by H. Alesso
“You might as well let me clean up those gashes and burns.” Alyssa pointed to the large bloodstains on his jacket and trousers.
“They’re nothing. They can wait. I’m sure there are many others in greater need,” he said crossing his arms and tucking his hands in.
“Actually, they look more serious than you think. Better let me treat them.” She smiled impishly and said, “Don’t be afraid. It’s going to be all right. I’m going to make the pain go away and fix your leg, good as new.”
A crooked smile slowly formed on his lips. He said, “As you say.”
She moved so quickly and efficiently, that he found his outer clothes removed and a plasma drip in his arm in nothing flat. She applied local analgesic and antiseptic while suturing a dozen wounds, several of them substantial.
“Oww!” escaped his lips only once while she stitched a twelve centimeter gash in his calf.
“Oh, that didn’t hurt,” she mocked.
“No, of course not,” he said, clenching his hands tighter as he looked around to see if anyone had heard. But with so much else going on in the emergency room, no one paid him any attention.
She said, “You look like a man of action, but Joshua said you were uninvolved in what’s going on.”
“What is going on? Can you explain it me? It all seems rather jumbled,” grumbled Hawkins.
She gazed at him and blinked in surprise. “Joshua said you were a Marine.”
“Were. I was medically discharged last year.” A frown darkened his face.
“That would explain all this scar tissue,” she said, examining his torso.
“Huh,” he grunted.
“You fought against Hellion?” she said smearing a healing gel to a second degree burn on his arm.
“Yes. And that war grinds on remorselessly, apparently endlessly, even without me.”
“You don’t seem like someone who would be content to remain on the sidelines during times of trouble.”
“Times of trouble?” he said, raising his eyebrows in mock jest.
“Our city is in ruin because the demonstrators believe our democracy is disintegrating. They claim President Victor is corrupt, eroding basic freedoms with the intent to establish a dictatorship.”
“And Victor has exclaimed, with equal vigor, that the protestors are proxies for Hellion, determined to bring down the administration and pave the way for an invasion,” responded Hawkins.
“Well, which do you believe?” she asked.
“You mean which is the greater lie?”
“Yes. Which?”
“How am I to know?” he said, throwing up his hands. “Remember, I am…was…a Marine, and that leaves an indelible mark. So despite the egregious outpouring of suffering and turmoil, I’ve witnessed, I am not inclined to lend my combat skills to the hopelessly dysfunctional cause of the rebels.”
Alyssa put the final touches on his bandages and said, “All done. You can get dressed now. I have other patients who need my help.” Poking him in the chest, she added, “just like you.”
She was gone in an instant.
Suddenly alone, Hawkins felt unsettled, as if her leaving tore away something he desperately needed.
Beyond the hospital shield’s protection, incendiary bombs continued to fall. Frequent pinpoints of dazzling white lit up the hospital interior, illuminating the suffering victims as each bomb exploded. They went out one by one, as the unseen firemen smothered them with fire retardant, but as soon they eliminated one, another building was on fire.
With the coming of dawn, the bombs and shells finally stopped. The earth-shaking explosions ceased; the suppressed fires stayed out. The lull indicated, Hawkins speculated, that the Jaxon military had regained control of the city and put an end to the uprising. Or as the government proclaimed, it had successfully crushed a rebellion.
As the city quieted, the military and police swarmed the area, demanding that the hospital shield be lowered.
When Hawkins complied with the authorities, rough hands seized him. They dragged him away from the shield control panel and pushed him, along with the rest of the hospital staff, into the entrance corridor.
The senior officer shouted, “Take these rebels out, and shoot them.
CHAPTER 2
Only the Brave
After twenty-four hours of non-stop brutal violence and cruel bloodshed, the soldiers had had no sleep and little food or water. They had repeatedly engaged in hand-to-hand combat against the demonstrators. Even though the soldiers were heavily armed and armored, they had taken serious casualties. Now, tired and angry, everyone they found looked like a rebel.
The hospital had been a place of healing—now it became a makeshift prison. In a large observation room, the soldiers sorted people into three groups: the wounded men, a smaller group of women and children, and the medical personnel including Hawkins and Joshua.
With bloodthirsty eagerness, the ranking officer repeated, “Take these rebels out and shoot them,” pointing to the first group.
As the first group was headed toward the door, Hawkins stepped forward, planted his feet wide apart, and shouted, “Stop, Colonel!”
Outraged at the ruthlessness of the order, he put his hands on his hips and said, “You can’t execute these men.”
The officer turned toward the disturbance and said harshly, “It is my duty to safeguard the nation. Am I to care for the lives of rebels?”
“For the sake of humanity, yes,” said Hawkins, his voice strong and vibrant. With an unyielding stare, he added, “This is still a civilized world, not a lawless state.”
Crossing his arms without taking his eyes off the interloper, the immaculately attired colonel seemed disconcerted.
Hawkins said, “These men have not been properly charged.”
The colonel remained unimpressed.
“There are always witnesses to any massacre, Colonel.” Making a grand sweeping gesture with his arms, he added, “Just look around.”
The colonel frowned as he surveyed the frightened faces of the women and children. Then seeing the uncertainty on the faces of his own men, his frown deepened into an angry scowl.
“Eventually, there’ll be a reckoning,” said Hawkins, waving his hand to take in the hellish carnage throughout the city. “The government will look for scapegoats to justify this harsh reality. It wouldn’t be prudent to be so easily identified with merciless acts.”
The colonel stared daggers at Hawkins. For a moment his hand hovered over his pistol, as if he were considering putting a bullet in Hawkins’s head right then. Instead, his eyes narrowed as recognition dawned on his face. He sneered, “Why, I know you. I served with you at Gambaro Ridge.” A smile crept across his face and he said with a strange blend of sarcasm and irony, “You were killed.”
“Not quite,” responded Hawkins with an outlandish grin.
“I saw you shot to pieces when you recklessly charged the enemy stronghold,” said the colonel, smirking, and nodding his head. He laughed, “That was insane. You were definitely killed.”
“As you say,” said Hawkins, letting a chortle escape his lips.
“Your assault gave the rest of us a chance to escape,” the colonel remarked thoughtfully, considering the memory in a new light.
Undecided on how to deal with such an uncommon man, the colonel pointed at him and exclaimed to his troops, “Ha! Here’s something you rarely see—a disgruntled ex-Marine.”
A roar of laughter erupted from his soldiers.
Hawkins threw his head back and laughed as well, “Ha!”
The colonel stepped closer to inspect him.
A small, jagged scar over his right brow was nearly hidden behind the shock of unkempt sandy brown hair, which draped over his forehead in a careless manner. He was tall with an athletic build, and he stood forward on balls of feet, like a boxer. His strong jaw and intense gray-blue eyes purported an iron will. The colonel remembered Hawkins as a courageous, but utterly reckless, officer.
&nbs
p; Hawkins recognized the colonel as well. Anthony Rodríguez was swarthy, ruggedly handsome with a broad mustache and a muscular physique. Hawkins remembered him as a fashionable man, his uniform always well-tailored. What he lacked in imagination, Rodríguez made up for as a stickler for protocol, meticulously carrying out orders in order to further his career.
After a long moment, Rodríguez barked, “Don’t be foolish enough to believe I feel any obligation to you. You did your job. Now I’m doing mine.”
Throughout the observation room, frightened people waited for the tension to burst. They realized that in many ways their fate was bound together with this tête-à-tête.
Rodríguez said, “I don’t believe your battlefield antics were ever acknowledged. Some might have thought you a fool.”
Stone faced, Hawkins retorted, “Then you stand here today—alive—as a testament to my folly.”
Coloring slightly, Rodríguez took a moment to recall his orders and began parsing the words to extract their broader intent. Finally, he asked, “What are you doing here? Are you a rebel?”
“I’m no rebel,” said Hawkins adamantly. “The generators were failing. No technicians were left to bring up the backups, so I was called here to protect the women and children.”
“Called here? By whom?”
“What does that matter?” asked Hawkins.
“I’ll decide what’s important,” Rodríguez snapped.
Joshua spoke up, “It was me.”
“What was your business here?”
“I came to help.”
“Help whom? Were you with the demonstrators?”
“Yes, but I was looking for my mother . . .”
“There. By his own admission, he’s a member of the rebels,” said the colonel delighted, at finding something clearly within the bounds of his orders.
Joshua tried to explain, “I not a rebel. I just wanted to …”
Rodríguez ordered, “Put him with the rest of the rebels.”
As the soldiers pulled Joshua away and placed him with the group of rebels, Hawkins said, “He’s just a boy. He was involved in things beyond his understanding.”
Rodríguez shot a disdainful look at Hawkins and asked, “Oh! Were things beyond your understanding, when you aided the rebels hiding in this building?”
“I came to succor the weak and helpless, as is the duty of any man of honor,” said Hawkins.
Offended and enraged, Rodríguez stormed, “No! You were aiding a rebel force attacking our nation’s capital.”
“I—was—saving—lives,” spat Hawkins. “Once again!”
The veiled reference to Gambaro Ridge made Rodríguez flushed crimson—the emotional cocktail of anger and humiliation was so powerful that his face looked as if it would explode. His voice contorted into a rapid-fire staccato of orders, “Place this man under arrest—along with the rest of these rebels—march them all to prison.”
Several pairs of hands reached out and grabbed Hawkins, but as he twisted free several more soldiers joined in the brawl. Six soldiers were as battered and bruised as Hawkins before they managed to pin him down. They bound his wrists and flung him against the wall with the rebels.
His dark eyes blazing with contempt, Hawkins’s deep voice boomed, “Anthony Rodríguez, if I survive this barbarity,” he took a deep breath, and said slowly, “I hope to chance upon you—once again.”
Other distraught prisoners began yelling their own protestations, but Rodríguez bellowed over the clamor, “Take them away! Take them away!”
CHAPTER 3
Tainted Verdict
With his flowing ruffled black robe draped around him, the frail wizened sour faced Senior Justice Alfred Augustus Richter gazed at the innocuous prisoner, unaware that he was holding court on someone unusual—never mind extraordinary. The indictment on the table before him was flush with red marks, official seals, and high-ranking signatures. Tags and attachments cluttered the dog-eared pages. Richter surmised that this case had garnered a great deal of interest from some lofty individuals. He had never seen such a harsh and disparaging document in his thirty years as a judge. Perhaps the circumstances were not as clear-cut as he imagined.
From the court bench several meters above the prisoner’s head, the senior justice squinted to bring Hawkins into sharper focus. Despite the shaggy hair that flopped over his brow, he looked more soldier than rebel with his military bearing and a firm, square jaw that declared, “I am unafraid.” Yet he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, undermining the look of unwavering calm—as if fluctuating between confidence and unease…or was it possible he was in pain?
Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit that covered his ragged and stained bandages, Hawkins stood alone as the focal point of the room with a single chair behind him. He had no lawyer for his defense. The high court bench loomed over him at the front of the room while the empty jury’s box was set off to the left side of the room. The prosecutor sat at a table on the right, methodically sorting through a pile of documents. Security guards stood at every corner of the room. In the back, citizens packed the rows of audience seats, whispering, their curiosity focused on Hawkins, as if he were the tip of a judicial iceberg.
The unique, ultramodern architecture of the Newport courthouse, with its arched ceilings and high glass panels, gave the building the look of a major corporate office rather than the most important judicial building on the planet. However, on this gloomy day, only a few faint rays of sunshine filtered through the overcast clouds to cast a cobweb-like net at Hawkins’s feet.
Stretching his wizened face with his best sarcastic smile, Richter glanced down at Hawkins, and asked, “I hope you don’t mind my asking you a few questions before the formal proceedings start?”
It was unusual for him to directly question a prisoner in his court, especially given such a comprehensive indictment. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever having done it before. He ordinarily left the job of eliciting testimony to the prosecutor, but this case had aroused his curiosity. He looked again at the thick documents on the table—rife with brash accusations, startling declarations, and ugly notations that attempted to bridge the gap between ludicrous insinuation and actual evidence.
“No…no, not at all,” said Hawkins, his indifferent words belying the fulsome gesture of his hands.
Richter recalled the stories he had heard about the former Marine. It didn’t seem likely that this brash young man had committed all the crimes he was accused of—after all, the prosecution had no physical proof of rebel activity—and yet Richter was reluctant to let the possibility melt away. Considerable political interests were at work here, with specific motives that were unknown to him. A judge was, after all, a political animal, and he lived in a time where his superiors frequently second-guessed motives and actions. What if this disheveled individual actually had committed all these treasonous acts? What would Richter’s fate be if he mishandled the trial?
“You are an exuberant prisoner. I’m reminded of some brigands I’ve sentenced.”
“I can only speak for myself.”
“Not according to your accusers. They say you were only too eager to speak for others without being asked,” said Richter, waving the indictment in Hawkins’s face. “Just look at these red marks and condemnations, many from prominent leaders in our government.”
Richter savored the deflated look on Hawkins’s face; the determined expression flagged as if he had been punched in the gut. Having extracted a full measure of discomfort, and thereby established his authority, Richter shifted this tactics, “I’m really enthusiastic about hearing your defense.”
“You…you will hear me?”
Richter said, “Of course, there may be considerable controversy, but then again, controversy makes for stimulating discourse. I expect a great deal of attention will be drawn to this matter and justice must not only be just, but also be seen to be just.”
Hawkins gave a harsh laugh. “Ha! Senior Justice, you’ve made a da
mn brilliant decision.”
While Richter’s words sounded sincere, the judge was enjoying his game of cat-‘n-mouse. A slick smile crossed his otherwise stately countenance. “Fine. Now at the risk of being indelicate, let me start by asking—are you guilty of treason?”
“I shall be equally indelicate in my reply,” said Hawkins. He dropped his hands to the table, leaned forward, and professed loudly, “No! These allegations are all damnable lies.”
The spectators exploded with excited babble.
“Order! Order!” demanded the judge pounding his gavel.
He waited until the crowd became quiet once more. Then he admonished the accused, “You will not address this court so impudently, sir.”
Hawkins nodded silently.
“You are in a court of law and you must comply with the Rule of Law,” said the magistrate from his lofty perch. “You must answer guilty, or not guilty.”
“I beg Your Honor’s pardon—not guilty,” said Hawkins, sounding contrite, but looking not the least repentant.
The Senior Justice leaned back in his chair, solemn and composed. He said, “Then, in your own words, tell this court how you came to be in this predicament.”
Hawkins took a deep breath and plunged into his version of the dramatic events that night. The judge let him speak for less than a minute before interrupting impatiently, “I’ve heard enough. Mr. Prosecutor, bring in the jury and present your case.”
Murmuring filled the courtroom as the jury filed in. The jurors looked inquisitively at the defendant while the oath was administered and the indictment was read.
The prosecutor had a small pointed nose with wispy whiskers beneath it. He stood up and held his hands close to his chest with his head tilted to one side when he addressed the court. While his appearance was slight, his speech was flamboyant. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth as he denounced Hawkins as a traitor and added a litany of other equally scurrilous labels for good measure.
Colonel Rodríguez was called as the only witness for the prosecution. Never once looking directly at Hawkins, he described the hospital and its inhabitants as he found them that night. He testified that Hawkins had restored the shield that sheltered the band of rebels from his soldiers, acknowledging that Hawkins lowered the shield when ordered. Rodríguez made no mention of his original order to execute the prisoners.
