The Grey Man- Changes Read online

  Missy Roland nodded and the judge said, “Please answer me, Miss Roland.”

  “Yeah.”

  The judge continued, “You have the right to remain silent and you have the right to representation. Do you have a lawyer?”

  The slickly dressed lawyer stepped through the rail. “I’m representing Miss Roland, your honor.” Indicating the orange jumpsuit like it was a dead fish he continued, “And we’d like to protest her treatment.” His New York accent seemed to grow thicker the more he talked.

  Judge Milton looked askance at the lawyer. “And you are?”

  “Antonio Moretti, your honor. Senior partner at Howland and Associates of New York City, I am the attorney of record for the Roland family.”

  “Mr. Moretti, are you licensed to practice in the state of Texas?”

  Moretti drew himself up. “No, your honor, I have not had time to procure local-”

  “Then you are not representing Miss Roland.” Looking down at his papers the judge continued, “This is not a formal hearing. I will be setting bail only today. Miss Missy Roland is charged with the following. Failing to stop and render aid, one count. Bond is one thousand dollars. Grand theft auto, one count. Bond is five thousand dollars. Resisting arrest, one count. Bond is one thousand dollars, Possession of controlled substances, penalty group one, one count. That is a felony three. Bond is five thousand dollars,”

  The old man zoned out as Judge Milton continued to read off the charges and bond required for each. He finally came back to attention when the judge said, “Miss Roland, do you understand the charges against you?”

  Roland glared at the judge. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Captain Cronin, do you have anything to add? And why is Miss Roland in a jumpsuit?”

  The old man replied, “Judge, Miss Roland has been placed in the detox cell, and has made a suicide claim. She has been under a suicide watch all night and MHMR[3] personnel have not completed the required interview with her. I have nothing further to add, your honor.”

  The judge looked back at the paperwork. “Based on the charges against you, I am setting your bond at fifteen thousand dollars. Bailiff, return Miss Roland to custody please.”

  Ed and the deputy turned Roland toward the door, as she hissed at Moretti, “You better get me out of here now!” The deputy led her out the side door as Moretti turned red and stomped out of the courtroom pulling a cell phone from his suit coat.

  After closing the court, Judge Milton motioned to the old man who followed him into the judge’s chambers. Peeling off his robes and making sure his revolver hadn’t shifted, Milton sat down with a sigh. “John, why the fuck did y’all tune up that poor girl? She looks like hell!”

  The old man said, “Judge, she did most of that to herself. Trooper Wilson helped get her out of the car, and she decided to fight. Once Wilson got her on the ground, she continued fighting and you know how rough the emergency lanes are on I-10. The jail folks tell me she hasn’t bathed or anything else since she was taken into custody, and she fought them after she made the suicide threat.”

  Holding up the case file, the judge replied, “Yeah, I saw that. This one’s not going to be pretty. And I’m expecting some shit from that New York lawyer too. Although what possessed him to come in and try to bluff his way through-”

  The old man shrugged. “No idea, judge.”

  “Okay, get outta here, Cronin, and stay out of trouble.”

  The old man got up quickly. “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  Back at the office, the old man continued to fight the paperwork drill and finally had made enough of a dent he figured it was time for a lunch break. Grabbing Yogi’s leash, he put him in the car and headed out to the truck stop. After ordering a to-go meal, he took Yogi to the little dog park and let him run. A trucker was there with his Boston terrier, and Yogi had some good play time as the old man munched his burger and chatted with the trucker. Just as he was finishing, his radio went off. “Dispatch to Car four, what is your Twenty?”

  Quickly dumping his refuse he keyed up. “Car four at the truck stop.”

  Dispatch responded, “Roger, can you come back to the department please? We have an issue.”

  Cocking his head, the old man replied, “Car four is 10-8 at this time. ETA is twelve minutes.”

  “Copied all, please report to the jail on arrival.”

  Loading Yogi back in the car, the old man headed back to the jail, wondering what was going on. He dropped Yogi with the dispatchers and asked Lisa, “What’s up that you didn’t want to put over the radio?”

  Lisa sighed. “Your little precious snowflake and her lawyers are causing problems.”

  The old man shook his head slowly. “Oh, just lovely. Thanks.” Walking back to the jail, the old man thought about what he could possibly do. After he cleared his weapons and put them in a locker, he stepped through the entry, not knowing what to expect.

  He was confronted by Moretti and Hector Rodriquez, a local lawyer the old man privately thought was nothing more than a shyster. Rodriquez immediately started in, “Well, captain, why is it that my client has yet to be seen by MHMR so that she can be released? And why has she not been allowed to bathe and clean herself?”

  The old man replied calmly, knowing Rodriquez was trying to set him off, “Mister Rodriquez, I don’t schedule MHMR, nor do I have any idea why she has not been seen. As far as Miss Roland, I don’t know why she has not cleaned herself. She has access to the facilities in the detox cell, and I cannot state any reason why she wouldn’t have made use of the facilities.”

  Rodriquez barked, “You are a captain in this department, are you not? Then you should do your job, captain!”

  The old man held up his hand. “Wait here.” Looking over at the jail sergeant he continued, “Buzz me through.” The sergeant buzzed him through and he entered the jail office, to be met by Lieutenant Holt. “Jim, what the hell is going on back here? I know you guys call in for MHMR as soon as we get one, any idea what the holdup is?”

  Holt replied, “Yeah, it was called in about three AM when she made the initial threat, and another call was made this morning. The local MHMR rep is out sick, so one is coming from San Antonio sometime tomorrow or maybe Monday. They said they’ve got seventy-two hours to respond. That’s all I know. Oh yeah, and the shower issue? The young lady claims we just want to film her nude, so that’s why she’s refusing to take a shower, even if I put a female deputy in the detox with her. Then, she claims they are all lesbians and just want to watch her get naked.”

  The old man sighed. “You got all this logged?”

  “Yep, logged and video and audio of her since Friday night. Personally, I think the DTs are hitting her and she’s going to crash pretty shortly.”

  “Have you alerted the hospital?”

  “Sure did, captain, about an hour ago. They’re standing by if we need them.” Just then, the jail sergeant stuck his head in saying that an MHMR representative had just signed in and was requesting Roland be brought to the interview room. Lieutenant Holt authorized it and moved to shut off the system for the interview room. The old man cussed under his breath and went back out, meeting the frowzy female MHMR rep in the mantrap. She ignored him, fussing with her glasses and notepad as she waited for entry.

  Stepping back out, the old man turned to Moretti and Rodriquez. “The MHMR rep just arrived. As soon as she finishes the interview, we’ll do whatever she requires. Is that clear?”

  Moretti bristled and said, “Well, I’m sure she will be released, so I’m going to go pay the bond now. And after I get a chance to talk to my client, we’ll look at additional charges against the department!” Rodriquez snickered when he heard that, and the old man decided to leave before he lost his temper.

  Twenty minutes later, the old man was back in the jail, thanks to a call from Lieutenant Holt. Moretti was livid that the MHMR representative had recommended commitment of Missy Roland due to a list of issues, and the judge’s note that Roland
was to be considered a flight risk.

  Moretti rounded on the old man. “You! You did this. Flight risk? How dare you! Miss Roland has never-”

  The old man cut him off coldly, “Mister Moretti, before you step over that line and get yourself in trouble, remember that we know she left a treatment center early already, and was on the run in what was effectively a stolen vehicle when she was arrested.”

  Moretti clamped his mouth shut as Rodriquez pulled him into the corner for a whispered conversation. Then Rodriquez said, “We will get her taken care of in either Houston or Dallas. She will not leave the state. That will fulfill the judge’s and the MHMR rep’s requirements. I will sign the custody paperwork right now.”

  The old man replied, “I’m afraid not. The judge will sign her commitment papers and determine where she will be committed. At that point, we will do the transport. You do not get a say in that.”

  Roland was brought out, now back in the TACO suit since she was still under a suicide watch. As she stepped into the interview room, she hissed, “You, you’re the one that beat me up for no reason. Tony, I want to sue him for everything he has!”

  Moretti put his arm around her saying, “Missy, let us just get you out of here. We can talk after we get you out. That may take us a couple of days.” The old man stepped out of the room to give them attorney client privilege. Finally, Moretti opened the door and walked out followed by Rodriquez.

  As the deputy came in to take Roland back to the detox cell, she turned back yelling and gesturing at the old man, “I’m going to own you, you old fart!”

  The sergeant and Holt both shook their heads and Holt said, “Oh, that is a real winner there. You don’t think they are really that stupid, do you, captain?”

  The old man replied, “God only knows, lieutenant, God only knows.”

  Boredom

  Aaron fidgeted impatiently as he waited for Captain Ragsdale to come in. After two weeks of basically sitting around, Aaron was afraid this was going to be another ass chewing for something one of the troops did or didn’t do, depending on who saw what.

  Bagram had been bad enough, with all the Air Force weenies and their petty BS rules, but he was quickly beginning to believe they weren’t so bad compared to Herat and the spit and polish ‘at the flagpole’ as it was called. There were way too many suspicious civilian characters that seemed to have free rein to go anywhere in the compound they wanted to, and all the Marines were jumpy, to put it mildly.

  Then there was the whole incident with McKenzie and the civilian, which had been blown totally out of proportion anyway. Just because McKenzie had decked the guy after catching him in his room, and held him at gunpoint until the ANA[4] dudes arrived, there shouldn’t have been anything but pats on the back. But finding out the guy was ANP[5] who was investigating or so he claimed, some BS about women in the rooms- well, consider the mind boggled.

  Over the last week and a half, they had been studying the various FOBs[6] in the AO[7]. They’d come up with two that were the highest probability where they would end up, based on the team makeup. One was FOB Apache, northeast of Herat up near the Turkmenistan border on the ring road about two hundred kilometers from Herat. The other was FOB Lightning, which was just south of the Turkmenistan border but only about sixty kilometers from Herat. After looking at them and talking to guys that were shuttling in and out for meetings, FOB Apache sounded like the better deal, even with the logistics issues.

  They had checked and re-checked their gear, repacked their equipment into easier to manage loads, and drilled daily as much as they could. The familiarization courses with the Afghans had been good follow up for the training back in the states, and they were getting comfortable with the translator, Ali, who had been assigned to them. He was from Kabul, had gone to school in England, and had been a computer technician before everything blew up.

  Finally, the captain came in and Aaron popped to attention. “At ease, Gunny. Take a seat.”

  Aaron got almost all the way seated and his brain finally caught up with what the captain had said. “Gunny? Are you shitting me, captain?”

  Ragsdale smiled. “Nope, you’re on the list, and it apparently came in before we left, but the word never got passed. Your promotion is this month. And I have one more bit of good news: we’re getting the fuck out of here! They’re heloing us out to FOB Apache tomorrow afternoon. We’re turning over with Det Charlie out there, and that’s where we’re going to spend the entire deployment. No floater duties for us.”

  Aaron leaned back in the chair. “Well, I guess that’s good news, but I’m concerned about the issues Gunny Plath from Charlie raised last week when he was here. Apparently, the ANA folks up there are pretty good, but the ANP not so much. I like the fact that we’ll be separated from the main part of the FOB for security, but I don’t know how to play the ANA and ANP sides.”

  The captain replied, “Well, by ear is probably going to be how we start. The Italians haven’t done much up there, just the minimum provincial reconstruction team stuff. Rumor has it a det from the Hundred and First Airborne is going to come up to assist in the next couple of months. We’ll take over the GMV[8]s Charlie has up there, but we’re taking all new weapons up. Seems there is a significant dust issue, which has caused reliability problems on the 50 cals, 240s and the 7.62 mini-guns. Did McKenzie get certified for JTAC and get his callsign yet? He’s the critical link in our ability to talk to and task the air assets. And we’re damn sure going to need that!”

  “He’s back over there this morning. Something got screwed up in the paperwork, I think having to do with him being a staff sergeant rather than an officer like they’re used to seeing with Marines. Hobgood’s got all his EOD gear set up, and he’s getting as much spare demo as he can, but I’m not sure we can get it on the helo. Parker and Sands are ready to go on the intel side, they’ve been buried in the SCIF[9] with the S-2 for the better part of a week and a half, getting into the intel stream and picking out players for both FOBs,” Aaron said.

  He leaned forward. “Doc Hardy and Doc Wells have all their kit in order and they’re already to go. Comms is good to go, weaps and snipers are good. And it’ll be good to get out of here. I guess I need to ask, what are you going to do with me?”

  Ragsdale said, “Well, since I’m apparently going to be on a short leash at the TOC[10], Gunny Mayhew is going to bump up to team lead, and you’re going to fill in as team chief. I’m not cutting you loose just because you got promoted. We’ve spent the last six months working up as a team, and we’re going to make this deployment as a team. Since Gunny has been tied up with HQ since we got here, you’ve been the de facto team lead anyway. But this does mean you’ll have to give up the sniper role, put Baker as the primary and Doc Wells as the spotter for right now.”

  Aaron hung his head. “Roger all, captain. If there’s nothing else?”

  “Dismissed. And congratulations.”

  ***

  48 hours later, FOB Apache

  Gunnies Plath and Mayhew, along with Aaron, stood in the dirt by the rock-filled HESCO bastion looking at the four GMVs they were turning over. Mayhew said, “Damn, Dave, these things are pieces of shit. What the hell did y’all do to them?”

  “Well,” Plath replied, “this isn’t exactly a friendly environment. We’ll do a fam drive tomorrow down to the village, and you’ll be able to see what some of the issues are. There is exactly one street in the village these things actually fit down, and other than Ring Road, you’re pretty much driving in the dirt, unless it rains, then you’re in mud up to your ass. At least we had decent weather and could get air cover. I feel for you guys, ‘cause the Air Force won’t play if they can’t see you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get Navy or Marine air if needed. Make sure your JTAC brings his GRG[11] tomorrow, I’ll put him with Hester so they can get a visual turnover while we fam the area. Last thing you want to do is call air on the wrong place.”

  Mayhew and Aaron nodded as Aaron continued to scribble not
es in his wheel book. Mayhew asked, “Who else do we need up?”

  Plath replied, “Bring one of your docs, we’ll show him where we’ve been doing the MEDCAP[12] at the little clinic they have. Once you get out of the main village, you’re going to see lots of smaller, poorer villages and compounds. My intel folks are giving yours the up to the minute on which ones we think are friendly and which ones we think are Taliban controlled. Bring your HUMINT[13] guy too, now that I think of it.”

  Mayhew replied, “We can do that. Whatta you think, Dave? One more day and kick you guys loose?”

  Plath shrugged. “Depends on the captains and HQ. I do want to keep a couple of folks and ride with you on the first couple of patrols, but yeah, bunking like we are just ain’t hacking it. And don’t bother bitching about the food either. The contractors do what they can with what they get on the lifts or convoys. My troops should have turned over the stash of MREs we’ve accumulated. Hope y’all like the choices. If you’re a pork fan, you’re shit out of luck though. Apparently, they aren’t allowed to ship them here. A case or two a week are the baksheesh to keep them from killing the contractors when they go looking for fresh stuff.”

  Everybody just shook their heads, knowing this kind of stuff went on, but was always ignored by the higher ups, until something happened, and then everybody down the chain got shit on.

  ***

  A week later, with Alpha now the sole team at Apache, they started settling into the routine of daily patrols. Aaron and Mayhew started a rotation where each of them was in the TOC one day, then patrolling the next. Aaron still got the shitty little E-7 jobs, one of which was a daily inspection of the GMVs and MRAPS due to the sand issue. If one didn’t do a daily preventative maintenance check on anything with lubricant, it was destined to freeze up at exactly the wrong time. The same went for weapons. Everyone cleaned their weapons daily, and if they’d been on patrol, they put new batteries in every second patrol.