Prius, which was still sitting by the curb, not yet stolen, though I had left it unlocked with the driver’s door ajar.
Note to self—next time leave a large, welcoming invitation on the windshield.
Chapter Eight
We drove down the hill and hooked a right, then parked and entered a small eating establishment called Shades. Shades had the look and feel of a neighborhood bar/diner with an eating area, booths, and so forth. It was like a charming jump back in time to the fifties, and the restaurant was filled with a mixture of grizzled locals—many of whom looked like they had been there in the fifties—and a number of clean-cut, short-haired, muscular young men in civilian clothes who were still easily recognizable as soldiers.
Katherine led me to the back where an older-looking gent with short hair was hunched over a table, sipping from an iced tea.
He jumped up as we approached, pushed out a hand, and shook with Katherine. Katherine did the introductions. “Fred Norell, this is Sean Drummond, my JAG cocounsel.”
Then to me, she said, “Fred retired last month from the MPs. He was a lieutenant colonel on the staff of the corps commander in Iraq.”
Fred and I spent the typical man moment sizing each other up. Truly, men are like dogs; we don’t get down on all fours and sniff one another’s butts, but probably only because we can’t get away with it. Fred was a large man, perhaps 6'4", thin and fit, with a severely cropped crew cut that could only have been inflicted by a military barber. He had what you would call a manly, seasoned face, tanned, prematurely wrinkled skin, narrow, inquisitive eyes, uncommunicative mouth—the face of a man who had seen something of the world.
He indicated for us to be seated, then he and I spent another brief interlude becoming acquainted. He was older than me, closer to fifty than forty, wife, three kids, and had experienced the typical career pattern of a senior military police officer. Troop service in Germany and Korea as a junior officer, then his career veered into penal duties, including several stints at the confinement facilities at Fort Knox and Fort Carson, graduating, eventually, to the big house at Fort Leavenworth.
Katherine interrupted this hale-fellow-well-met moment and shifted us into gear, informing me, “Fred has agreed to be an expert defense witness. Further, he’s agreed to be an unpaid consultant to our team.”
This was interesting, both that a career officer agreed to testify on Lydia’s behalf, and also that he was waiving remuneration for the service.
I asked Fred, “What was your job over there?”
“I was on the multinational corps staff in the operations office. It was a long, hard year. Specifically, I was the planner for prison operations.”
“I’ve never heard of that position. Was it unique?”
“It was created just for me.” He appeared to understand that this required an explanation and he provided one. “Understand that everything in Iraq after the initial invasion was an unmitigated mess. Nobody planned for an occupation, an insurgency, or a civil war. If you haven’t been there, you’ve at least read the papers and seen the news. I’m sure you understand. I was one of the firemen.”
In fact, I had there been there, very briefly, on a highly classified mission I didn’t want to discuss in front of Miss-You-Know-Who.
So I nodded, which Fred took as an indication to continue. “Everything in the theater and the army was in chaos. Iraq exploded in violence. I was the deputy commandant at the Castle, and got overnight orders to proceed to Iraq on the next flight.”
As I knew, the Castle was the nickname for the Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth, the crown jewel of the army’s penal system and its only maximum security prison. Only the hardest cases are incarcerated there, what army authorities call Level III inmates, meaning it takes at least a seven-year hitch to get a room reservation.
Fred continued,
Note to self—next time leave a large, welcoming invitation on the windshield.
Chapter Eight
We drove down the hill and hooked a right, then parked and entered a small eating establishment called Shades. Shades had the look and feel of a neighborhood bar/diner with an eating area, booths, and so forth. It was like a charming jump back in time to the fifties, and the restaurant was filled with a mixture of grizzled locals—many of whom looked like they had been there in the fifties—and a number of clean-cut, short-haired, muscular young men in civilian clothes who were still easily recognizable as soldiers.
Katherine led me to the back where an older-looking gent with short hair was hunched over a table, sipping from an iced tea.
He jumped up as we approached, pushed out a hand, and shook with Katherine. Katherine did the introductions. “Fred Norell, this is Sean Drummond, my JAG cocounsel.”
Then to me, she said, “Fred retired last month from the MPs. He was a lieutenant colonel on the staff of the corps commander in Iraq.”
Fred and I spent the typical man moment sizing each other up. Truly, men are like dogs; we don’t get down on all fours and sniff one another’s butts, but probably only because we can’t get away with it. Fred was a large man, perhaps 6'4", thin and fit, with a severely cropped crew cut that could only have been inflicted by a military barber. He had what you would call a manly, seasoned face, tanned, prematurely wrinkled skin, narrow, inquisitive eyes, uncommunicative mouth—the face of a man who had seen something of the world.
He indicated for us to be seated, then he and I spent another brief interlude becoming acquainted. He was older than me, closer to fifty than forty, wife, three kids, and had experienced the typical career pattern of a senior military police officer. Troop service in Germany and Korea as a junior officer, then his career veered into penal duties, including several stints at the confinement facilities at Fort Knox and Fort Carson, graduating, eventually, to the big house at Fort Leavenworth.
Katherine interrupted this hale-fellow-well-met moment and shifted us into gear, informing me, “Fred has agreed to be an expert defense witness. Further, he’s agreed to be an unpaid consultant to our team.”
This was interesting, both that a career officer agreed to testify on Lydia’s behalf, and also that he was waiving remuneration for the service.
I asked Fred, “What was your job over there?”
“I was on the multinational corps staff in the operations office. It was a long, hard year. Specifically, I was the planner for prison operations.”
“I’ve never heard of that position. Was it unique?”
“It was created just for me.” He appeared to understand that this required an explanation and he provided one. “Understand that everything in Iraq after the initial invasion was an unmitigated mess. Nobody planned for an occupation, an insurgency, or a civil war. If you haven’t been there, you’ve at least read the papers and seen the news. I’m sure you understand. I was one of the firemen.”
In fact, I had there been there, very briefly, on a highly classified mission I didn’t want to discuss in front of Miss-You-Know-Who.
So I nodded, which Fred took as an indication to continue. “Everything in the theater and the army was in chaos. Iraq exploded in violence. I was the deputy commandant at the Castle, and got overnight orders to proceed to Iraq on the next flight.”
As I knew, the Castle was the nickname for the Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth, the crown jewel of the army’s penal system and its only maximum security prison. Only the hardest cases are incarcerated there, what army authorities call Level III inmates, meaning it takes at least a seven-year hitch to get a room reservation.
Fred continued,
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