“Army’s all fucked up anyway, they got hopheads and shit out there just shootin’ in the rice paddies,” Sam Martin said as he ran his finger down the article, reading the paragraphs that Clarence Jones showed him.

“See this?” Jones said, pointing to a paragraph. “This say the army counted twenty-one dead people down there, but letters from the soldiers say they shot like two hundred folks.”

“Bullshit,” Martin said, and looked toward the front desk of the library to see if the senior trustee paid any attention to them. “I can see maybe a unit blowin’ away a couple dozen gooks, but not two hundred. Man, the whole world find out about that shit. I mean, people be talkin’.”

“That what it say, man,” Jones shrugged, looked at the librarian’s desk, quietly ripped the article from the page, folded it, and tucked the news story inside his back pocket. “We need to call Captain Kirkwood and Captain O’Connor and show this to them. This prove that we didn’t start any fight with these shitbird army officers. Anybody get wrote up on charges murderin’ a bunch of women and children, they sure as hell lie about startin’ a fight with some snuffy dudes.”

“They damn sure lie about whackin’ me with that gun, too!” Martin said, falling in step alongside Jones as they walked out of the library and into the lower hallway of the main cell block. They headed toward the sally port so the two pretrial confinees could then cut across the recreation yard to the prison administration building, where they planned to request permission to use the telephone to call their attorneys.

Since the two men worked diligently and cooperated with everyone in authority, Lieutenant Schuller had granted Jones and Martin trustee status in the brig, allowing them greater freedom. He also moved them from the scullery to the library, as Kirkwood and O’Connor had requested, where they now worked putting away books and keeping the place clean. The two men enjoyed a great deal of free time and no sweat.

Sergeant Mike “Iron Balls” Turner did not hear Jones and Martin as they came down the hallway and turned the corner toward the sally port, where he and Lance Corporal Kenny “Bad John” Brookman sat talking, and keeping watch over the main entrance that housed the maximum-security cell block and the library.

Two nights earlier, a pair of prisoners had escaped through a hole in the fence they had cut in a dark area behind a restroom and shower facility built between two of the minimum-security prisoner hooches.

“Limp-dick Lieutenant Schuller screwed the pooch this time, because Gunny MacMillan told him and Gunner Holden both about that area behind the head,” Sergeant Turner said, taking a cigarette that Lance Corporal Brookman offered him when he pulled one out for himself.

“You think Colonel Charles Dimwit Webster will do anything, though?” Bad John said, lighting his smoke and then holding the match so Iron Balls could get his cigarette going, too. “He ain’t done shit for the last three escapes, so what makes this time different?”

“Fucking Colonel Dimwit gonna yank him by the stacking swivel this time, take my word for it,” the sergeant said with a smile. “Those other escapes, they just happened. Bad luck mostly. This time, Gunny MacMillan got on the rag, because he told those two yahoo brig officers a bunch of times about needing to get a light down there between that head and the hooch, where the fence makes that turn, and those boys cut that hole and slipped out.”

“I ain’t looked at it that way,” Bad John said, sucking on his cigarette and looking over his shoulder as Clarence Jones and Sam Martin approached them after they turned the corner in the hall.

“Well, all I got to say is that’s one black motherfucker back there,” Iron Balls said.

“Yip, that’s one black motherfucker,” Bad John echoed, looking at Sam Martin and noticing that the darker of the two black prisoners glared at him.

“What you say about me?” Sam Martin shouted. “That’s one black motherfucker? I’m one black motherfucker! That it?”

“Hold on, stud,” Sergeant Turner commanded, stepping in front of the two prisoners. “Nobody said anything about you being a black motherfucker. We were talking about the two dudes that escaped the night before last, how that area behind the head is a black motherfucker. No lights on back there.”

“Yeah, I believe you, all right,” Sam Martin sassed. “We see what the warden say about your prejudice remark on my color.”

“Private, you do what you got to do,” Turner said, and shrugged, watching the two prisoners step out the doorway into the recreation yard, where the high-risk prisoners sat at several picnic tables watching a basketball game. “I told you the truth.”

“Yo, what’s shakin’, bro?” James Harris called from the table next to the basketball court, seeing the two rangers walking out the main cellblock door and hearing Iron Balls calling after them.

“Fucking asshole guard talkin about me, sayin’, that’s one black motherfucker,” Martin said, walking toward the picnic table where Mau Mau sat with Brian Pitts and Celestine Anderson. “ ’Course, when I call him down, he deny sayin’ shit. Iron Balls say they talkin’ about that dark area behind the head where them two dudes escape a couple of nights ago.”

“They ain’t caught them brothers either,” Harris said with a laugh. “They be long gone now. Joined up with the Cong most likely. So what you gonna do about Iron Balls callin’ you a black motherfucker, you black motherfucker?”

All three prisoners at the picnic table laughed.

“Me and Clarence, we headed to the admin office now, so we can call our lawyers,” Martin said, half lying because he let Harris think they intended to call their attorneys about the insult instead of about the newspaper article.

“Well, you two black motherfuckers, have fun then,” Harris said and laughed. Then he turned to Pitts, who nudged him.

“You know, Mau Mau,” the Snowman said in a low voice, “we can use that incident to convert the remaining prisoners who aren’t with us to come aboard. Tomorrow night’s the big show.”

“Oh, I’m telling,” O’Connor chirped. “That’s don’t number seven, isn’t it? Don’t take off your shirt in the office, no matter how hot it gets in here.”

Kirkwood then unfastened his belt and pulled off his pants, too, and stood in the defense section office wearing his shoes and socks, white boxers, and T-shirt.

“It doesn’t say a fucking thing about pants, does it,” the captain snapped at O’Connor, and then sat back in his swivel chair much more comfortable with the mid-August heat.

“Well, two can play this game,” Terry O’Connor said, laughing, and then shucked off his shirt and pants, too.

“Does Major Dickinson know that you’re working in your underwear?” Michael Carter said straight-faced as he walked through the door and stopped cold after seeing the two officers seated at their desks in their skivvies.

“No, Mikie, we want it to be a surprise,” Kirkwood said with a smile.

“If it gets much hotter, I think I will strip off these drawers, too, and start working in my altogether,” O’Connor said, smiling at Carter. “Au naturel.”

“I’m not sure what to think of your unprofessional conduct,” the tall, thin captain said, blushing and trying not to look at the two underwear-clad lawyers.

“Looks like a great idea,” Wayne Ebberhardt said, nudging his way past Michael Carter, who had not moved from the doorway. He quickly unbuttoned his shirt, slipped off his trousers, and flopped in his swivel chair, where he took off his shoes, too.

“Well, I cannot work here with you men undressed,” Carter said, walking to his desk, picking up a briefcase, and heading for the door. “If anyone wants me, I will be at the barracks, where casual undress seems more appropriate.”

As the gangly, disheveled attorney ambled toward the door, he stopped and looked back at O’Connor.

“Oh, I know what it was that I meant to ask you,” Carter said, putting his finger in his mouth and starting to gnaw on the cuticle. “Those secret photographs. Can I see them, too?”

“What?” O’Connor said, sitting up and slamming his feet on the floor, his heart skipping a beat. As he looked up at stick man, he tried his best to show a deadpan face. “I’m not sure I catch your drift, Mikie.”

“The ones that the troops keep mentioning,” Carter said, now unconsciously biting his knuckles. When Movie Star had told him about the surveillance of Heyster in town, and them not only seeing him passing off dope from the evidence locker to the Chu Lai Hippie, but also that Captain O’Connor had photographs of it, he also had emphasized to the senior defense section attorney that he should keep the news to himself, and above all things not talk about it to anyone, especially someone with brass on his collar. “Pictures of Captain, er, Major-Select Heyster selling drugs to some hippie! They’re all talking about it.”

“Fucking Movie Star, he spilled his guts to you didn’t he!” O’Connor said, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with frustration. “Come inside, sit down, and shut the damned door.”

“I’m not sure I like your tone,” Carter said, still standing in the entrance with his briefcase clutched under his arm.

“Michael, please,” Kirkwood said, and then looked at O’Connor. “This may shed a glimmer of light on why you’re pissed off at any little thing.”

“Shut the fucking hatch, Mike, please! Damn it!” Terry O’Connor shouted, and jumped from his chair, walked to his palm-tree-looking colleague, yanked him inside the office, and slammed the door shut with a bang.

“Look, if you’re going to accost me, I will definitely not stay,” Carter said, pulling away from the angry Philadelphia Irishman.

“I don’t want stray ears listening to what I am about to tell you three gentlemen, Mike. Please sit down and listen,” O’Connor said, and led Carter to his chair.

“Jon, you’re right, this thing has eaten me alive the past few weeks,” O’Connor confessed, and flopped in his chair. “All I have so far is suspicion and circumstantial evidence, including photographs. Very circumstantial, since we did not keep either man under surveillance after the exchange of whatever articles they passed to each other.

“Yes, I have photographs of Charlie Heyster taking a package from his laundry bag and passing the article to a Sergeant Randal Carnegie, also known as the Chu Lai Hippie. I have a photograph of this so-called Chu Lai Hippie then handing our illustrious interim mojo a white envelope. One could speculate that the envelope contained money and the package contained Buddha absconded from the evidence locker.”

“This may sound simpleminded of me, but how on earth did you find yourself in a position to photograph this curious exchange of items?” Jon Kirkwood said, leaning over his desk and frowning at his best friend. “I guess a better question is this: If you were so suspicious of Captain Heyster ripping off the evidence locker, why didn’t you go to CID about your suspicions? Also, please bear in mind that there is this newfangled concept called reasonable cause, you know.”

“Jon, you’re exactly right,” O’Connor said, and waved both his hands in the air as he spoke. “Rules of evidence, reasonable cause, privacy issues, they all bit me in the ass when I looked at the pictures and thought about what I had done. In my own defense, the photographs are admissible evidence because we took them on a public thoroughfare, and Charlie performed these deeds in that public arena, and we used no extraordinary measures to obtain the photographs. So, for what they’re worth, they could support other, more damning evidence, if we had it.”

“Terry, I’m surprised at you,” Wayne Ebberhardt said, and then smiled. “You didn’t even invite Jon or me along when you went spying on the shyster.”

“You remember that day he came in the barracks and accused Mikie of ripping off the dope in the evidence locker?” O’Connor said, looking at Kirkwood and then at Michael Carter.

“Sure, it pissed off everyone,” Kirkwood said, and Carter nodded.

“Heyster seemed so hell-bent to pin it on Michael, and he did his best as well to keep Dicky Doo stirred up, accusing the troops,” O’Connor said, cradling his fingers under his chin. “He ranted and fumed, but you know what he and Dickinson didn’t do? They never reported the missing shit to CID.”

Jon Kirkwood sat up and smiled.

“Interesting point,” he said, and looked at Ebberhardt and Carter. “Had the troops really stolen the marijuana, or had Carter done it, Charlie would have had the criminal investigators digging in our lockers and desks. Obviously Heyster knew who took the dope and didn’t want the cops nosing into it. He had to raise hell, because Dicky Doo took inventory and found the stuff missing with no burn receipts. Ten to one, the shyster gambled that Dickinson would move on to other challenges once he saw his man Charlie firmly in the driver’s seat of their so-called internal investigation. I would also venture a wager that if Dicky Doo had suggested calling in CID, Heyster convinced him that they should handle the problem in house. Why put yourself on the skyline? That’s something Dickinson certainly doesn’t want.”

“Right,” O’Connor said, shifting his look to each of his three colleagues. “That’s why Heyster made such a show of having Stanley Tufts supervise a surprise wall-locker inspection with our enlisted people on a Sunday morning, hoping to catch some of the troops with dope and perhaps claim that the stuff was part of the missing contraband. You remember how pissed he got when nothing showed up? Not even a pin joint! I thought that Movie Star and Happy Pounds would have had dope if any of our troops did, but they were all clean as a whistle. No dope anywhere.”

“So you started tailing Heyster, because he had virtually eliminated the enlisted Marines from this office, and you know very well that Carter nor anyone else in our barracks took the dope,” Ebberhardt said, and looked at Kirkwood, who was nodding.

“Terry, that’s certainly reasonable suspicion, but I think it falls short of probable cause,” Kirkwood added and shrugged.

“That’s why I followed him myself, and didn’t call CID or anyone,” O’Connor said. “The reasonable-cause thing, but more significantly, he is a senior officer here, and a prosecuting attorney. That’s a giant leap of faith to accuse someone like Heyster. Thus my caution.”

“So, how did Movie Star and the troops get involved with your private investigation?” Kirkwood said, and frowned at his pal.

“I fucked up,” O’Connor said, shrugging and shaking his head. “When I saw Charlie take off, swinging his laundry bag, headed for the office jeep, I got an overwhelming feeling that I needed to follow him and see what he was doing. I needed wheels, and I couldn’t take the other office jeep: one, because Dicky Doo would raise hell, and two, because it sticks out like a sore thumb with the shiny paint and the red license plate that looks like a flag officer rolling down the road. So I ran to the enlisted barracks where I knew Movie Star and his asshole buddies would most likely be wasting time and staying out of sight. Two guys from the information office were there, and they had a jeep, and one had a camera, so we went after Charlie. The rest is history.”

“Where are the pictures now?” Kirkwood asked, resting his chin on his hands with his elbows propped on his desk.

“In the barracks, in my locker, on the top shelf,” O’Connor said, and let out a deep sigh. “You know, I feel a lot better.”

“So, Charlie the shyster is ripping off the evidence locker and selling it?” Ebberhardt said, wrinkling his lips and thinking.

“His primary customer got busted, though,” O’Connor said, shaking his head.

“What about those other assholes?” Kirkwood said, raising his eyebrows. “The ones that had you so pissed the other day.”

“Oh, yeah, the Hippie’s buddies that he got Charlie to let off the hook,” O’Connor said and smiled. “You know, one of them might be picking up where Sergeant Randal Carnegie left off.”

“Ten to one Charlie has cooled his jets,” Kirkwood said and frowned, shaking his head. “The man would have to be a complete idiot to keep selling dope from the evidence locker after all the bullshit that has gone on about it.”

“Well, according to Movie Star,” O’Connor said, raising his eyebrows, “Charlie has a taste for the stuff. Apparently Happy Pounds saw him loading his tobacco pouch with Buddha.”

“Mixing it with that dog-shit Cherry Blend?” Ebberhardt said, sticking out his tongue and mimicking a gag. “Yuck! That would fuck up good dope, wouldn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know, Wayne,” O’Connor said, and looked sidelong at his colleague.

“We just need to get Charlie busted with his pipe tobacco then,” Kirkwood said, smiling and looking at his fellow defense lawyers. Then he looked at Michael Carter, who sat quietly but beaming a snaggy yellow smile.

“Stick man,” Kirkwood scowled, “what we have said here cannot leave this room. No talking to anyone outside our small circle about this, is that clear?”

“Who could I talk to about it?” Carter said, shaking his head so hard that his blond palm-tree mop wagged like pampas grass in the wind.

“God knows,” Kirkwood said, now thinking about the lawyer’s next-to-nonexistent list of friends, all of whom sat in the room with him at that moment. “Just keep it in mind, should you have the opportunity to chat outside our circle and need something hot to discuss.”

“I’m not a gossip,” Carter said, standing up and still clutching his briefcase. Then he smiled his jack-o’-lantern teeth at the group. “So are we going to bust Charlie?”

Chief Warrant Officer Frank Holden stood the duty as warden that day, when Samuel Martin complained that Iron Balls Mike Turner and Bad John Kenny Brookman had called him one black motherfucker. Now he strolled down the right side of that red line to the middle of the recreation yard and then stepped across it and stood on top of one of the picnic tables by the basketball court.

Earlier that afternoon, after he had sent Sam Martin and Clarence Jones back to the library, and forwarded a message to the wing legal office that Kirkwood’s and O’Connor’s clients wanted to see them as soon as they could find time, the gunner radioed the duty watch commander, Gunnery Sergeant Ted MacMillan, across the yard in the cellblock control station. At first he wanted Turner and Brookman relieved, but after a short conversation with the gunny, who had already talked to the pair of guards after they had come to him, concerned about any misunderstanding, he convinced the warden that the two men on duty at the sally port had not directed an insult at the black prisoner but simply commented on the dark area behind the head next to the minimum-security hooches.

However, for several weeks now, Chief Warrant Officer Holden and First Lieutenant Schuller had discussed the dire possibilities that the increasingly overcrowded conditions and stifling August temperatures could present in the Freedom Hill brig. They both agreed that one small spark could set off a riot that might result in injury and death to both inmates and guards. Something like a misplaced comment, taken as a racial insult, “That’s one black motherfucker,” could ignite disaster.

Believing that it is better to eat crow than wrap bodies, Gunner Holden called Gunny MacMillan and had him send Turner and Brookman out to meet him in the yard, and stand at his side while he addressed the prisoners.

“Why apologize to these knuckleheads when Turner and Brookman did nothing wrong?” MacMillan had pled, trying to persuade the chief warrant officer that expressing regrets for the misunderstanding would only elevate the incident in the inmates’ minds. “No matter what you tell them, they will believe the worst. They don’t call Turner and Brookman Iron Balls and Bad John for no reason. Gunner, I think you ought to just let it go.”

Holden disagreed, and mounted the picnic tabletop while Turner and Brookman stood on the bench seats below him, holding their arms crossed and clenching their jaws. They could see the satisfaction spread in the cynical smiles on the prisoners’ faces.

“I deeply regret the injured feelings of Privates Martin and Jones after they heard Sergeant Holden and Lance Corporal Brookman say, ‘That’s one black motherfucker,’ ” Holden began, speaking with his arms crossed over the front of his chest. “Such a comment uttered by any member of the brig staff, whether intentional or, as in this case, accidental, nonetheless can cause unjust pain. For that, these two guards are sorry. While Sergeant Turner and Lance Corporal Brookman were discussing a dark area of the fence line, the misunderstood meaning of their thoughtless phrase still caused damage. I want all of you to know that the brig staff regards each of you as human beings who require a level of respect and decent treatment.”

Then he had Turner and Brookman each step on the tabletop with him and express their personally felt regrets about the incident. After apologizing to the prison population, the two guards stepped off the table and returned to the sally port to finish their shifts, and the deputy warden strode along the right side of the red line, back up the sidewalk to the administration building.

While the minimum-security prisoners trickled back to their hooches, Corporal Nathan L. Todd and two other guards marched the high-risk prisoners back to their cells.

“Ol’ Gunner Holden, he sure like to kiss our ass,” James Harris said to Brian Pitts, who marched ahead of him. “You believe any that shit?”

“It doesn’t matter what we believe,” Pitts said as he walked in the line of men whom Nathan Todd herded back to the cell block. “What do the inmates in the yard think? Do they buy Holden’s bullshit apology? I hope not.”

“I already pass word that old Iron Balls and Bad John be lyin’ to the boss, trying to backpedal out the mess they in right now,” Harris said, smiling as they entered the sally port, where Brookman and Turner stood on each side of the main entrance. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe their cop-out story that they was talkin’ about that place in the fence behind the head. People in the yard, they too pissed off now. With Holden coming out and kissing ass, that just make it better.”

“That’s kind of how I see it, too,” Pitts said, smiling at Turner and Brookman as he passed them in the entrance. Then he glanced over his shoulder, showing his smile to Mau Mau Harris. “I am really looking forward to the movies tomorrow night.”