This Changes Everything Read online

  “I have one stipulation, Al.”

  “Name it.”

  “I want Tony relieved of all his other duties so I can make him my number two. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and I can count on him. And he’s the bravest man we’ve got.”

  “You got it. When can you start?”

  “Right now, I guess. Who’s on sentry duty?”

  “Ashton’s making his rounds. Benton’s in the guard shack.”

  “I thought we were going to have two sentries make the rounds.”

  “Nobody else wanted to volunteer.”

  “Okay, that’s problem number one. I’m going to schedule the manpower we need, and I need you to back me up on this.

  “Lenny Geibel was shot when he patrolled alone.

  “A second man might not have been able to help. He might have gotten shot too. But I have to think his being there might have made a difference.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Pass the word to every able bodied man. Tell them I’m going to redo the schedule to allow two sentries and two in the guard shack.

  “Once I post the schedule I don’t want to hear any whining and I don’t want to hear that anybody can’t pull his shift.

  “If someone is sick or can’t pull his shift for any reason at all, it’s up to him to find a replacement and to make sure that replacement is on time.

  “If anybody complains tell them tough. Tell them that’s the price of living here.

  “Tell them if they don’t like it they can walk out into the weather and see if they can find another shelter; one that’ll let them move in and take advantage of their security without contributing to it.

  “I kinda don’t think they’ll find such a place.”

  “I’ll make sure everybody gets the word. Anything else?”

  “No. I’ll post the new schedule at the control center within the hour. Have you seen Tony?”

  “He’s in his bunk, I think. He worked the last shift.”

  “Peachy.”

  Marty started to walk away and Al stopped him.

  “Marty?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. You knew all along I was gonna do it, didn’t you?”

  “Not all along. But since I talked to Glenna this morning. She told me you were the only one she was comfortable with protecting us.”

  “Are you kidding me, Al? You and Glenna were scheming together to drag me into this?”

  “No, not really scheming. We just shared the same logical conclusion, that’s all.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Seriously.”

  Marty went to Tony’s cubicle and rapped on the door.

  Tony was still awake, though tired from the eight hours he’d just pulled at the gate shack.

  Cold weather has a way of draining one’s body of energy, even when one does nothing but sit or stand in one place and watch for danger.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Marty opened the door and stepped through it.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” Tony said.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Al told me that he and Glenna agreed you were the logical one to take Richard’s place.

  “He gave me some heads up that you’d probably want to draft me as your number two since we work so well together.

  “And he said he was going to talk to you, to see if you’d be willing to do the job.”

  Marty shook his head.

  “Man. It sounds like I’m the only one in the whole building who didn’t know I was about to be drafted.”

  “Oh, that’s not true. It’s not true at all.

  “I don’t think any of the children knew.”

  -4-

  In Plainview, five hundred miles or so north, Frank Woodard had finished collecting wooden pallets from the Food World Distribution Center’s warehouse and was dismantling them.

  Josie watched him from the comfort of an office chair she’d rolled out of the receiving office.

  “So, tell me again how you’re gonna do this?”

  He stopped prying the wooden slats from the tops of the pallets and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “The top and bottom pieces are gonna go into the burn barrels.

  “All I need is the three stringers. The three pieces of two by fours which separate the bottom of the pallets from the top.

  “Each of them is exactly forty eight inches long, or half the length of a typical wall stud.

  “To make my studs I’ll lay two of the pieces end to end. The third piece will lay across the joint. I’ll hammer it into place, and voila. I’ll have a funny looking but perfectly sized wall stud.”

  “And that’s what you’re going to use to build the wall around our living area?”

  “That’s the first step.

  “With the wall studs I’ll build the frame. Once the frame is in place I’ll cover the inside with sheetrock, which I’ll paint white.

  “Okay. Why white?”

  “Because the light from the lanterns inside the room will reflect on the white walls and brighten the room.”

  “And you said it would be warmer too?”

  “Probably not significantly. I’m guessing five degrees, maybe a little more.

  “Some of the heat will bounce off the walls and stay in the room instead of rolling into the warehouse.

  “Of course, since we’ll only have half a ceiling, and since heat rises, it’ll work its way through the half ceiling and into the warehouse eventually. It’s inevitable.

  “But at least we can enjoy those few extra degrees while we have them.”

  “And tell me the reason for the half ceiling again. And why we can’t have a whole ceiling so the heat can’t escape.”

  “The half ceiling is to prevent the buildup of carbon monoxide gas.

  “It has no smell and is invisible, and it would sneak up on us without a way to vent it.

  “And it’s very deadly.”

  Something suddenly occurred to Frank and he stopped explaining the project.

  “Say, wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Are you sure you don’t understand what I’m doing here?”

  “What do you mean, Frank?”

  “I mean, you went to college. You got a degree in emergency medicine. You were an emergency medical technician.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You’re a smart girl, Josie. But I’m explaining this project in layman’s terms, like I’m explaining things to a little kid. Are you sure you don’t know about framing and wall-building and carbon monoxide and all that stuff?”

  She smiled.

  “Oh, I know all about building walls, Frank.

  “I was the only girl in a family of five kids. I was a tomboy from the beginning.

  “I was always involved in family projects. I built my first tree house when I was ten and helped my dad any time he had any construction projects going on.”

  “Then why are you having me explain everything to you?”

  “Because it sounds so… manly and sexy when you do.”

  She smiled the sweet smile that made him fall for her.

  “You’re not mad at me, are you, honey bunny?”

  “Mad at you? No.”

  “That’s good, pookie bear. Because I couldn’t stand for you to be mad at me.”

  “There is one thing I’m wondering, though,” he told her.

  “And what’s that, booger bear?”

  “Stop that!”

  “Stop what, baby cakes?”

  “Stop with the cutesy names. It’s embarrassing.”

  “But bay-beeeee…”

  “No bay-beeeee. If you’re so experienced at building things, how come you’re not over here helping me pry these darned boards off?”

  She jumped out of the chair and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She grabbed a second hammer from the tool box and set to wo
rk.

  Then she changed the subject.

  “I think my Aunt Stacy is going to kill me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I think Aunt Stacy is going to kill me.”

  “You almost sound like you’re serious.”

  “I almost am.”

  “Then why do you think that?”

  “Something she said a couple of days ago. She walked up to me out of the blue and said, ‘I don’t think you should marry Frank.’

  “I said, ‘excuse me?’”

  “She said she didn’t think I should marry you.”

  “Did she say why, exactly?”

  “She said that older men sometimes have hidden medical conditions. Like weak hearts and poor circulation and such.

  “She said older men cannot stand up to the stress of having sexual relations with a younger woman.”

  “Ha! Just watch me.”

  “She said I’m bad for your health. And that maybe I should set you free for your own good.”

  “Then she said something that made my skin crawl.

  “She said that breaking up with you would probably be better for my own health as well.”

  “Honey, stay away from her. And if she offers you anything to eat or drink don’t accept it.”

  “I won’t. I already talked to John and he’s going to talk to her today and find out what she’s up to.”

  -5-

  Captain David Wright enjoyed his job with the Area Defense Council’s office, but he didn’t always have aspirations to be an attorney.

  When he was a young boy he went with his parents to Barnum and Bailey’s Big Top Circus. For two years after that he dreamed each night of being a lion tamer.

  He practiced on the family dog, which was a lot smaller and less ferocious than a lion, but one has to make do with what one has.

  A little later, in his adolescence, he decided he wanted to ride a rocket into space.

  Specifically, he wanted to be the very first man to walk on Mars.

  He lost the desire to go into space about the time he started high school, and saw that the prettiest girls didn’t go for the geeky types with pocket protectors and slide rules.

  They went for the jocks.

  So David decided he’d play professional football instead.

  Alas, though, David had neither the size nor the speed to play football, or any other sport, at a professional level.

  He somehow made it through high school without being killed by bigger and stronger players.

  But he had no prayer of landing a scholarship to a Big Ten school.

  Or even a junior college, for that matter.

  And honestly, that was okay with him, for by the time graduation rolled around he’d accepted the reality that nearly all high school ballplayers must face.

  He was too small, too slow, too uncoordinated to progress to the next level in a very competitive sport.

  His playing days were over, other than an occasional flag football game at work later on.

  He moved on to other pursuits, like trying to decide on a major and find himself a girl he could spend the rest of his life with.

  He stumbled through his freshman year at Baylor, still no closer to choosing a major than he was the day he first walked onto the campus.

  He had a little better luck deciding on a girl, though, and that was at least as important.

  His prerequisites out of the way, he buckled down his sophomore year and decided to go pre-law.

  It turned out law interested him.

  He thought he’d be good at it.

  Unfortunately he ran out of money before he ran out of schooling.

  He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

  He hated the thought of taking out student loans to pay for his last year and a half of law school.

  He’d heard horror stories of attorneys in their fifties still making payments on their student loans.

  But the tuition and the books weren’t going to pay for themselves.

  He resolved himself to be indebted to the federal government for what would likely be the rest of his natural life, when someone gave him another option.

  “Sign up with the military,” a wise professor said.

  “The military?”

  “Sure. They’re always looking for bright young attorneys. They’ll pay for the rest of your schooling in exchange for a service commitment.”

  He was a bit leery.

  All his life he’d heard that the government doesn’t do anything for nothing, and usually when there’s a deal to be made the government wins most of the marbles.

  But he went in to talk to the Air Force recruiter anyway.

  The recruiter put him in touch with the Air Force Legal Corps, which offered to pay eighteen months of his college expenses in exchange for three times that as an Air Force officer.

  While he was serving his four and a half year commitment he’d be a first lieutenant, skipping right over the set of “butter bars” that everyone hated.

  As it turned out, it was a pretty good deal.

  After all his pay and allowances were tallied up, he was making as much or more than a beginning staff attorney at any practice in his home town.

  And he looked darned sharp in his Class A uniform too.

  The professor was wrong about one thing, though.

  He’d told David that while he was paying the Air Force back those four and half years he’d be able to see the world.

  “The one thing about the military is they move around often. About the time you get used to being at one place they’ll move you somewhere else.”

  That was fine with David.

  Growing up his working class parents lived on a tight budget.

  Once the bills were paid and the groceries were purchased there was simply no money left for things like vacations, or even long car trips.

  David had never been out of the State of Texas.

  He was chomping at the bits to do a bit of traveling. Especially on the government’s dime.

  But the professor put two and two together and came up with five.

  He’d known a handful of other men who’d become military officers, and he knew them to get orders to move around frequently.

  And while it was true the Air Force rotated its people on a regular basis, some career fields rotated more than others.

  David spent all four and a half years of his commitment at Lackland Air Force Base on the south side of San Antonio.

  And he loved it.

  He loved everything about the Air Force. The camaraderie, the sense of accomplishment, the sense he was serving a greater good.

  After four and a half years he had a choice.

  He could resign his commission, become a civilian again, and go to work at a private practice.

  Or he could accept a promotion to Captain and keep serving.

  When Saris 7 collided with the earth Captain Wright was finishing up his ninth year as an Air Force officer.

  And he’d still never been out of the State of Texas.

  -6-

  Ordinarily David would have retired at half pay when he served twenty years of service.

  It was one of the best benefits of serving his country in uniform.

  But Saris 7 screwed that up for everyone.

  When Saris 7 struck the earth everything went into standby mode.

  The pay stopped, for the dollar became worthless.

  No one would have blamed military members for walking off the job the way civilian workers were doing by the millions.

  But the military saw the need to keep protecting our great nation, now more than ever in the face of such a great crisis.

  There were a few deserters, sure. Some men decided to protect their families instead and walked away from their duties.

  But by and large the military stayed in place. They continued their missions.

  They carried on.

  By the time Saris 7 hit David had earned quite a reputation a
s a defense attorney.

  He was assigned to the Area Defense Council, which in the Air Force serves as free legal help for defendants in courts martial.

  And for what the Air Force calls Article 15, or nonjudicial punishment.

  The “Article 15” is derived from Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ, as it is more commonly called because the military loves its acronyms, is the “Bible” of the military justice system.

  A subset of the UCMJ is the MCM, or the Manual for Courts Martial.

  The MCM is the written instruction or rule of law which covers courts martial and Article 15 procedures.

  By the time Saris 7 rained havoc upon the earth Captain David Wright knew both publications: the UCMJ and the MCM, backwards and forwards.

  It turned out the field of law agreed with him.

  He was damned good at what he did.

  He didn’t win all his cases.

  Only Perry Mason and Matlock have done that.

  But he won far more than he lost.

  He enjoyed a seventy percent success rate in either getting his clients off or negotiating a reduced sentence favorable to them.

  He had a reputation as one of the best defense councils in the United States Air Force.

  Of course, Colonel Tim Wilcox and Colonel Morris Medley had no clue about that on the day David went to the brig and introduced himself as their council.

  They didn’t know him from Adam and didn’t know his reputation.

  Had they known they might not have been so glum.

  They might not have assumed their case was already lost and they were soon to make that long walk before a firing squad.

  They might have placed some faith in their counsel.

  David wasn’t offended or hurt.

  He’d still work just as hard, try everything he could do, to win his case and allow the accused to walk free.

  He wasn’t the type to give anything less than his full effort in any case.

  And since this was the very first death penalty case he’d ever worked giving his all was doubly important.

  He wouldn’t let his clients down.

  He simply couldn’t.

  In the military justice system a court martial is ordered by someone called the “convening authority.”

  That makes sense, for he or she is the authority who convenes the court martial.