Nearly ninety inmates who had earned base-parolee status lived in these quarters. A panel of officers who included the provost marshal and brig warden and three members of the general staff, assigned on a rotating basis, reviewed the case of each man proposed for the parolee program. Envisioned by the provost marshal and Lieutenant Schuller, it served as a halfway house for inmates who neared the end of their sentences and demonstrated potential to return to the operating forces, serving to transition them back to Marine Corps units rather than the men getting shit-canned out of the service with an administrative discharge under less than honorable conditions. It offered Marines a second chance to finish their military obligation and obtain a general discharge under honorable conditions, which also warranted them receiving the full package of veterans’ benefits they would have otherwise lost. Putting the men back in the operating units also helped the Marine Amphibious Force with its manpower shortfalls, which had become an increasing concern.

Staff Sergeant Abduleses had organized the base parolees into working parties that now helped the guard staff erect floodlights all around the brig’s perimeter. They had used the trucks to transport the Marines and equipment around the fence line and to tow generator trailers in place.

One by one as the workers started the generators’ engines, the banks of floodlights came on and fully illuminated the brig’s surroundings as well as the recreation yard and burning hooches.

“My God!” Jon Kirkwood exclaimed as he pulled the jeep in front of the administration building and Mike Schuller leaped out before he had a chance to stop. “This wasn’t a rocket attack. It’s a riot.”

“You think they killed anybody?” O’Connor said, looking at the many fires and seeing the prisoners inside the fence running aimlessly or hiding under the several rows of picnic tables that flanked the basketball court and served as movie seating on Friday nights.

“I’m afraid to even consider it,” Kirkwood answered, pausing to take in the view and trying to absorb what had happened.

Michael Schuller had run ahead of the three lawyers and quickly found Staff Sergeant Abduleses talking to Lieutenant Colonel Webster, the MAF chief of staff, and several other officers standing in a group on the walkway between the parking lot and the blockhouse. As the trio of lawyers approached the group, they recognized the familiar face of an old friend.

“Major Danger!” Terry O’Connor called out, seeing Jack Hembee across from the chief of staff and the provost marshal. The former operations officer from Fire Support Base Ross turned his head and smiled, seeing the two defense lawyers with an unfamiliar third man accompanying them. He gave the men a quick wave, and returned his attention to the colonels who conferred with him.

“We’ve got the prisoners contained for the night,” Hembee said to the group as the three lawyers approached and listened. “With our reinforced reaction company covering every foot of that fence line, nobody’s going anywhere. I say let them fight among themselves, get good and tired, and we can start clearing them out sometime tomorrow. They’ll want to sleep by then.”

“I think Jack’s right,” Colonel Webster said, slapping the major across the shoulders. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. We start popping gas in the dark and no telling what kind of disaster we can stir up. Besides, we have all those prisoners of war right down the hill, and the smoke has them coughing up a storm as it is. Mix in a bunch of CS and we’ll have a riot over there, too.”

“Staff Sergeant Abduleses mentioned that we had some shooting from the towers when this thing started,” Lieutenant Schuller said, looking at the senior member of his guard staff present with the group.

“Right,” Colonel Webster said, and looked up at the towers. “First thing I did when I got here, after the staff sergeant told me what happened, and those jokers were still shooting, I had every man who pulled a trigger brought out of the towers and replaced. Those men are now supervising the working parties among the base parolees. Last thing we need is somebody getting shot. According to Abdul here, our illustrious Sergeant Turner had apparently told those men to start shooting over the prisoners’ heads if trouble broke out. Although they were just following Turner’s orders, I still replaced the men, just to make sure I don’t have any trigger-happy jocks remaining up topside.

“We did have a group of inmates that tried to cut through the fence, but ol’ Abdul the Butcher here, had one of the M60s walk a little machine-gun fire in front of them as an attention-getter. Needless to say, it turned them back in short order. So I left a standing order to do that again if anyone else attempts to escape. Major Hembee and the reaction force have orders to do the same. I just don’t want anyone opening up on people inside the wire.”

“What about our people, sir?” Schuller asked. “What’s the count?”

“Abdul says that they took hostage six of our men: Gunner Holden, Gunny MacMillan, Sergeant Turner, Corporal Todd, and Lance Corporals Brookman and Fletcher,” the colonel answered. “We have no idea of their status. Last word on Fletcher, he had escorted a prisoner up to control. Turner and Brookman got beaten, but the people in the tower said that they observed them moving inside the cell block with the others, walking on their own, apparently protected by a couple of pretrial prisoners, Fryer and Wilson, who fought back other inmates, keeping them off our guys. I’ve put people with cameras and long lenses up in the towers. If we shoot anything, let’s shoot pictures so we can learn who’s in charge down there and who’s helping our side. Apparently we have at least two good guys in the crowd.”

“Sergeant Donald T. Wilson, sir,” Kirkwood said, offering the name of his client after the colonel had finished. “He’s my client. A good Marine. Big guy. Tough as a boot. I don’t know about Fryer.”

“Fryer came to us from division,” Schuller said, looking at Captains Kirkwood, O’Connor, and Ebberhardt. “His unit charged him with attempted murder after he shot his battalion commander’s tent to ribbons. The major was in the crapper at the time. I talked to Fryer about it, and he volunteered to tell me what happened. He said he saw his major leave the tent, so he shot it all to hell to send the commander a message that the troops had reached the ends of their ropes with him. Apparently this major is a grade-A careerist asshole. I’ve had my share of dealing with the type. Not fun. While I don’t agree with Fryer’s methods, he certainly made his point clear. Remember me telling you about him? How his captain and first sergeant hugged him like family when they left him here?”

“Sure, now that you mention it,” Ebberhardt said, nodding.

“Yeah, right, I recall the tale,” O’Connor said, nodding as well.

“It’s right in character that Sergeant Fryer would try to help Sergeant Wilson protect the guards and get this riot settled down,” Schuller said, and looked at Colonel Webster and the chief of staff. “They may be able to help us segregate peaceful prisoners and our captive guards away from the troublemakers, so that if we go in there with force we can spare the men who aren’t part of the riot.”

“You really think we can trust those two?” Colonel Webster asked, and then looked past the blockhouse at the scene of chaos. “It would be nice if they got our guards and a few of the noncombative prisoners out.”

“Given what I know about those two men,” Schuller said, “and Captain Kirkwood can back me up at least on Wilson, I believe that if we give them the chance to bring people out, they will do it. In fact, sir, I’ll wager you that they are already trying to do something like it. Despite incarceration, they just don’t strike me as the kind of men to sit back and let things go to hell. I think them pulling Turner and Brookman out of the melee and protecting them demonstrates my point.”

“So if we see a group of inmates coming toward the blockhouse, and it looks like Wilson or Fryer have charge of the men, then we should open the doors and let them through?” Colonel Webster said, and looked at Staff Sergeant Abduleses and Lieutenant Schuller.

“Yes, sir, that’s my recommendation,” Schuller said, and took a deep breath.

“What about you, Abdul?” the colonel asked. “How do you size up this situation? You think those two men might work from the inside to help us?”

“I’m quite leery of just opening the gates for a gaggle of prisoners headed for the blockhouse,” the staff sergeant said, shaking his head. “I’d want guards to check the men through as they entered the building. However, the lieutenant is right about Fryer and Wilson. Despite their troubles, they seem like pretty solid Marines to me. I doubt very seriously if either of them had anything to do with this riot.

“My bet goes to that bunch of shitbirds that ganged around prisoners Harris, Pitts, and Anderson just before the movie was supposed to start. That’s where my people observed the whole thing starting. Pitts and Harris got in a shoving match, Fletcher took Harris upstairs, and then Anderson and two other inmates jumped Turner and Brookman. Then from right there in that same area, at that same moment, a whole mob of prisoners jumped up and went ballistic. It looked orchestrated. Planned.

“About the same time that some of the rioters set the hooches on fire, we saw Fryer and Wilson push their way into the circle around Turner and Brookman, and they started breaking up the fight. Fryer jumped on Anderson, and it looked like he hurt him pretty good because he backed right off our guards. Then Wilson and Fryer took our men inside the block.”

“Shut up,” Michael Fryer yelled from inside the cage with Iron Balls and Bad John curled on the floor in a back corner and Paul Fletcher lying on the bunk, drifting in and out of consciousness. The incarcerated sergeant sat next to the lance corporal and spoke to him in a low voice. “Try to stay awake, man. You need to keep your eyes open and don’t let yourself go to sleep. We gonna get you some help soon as we can.”

James Harris peered through the steel front of the cell.

“I ain’t hit him that hard,” Mau Mau said, trying to rationalize the injured Marine into a better state of condition. “Just smacked him upside the head a little bit with gunny’s bat. He too big a motherfucker to take down any other way, you know.”

Michael Fryer looked out at Harris and shook his head. Then he walked to the cage door and spoke in a quiet voice.

“You know, this man will probably die tonight if he doesn’t get over to Charlie Med pretty soon,” the sergeant said, locking eyes with Mau Mau. “Let these guards go, so they can carry Lance Corporal Fletcher out and get him some help. Hostages ain’t doing a thing for you, and this man die, you’re looking at first-degree murder. I hear the feds still hang people for the death penalty. Pretty nasty way to go. Maybe they cut you a break, though, and shoot your sorry ass with a firing squad.”

Fryer walked back to the bunk, and sat again with Fletcher, holding his hand and checking his eyes. The injured Marine could say nothing, and his pupils had dilated and wandered in two different directions, uncoordinated and unseeing.

“Fletch, you hear me okay, give me a blink,” Fryer said, watching the man’s eyelids both slowly close and then reopen. “Good, boy. You stay with me, you hear. I don’t think you’re seeing right now, but you’re awake and responding to my voice. That’s real good.”

Mike Turner and Kenny Brookman both sat in the corner of the cell, their eyes swollen nearly shut and their faces bloody from the kicking they received. Both men bled from their ears, and Bad John had the crotch of his pants bloody, too. His belly ached worse than he had ever known, and he could hardly breathe due to the pain from his ribs. He felt sure that several of them had broken when Sam Martin kicked him.

“You know these other two boys ain’t doing much better than Fletch,” Sergeant Fryer said from the bunk, glancing at Harris, who still looked in the cage. “I think old Bad John might have a ruptured spleen, the way he’s bleeding out his ass. You see that puddle under him? That ain’t pee.”

“So what? The motherfucker can stand to lose a little juice,” Harris said and laughed.

“Look, a man can bleed to death from a ruptured spleen,” Chief Warrant Officer Holden called from the cell across the aisle. “You depriving these injured men medical attention constitutes complicity to murder if any of them die. Oh, and by the way, the armed forces correctional facilities both at Portsmouth and at Fort Leavenworth still do hang men for capital offenses.”

“Shut the fuck up, you cracker ass motherfucker!” Harris screamed, and slammed the bat across the front of the cell where the inmates had locked up Holden and Gunny MacMillan along with Nathan L. Todd and Donald T. Wilson. “I ain’t said nothing about you openin’ your honky-ass mouth. When I ask you something, then you can talk. Otherwise, stay the fuck out of a couple brothers’ conversation.”

The deputy warden went back and sat on the bunk next to Corporal Todd and Gunny MacMillan. Donald Wilson stood in the front corner of the cell and did not flinch when Mau Mau had swung the baseball bat into the cage door, only inches from his face. The sergeant just stared at Harris and said nothing.

“How come a brother be taking up for white trash like these dudes, man?” Harris asked Michael Fryer. The sergeant tilted his head and shrugged.

“We all children of the Lord, man,” the sergeant said, and looked back at Paul Fletcher. “Jesus said to do good to those who spitefully use you. Blessed is the peacemaker. I messed up back at my unit when I shot up my battalion CO’s tent. So when they locked me in this jail, I made a promise to the Lord that I’ll never pick up a gun again. I’m a peacemaker, man. These men here, they just doing their job. Lance Corporal Fletcher, you busted up his head, broke bones in his skull. I felt them crunch around when I helped him lay down here. He ain’t never done nothing but treat you and all these other prisoners right. He even called you mister. How many men call you mister in your life?”

James Harris looked down at the lance corporal and then glanced over at Nathan L. Todd.

“He call me mister, too, ol’ Chief over there,” Harris said, nodding across the aisle at the corporal. Then he looked back at Fryer. “You done fought my rangers. I think you broke a couple of Ax Man’s fingers, and I know you did in his nose, takin’ him down and gettin’ him and Jones and Martin off ol’ Bad John and Iron Balls there. That ain’t right.”

“What you’re doin’ ain’t right!” Fryer snapped back. “They’d ’a killed Sergeant Turner and Lance Corporal Brookman, had Wilson and me not pulled them off these boys. I don’t want no truck with you and your Black Stone Rangers. I just want to get on with my life, what I got left, when I ever get out of prison.”

Harris nodded, and looked at the man.

“Tell you what, bro,” Mau Mau said, and glanced back at Donald Wilson. “Your white brother over there, Wilson, him and Corporal Todd, they can carry out Lance Corporal Fletcher. I let them slide on out. They can get ol’ Fletch to Charlie Med if they want to go.”

“Bad John needs to go, too,” Wilson said, and nodded toward Kenny Brookman, who now lay on his side, doubled in a fetal ball. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to send him and Iron Balls out together. They paid their dues, man. You got your licks on them.”

Harris laughed.

“You got a voice after all!” Mau Mau said, and shook another handful of little white pills from a bottle he had stuffed in his pocket when he and the Chu Lai Hippie had raided the drug locker in the cell block sick bay. Then he popped the tablets in his mouth and looked at Turner and Brookman. “Wilson, you probably right. They done paid dues, and it look like they good Christian souls now. You boys done had a change of heart from your racist ways?”

“I’m sorry, man,” Turner mumbled, and then lay Kenny Brookman’s head in his lap.

“Okay, Wilson,” Harris said, walking over to where the sergeant leaned against the cage door. “They go, too. We keep Gunner Holden and Gunny MacMillan for barter. My bro, Fryer, he stayin’ here. I call him the Preacher Man. You like that nickname?”

“Sounds good to me,” Wilson shrugged and then gave Fryer a quick smile.

“That ain’t all,” Harris said, and glanced back at Michael Fryer, noticing the friendly exchange between him and Wilson. “You gonna set up some negotiations with the boss man when you take these peckerheads out. He gonna come in here and meet me and my war council at the sally port.”

“What do you want?” Wilson asked, looking at Harris eye to eye.

“They got to send in somebody that can talk for the man,” Mau Mau said, nodding at the pretrial imprisoned sergeant. “We gots demands.”

“Like what?” Wilson asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Like none of your fuckin’ business, cracker,” James Harris snapped, and tapped the steel door with the bat as he spoke.

“So your message to whomever is in charge out front is that you need them to send in an officer to the sally port to hear your demands?” Wilson asked, not reacting to the cracker slur.

“Yeah,” Harris said, and then blinked with an afterthought. “Him and our lawyers.”

“Which lawyers?” Wilson asked, shrugging.

“Not my lawyer, that stupid scarecrow-lookin’ motherfucker,” Harris said and laughed. “He a scary-lookin’ scarecrow, too. No, I want some good lawyers.”

“How many you need?” Wilson asked.

“I don’t know,” Harris said, and looked back at Fryer. “One might be fine, but I think two be better. These be lawyers that’s on our side, not no fuckin’ prosecutor motherfuckers.”

“Defense lawyers,” Wilson said, and wrinkled his brow. “The one who has my case is a good one. I’ll ask for him. Captain Kirkwood.”

Celestine Anderson had walked into the hallway and had sat down on the desk at the barred entrance. Complying with General Mau Mau’s orders, he had searched the cell block and surrounding grounds for James Elmore but had not yet discovered where the rat had hidden.

“You just gonna let these motherfuckers waltz out here?” Anderson said, looking at Mau Mau.

“Fletch need a doc, and maybe Bad John, too,” Harris said, looking at his cohort and inwardly worrying about how it might feel to swing at the end of a hangman’s rope. “We done with them anyway. Elmore, that’s the dude I want. You ain’t found his raggedy ass yet?”

The Ax Man shook his head from side to side and then slid back on the desk and leaned against the wall.

“We need something back for trade,” Anderson said, and glared at Donald Wilson, who had locked eyes with him. Then he shifted his look to Michael Fryer. “I want a piece of that nigger’s ass ’fore we get done here. He broke my nose and bust up my hand, stompin’ shit out of my fingers when he took me down. When him and white boy here be gettin’ me and Jones and Martin off those two assholes layin’ in there.”

“Tell you what, motherfucker,” Harris said and laughed. “We let ol’ Preacher Man out this cage and you and him can go at it out in the yard.”

“Maybe we do that tomorrow,” Anderson said, looking at the big man, who had size, strength, speed, and meanness well above his own abilities.

Harris laughed and then yelled up the hallway to Brian Pitts, who sat at the gunny’s desk in the control unit.

“Ax Man he gonna take down the Preacher Man out in the yard tomorrow!” Mau Mau called, his voice echoing in the building. Pitts showed a thumbs-up through the control room window and laughed.

Celestine Anderson spun on the desk to look up the hallway at Pitts, and then snapped back at Harris.

“I’m gonna kill that smart-ass, white-bread motherfucker sittin’ up there like he in charge,” the Ax Man seethed at Mau Mau.

“He my soul brother, man,” Harris snapped back. “You ain’t killin’ nobody unless I say. I’m general of the Black Stone Rangers, don’t forget. You a lieutenant, and Snowman, he my colonel. My chief of staff. Ax Man, you my bro, but I ain’t lettin’ you mess with my man. We get out this motherfucker, I let you come live with me in Bangkok. How you like that?”

“We ain’t goin’ noplace, bro,” Anderson said, and looked at the men in the cells. “Not unless you talk General Cushman outta the keys to this brig.”

“That’s what we be negotiating, man,” Harris said, and looked back at Wilson. “Our man here gonna set it all up. Bring us lawyers and shit so it be legal. That way they have to give what we say.”

“Kirkwood’s a good man,” Nathan Todd said, now standing next to Wilson. “I know him from back in Chu Lai.”

“Who else good, Chief?” Harris asked, looking at Todd.

“Captain O’Connor is a good lawyer,” Gunner Holden offered, still sitting on the bunk. “Also Captain Ebberhardt. He just got promoted today.”

“Fuck those two flour bag motherfuckers!” Celestine Anderson shouted from the desk where he sat. “They handle my trial, man. Five years all I be lookin’ at before those two shitbirds fucked up my case and I end up with twenty-five years. Twenty-five years, motherfucker, and I start out sittin’ on just five. No way I want O’Connor or Ebberhardt talkin’ ’bout nothin’ ’bout me.”

“One lawyer work fine then,” Harris said, shrugging at Anderson. “Yo, bro, I think that Ebberhardt dude he be Snowman’s lawyer.”

“Why don’t you open these doors and let Wilson get these men out of here so they can go to sick bay?” Michael Fryer said, getting Paul Fletcher to his feet and holding the injured man’s arm across his shoulders. “Yo, Don, you handle this big boy okay?”

“Sure can, Mike,” Wilson said, and looked at Nathan Todd. “The corporal will have his hands full helping Brookman and Turner, but we’ll make it just fine.”

“Open them up!” Harris shouted down the hallway, and Brian Pitts pulled down the handle that sent all the cell doors rolling. He looked at Donald Wilson as he carried Paul Fletcher across his shoulders, and Nathan Todd stood between Brookman and Turner, helping both men walk. “Rangers will lead you across the yard, then you go on your own when you deal with the boys in the tower that got those machine guns.”

Harris laughed as the four guards and Donald T. Wilson walked down the hallway. “Don’t go and get your ass shot!”

“As long as none of your rangers fuck with us, we’ll make it out in good shape,” Wilson said, walking to the stairwell, now lifting Lance Corporal Fletcher across his shoulders and starting down.

“I thought you rotated home back in March,” Terry O’Connor said, filling a cup of coffee for the major and handing it to him.

“I did,” Hembee said, blowing across the top of his drink and then skimming a sip of the steamy brew. “About six years ago I married this sweet little Texas rose from Tyler. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the place. It’s between Dallas and Houston, kind of down in East Texas. Everything went dandy with her, she loved life as an officer’s wife until I got sent to Vietnam last year and she had to leave base housing at Camp Pendleton. I sent her home to Tyler when I did my tour here.”

Major Danger blew over his cup and took another careful slurp of coffee, then walked to a wooden bench set near the blockhouse front door and sat down. He patted a place next to him, motioning for the lawyers to take a seat, too.

“Well, Dixie, that’s her name,” Hembee continued, “she caught the itch and needed to do a little traveling. So she and her girlfriend, Beverly, they hopped in my 1967 Corvette Stingray and shot on down to Houston, where they commenced to having a hell of a lot of fun with an old boy they met at the Hilton Hotel named Spencer Kelly.

“Now, good old Spencer and his low-life compadres, who never saw a day of military service in their lives because their oil-rich daddies bought and paid for the local draft board, they wined and dined Dixie and Beverly and apparently a few other West Pac widows on a regular basis. They’d hang out at Trader Vic’s and the Warwick Hotel, go to the livestock show and rodeo at the Astrodome, dressed up in their fancy cowboy suits, and generally took up the conjugal slack for the husbands of these women while their men served overseas, here in Vietnam.

“I get home last March, and the first thing Dixie tells me is that she has found a new life in Houston, with her new circle of wealthy friends, and that she no longer feels at home as the wife of a Marine. Especially now that she is against the war and all.”

Terry O’Connor laughed and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Major Hembee,” he said. “I don’t mean to laugh at what happened to you. It just reminded me of a blond Swedish girl I left in New York. She sort of has a similar attitude.”

“She know old Spencer Kelly?” Hembee said with a laugh, and slapped O’Connor across the shoulders. “That boy does get around.”

“No, but she sure gives me hell about my joining the Marines and serving in this war,” O’Connor said, smiling.

“Well, shit, boys,” Hembee said, taking larger gulps of his coffee now that it had cooled. “I got my car back, turned it over to my brother to keep care of it, and I put in an AA form, volunteering for another tour in Vietnam.”

“You didn’t divorce Dixie?” Kirkwood asked, narrowing his eyebrows at the major.

“No, I didn’t,” Hembee said with a laugh. “I figure the best way to fuck her back is to stay married to her. She can’t file for divorce while I’m over here, so it kind of fouls up her plans of marrying one of those oil-rich Houston boys, or old Spencer himself.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your marriage, Major,” Kirkwood said, and then clasped his hands. “I guess I am awfully lucky. My wife, Katherine, she got a job teaching school in Okinawa just on the off chance that I might get a hop over there during my tour here. She’s back home in California now, and I never got to the rock either. But she did that out of love for me. Just to try to be near me. Lots of wrecked marriages coming out of this war, so I am awfully lucky to have a girl like Kat.”

“Well, here’s to Katherine Kirkwood then, and all the women like her,” Hembee said, raising his coffee cup in a salute.

“So you’ve gone back to Seventh Marines?” O’Connor asked, and noticed Movie Star dashing out the blockhouse door and looking around in a big hurry.

“No, they put me to work at Three-MAF operations for the time being,” Hembee said, finishing his coffee and crushing the cup in his hand. “I’m selected for lieutenant colonel, and next month when I pin it on, I will pick up command of a battalion. Probably one with the Ninth Marine Regiment. General Ray Davis has command up north and he asked for me by name, once I put on my silver oak leaves.”

“Congratulations!” O’Connor said, raising his coffee cup along with Kirkwood and Wayne Ebberhardt, saluting the major. “I guess it will be Colonel Danger now.”

Hembee laughed, “I guess so, but somehow it doesn’t have that ring that Major Danger does.”

“Sir!” Lance Corporal Dean said, finally seeing Captain Kirkwood sitting on the bench between the other officers. “Major Dickinson needs you inside like five minutes ago!”

“What’s going on?” O’Connor asked, getting up with Kirkwood and the others.

“One of the prisoners, a big guy, he carried out one of the guards on his back and led out three others,” Dean said, talking fast from his excitement. “They’re all beat to hell. One guy’s nearly dead. They got a medevac chopper inbound for them right now. The one guy has a serious head injury. Got brained with a baseball bat.”

“What about the prisoner?” Kirkwood asked, curious if it was who he suspected.

“I don’t know, sir,” Movie Star said, and opened the steel front door to the blockhouse for the captain and the others. “All I know is that he wanted to talk to you, so the chief of staff and Major Dickinson sent me out to find you.”

He had just closed his eyes when James Harris stepped inside his cell. “Yo, Snowman, what’s up?” Mau Mau said, tossing back his head and slapping the bat across his palm.

“Fucking after two o’clock in the morning,” Pitts answered, lacing his hands behind his head as he lay on his bunk, looking back at his old partner. “Thought I’d catch me a few z’s before the shit comes down in the morning.”

“Shit like what?” Harris said, reaching in his pocket and taking the last of the little white pills.

“Probably nothing,” Pitts sighed, “but if I had that reaction team, I’d make an assault at about daylight. Catch us sleeping.”

“Nobody sleeping, man, except maybe you,” Harris answered, taking a swig of water from a green plastic canteen that he picked up from the table in Pitts’s cell.

“What’s that you taking? Any good?” Pitts asked, changing the subject to avoid any conflict with his drugged-up friend.

“Uppers, man,” Harris smiled. “Old Carnegie, he know his shit. He know the name of every pill we got in the sick bay.”

“Yeah, he does know his shit,” Pitts said and smiled. “So you’re wired for the night, then.”

“Hey, I feel like King Kong, man,” Harris beamed. “Ain’t nobody takin’ me down tonight, bro.”

“You’re having lots of fun, aren’t you,” Pitts said, closing his eyes and yawning.

“Bet that Hippie got some shit that will make you wake right up, man,” Harris said, looking at the Snowman trying to sleep.

“Maybe later,” Pitts answered, still keeping his eyes closed.

“So what you thinkin’ ’bout?” Harris asked, frowning.

“Our money and our dope, man,” Pitts said, and sat up and looked at Harris. “You’re having the time of your life, lord of the cell block. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about Huong and Bao sitting on two million dollars of our cash, and a million dollars’ worth of dope that I can turn into fifty million in two weeks flat.”

“Now, how you done that?” Harris asked, and sat on the bunk by Pitts. “I know you sellin’ shit in Da Nang, but three million dollars is a lot of cash to just scarf off some dope-smokin’ doggies and Marines in I Corps.”

“What we sold here didn’t amount to jack shit, man,” Pitts said, and lay back on his bunk. “The big cash came from the major hauls of heroin and Buddha I put in contractor containers and got loaded on ships that carried it back to San Francisco.”

“See, I figure somethin’ like that, but you ain’t tellin’ me shit,” Harris said and then frowned. “Why ain’t you trust me, man? I thought we bros.”

“You didn’t need to know,” Pitts shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t tell Huong, either. He knew what I shipped, because he set it up with the Viet Cong to supply what I needed. He didn’t know my contractors or my buyers. Only me. Huong arranged for the deliveries to get trucked down to the port at China Beach, but who brought the money and who made the deals were always a mystery to him. Of course, he didn’t really care, because he was living well and getting rich, too.”

“For sure, man,” Harris smiled. “That little time at the ranch, that’s the best I ever live in my life. Man, like millionaires.”

“We are millionaires, man,” Pitts said, and then blew out a deep breath. “We just need to get out of here and get to Saigon.”

“So let’s slip out now, while everybody sleepin’,” Harris said, and then looked around to see if anyone lurked outside who might hear their conversation.

“You didn’t see that company of Marines set up outside the wire?” Pitts said, closing his eyes. “We get shot the second we cut through that fence. No way anybody leaving here now. Not unless he can slip through the crowd in the blockhouse.”

“How he do that, man?” Harris asked, bewildered at the suggestion of simply walking out the brig’s front door.

“They’re going to want to segregate the prisoners who aren’t part of the riot from the rest of us guilty bastards,” Pitts said, now sitting up and whispering to Mau Mau. “Our brother Bobby Matthews, you haven’t seen him lately, have you.”

“No, I ain’t seen the boy since we all took cover under that picnic table, while those bastards was still shootin’ up in the towers,” Harris said, scratching his head.

“Well, while you were having your heyday as King Run Amuck,” Pitts whispered, smiling, “and don’t get me wrong, that’s okay, it’s not hurting a fucking thing for you to have your fun. Anyway, while you raised hell, Bobby and I had a nice talk. I told him to play it cool and stay low. Buddy up with the guys not causing trouble, and when the guards let them out, which they will do, you can count on it, slip out with those boys. Nobody saw him do shit. I don’t think they’ll recognize any of us from the fence, so I think Bobby’s cool.”

“So they take him over to them hooches across the road and he just slip off in the trees?” Harris said, spreading a big smile, feeling smart for coming to that conclusion without help.

“No,” Pitts said, wrinkling his mouth as he spoke. “I told Bobby to do his time and be the model prisoner. All they got on him is desertion. He surrendered as soon as the shooting started at Saigon, and never fired a gun at anyone, so I think he’s okay with that issue. Only thing he’s got to deal with is his desertion. Like I said, six-six and a kick, and he’s out.”

“So he do his time and he get discharged, and then how the fuck you expect that poor, dumb son of a bitch to get to Saigon?” Harris said out loud.

“Bobby may be quiet, and he’s not the strongest or the toughest dude on the block, but he’s smart,” Pitts said, and then added, “he’s loyal to a fault, too. Never told me a lie, and never tried any smart-ass shit with me either, like a certain Mau Mau I know.”

“Hey, man, I always be true blue, bro,” Harris said, puffing his cheeks, feeling hurt.

“Brother, you are true blue, absolute,” Pitts said and put his hand on Harris’s shoulder. “So is Bobby. He’s a good guy.”

“So how he gonna get to Saigon?” Harris asked, still puzzled. “You know they can him out at Pendleton.”

“Exactly,” Pitts said and smiled. “My contractor, from Da Nang, he’s up in San Francisco. This guy floats back and forth from Da Nang and Saigon to the Bay Area, and Seattle. He’s a construction contractor, all the time going and coming. Bobby will catch a bus up to Seattle and make a phone call to my man in Frisco.”

“Oh, so the fat man in Da Nang, he your connection to shipping the dope,” Harris said, smiling. “Now I know.”

“He’s one of three, but he’s a key man in the operation,” Pitts whispered, and sat up to speak close to Mau Mau’s ears. “Bobby will let him know about our stash in Saigon. And that I want this guy to put him on the company payroll, and that we will pay him ten cents on every dollar we make shipping the dope.”

“Damn, bro!” Harris whispered, opening his eyes wide. “Bet that get his attention. What like five million if we do fifty million?”

“Hey, you’re quick,” Pitts whispered, and then lay back on his bunk.

“So, Bobby, he know where the dope hid?” Harris asked, kneeling by the bunk and whispering.

“Generally,” Pitts said, closing his eyes. “He knows Huong and his people out west of Saigon. They also like him, because he is quiet, does not lie, and he’s totally loyal. A lot like Huong. Like I said, Huong and Bao are sitting on our cash and our stash. They have it tucked in a good spot. The Viet Cong, they cool with us, too. They want to do business because the money’s good, and they got an endless wholesale supply coming out of China. Everything’s gonna be cool. We just got to be patient and work things out with this brig nonsense.”

“So what we do? We just go do time, too?” Harris asked, standing up and frowning at the Snowman.

“We’ll do what we do,” Pitts answered, still keeping his eyes closed. “Once Bobby gets out, and has all the connections made, he’s gonna use some of our cash to hire us a no-shit law firm that will get our young asses out of jail.”

“What’s gonna stop that boy from just gettin’ all of a sudden greedy like a motherfucker, and leave our young asses in the can?” Harris asked, sticking out his lower lip like a pouting kid.

“Huong and Bao will stop him,” Pitts said, opening one eye.

“What we supposed to do now?” Harris asked, walking toward the cell door, his head jammed with confusing thoughts.

“Mau Mau, why don’t you and Ax Man and the Hippie, and all our Black Stone Rangers brotherhood, just do your thing and enjoy the moment,” Pitts said, rolling on his side, trying to sleep. “If it looks interesting, I might jump in, too. None of us sure as hell are going anywhere very soon. So we might as well live it up.”

“What about that rat’s ass Elmore?” Harris said, walking into the passageway.

“Good question,” Pitts said and sat up. “We probably ought to get rid of him. After today, he’ll probably want to talk about everything, including what all he saw go down in here, or maybe overheard.”

Harris smiled a wide grin and took the baseball bat and slapped his palm with a loud smack.

“I find that motherfucker, I’m gonna lay the wood to him,” Mau Mau said, and took a full swing through the air.

“Everyone is watching us,” Pitts said, and thought for a moment. “While you might enjoy laying the wood to the motherfucker, I think we need to let Ax Man do it. Out in the yard. And we do not want to be anywhere near it when it goes down.”

“Shit, man, that ain’t no fun,” Harris frowned.

“Swinging on a rope ain’t no fun, and you sure as hell can’t get rich doing it,” Pitts reminded his pal.

Terry O’Connor and Wayne Ebberhardt had followed the staff sergeant up the concrete stairs inside the blockhouse that led to the rooftop observation station. They had tried to persuade Michael Carter to come with them, but he refused and seemed frozen in front of a window, looking out into the prison yard. His lips moved rapidly as he whispered to himself, and every so often he made the sign of the cross by pointing the fingers of his right hand from his forehead to the center of his chest, then to his left shoulder and last to his right.

Major Dudley L. Dickinson hovered near the chief of staff, Major Hembee, Lieutenant Schuller, and Colonel Webster who talked with Jon Kirkwood and his client Donald T. Wilson. Since O’Connor and Ebberhardt had nothing to do, they trailed after the staff sergeant when he jogged upstairs.

“Wow, much better view up here,” Ebberhardt said as he and O’Connor stepped behind Abduleses, the two snipers, another prison guard, and a photographer from the joint wing and division photo lab who stooped behind a huge gray lens mounted on a tripod with a thirty-five-millimeter single-lens-reflex camera attached to the rear of the foot-and-a-half-long optic.

“That’s a fire extinguisher, Sergeant,” the photographer said, and clicked a picture of an inmate who had just run out of the back door to the kitchen, which sat at the rear of the chow hall in the lower part of the cell block. “Looks like he’s carrying a bucket in the other hand.”

“Yeah, that’s what he’s got,” the sniper’s partner said as he peered at the man with an M40, twenty-power spotting scope. “What the hell does he want with a bucket and a fire extinguisher?”

Suddenly a loud boom echoed across the prison yard and balls of fire leaped out of the kitchen windows and blew the steel back door off its hinges. Another explosion followed, sending a massive fireball skyward with thick, black smoke. A second prisoner ran from behind the kitchen, carrying a bucket in each hand, and joined the man with the fire extinguisher. As flames roared from the chow hall, the latter inmate took one of his buckets and threw it at one of the chow hall’s side windows. Immediately, fire exploded from where he had hurled the bucket.

“Kerosene, I should have guessed,” Abdul said, looking back at the two lawyers. “All the cooking and heating equipment in the kitchen runs on kerosene. That must have been the five-hundred-gallon tank out back that they blew up. You wouldn’t happen to know either of those two outstanding citizens, would you?”

“The tall guy that had the two buckets and tossed one, that’s Sergeant Randal Carnegie, better known among the I Corps herbal society as the Chu Lai Hippie,” O’Connor said, immediately recognizing the man as soon as he saw him. “I’d know that bum anywhere.”

“Kevin Watts,” the prison guard standing on the other side of the sniper team said. “The prisoner with the fire extinguisher. He and Carnegie are tight. Watts is doing three years for a whole host of petty crimes, along with trying to hijack an Air America gooney bird down at Chu Lai and have the pilots fly him out of Vietnam. The crew disarmed him as soon as he pulled the gun, and then he tried to claim that the pilots had framed him, and that he had never had a gun or had even gotten on their plane. He’s a real piece of work, Sergeant. I think the man even lies in his dreams. You never get a straight answer out of him, even for the time of day.”

“You know this guy pretty well then,” Ebberhardt said to the guard.

“He’s one of the men in the two hooches that I supervise, sir,” the guard answered.

“What the shit is he doing with that fire extinguisher?” O’Connor asked, seeing both Carnegie and Watts pumping the handle up and down in the top of the long cylinder.

“They’ve filled it with kerosene, sir,” Abduleses said, looking at the two men through binoculars. “They probably dumped the soda mixture out of the can, washed it out, and refilled it with kerosene from that big tank we used to have behind the chow hall. You know, the big boom we heard. Those fire extinguishers work just like a garden sprayer. Pressure it up, and it will squirt thirty feet or more. We used to have water fights in the barracks with them all the time. That was fun. I’m afraid this might get ugly. Hot kerosene, lots of fire.”

Randy Carnegie had set his bucket down next to the one Kevin Watts had carried out of the kitchen, and ran back toward the picnic tables. Then Watts took the hose off the side of the fire extinguisher, pointed it toward the cell block roof, and opened the valve, sending a geyser of kerosene more than twenty feet in the air. He lowered the spray toward the fire leaping from a nearby kitchen window and then raised it back toward the roof. After he did this several times, the stream caught fire and sent a string of flames onto the roof, igniting the kerosene he had already sprayed there as well as the line of liquid shooting from the fire extinguisher hose.

“Just like a fucking flamethrower!” Watts shouted, looking over his shoulder and laughing at Randy Carnegie.

“Oh, shit, Kev, it has the roof going good now!” Carnegie shouted back, jumping up and down with excitement.

Then Watts swung the flaming stream around and shot it toward the Chu Lai Hippie, who dodged out of the way. The jet of burning fuel splashed fire across the picnic table behind Carnegie, sending prisoners running in every direction.

“How good a shot are you?” Staff Sergeant Abduleses asked the sniper who followed the prisoner with the fire extinguisher with his rifle scope.

“You want me to take this man down?” the sniper asked, not moving from his eyepiece.

“Let me get clearance from the colonel, but I may need you to try to shoot that fire extinguisher, if you can hit it,” Abdul said, picking up a field phone and ringing it downstairs. A voice answered, and the staff sergeant asked for Colonel Webster.

After a brief conversation on the telephone, the staff sergeant looked at the sniper and then glanced back at the other guard and two captains in the room with him.

“Any of you guys have an idea of what might happen if this sniper shoots that can?” Abduleses asked.

“It’ll blow up,” the sniper said, still looking through his rifle scope. “Lots of oxygenated kerosene vapors under pressure, given how those two pumped it up. No question, a big bang. The good news is that the explosion will mostly vent from the hole my bullet makes. Probably rip out that side and make the cylinder take off like a rocket. Sort of like putting a firecracker under a tin can. Might be pretty spectacular.”

Terry O’Connor smiled. He liked the idea of shooting the canister and watching the surprise of the idiot who used it like a flamethrower on the other prisoners.

“Either of you captains have any objections if I clear this sniper to shoot that fire extinguisher?” Abdul the Butcher asked.

“See if he sets it down, then shoot it,” Ebberhardt suggested.

“We can’t wait too long; he may kill someone if he showers them with that burning kerosene,” Abduleses said, again looking at the man with his binoculars. “Sniper, take your shot when you see a good opportunity.”

“Randy!” Kevin Watts screamed, laughing and shooting the burning fuel toward the fleeing prisoners. “Throw those other two buckets into the cell block!”

Carnegie ran behind Watts, grabbed the first bucket, and hurled it at the window but hit the wall. Fire jumped as the liquid splashed against the concrete. Then he picked up the second bucket and just as he hurled it at the window, he heard what he thought sounded like a single gunshot, but then the fire extinguisher jumped past him and exploded skyward with a deafening boom. So he considered that what he had heard was the fire setting off the kerosene gas inside the pressurized container.

The concussion from the explosion knocked both inmates off their feet and the fire extinguisher hurled across the night sky, leaving a trail of burning vapor in the air behind it.

“Wow, man!” Kevin Watts screamed, looking at the canister sail over the roof of the cell block. “Fucking cool! Fire must have got inside and blew it like a bottle rocket. Fucking outrageous, man!”

The Chu Lai Hippie got on his knees and slapped the hand of Kevin Watts, celebrating their successful destruction of the chow hall, and setting the cell block roof ablaze.

“They don’t have a clue!” Staff Sergeant Abduleses said, and turned to the other Marines, laughing. “Those have to be the two dumbest people on this planet tonight.”

“Someone running to the wire!” the sniper said, following the fleeing inmate with his rifle scope.

James Elmore had sneaked to the kitchen and crawled in the stainless steel pot cabinet when James Harris had released him, just after the riot began. He had lain in the small space all night. Then when everything around him burst into flames, he ran through the fire and out the opening where the kitchen’s back door had blown off its hinges when Kevin Watts had set off the kerosene-fired pot boilers, cooking stove, and ovens. Had Elmore not hidden in the stainless steel cabinet, the violent force of the explosions in the kitchen would have killed him. He hoped that his good luck would still hold true as he made a desperate run for the fence.

“We’ve got inmates running after him now,” the prison guard said, watching with binoculars.

“Mind if I get a closer look?” Terry O’Connor asked, and took a pair of binoculars from the staff sergeant.

“You know that man?” Abduleses asked, looking at the captain.

“That’s my client James Harris,” O’Connor said, frowning as he handed the binoculars back to the staff sergeant.

“I thought that was him,” Abduleses said, watching the prisoners now capturing the fleeing man, knocking him to the ground, and dragging him back toward the cell block by his feet.

“I suppose there is no way to stop them,” O’Connor asked, watching Elmore writhing on the ground as the inmates dragged him. His screams echoed through the prison yard. “You know, they’ll probably kill him.”

“No great loss, if you ask me,” Staff Sergeant Abduleses said, looking blankly at O’Connor.

The lawyer looked back at Abdul the Butcher, started to say something, but then shook his head. He agreed that James Elmore offered the world little good, and most likely never would be missed. However, the vision and sounds of the helpless man screaming and struggling as the inmates dragged him by his heels to the sally port as the fire spread across the roof would live in his mind forever.

“Hey! You can’t leave us here!” Chief Warrant Officer Frank Holden screamed at him. He, Gunny MacMillan, and Michael Fryer sat in the cell farther down the passageway, coughing.

“Fucking die, motherfuckers! Fucking roast in hell!” Kevin Watts screamed, running from the top of the stairs, dashing toward the entrance to the cell block control room.

“Get out of my way, dirt bag,” Brian Pitts growled, and shoved the skinny derelict to one side. Then he ran to the wall and pulled down the control handles, releasing the locks on all the cage doors. “Where the fuck is Mau Mau, and who set the roof on fire?”

“Harris’s downstairs, man.” Watts smiled his slimy grin at the Snowman, and then proudly pointed to the roof. “Me and Randy got that motherfucker to burning. Ax Man told me to let you and those three assholes burn. Said I should lock your door if you still asleep.”

“Fuck-an-A you say!” Pitts snapped, glancing toward the stairwell. “I guess I’m lucky I got out before you had a chance to shut me in then, you slimy little roach.”

“No, man, I wouldn’t let you burn,” Watts said with a smile. “I was gonna wake you up an’ get you out. Let them out, too. Honest! Ax Man, he one crazy motherfucker. Wantin’ you all dead, man.”

“Get the fuck outta my way,” Pitts snarled, and wrinkled his nose. “Even in all this smoke you’re chokin’ me out smellin’ bad.”

“Snowman, I’m sorry, man,” Watts whined and trailed behind Pitts, trying to gain a little favor. “We ain’t got no water now. So I can’t wash all the kerosene and shit off me. I’m sorry I stink.”

“Disappear, you fucking maggot!” Pitts yelled, then he turned and looked at the three men he had just released, who also followed him. “I don’t know what I can do for you guys, but I sure as hell don’t want you dead. Maybe when we get downstairs you can slip out through the crowd and confusion.”