties, medium-sized, and lean. He was beefy in the arms and shoulders, sporting the crooked nose of a pug and wearing the same standard prison jumper as Hatcher. He sat on a narrow metal bench affixed to the back wall, leaning forward on his elbows, his hands hidden between his knees. Hatcher spotted the chain around the man’s waist, thinking it was probably the only half-comfortable way to sit in these things.
Gillis retrieved another key from his ring and unlocked the door to the cell. He held the door open and gestured for the MPs to put Hatcher inside. The door closed behind Hatcher with a clang and the loud clunk of a solid latch catching snugly.
Hatcher turned, almost losing his balance in the leg shackles, and looked through the bars at Gillis.
“No talking. No lying down. If you need to go to the bathroom, it will have to wait. You’ll be escorted to the colonel’s office when he’s ready for you.”
Hatcher said nothing. Gillis was staring at him, but there was an edginess to it, a desire to break eye contact the man was trying to hide. Hatcher made a point of holding his gaze, waiting for Gillis to be the one. Gillis finally gave up, turned to leave after a few seconds, but before he did, Hatcher caught it. A snapped glance over to the prisoner on the bench. No swivel of the head. Just a shift of the eyes. Guarded. Self-conscious.
“A guard will be standing right outside this room until the man who occupies that desk gets in. He’s running a little late this morning. We have eyes on you. So don’t try anything funny.”
The MPs followed Gillis out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
Hatcher looked over to the empty desk, then back to the door. Not much noise was going to make it through there. He glanced over to the far corner where a security camera was aimed at the holding cell. He waited for a blink of red above the lens. Nothing. He suspected the feed had not been activated. He heard the man behind him shift on the bench. He angled his body against the wall. The prisoner was eyeballing him.
“So.” Hatcher looked at the name stenciled on the man’s jumper. “Cromartie. What did Gillis promise you?”
Cromartie’s eyebrows jumped and he pulled the ends of his mouth into a confused moue. Hatcher held his gaze, bored his eyes into the man’s pupils. After a few seconds Cromartie smiled and dropped his head low, almost between his legs, nodding.
“Conjugal,” Cromartie said. “Need one bad, man. I was only married a couple of months before I got sent here. Got six months left.”
So Gillis suddenly had grown a set of balls, after all. Of sorts. “How rough is this supposed to get?”
Cromartie pressed his lips together, someone about to confess some bad news. “Rough.”
Hatcher dipped his chin, looked over to the camera, and pictured Gillis feigning outrage, demanding to get to the bottom of things.
“Nothing to send you to the infirmary,” Cromartie added, his voice more upbeat. “And not too much blood. But, yeah. Rough. Couple of teeth on the floor, some gut shots that’ll stay with you a while. Oh, and your shoulder. He wants you to feel it in your shoulder, he said.”
Hatcher nodded. “Why you?”
“Took a silver at the Armed Forces Boxing Championship two years ago,” Cromartie said, shrugging. “Guess he figured I knew how to cause some damage.”
“And the cuffs?”
The man raised his arms, twisted his hands back and forth to show his unfettered wrists. With Cromartie’s hands up, Hatcher could see the cuffs dangling between his legs, hanging from the waist chain.
“You a boxer, me like this,” Hatcher said. “Not exactly a fair fight now, is it?”
“Sorry, bro. Nothing personal.”
Cromartie stood. He was a couple of inches shorter than Hatcher, but with a boxer’s compact ranginess. He stepped forward, and Hatcher noticed only one leg was shackled, the chain and manacle for the other dragging behind it.
“Afterward, you cuff yourself up and Gillis takes care of the story, is that the idea?”
“That’s the idea.”
Cromartie looked like a boxer, carried himself like one. Balanced, light on his feet. Good boxers knew how to punch, and punch hard. Hatcher assumed Cromartie would be no exception.
“If you close your eyes and just stand there, I’ll try to make it go quick. Can’t promise it won’t hurt like a fucker, but you might save yourself some punishment.”
Punishment, Hatcher thought, repeating it silently to himself. He liked the word. Made the whole thing sound so orderly, so corrective. He tilted his head forward a bit and hooded his eyes, not quite closing them. Through the narrow slit of his lids he could see Cromartie’s shoes. He took a breath and exhaled as he watched the man set his feet.
Punching was all about timing and leverage, getting the most power out of the strike. Hatcher could detect the weight shift to Cromartie’s right foot, saw it roll and turn ever so slightly as he drew back. He visualized the rest of the man in a relaxed pugilist’s stance, twisting his hips, winding up. The hips were everything. You throw a punch with your ass, not your arm. He watched for the forward shift, tried to sense it happen, sense the timing, that fraction of a second where the body would uncoil, the commitment to the motion.
Now.
Hatcher jerked his head to his right, felt the fist brush by his ear, the bump of the thumb knuckle grazing the back of his skull. Just as he’d hoped, the man hadn’t considered the possibility of missing, didn’t snap his punch back as he would in the ring but let his weight follow it. Cromartie lost his balance for an instant, bounced forward on the balls of his feet to regain it. Less than a foot closer, but close enough. Hatcher reached out with both hands as far as his cuffs would allow and grabbed hold of the chain around Cromartie’s waist. Without any wasted motion, he arched his spine, drew his shoulders back, then snapped forward, slamming his forehead into the bridge of Cromartie’s nose.
Hatcher knew the blow dazed him. He saw the man’s eyes unfocus and flutter, his hands shoot to cover his face, felt the sudden jerk as Cromartie tried to stumble back. But Hatcher held on, waited the necessary second for the boxer’s instinct to take over, for him to ball his fists and move his hands out, keeping them high to block any punches to the sides of the head. Hatcher cocked his head back and butted him again, smashing the hard bone of his forehead one more time against the softer bones of the man’s face.
He could tell from the tug against his arms, the sudden droop of weight, that Cromartie was out on his feet. Using the waist chain, Hatcher guided him to fall back onto the wall bench, twisting around to veer him against the corner bars so he’d be propped into a sitting position.
Cromartie’s nose was pulpy and bent to one side. A triangle of red draped downward from it over his mouth and chin.
Hatcher sat next to him on the bench, used his weight to slide the man even closer to the bars. He watched for signs of him regaining consciousness, saw none.
“Boxing has rules,” he said, shaking his head. “I told you it wasn’t a fair fight.”
WHEN HE HEARD THE BOLT TO THE DOOR BEING THROWN, Hatcher was standing in a forward corner of the cell, holding on to a light sleep. He opened his eyes to see Gillis entering the room with two MPs. Not the same ones, he noted. One of them was a stocky black guy, the other was tall and wiry.
Gillis paused after a few steps. The surprise registered in his eyes and face. It quickly dissolved to make way for anger as he marched to the front of the cell.
“What the hell?”
The two MPs looked at each other behind him, uncertain what to do.
“He had an accident,” Hatcher said.
“You!’ Gillis stabbed a finger between the bars. “You did this!”
Hatcher pulled his hands up as high as they would go, about even with his belly, and showed his palms. “How could I do anything?”
Gillis glared, frowning, his lips tight and thin. His hands were shaking. He jumbled the keys attached to his belt until he found the right one and opened the door to the cell.
“Stand against the bars over there and don’t you move.” He glanced back at his men and gestured toward Cromartie. The two MPs dashed into the cell and inspected the unconscious prisoner. Cromartie groaned as they moved his head and checked his eyes.
“Uh, sir,” the wiry one said. “You need to look at this.”
“Damnedest thing, too,” Hatcher said as Gillis moved along the outside of the cell to get a better look. “The guy managed to get his cuffs all tangled in the bars when he fell.”
Gillis watched as the other MP shifted Cromartie’s body to show that each of his handcuffs were locked around one of the bars instead of his wrists. Both ankles were cuffed normally, but the chain to his leg shackles was looped around one of the bars near the floor.
Hatcher tried to suppress the smile he felt spreading across his lips. Gillis had no choice but to bury this now. He’d outsmarted himself, spreading it out over two sets of guards to make sure no one had the whole picture. As a bonus, it was supposed to give him four credible witnesses to swear he’d done everything by the book. Credible witnesses were now his problem.
He wondered what Gillis was thinking as thirty seconds stretched into a minute and the man did nothing but stare at the floor, then at Cromartie, then at Hatcher, then at the floor again.
The stocky black guard broke the silence. “Sir?”
Gillis straightened his back and puffed out his chest. “Undo his cuffs, clean his face, and get him to the infirmary. Get some rubber gloves and damp towels first. And see if some smelling salts will wake him up so you can walk him over there quietly and not give him the attention he wants. It’s obvious what happened. Someone violated procedure and unfastened his cuffs when they put him in here, and he saw an opportunity to do this to himself.”
A sigh, a shake of the head, the hint of a clucking tongue.
“I actually spoke to this man earlier,” Gillis continued. “He was upset about his wife. This was a protest, against his incarceration. Probably wanted to stage a beating, knocked himself out by mistake.”
He’s good, Hatcher thought. Must have lots of practice. He could practically see the machinations as Gillis crafted the spin on the spot, thinking out loud. Gillis put just enough phony sincerity into it, countered it with just enough apathy. The worldly, jaded leader who’d seen it all before. The two MPs were buying it. By the time they related the story at the NCO club, it would be just as Gillis had described it.
The tall MP nodded, looking at the stocky one. “I’ll go.”
“I’ll take this one,” Gillis said. He pointed his finger at Hatcher. “You. Come with me.”
Hatcher exited the cell, taking six-inch steps. Gillis started to grab at his waist chain, then seemed to think better of it, opting to walk an arm’s length ahead of him as he led him out of the room. He motioned to the first MP he saw in the hall, snapping his fingers and ordering him to accompany them.
They walked back to the bathroom and Gillis opened the door. He gestured for the MP to wait and told Hatcher to sit on one of the toilets. He wet a paper towel in the sink and tossed it at Hatcher’s lap with a contemptuous look.
“Clean your face off. It’s got blood on it.”
Hatcher picked up the dripping paper towel and bent over low to allow his hands to reach his face. He wiped at his forehead and his nose. The brown paper showed spots of pink.
“I need to piss.”
Gillis looked at his watch. “Pissing is all guys like you ever do, other than moaning. You’ll live.”
“When I leave a yellow trail from here to wherever you’re taking me, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Sneering, Gillis jerked his head in disgust and turned away. Hatcher stood, fumbled for several seconds with the button fly of his jumper, and urinated into the toilet. When he was done, Gillis growled at him to get moving and stood behind him until they were out in the hallway.
“Where are we going?” Hatcher asked.
Gillis ignored him. He headed up the hall, back the way they had come, tossing his chin in the same direction. The MP grabbed Hatcher by the back of the arm and they followed.
Hatcher’s abbreviated steps caused Gillis to pull ahead as he walked.
“What’s up this way?” Hatcher asked in low voice after they passed the room with the holding cell.
“CO’s office,” the MP said.
Gillis shot a look over his shoulder, then stopped a few steps later and waited for Hatcher to reach him.
“I’ll take him from here,” Gillis said.
The MP stepped aside obediently as Gillis took Hatcher by the arm. He walked him a few more feet to where the wall opened, revealing a reception area for a corner office. A woman in her fifties sat at a desk behind a computer. Gillis greeted her perfunctorily and led Hatcher past her workstation. The door to the office was open. The nameplate on the wall indicated a Lt. Col. Richard Owens, Commanding Officer. Gillis knocked once on the door frame, then led Hatcher inside.
“I’ve brought Hatcher, Colonel.”
The office was spacious and spartan. A large desk dominated the center of it, a deep brown wood with ornate engraving. Along the wall next to the desk, an oversized set of flags, the Stars and Stripes and a green one bearing the insignia of the army, leaned against each other like crossed swords. The opposite wall was a love-me space, crowded with framed diplomas and certificates.
Owens sat behind the desk in a high-tech-looking black mesh chair with a wide back. He had a gray buzz cut and leathery skin that looked creased and ravaged by the sun. He signed a document with one of his large-knuckled hands and slipped it into an out-box, then leaned back and placed his elbows on the armrests of his chair. There was a large window behind him. Hatcher saw a breeze shaking its way through a tree. Spring would be starting any day.
“Was this really necessary?” Owens asked, holding out his hand, palm up, looking at Gillis. Hatcher realized he was talking about the restraints.
“Procedure, sir. He’s got a history. In fact, we just had an incident with him.”
“Unlock him.”
“Yes, sir.” Gillis glared at Hatcher as he applied a key to the cuffs. Hatcher held his hands out, rubbing his wrists and flexing them.
“Leg irons, too,” Owens said.
Gillis bent down and uncuffed Hatcher’s ankles, staring up, spilling as much venom out of his eyes as he could.
“I’d like to speak to the prisoner alone, Captain.”
“Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea. As I’ve told you before, the prisoner is unstable. Prone to violence.”
“Thank you for your concern. I’ll call for you if I need you.”
Gillis hesitated briefly, then strode out of the room. Hatcher heard the door close. Owens waited a few seconds before speaking.
The colonel swept a hand toward one of the chairs. “Please, take a seat.”
Hatcher took the chair closest to Owens’s desk. The give of the soft cushion as it received his weight reminded him it had been a long time since he’d sat on a real piece of furniture.
“How did you get that red mark on your forehead?”
Hatcher thought about how to answer that, couldn’t come up with anything. “I’m not sure you want to know, Colonel.”
“I figured as much,” Owens said. “Look, Gillis is an asshole. But he’s our asshole, so I have to make do. The harsh truth is, this kind of job needs assholes. By the way, do you know why you piss him off? Why he’s got such a hard-on for you?”
“You mean, besides the shoulder?”
Owens waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, besides that. I know all about what happened there. I’ve got plenty of people who’ll give me the scoop on things. The fact that he had it coming is the only reason you didn’t tack on a few years. I was talking about before that.”
Hatcher had asked himself the same questions. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I have an idea.”
Hatcher said nothing, waiting for Owens to continue. He was actually starting to like the man. He couldn’t imagine that lasting long.
“You scare him,” Owens said, picking up a file from his desk. “Evidently, you scare a lot of people. He’s just the latest one. SF, insertion teams. Quite a résumé. You were a Kitten, weren’t you?”
Hatcher held the man’s gaze, trying not to show any reaction. That information could not have been in his file.
“Relax. I have an old ROTC buddy who’s at Langley now. I had him do some digging. I know a dummy personnel record when I see one. Just like I know a bullshit charge.”
“Why am I here, Colonel?”
Owens slid his chair closer to the desk, clasped his hands, and rested them on his blotter. His pleasant expression dissolved into an austere frown of concern. “Yesterday we received a priority message from the Red Cross. I had to have CID look into it before I told you. I’m sorry to say, it all checked out. Son, there’s no easy way to say this. Your brother Garrett is dead. Killed in a traffic accident in New York a few days ago. I’m sorry.”
“My brother?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.” Owens picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and held it out. Hatcher leaned forward out of his chair and took it. “Your mother contacted the Red Cross. From what I’ve been told, she didn’t know you were in here.”
Hatcher looked at the message. It was a humanitarian application for an emergency hardship release. It requested that Jacob R. Hatcher, Prisoner, be granted leave from custody to attend the funeral of his brother Garrett E. Hatcher, aka Garrett E. Nolan, Deceased, at the behest of his mother, Karen P. Woodard, fka Karen P. Hatcher, Applicant, and to be given additional time to assist with related family matters. It included contact information for his mother, the funeral home, and the Red Cross.
“Since you’re only eight weeks or so from finishing your sentence, I ran it by the provost. On my recommendation, he decided to grant the request.”
“But, I don’t understand. This can’t be . . .”
“I know it’s hard. It always is. I don’t grant these things often. I’m approving you for thirty days. You’ll still be considered in custody, but you’ll be free to travel to tend to your family. At the end of thirty days, I expect you to report back in. If you do, and you’ve kept your nose clean, I’m inclined to out-process you for an additional release. It will take a couple of days, but I have the authority to approve it. That would be terminal.”
“Colonel, I really don’t . . . Are you saying you’re letting me go?”
“You’ll still be considered a prisoner, but yes. A thirty-day hardship release. And like I said, if things go well, I’m willing to allow you to out-process upon your return.”
“Forgive me, Colonel, but this . . . Why are you doing this?”
“Part of it is because I know what happened to you over there. Maybe not the whole story, but I know the forces that put you here. Normally, it’s not my concern. But when there’s been a tragedy like this, well, let’s just say this is a chance to do something right. Lord knows, we don’t get many.”
“You said that was part of it.”
“Frankly, the other part is Gillis. I’m not sure he knows what he’s messing with in a guy like you. Turns out your psych evals were missing from your Pentagon file. Can’t prove it, of course, but I’m pretty sure that was his doing. It’s obvious he’s become obsessed with you, as much as he tries to hide it. I don’t want any scandals on my watch. If either of you turns up dead or crippled, well, it wouldn’t help my bid for full bird, now, would it?”
Something weird was going on, but Hatcher was too confused to figure out what and his head hurt from even trying. Owens had called him a Kitten. Coercive Interrogation Tactician. Very few people knew about that, that such a thing even existed. It was both the reason he was prosecuted, and the reason he only got twelve months confinement rather than life. His initial thought was the army was setting him up. But Hatcher trusted his ability to read people, honed through years of experience in extracting information, and Owens seemed to be putting his cards on the table. He appeared genuinely sympathetic and was likely telling the truth about his contact with the spooks. Probably was one of the guys who thought torturing the enemy was acceptable and that prosecuting GIs for trying to win the damn war wasn’t. Whatever this was about, Hatcher was confident it didn’t involve Owens. Somewhat confident.
Which was good, because he was the one apparently about to let Hatcher go.
“My secretary is preparing the necessary forms, and you’ll have to out-process through admin, but it shouldn’t take too long. Photo, exit prints, and lots of signatures. A couple of hours at the most. A driver will take you to the local Red Cross office. They’ll help arrange for a set of civilian clothes and a plane ticket.”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Again, I’m sorry.”
Hatcher stared at Owens for several seconds before dropping his eyes and rereading the message. “Would it be possible for me to make a phone call? In private, that is.”
The colonel considered it, then nodded. “Yes. You can use my phone.” He slid a large phone with a bank of buttons running down the length of it toward Hatcher. “Use line two. Dial nine for an outside line. I’ll be back in five minutes. I’m bending the rules here. Don’t make me regret it.”
Hatcher picked up the handset and waited for Owens to leave the room. Phone calls from the RCF were expensive and monitored, so the colonel really was doing him a favor. He waited for a standard dial tone before keying in the number contained in the message. Someone picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
He took in a breath, tilted his head back. “Mom. It’s Jake.”
“Jacob? Jacob, is that really you? It’s so good to hear your voice! Are you okay?”
The tinny voice on the line had an alien familiarity to it. It was the voice in his memory, but not the one he remembered. Twelve years was a long time.
“I’m fine,” he said. “All things considered.”
“I couldn’t believe it when they told me. I thought I was getting in touch with your unit. I almost cried when they said you were in jail.”
“Look, Mom—”
“Are they . . . letting you out? I mean, the Red Cross said they were going to request that. Are they going to let you out for the funeral?”
“Yes. But listen—”
“I feel horrible you had to find out this way. Jake, your father is very ill. Garrett dying . . . I don’t think he’s handling it well. I know this must all come as a shock. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
Hatcher sighed. “Yes, Mom, you are.”
“I’m sorry, I just get a little excited, that’s all. You must have a lot of questions.”
“You got that right. Like, for starters”—he looked down at the message, scanned the text about Garrett Hatcher’s death—“since when do I have a brother?”
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