Double Team
Chapter 212
“The difference between a rebel and a patriot depends upon who is in power at the moment.”
—Sidney Sheldon, The Sands of Time
“ARE YOU GOING TO ARREST ME?” I asked.
“No. Not now. I’ll have to be with the team,” she said.
“When?”
“I don’t know for sure. We are supposed to be at our camp ready for deployment at midnight tonight. That doesn’t mean that’s when our orders will come. If our stupid commander acts with as much decision as he did in Florida, we could be sitting here this time next week.”
“The boss?”
“No. He deployed us to Galveston and was gone when we returned. The new guy is former Coast Guard and doesn’t like the idea that we might get to an emergency before the professionals.”
“Why are you telling me all this, Dana? You tried to set me up.”
“I did not!” the surprise in her voice led me to believe she had no idea what had been planned. Or she was just that good an actress. I’d certainly fallen for her.
“You were either complicit or you’re as much a dupe in this whole thing as I was.”
“You were my buddy. We promised we’d have each other’s back. You deserted. I didn’t.”
“I really want to believe all that, Dana, but we’ll have to see how this all pans out. I told you from the beginning I wasn’t supposed to be there. You all were in on it in one way or another.”
“Whatever you think, we were a good team. The rest of us still are. Get your things together and organized, Jake. I have no idea what National Service prison looks like.” She spun on her heel and walked away toward the road. While I watched, she broke into an easy run. She could eat up twenty miles in three hours at that pace. The team could be located anyplace. I went back to the motorhome.
“We have a guy following her,” Lamar said.
“She’ll lose them,” I responded. “We just need to be ready.”
“Ron says to sit tight. We have additional security on the way,” Rachel said.
“You’ve already been on the phone with him?”
“He listened in to your conversation. I’m sure I heard Will swearing in the background. It wouldn’t surprise me if the President knows by now.”
“So, what do we do next?” I asked everyone in general.
“Sit tight,” Amanda responded. We all looked at the pile of shit and laughed.
Nothing happened. We even went for our run Tuesday morning. It looked like a parade. We kept the pace moderate, but in addition to Emily, Livy, Nanette, Lamar, Leah, and me, there were four other security people running beside us. Overkill as far as I was concerned. The SSR were strong and determined, but in my experience, they weren’t violent. And if they’d been sworn into security, they were on the same footing as our guards.
Wednesday morning that all changed. At six in the morning, when we were preparing for our run, there was a knock on our door. I opened it a crack and Lamar said, “They’re here.” They didn’t seem to be overly eager, so I finished dressing and had a protein drink Nanette prepared for me. When everyone was decent, I opened the door and stepped out.
Fifteen feet in front of me, my former team stood ranged in a line. They all wore their red and yellow backpacks. It almost made me want to grab mine. In front of them stood no less than Major General Gerhardt. At the foot of the steps of the motorhome, my eight security people were in a line, blocking access to the motorhome. It was ludicrous and I started to laugh.
“Jacob Hopkins,” the general barked. I looked up at him. “You are hereby under arrest for desertion and avoidance of service. Please come down here and accompany this team to detention.” Well, he was being polite for all that he was a polite asshole.
“Belay that order,” another voice barked. Off to my left, Ron Starling was approaching, flanked by two men in battle dress with “MP” emblazoned on their sleeves. “General, you are exceeding your authority. I have President di Marco on the phone waiting to accept your verbal resignation. Alternatively, if you prefer, I have here papers for your dismissal.”
“That bitch has no authority here. She can go to hell,” Gerhardt said. “Whoever you are, step aside so we can affect this arrest.”
“National Service Security has no authority to arrest. They can only detain until local police have arrived. I assume you have notified local authorities they are needed?” Ron said.
“We don’t need local police. This team has been deputized,” the general said. I noticed my teammates looking at each other. Word that the President was firing the general had them confused. Only Paul looked certain that he’d follow the general’s lead. Ron motioned to one of the men he brought with him.
“General Gerhardt, the Inspector General of the Army has instructed us to relieve you of duty effective immediately and to detain you for questioning at the Inspector General’s office at the Pentagon. If you will come with us, sir.”
There wasn’t much the general could do at that point. He was escorted to a waiting van while the rest of us looked on. The SSR team looked a little lost.
“You,” Ron started, approaching the team, “are a bit of a problem and a puzzle. First of all, let me tell you who I am. I’m Ron Starling, director of security for the Office of Civilian Service, currently acting as managers of the National Service. We were just informed your team was deputized into National Service Security, which puts you under my management. If that’s where you want to stay, we’ll have an interview and I’ll get you formal assignments.” The team shuffled around a bit and then Paul stepped forward.
“Thank you, sir, but we were told this was a temporary situation to have formal witnesses to this deserter’s arrest. We aren’t security people,” he said.
“I didn’t think so,” Ron said. “And this is not a deserter. One of the crimes the general is to be questioned about is forging service induction papers. The computer that assigned Jacob Hopkins service training maintains the original records. A duplicate set of records changing the destination and occupation for Jacob was generated and substituted for the official documents. Therefore, for your information, he was never part of your NSO, but returned to service in his own NSO at first opportunity. Is that clear?”
“How is that possible, sir?” Dana asked. “We all saw his papers when we rescued him in the bathroom at the induction center. He was sick and we got him straightened around.”
“Mmmhmm. First, I, like you, am a civilian. I do not answer to sir. I’m Mr. Starling or less formally, simply Ron. Second, the matter of Jacob’s rescue by you is under investigation. Security camera footage shows him being given drugs prior to your departure.”
“I gave him Zofran to combat his nausea,” Dana said.
“And Mr. Peterson, what did you give him?” Ron asked, turning to Paul. He silently stared into space.
“Paul?” Dana demanded. “Did you give Jake something before I got the Zofran in him? What did you do?”
“What I was ordered to do,” Paul said. “I found an inductee who was attempting to avoid service and gave him flunitrazepam to make him calm down and follow instructions.”
“You gave him Rohypnol? A date rape drug?” Dana yelled. Her med training had been intense.
“You bastard!” I shouted, coming down off the steps.
“It was harmless. Just assuring that you’d be calm and relaxed until we were at camp and everything was under control.”
“I think that’s enough,” Ron said, holding a hand out to keep me from attacking my former team leader.
“We want you in for a team debriefing. It can be conducted at the district service office here in Columbus. As soon as we determine your management chain and mission statement, you’ll be returned to the field to perform the tasks you were trained for: Search and rescue. You’re a good team. No matter what pretenses you were trained under, the result is something you should all be proud of. We want you as part of the National Service.”
“Can we get a new manager?” Derek asked. “That Coast Guard dude is a royal pain in the ass.” Ron grinned at him.
“We’ll get you the best management we can field. For now, let’s get settled. Marvel and Hopkins have a performance tonight and rehearsal this afternoon. I’m sure you all want to catch up, but they need to catch their bus. Rachel?”
“I’ve set aside tickets for you for stage seating. I’m assuming you all have your transportation and can get there. The tickets are at will call and you’ll be conducted to the seats on stage,” Rachel said. “Welcome to the light side of the force.”
I was still plenty pissed when we got to the theater. Not getting my run in didn’t help. God! I was addicted. Without a hard run in the morning I wasn’t worth anything. When I saw the inside of the Newport Music Hall, though, my adrenalin shot up a few degrees. The total capacity was somewhere around 5,000 people and the line of people picking up tickets at the box office was around the corner and up the street.
Unfortunately, this was a rock club and the acoustics sucked. We were going to need amplification of the caliber we used in Atlanta. We had our mics and pickups, but it seemed to take forever for Donna to get the crew to integrate everything. When it was finally set, we filled the hall with sound.
We made a couple of adjustments in our program and finally got a light dinner in the green room.
This just wasn’t a good venue for playing straight classics. The audience was just a little rowdy and the reports Emily brought from the front of the house were that it was heavily mixed between pro- and anti-reform supporters. There had been some shouting out front and competition for tickets as well. We’d be lucky if this ended as peacefully as the protest rally in Atlanta.
Cindy and I entered alone and immediately launched into Mozart on Fire, normally our encore piece after people were warmed up and enthused. We might come back to it, but this piece got us right into some moving, classically-based, instrumental work. Remas and Desi entered while the audience was still applauding and I started thumping on my guitar body wishing David was here with his drums. Cindy’s tin whistle introduction to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly caught everyone by surprise. We did a little more than half an hour of Morricone music before switching to Glory. Movie scores were being good for us and we did the full ten-minute version instead of just the two and a half-minute requiem. And then I was on. There was mixed jeering and booing with applause and cheers. I let them settle down a little.
One of the things I love about this country and about Ohio is that people are not afraid to express their opinions. We can engage in civil debate on topics of great importance and hopefully learn from each other. You, here in Columbus, are digging in to learn the facts about the reform and anti-reform debate. Your newspaper is fact-checking—probably everything that I say this evening, just as they fact-checked Senator Connors last Friday night. I’m happy the fifth estate is actively carrying out its duty to keep the people fairly and honestly informed. So I am going to do little this evening other than state a few facts that can be easily checked.
Fact number one: I signed my papers with the National Service on July 18, 2022 having been recruited to participate in a music program to deliver programs like this one tonight. On that day, I received papers that had been forged and that assigned me to a different program.
Fact number two: The eleven people on this stage with me who you may know as the SSR team that was so instrumental in saving lives in Galveston after Hurricane Brendan assisted me in leaving the induction center by giving me drugs to settle my stomach and soothe my anxieties. I woke up in a secret training location with this team with no electronics or ID while I trained with them for four weeks believing the National Service had lied to me about where I was to be assigned. During that time, I discovered my presence was part of a clandestine plot to discredit me. As most such plots go, this team did not know they were part of anything at all wrong and we trained hard as a team together until I escaped and was able to return to Washington DC and rejoin the team I was originally assigned to.
Fact number three: This morning, Major General Ralph Gerhardt was relieved of duty as General Director of the National Service and was taken into custody for questioning by the Inspector General of the Army for falsifying papers and illegally routing clandestine funds into the creation of a secret group, which we now know not so secretly as the SSR.
These facts can all be checked directly with the Acting Director of the Office of Civilian Service. Now here are things I do not know and would love if the newspaper dug up the real facts in the case.
Question one: How were clandestine funds from a foreign entity routed into the General’s hands for the creation of this team. And why? What vested interest could any foreign government have in a domestic early response team? And if funds were so easily made available for this operation, what other things have been funded in the same way by that foreign entity?
Question two: With the evidence of abuses of the National Service that has been given, including Senator Connors’ own assertion that the President exceeded her authority in creating the Office of Civilian Service and was illegally using us, a federally funded entertainment deputation supporting the service, to launch a political campaign, why is he not in the forefront of those clamoring for a hearing of the reform bill and investigating what abuses it corrects and what it would promulgate? Understand, my friends, bringing a bill to the floor in the house or to the Senate Committee on the National Service is not the same as passing a law. Our senators and congressmen are highly educated and well trained in the process of debate and amendment that goes into making a measure like this law.
Question number three: Why are eight companies in United States agribusiness and countless other American businesses and industries, given protected status in the conduct of their business, allowed ever increasing profits while consumers pay premium prices for fundamental necessities, and given public labor at steeply discounted rates approaching slavery for National Service Corps Members?
Senator, Reporters, people of Columbus both for and against reform: We the people, we the twenty-eight million citizens who have completed or are currently in the National Service, want the issue of service reform brought before the Senate and the House for open debate and investigation. We will recover the dream.
Vote only for candidates willing to support service reform.
“I knew you were smart as well as sexy,” Dana said. “But you really researched all that shit? What gives? You’d have been great on our team. You were great.” We’d gathered in the ready room after the show and sat with sodas talking. We’d have to go back to camp shortly but SSR wasn’t going with me—or me with them.
“It took four weeks for me to get my hands back where I could play the guitar,” I said. “They almost succeeded in getting me to miss it.”
“I don’t get it. How were we supposed to stop you?” Derek asked.
“The night we went out on the weekend survival,” I said. “Dana, answer me truthfully. Did you leave your camp that night?” She blushed.
“Yeah. When I heard the boss heading back down the trail, I headed for your camp. It wasn’t much of a survival exercise. I mean we had our packs. We’d been living out of them for four weeks. And… The boss said it didn’t really make much difference if we slept alone or together. When I found your camp empty, I ran back to mine as fast as I could. We didn’t hear anything else until he came back through our camps starting about noon the next day. Told us the exercise had changed and we were moving. We hiked cross country for a while and then picked up a trail that took us South. Best I can tell, we were someplace in Georgia when he let us stop and our bus was waiting there with all our gear in it.”
“What did he say about me not being with you?”
“He said you’d gone ahead and were going to be our target for a search. We searched those mountains for a week before he told us you were dead,” Paul said. “He said we needed to develop a story for our first deployment that would explain why you were missing.”
“Well, what was supposed to happen is that he would crawl up to my camp and wait with a camera to capture pictures of Dana and me screwing around in a camp in the woods. He planned to release it with a message that I’d deserted and run off with—and it’s his words, Dana—a black whore. It was all staged to discredit me so I couldn’t make this tour or speak for service reform.”
“Then our whole team is just a fake? We were just put together to get rid of you?” Rick asked.
“Don’t believe that for a minute,” Ron said. He’d spent the afternoon with the team at the district office. “The way you were formed was planned to take Jacob out of circulation but the mission of this team is solid. You should be proud of yourselves. And you should get ready. We want you able to respond to an emergency at a moment’s notice, like you did in Galveston. Now that you’re out of the closet, so to speak, we plan to make use of you at every opportunity.”
“Good luck, guys,” I said. “I’ve never wished any of you any harm in this. I was serious about wanting you on stage to thank for your service.”
“We were a good team, Jake,” Dana said. “I… thought we might have something going.”
“I have eleven wives,” I said. “That doesn’t mean we didn’t have something special, but there were a lot of hurdles to cross.” She looked at my wives sitting with me. Rachel put her arm around me and looked at Dana.
“Don’t disappear completely from our lives,” she said. “Jacob doesn’t fool around with people he doesn’t care about. And if he cares about a person, there’s a strong chance the rest of us will, too. Plan a vacation to visit us.”
“Seriously?” she asked. I just grinned at her. She wrapped me in a hug and put a kiss on me that got Rachel giggling.
“You guys, we have to vacate. The contract ends in five minutes,” Rachel said. We headed out and went our separate ways. I really hoped they were everything I thought of them.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
