Chapter 25: Mackall

As they landed on Camp Mackall's airstrip, it looked like half the base was out there. Hilton, Broadview, Halloran and Potter came running out of the administrative barracks as Wild Bill brought the plane to a full stop, but the base's complement, the soldiers of the 82nd, were assembled and waiting. As the door opened and Hawk stepped out, followed by the rest of the trainees, a restrained cheer went up—and then died down to mutters as Lifeline and Spirit stepped off, carrying Cam on a stretcher between them. Stretcher had decided to keep her asleep for the time being, to reduce her physical movement and keep a handle on the internal bleeding until he could perform surgery to fix whatever was going on, so she was lying still on the stretcher and it was obvious that she was injured. The muttering from the 82nd increased.

Hilton came to a stop in front of Hawk and saluted stiffly. "Welcome back to Camp Mackall."

Hawk really didn't feel like saluting, but he decided for form's sake to do so. Behind him and slightly to his right, Wild Bill did so as well; and Lady Jaye did the same from his left shoulder. "We have wounded that need attending to…"

"Right here," came a terse voice. "Colonel Potter, CMO here at Camp Mackall. I would offer you the use of our medical facilities but at the moment since we have no power, your wounded would be better off staying on your aircraft. My expertise and supplies are at your service however." Hilton shot Potter a dirty look, but the shorter, older man seemed unfazed by the anger from his commanding officer.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Hawk said with unfeigned warmth to Potter, and the shorter man nodded brusquely, then followed Lifeline, Stretcher, Spirit, and the unconscious Cam back to the G4. Hawk watched them go, then turned to Hilton. "Base Commander Hilton. We have some things to talk about, but I will not do so here. You, Colonel Broadview, and Colonel Halloran will wait on my pleasure. I want a bath and some hot food and some sleep before I deal with you, and I believe the trainees would appreciate the same. In the meantime, on my authority as a General in the US Army, I am calling a halt to further training activities here at Camp Mackall due to my deep concern at the egregious lack of consideration for trainee safety and health during these training exercises. As soon as communication is reestablished here I will be referring this situation to Lieutenant General Johnson. My medics will be in charge of Trainee Arlington's medical care from here; Staff Sergeant Hart-Burnett, you will prepare the paperwork transferring responsibility for Trainee Arlington's care to my purview as soon as possible, as the authorities here at Camp Mackall are clearly unable to properly ensure her health and safety." Lady Jaye nodded once, curtly.

Hawk turned on his heel and headed for the barracks. They were lit by emergency lighting, just enough to see by, and his clean fatigues with his name patch on them were familiar and absurdly welcome after the last two weeks; first out in the forest for the S&E, then the RTL, and particularly the hurricane-tossed escape. A couple of the trainees were already asleep, but most of them were awake. A handful of them, Warren included, had already taken the opportunity to have a quick shower.

He took a shower, scrubbing quickly but fiercely to get every last bit of grime and filth from his skin, ignoring the dressings Lifeline had applied to his back. The scratches were superficial and would heal without further care; he just wanted to get clean, and as he pulled his fatigues on, clean, familiar, wonderful, he finally felt semi-human again.

From the looks on his trainee's faces, they felt the same way as he exited the showers, and even though suddenly all he really wanted to do was lie down and sleep, of course duty and responsibility came first. "Thank you, to each and every one of you," he said to all of them, and a few of the trainees still awake nudged their comrades until all twelve were awake and looking at him. "Completion of these training exercises has been due in large part to each one of you, and you are among the finest Rangers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Please be assured that what will happen next has no bearing on you, your training and how you have comported yourselves during the last few weeks."

"What does come next?" Warren asked, a little bolder than the others.

"I'm going to refer the situation here to Lieutenant General Johnson. One of the instructors here allowed personal feelings to carry over into his work, with the resultant deplorable effects on a trainee's health, safety, welfare, and almost her life. Something needs to be done—the next time something like this happens a trainee could die and it was sheer luck that Cam Arlington didn't this time. I will be requesting a formal inquiry into the matter from Lieutenant General Johnson and should he find sufficient evidence for a court martial, rest assured that I will prosecute it if such a move is warranted."

"What do you think is going to happen?" Demo asked Hawk.

Hawk sighed and sat down on his bed, propping his feet up. Damn, but it felt good to be able to stretch out and lie down. I'm getting too old for this, and then he pushed aside thoughts of his comfort and focused on the question he'd been asked. "There will be a formal inquiry at the very least, a general court-martial at the most," he said, thinking about what he knew of the Lieutenant General. They hadn't had many dealings with him yet; until the Operation: White Queen fiasco, General Clancy had been their immediate superior. For the moment, until another replacement could be found for the late, not-much-lamented Clancy, Johnson was their immediate superior. Clancy would have dismissed it; Johnson… Hawk simply didn't know.

"You'll need swearable testimony for even an inquiry, won't you?" Ryder, this time.

"Yes, I will. Are you volunteering?" he was joking, so it took him by surprise when Ryder nodded in perfect seriousness. "Seriously."

"Yes, Sir." Ryder nodded firmly. "I will testify."

"Me too," Demo said.

"So will I." Warren pinned Hawk with a look. "We will tell the exact truth, just as we saw it."

"Hilton and the rest of this base will try to intimidate you into staying silent. They don't this to get out," Hawk warned.

"I don't care!" Ryder got up out of his bed and paced, drawing all eyes; he was normally quite so this sudden burst of temper from his was unusual. "Sir. No one who considered themselves human could look at what was done to Cam during these training exercises and not get angry. Look at what happened to her, Jesus, she almost died! I know the intent of these exercises is to apply maximum combat realism to prepare us for such a situation of we're ever in it, but what happened…that's stuff that isn't supposed to happen. Not in training. Kicking her wasn't in the manuals. Hacking off half her hair and yanking out the other half isn't in the manuals either. It was unpardonable and unconscionable and Broadview deserves a court martial!"

The rest of the barracks was silent, but as Hawk looked around at these ten men, he could see the same resolution on all of their faces. Sometime during the training exercises they had formed a solid bond and that was now carrying over. And when Rangers banded together, there was nothing they couldn't do…including take down one stubborn, unethical, prejudiced bastard like Broadview.

"I agree with you, and I applaud your nerve. I'm going to quietly have my staff sergeant give you some of those DD47 testimony forms for you to fill out as evidence in case this does get to the court martial phase. So in the meantime, get some sleep; you all have more than earned it." He stretched out flat on his back, groaned at the absolute sheer pleasure of lying down on something soft, and closed his eyes in bliss.

When he opened them next it was morning.

"Good morning, Sir," Lady Jaye grinned at him as he climbed into the G4 the next morning.

"Good morning," he said, grinning back. He felt almost human again…except for the gnawing hunger in his middle. He was going to head for the mess hall next…but he wanted to check on Cam first. "How is she?"

"Much better, thank goodness," Lady Jaye said cheerfully. "Colonel Potter and Lifeline and Stretcher did some emergency surgery on her last night and stopped the hemorrhaging in her middle. The swelling in her abdomen went down, and the antibiotics seem to be working on the infection in her foot and the cuts on the back of her neck. She's getting vitamins and nutrients in her IV along with the painkillers, and Stretcher said he was going to do some research this morning and see what options are available to treat old burn scars like hers. And I gave her hair a quick trim so she doesn't look like she got in a fight with a lawnmower."

"Couldn't he just call Doc? Doc spearheaded the reconstructive efforts on Snake Eyes' face, so he has some experience."

"Tried. Couldn't get through. The hurricane passed through New York last night and from what we're looking at on the news reports, there are power outages and floods all over the city. Lieutenant General Johnson told us we should plan on staying a week, so seeing as how communications and power are disrupted all up and down the eastern seaboard, looks like we'll have to. The camp here is running on generators. There isn't a huge complement here, so that works, but Fort Bragg is out of power and cut off due to trees being down all over the roads going to base." She handed him a folder.

"What's this?" He stared suspiciously at it, as if it would bite.

"Her medical folder. Stretcher and Lifeline and Colonel Potter put it together last night. Colonel Potter added some info he found from the personnel folder that came from her Ranger base at Fort Benning, and the photos taken of her when she came in after you guys were 'captured' from the S&E portion of the exercise. He told Stretcher and Lifeline we would find it useful in prosecuting Broadview, and Hilton by extension."

"Colonel Potter didn't know?"

"She was brought in, along with the rest of your team, while Potter was on break. According to him, when he came in Broadview had a hose out and was hosing Cam down as she stood in a corner of the interrogation room. Potter said he suspected Broadview had it on high pressure but he couldn't be sure because Broadview shut it off as soon as Potter opened the door. Stretcher suspects that Broadview might have slapped or hit her lower belly hard enough and enough times to start the hemorrhaging, then washed her down with the hose to hide the fact that she'd started bleeding and then rushed her out to PT so no one would know."

"So he knew. He knew he'd hurt her. He knew she was bleeding internally. And he just washed it off and pretended like it didn't happen." Hawk gritted his teeth.

"Hawk." Lady Jaye spoke firmly. "There is a chance he may not have known. It wouldn't be the first time that a woman had her period during SERE training."

"Who's side are you on?" he glared at her."

"I'm not taking sides, I'm just pointing out that there are other possible explanations for what happened. If you looked at just this one incident and didn't look at anything else, it's reasonable; he could have thought she'd started her period. But when you look at what's happened since you guys arrived here, the hyperthermia, the hair, the kicking and ongoing abuse, withholding clothes and shoes…yes, she's been Broadview's target from day one, he doesn't like her and he did let it affect how he conducted her training. And no training exercise should have ended with a trainee looking like she does now. Scarlett and I handle PT for the female recruits on base and none of our recruits ever end a training exercise looking like that—you'd kill us if they did."

Hawk grinned a little. She grinned back, then sobered. "You keep an eye on everything that happens on Joe base. If anyone did to a recruit what Broadview did to Cam, you'd have that person's ass in the brig faster than Snake Eyes can draw his sword. So Cam's current condition is as much Hilton's fault as it is Broadview's. Broadview for doing it, Hilton for not keeping a close watch and supervising what his people did. I think you got grounds for a court martial on both of them, Broadview for abuse and reckless endangerment and Hilton for negligence." She looked past Hawk as the door to the Gulfstream opened. "Hey Charlie." She turned to Hawk. "Charlie's going to sit with Cam while I go with you and Wild Bill to talk to Hilton and Broadview and Halloran."

"I'm hoping she'll wake up," The big Navajo admitted. "We had something for you to give her." He reached for his pack, slung over the back of one of the seats, and drew out a long slender cylinder of wood.

Hawk stared. "Is that…"

"A cedar blank, yes," Charlie said. "It's already hollowed out, so all she needs to do is carve it. I assumed she would already have tools to carve it with, though."

"She might, in her things. Her pack and personal gear are in the women's barracks on the other side of camp." He looked at Charlie. "Tell, you what, you give it to her when she wakes up."

"I'll get her things after we're done talking to Hilton and the rest of the camp admin," Lady Jaye said. "She'll probably welcome having her own clothes again—I remember how much better Alex felt after Ettienne brought that suitcase of clothes Liv packed for her."

"How is Liv? Is she going to be okay in New York during the storm? I heard you mention something about evacuations, is she going to have to evacuate? She's already seen the base, and so has Alex so if you don't have to evacuate you know you can bring both of them to stay until they can go home—" He stopped, because Allie was laughing so hard she was almost falling out of her seat.

"I knew you were going to change your mind as we got closer to her delivery date!"

"I'm not changing my mind! I'm concerned about a friend who's pregnant!"

Lady Jaye got herself under control, although her brown eyes still sparkled with merriment. "Okay. Whatever you say. Come on, let's go. Wild Bill's in the mess hall grabbing chow—apparently one of the guys here is a friend of his from way back, and they been catching up like it's old home week. I've been subtly encouraging it because…well…" she dropped her voice. "Lieutenant General Johnson told Flint and I that we should find out how this happened and put together a full report for him. So while you're working on your report regarding Cam's treatment, I'm working on a report on how an entire company of the US army managed to lose a certain decorated general and eleven green trainees." She stopped speaking as a group of three soldiers; a sergeant and two corporals, came up and saluted him.

"Sergeant Masters, Corporal Carter, Corporal Tibbs." Lady Jaye nodded politely. Hawk nodded politely at them too, but the guys didn't keep walking; instead, the Sergeant took a look around as if to find out if anyone was watching them, then addressed Hawk directly. "Sir. I don't know if you remember me—"

"Yes, I do. You picked Cam up out of the mud after Broadview kicked her in the ribs. And you took her shackles off." He felt Lady Jaye tense, ever so slightly, beside him, but she said nothing.

"I—yes sir, that was me—and this is Corporal Tibbs, he's the one who ran for the hose when she went hyperthermic in the pen…" Tibbs nodded, blushing slightly, "And that's Corporal Carter, he's the one who protested when Broadview hacked off her hair." He took a deep breath. "Sir. I feel obliged to tell you that we've been ordered to keep our reports short and factual, and not to add any extraneous information. We've also been told that Base Commander Hilton said he'd review our reports 'for accuracy' prior to filing them with the paperwork for this training class. You know what that means, Sir."

Hawk gritted his teeth. While the Base Commander couldn't tell them outright to lie, he could 'redact' the soldiers' reports and say they were confidential, and he could order them to keep those reports short. "I do indeed. Thank you for the information, soldier—"

"Sir." There was suddenly a sheaf of folded paper in Sergeant Master's hands. "We decided that the full reports should be entrusted to those we know aren't going to try and suppress the truth. We've seen Broadview engage in some questionable behavior with other female trainees, but previously there were other women in the classes and we guessed he'd toned down his animosity because it would be noticed. This is the first time he's supervised a class with only one woman, and we guess he felt free to do what he wanted to seeing as how at the beginning of the course you were the only one on her side."

Hawk took the papers, stunned, then tucked them carefully inside the medical folder he had, making sure it was hidden well down in the back pocket of the folder. "Thank you, Sergeant," he said quietly, and the three saluted and walked off.

"So someone else has noticed. Good." Lady Jaye smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. It was a smile that didn't bode well for Hilton and Broadview; a hard, maliciously angry smile. "Let's go hunt the hunter, shall we?"

Hawk was forcibly reminded that women could be even more quietly vicious than men.