Devil's Dance (Trackdown Book 1)

by Michael A. Black

  Wolf lowered himself down to another dead-hang. Another voice spoke in an all-too-familiar refrain. The prosecuting JAG attorney: As part of the government’s prima facie case we will present irrefutable evidence that rounds were recovered from the bodies of two Iraqi nationals, one Captain Faroke Hussein Mohammed and Hassan Karem Ali of the National Police, as well as two shell casings, which were recovered by Specialist Nathan Thompson at the scene, came from the military-issued nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson pistol, that had been issued to the defendant, Sergeant Steven Wolf …

  Dead hang. CRS. Pull-up.

  The JAG prosecutor’s voice continued inside Wolf’s head: And that a military-issued K-Bar knife, which was also recovered at the scene, said weapon having been used to slice the throat of one ... which had been wiped clean of any fingerprints...

  Dead hang, pull-up. CRS.

  The stern face of the judge, decked out in his dress uniform, staring down from his bench flashed into view.

  His defense attorney’s soft voice whispering, cajoling, Take the deal, Steve. Plead guilty to manslaughter and take the eight years. It’s lenient. You’ll be out in four. We got no defense. Not with that evidence and the gaps you’ve got in what you recall ... Not with Lieutenant Cummins and that PMC guy, Eagan, testifying against you.

  And I still can’t remember shit, Wolf thought as he brought his chin over the edge of the I-Beam.

  Cummins ... That fat, lying son of a bitch.

  The memory of the defense attorney’s voice continued; Lieutenant Cummins’s recollection of the incident is vastly different. Both he and Eagan swear that the Iraqis were all alive when they left the building. So do the National Police Officers who were with them. Essentially, it’s six against one.

  Dead hang.

  Fuck Cummins. Fuck Eagan. Fuck ’em all … All but nine, as the old army prayer went.

  Two for road guards, six for pall bearers, and one to count cadence.

  And with the rest of your squad not providing us with anything we can use.

  Even his own men couldn’t back him up. It had been the ultimate nail in Wolf’s Army green coffin.

  He managed nineteen more chin-ups before his fingers gave out. Dropping lightly to the floor he spread his hands shoulder-width apart and began another set of push-ups. The voice inside his head started the questions again and he increased his pace to distance himself concentrating on the numbers. It was all about the count. Only the count. He stopped when he reached one hundred.

  Montell Gant, his cellmate rolled over and grinned. “Not even cutting yourself some slack on your last day, huh, bro?”

  Wolf shook his head as he got to his feet. His upper body felt pumped and tight. He took a few moments to get his breathing back to normal before he smoothed out the sheets and blanket, making as tight a bunk as he had in basic years before.

  “Too bad the Army don’t realize what a gung-ho, strac, super-soldier you are,” Gant said, stretching out and rotating his head. “They done lost themselves a real fire-pisser.”

  “Maybe they’ll pardon me in time for the next war,” Wolf said.

  “Well, one thing we can count on, they always gonna be shooting black or brown people somewhere.”

  Wolf smirked as he slipped on his T-shirt and pants, then stepped into his lace-less sneakers. It would feel good to get his old civilian clothes back. He could wear his desert boots, jeans, and a sweatshirt. Anything but his old uniform, even if they’d let him. They’d busted him down to E-1, and there was no way he would leave here wearing slick sleeves. Maybe they’d give him a new suit like in those real old James Cagney movies. That and a ten-dollar bill.

  Of course, he thought, with inflation, it must have to up it to at least fifty.

  He’d certainly earned at least that much in the ebb and flow of monotonous and mundane jobs inside during the last three and a half years. He wondered if he’d have to walk into town to catch the bus. And if so, where would he go?

  Darlene had written, faithfully at first, then with less regularity. He’d sensed the distance increasing in her tone as the time passed, and the ending salutations went from love always, to love, to just plain always.

  Always what? Always going to wait?

  And then the letters stopped coming. His mail came back marked REFUSED.

  But how could he blame her? They’d lost the house to taxes after the first year, and Darlene had been forced to move back with her folks. Two months after that the divorce papers came for him to sign. He did and sent them back. No harm, no foul. She was still young enough to start over. Not much future for an Army wife whose hubby had gotten himself tossed in the pen along with a DD.

  Dishonorable Discharge ... Forfeiture of all rank, pay and benefits ... It wasn’t much compensation for ten years of faithful service. Well, six, since he couldn’t include the past four. Maybe he’d been too faithful, too willing to follow orders without question, too stupid to trust, too unwilling to see.

  But he still saw those faces every night. All three of them on their knees. Dark, stubble-lined cheeks and chocolate brown eyes filled with terror, leaking tears, pleading with him in a language he didn’t understand. Sure, they were Iraqis and probably the enemy, but they were also civilians, not combatants. They were on their knees, hands bound behind them. Not threatening. Cummins, Eagan and that Nasim guy had been calling the shots.

  But it was his words against theirs, and nobody was believing him. Especially when he said he couldn’t remember what happened next.

  You’re saying you have no recollection? It was the prosecutor’s voice starting again. Even if we take into consideration your statement, sergeant, as dubious as it is, why didn’t it cross your mind to question the legitimacy of this alleged action that you claim you witnessed? It was some fucking army major intent on getting his silver oak-leaves by stepping on Wolf’s face. You do know that if an order is unlawful, it’s your duty to question it, don’t you, Sergeant Wolf?

  Of course, nobody believed him. With the credible lieutenant’s testimony, as well as that of the big Texas shitheel PMC guy, and an Iraqi National Police Officer backing all each other’s accounts up, Wolf’s attorney more or less told him that the prosecutors could easily make their case for the more serious charge of homicide. But the whole war was just a bad memory in everybody’s mind at that point, and the DOD just wanted this ugly little incident brushed under the rug with all the rest of them.

  Wolf had considered fighting the charges all the way, but in the end, he knew he couldn’t win. Plus, that blank gap, the section that he really couldn’t remember, kept haunting him. It was like trying to present a jigsaw puzzle as complete with the center section gone. After getting assurances from his JAG lawyer that the rest of his squad would be in the clear, as long as he took the fall, Wolf agreed to the offered deal.

  The prosecution convicted him on conduct unbecoming and took his stripes, his pay, his benefits, and his self-respect. When the judge told him to stand and hear his sentence, it was the last time anyone addressed him as “Sergeant Steven Wolf.”

  They’d all been shipped back to the States and good old Lieutenant Cummins had gone back to his civilian life as a lawyer or something, and Eagan went off to who knew where. At least the Iraqis, Captain Nasim and his National Police buddies, apparently stayed in Baghdad to fight their own country’s war.

  Gant swung his legs off the edge of the upper bed and jumped to the floor, holding out his hand.

  “Well, no sense dragging this out,” he said. “Take care of yourself, out there, man. Remember, you ain’t gonna have good old Montell to be watching your back no more.”

  Wolf took Gant’s proffered hand and smiled. “I’m not sure where’ll end up, but we can keep in touch. Look me up when you get out.”

  “Shit, that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. You know how they love to keep a black man down.”

  The sentence was punctuated by the loud, electronic click that signaled the opening of the cell doors. Wo
lf and Gant exited and lined up against the wall.

  Last forced march, Wolf thought. He wondered what it would be like on the outside, being able to go and come as he pleased. But then again, he had nowhere to go. The thought of going home, back to the Rez, maybe to see his mom, seemed less than desirable. How could he face those people, his mother, his uncle, all of them? He’d gone away to be a soldier, a hero, only to return as a disgraced convict with a DD.

  A whistle sounded and the line came to attention, then upon command, faced right. They began a slow shuffle forward, maintaining standard D and C discipline. The stench of the prison chow grew stronger as they grew closer to the oversized mess. Another line was marching past them in the opposite direction, already holding their paper plates. Wolf tried to look past this last prison meal. He’d be processed out after that, and then he could go to a fine restaurant somewhere.

  If he had any money.

  He doubted his mother or anybody from the Reservation could afford to come pick him up. Maybe they’d have a bus to take the released cons to the train station or somewhere to get them out of here. Maybe—

  He caught the glimpse of the huge white guy’s shifting eyes as they approached each other from opposite directions. A big fucker, much bigger than Wolf, and cupping his hand under that paper plate. Wolf could only guess what the hand held, but the eyes, they told it all. Seconds later the big guy lunged forward, thrusting his left hand forward. Wolf’s arm shot out, blocking the blow with his own left and smashing his right fist into the big man’s nose. He grunted and jerked his head, and that was all the time Wolf needed to grip his assailant’s hand and bend it back. A plastic shank fell from the involuntarily straightened fingers as Wolf forced the big man to his knees, his eyes still glaring upward as a curtain of crimson washed over his lips and mouth making his exposed white teeth look like bone showing through an open wound.

  “What you trying to do?” Wolf yelled as he twisted his adversary’s hand upward, bearing down, forcing the big man to his knees and catching a glimpse of a red and black tattoo amongst the blue jailhouse graffiti on the man’s forearm.

  Before this adversary could answer, Gant stepped forward and delivered a solid kick to the big man’s jaw, snapping his head back and sending the mandible sideways with a crack.

  Wolf glanced around and Gant pushed him back against the wall. The big man sunk to the floor face-down, a widening puddle of blood flowing outward from either side of his thick neck.

  Three guards were suddenly there, pushing everyone in sight against the wall, calling in the incident on their radios.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” the main guard asked. “Who started this.”

  He glanced down at the prone figure and spoke into his radio mic once more.

  “We’ve got one down in Corridor Bravo. Send a stretcher.” He removed his handcuffs. “All right, either you say who did it, or everybody goes.”

  Before Wolf could speak, Gant shouted at the guard: “No need for that. It was me. The white motherfucker tried to shank me. Guess he don’t like brothers. Called me a nigger.”

  He pointed to the crude, pointed plastic shank on the floor.

  A couple of the other black inmates eyed him with curiosity but said nothing.

  Wolf stared at him and Gant winked.

  The message was clear. His cellmate was watching his back one more time.

  As the guard pulled Gant’s arms behind his back and ratcheted on the cuffs, the black man smiled.

  “So long, super soldier,” he said.

  Wolf was the last man through the gates after pausing to shake hands with one of the guards who’d been decent to him. The rest of the newly released cons kept shuffling toward the gray bus that would take them into town. Some had people there in cars waiting for them, but mostly they just looked like a bunch of sorry-asses walking the slow walk to their next stop. Broken men on the road to nowhere. And now he was one of them. Wolf moved to the end of the line with the rest of the losers, reflecting on the call he’d gotten a month ago from his mama.

  “Pa’s dead,” she told him. “Went back to drinking and got in a wreck. Hit a cement porch up in Lumberton.” The news had stunned him. She continued: “I’m sorry, Steve. I just can’t get all the way out there to Kansas to meet you.”

  Wolf vaguely remembered telling her it was all right. They were dirt poor as it was, and now that Pa was gone, it would probably get worse before it got better. But his little brother was there and hopefully he’d step up and take care of ma. His sister was in North Carolina, too. They were both a lot closer than he was now. And neither one of them was branded with a stain of dishonor. Better that he stay as far away as possible, but where could he go?

  The question kept repeating in his mind as he approached the open doors of the bus. He paused and took one more look at the sweeping view of the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Disciplinary Barracks. From here the place appeared almost pretty with an expanse of green and some sizeable trees giving way to a sturdy stone building looking like it could house a couple battalions. But the view was a lot different from inside those consecutive layers of fencing and concertina wire. Especially when you didn’t have the luxury of leaving when you wanted. Now he was out. Free, but free to do what?

  At least he could get a meal lining up and waiting, without the worry of getting shanked. He wondered what the big man’s motivation had been this morning. Wolf hadn’t recognized him, didn’t remember even seeing or talking to him before. But in prison seeming insignificant slights took on a whole new meaning, and debts were often paid through a convoluted system of passed on favors owed and rewards given. Wolf wondered about Gant, too. The man had taken the hit for him. But Gant was in for the duration. Twenty-to-life. Robbery and assaulting an officer. Gant was basically a good man, though. A soldier. The kind you wanted next to you in a foxhole when the shit was hitting the fan. Funny how sometimes the guys you least expected would turn out be the ones that lead the company. Maybe in another life he would have won the Silver Star, or something.

  Another life, another time, far away from Leavenworth.

  He paused and took a deep breath of the fresh air. It smelled different inside the walls. Out here, the air was nice and clean.

  That was when he heard the twin toots of the horn.

  Wolf glanced over toward the source. A black SUV. A Cadillac Escalade. Arizona plates. He couldn’t quite make out who the guy behind the wheel was, but he was wearing a cowboy hat. A white one. The driver’s door opened and Big Jim McNamara, “Mac,” stepped out and grinned.

  Wolf couldn’t believe it. What was he doing here?

  McNamara waved him over.

  Wolf picked up his duffel bag and walked toward the SUV. McNamara stepped away from the door and extended his hand.

  “As they never used to say back in my day, welcome home.” He and Wolf shook. “Guess you weren’t expecting to see me, huh?”

  Wolf snorted. “You got that right. What are doing here?”

  “Waiting on you.” He opened the rear door, grabbed Wolf’s duffel bag and tossed it inside, pausing to run his fingers over the swash of black paint where the prison officials had obliterated the rank designation in front of Wolf’s name. He glanced at it and shook his head. “Don’t miss a trick, do they?”

  Wolf felt a flush of embarrassment. “So you going to tell me how you happened to show up at this particular time?”

  “Your mama called me.” McNamara slammed the door and motioned for Wolf to get in the passenger side. “Sorry to hear about your daddy.”

  Wolf nodded and got into the Escalade. It figured that his mother would contact Big Jim. He and Wolf’s father had been in service together and Mac had almost been a surrogate father to Wolf.

  “Well,” Mac said. “Your hair’s nice and short. I like that. Looks like you been keeping in shape, too.”

  “I did my best,” Wolf said. “What’s with the cowboy hat?”

  “I settled in Arizona. Everybody who’s an
ybody wears one there out there. We’ll have to get you one. Of course, you being half Indian, we’ll have to get you one like Billy Jack’s.”

  Wolf laughed and said, “I always hated those old movies.”

  McNamara patted the dashboard. “This is my baby. How do you like her?”

  Wolf smirked. “Never figured you for a Cadillac man.”

  “Hell, after all them years of driving jeeps, deuce-and-a-half’s, tanks, and then those damn Humvees, I figured I owed it to myself.” He slapped Wolf on the back and asked, “What’s the first thing you want to do? Get drunk? Get laid? Get in a fight?”

  “How about getting the hell out of here?”

  McNamara smiled and shifted into gear. “We’ll shift that to the top of the list.”

  Wolf appreciated the smoothness of the Cadillac’s ride as they got on the highway and began heading west. The miles passed in silence and Wolf didn’t ask where they were going. He didn’t care, as long as it was away from Leavenworth. While the place hadn’t quite been hell on earth, it hadn’t been Club Med either. He wondered again about the attack that morning, at what had precipitated it, but decided it was water best left under the bridge. He was out now and didn’t have to worry about such things.

  He did make a note to contact Gant at some point in the future to thank him for taking the blame. Perhaps that had been the intention: it had been common knowledge that Wolf was getting out. Being involved in a fracas, injured or not, would have delayed his release, maybe even cancelled it altogether.

  The silence continued and he hoped that Mac wouldn’t ask him the inevitable question: So what was it like in there?

  But he answered it himself: Too many bad memories, too many sleepless nights, too much time to sit and think and wonder and play ‘what if?’ It was like being in a forward area with no weapons, waiting for the balloon to go up. And all you could do was sit and wait ... and wait ... and wait some more. And then there were those absent memories, dancing in elusive grasp in some corner of his memory. What had happened during those voided, blacked out moments in Iraq? The worst part was the frustration of not being able to recall the specifics.