Court Martial (17 page)

“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.

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.

Arnason stared across the table at Spencer and could see that there was more on his mind than just testifying at James’s court-martial.
“Spence… we’ve got to let the Army handle James!”

Barnett slowly turned his head so that he could look directly at his recon team sergeant. The look in his eyes made the recon
sergeant shiver; even the natural curls at the corners of Spencer’s mouth looked demonic. “I
am
going to let the Army handle him.” Spencer tried smiling but the effect was lost when it reached his eyes. “Why wouldn’t
I”

Lieutenant Colonel Martin stepped through the open back door of the barracks that led out to the picnic area. A wooden privacy
wall had been erected by the Special Forces Training Detachment years earlier around the building and they had used it for
a special briefing area. The FBI had erected a ten-foot-high Cyclone fence around the wooden fence, fifty feet away, and had
installed a electronic gate-locking device. The three witnesses were as much prisoners as James was until the court-martial
was over with and their lives weren’t in as much danger. “How are you guys doing today?”

Instantly the look on Spencer’s face changed to a jovial, elfish grin. “Great! Shrink… what has the outside world brought
us today?”

“Some magazines.” Martin held out a
Time magazine
to Spencer. “You’ll like this one.”