“You haven't done that yet? I mean, no offense, but all you've done so far is give me bad news. They have nothingâyou said so yourself. Why would I throw sixteen years of my life away without a fight?”
“For some reason, Major, you're deep in the soup and they aren't going to let you out of it unless you resign.”
“I don't expect anyone to
let
me out of it. I know why I'm in it. All I'm asking for is a little support. I don't want to resign. I know that the decision I made, to divulge classified information, is not a popular one, but given the nature of my real infraction, I'd think that I could at least get a hearing where I could tell someone with a brain what I'm doing and why this is all happening.”
“Major Morehouse, you're not charged with disclosure of classified information, and I can't get anyone to confirm that you're so much as being investigated for wrongful disclosure.”
“That's because it's happening deep in the intelligence community; they don't want anyone to know about it, or what they're doing now wouldn't work. I can't deal with this alone. I don't have the resources. And every time I tell a civilian attorney or investigator the truth about all this I chalk up another count of wrongful disclosure. There's nowhere to turn. All I can do is face these charges and hope to God that someone with some common sense can unravel the thing.”
“Or you can resign and take your chances on the discharge.”
“What happens to me if I get an âother than honorable'? I mean what do I lose?”
“Do you have a VA home loan?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you'll lose it. You'll lose the right to draw unemployment; you'll lose the right to military interment; you'll lose your pension; and you'll most likely never work for the government again in any capacity.”
“Boy, what a prize. And I get to wear this badge of dishonor for the rest of my life.”
“That's true. But on the other hand, the government has to drop the charges, which makes it clear that they're unfounded. Otherwise the army would take you to court.
“Think about it. They'll drop the charges; you'll have no conviction and no trial, and you walk out of uniform and back into your life.”
“The army is my life. I'll be walking into a world I know nothing of and that knows nothing of me. I'm nobody out there. In here I'm Major Morehouse. I have a life. A career. I used to have a future. Two months ago I was picked for an assignment to the Chief of Staff for the army's study group as a nonlethal weapons expert; now, I'm weighing whether to face trial or resign in disgrace.”
“I do find it hard to believe,” my lawyer agreed softly. “But whatever decision you made about whatever it is you were involved with makes you a liability to the army.”
I stared out his window as a formation of troops marched by. “I won't resign under those conditions. I've done nothing dishonorable, and I'll not sully my father's name by stepping out of the fray. I've broken ranks by telling a secret; I will accept the penalty for doing that, and that only. I'll admit to disclosure and I'll resign, if that's what they want me to do. But I won't walk away from this. It's shameful and wrong.” I started out of the room. “You call them and tell them that Major Morehouse said they can come to court and prove to a jury of my peers that I'm guilty of the charges they've filed against me.”
Â
I went home for Christmas, setting my problems aside as much as I could and doing everything I could to make the time special for my family. The charges hurt us all, but Debbie and the children stood by me and held me together.
While I was at home I spoke to Mel a few times about the book and the charges. He tried his best to put my mind at ease, but I could feel that this was the beginning of the end, just as the angel had said. It was tearing me apart. I
fought back by working on the book with Jim Marrs. He'd ask me how certain scenes and places looked, and I'd build them up for him, helping him to understand how things worked in the ether and at the unit. These exchanges often took several hours on the phone; afterward Jim would excitedly sign off and pound the keyboard for hours on end reconstructing our conversations. I used to smile as I closed my eyes at night; I swore I could hear him typing away, creating images in words.
As the New Year came and the time for me to return to Fort Bragg drew near, I drank in the warmth and love of the family. God, I missed being with them. Debbie and I sat quietly one evening discussing the charges. We were both immeasurably distressed by them, first because they were ludicrous, and second because of the impact they would have on our lives. We chose to remain separated, but I was still the father of my children, and I honored my financial obligations to them.
Early one afternoon, our power went out. Almost everyone up and down the street had a small generator to power essential appliances. Debbie and I pulled ours out into the driveway and fired it up, running an extension cord back to the house through the garage so we could power up the television for the kids, the refrigerator, and the freezer. I let down the garage door but couldn't lock it because of the extension cord at the bottom.
The children went to bed around nine o'clock, and Debbie soon followed. Because we were both emotionally drained and because of our separation, I was sleeping on the sofa in the family room. I watched television for a few hours; as I dozed off, out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat get up, stagger a few feet across the floor, and fall flat on his side. He lay motionless, struggling for breath. I stood quickly and tried to walk to him, but I fell to the floor and began retching and gagging for air. My head felt as if a wedge had been driven into it. It pumped and throbbed until I thought it would burst like a melon. I squeezed my head in my hands, to no effect. My eyes felt
as if they were popping out of their sockets. Air! I crawled to the back door and opened it, letting the icy air rush in. Each frigid lungful stung its way into my body.
“Debbie! Get up! You have to get up, something's wrong!” I screamed as loud as I could into the blackness at the top of the stairs. “Debbie, Mike! Wake up!” Silence.
I got to my feet and staggered upstairs, clinging to the hand rail. Danielle's bedroom was the first one at the top of the stairs. It was dark and cold, the air tomblike: no power meant no heat, and no circulating air. I shook Danielle, but she didn't respond. I screamed and shook her again and again until her eyes opened to narrow slits. She began crying, dazed and frightened.
“My head hurts!” she whimpered. “What's happening?”
“Danielle, you have to try and get downstairs! Do you understand me? You have to get downstairs. Come on, honey, try to get up. Take your blanket with youâcome on.” I dragged her out of the bed and tried to make her stand. Her little legs kept crumbling under her weight, so I grabbed her with one arm and shuffled to the door of her room, screaming for everyone else to wake up. At last Michael staggered out of his room, holding his head.
“What's happening, Dad? My head feels like it's going to explode.”
“I don't know, son. Help me get your sister downstairs and into some fresh air. Can you do that?”
Without hesitation, the fifteen-year-old snatched his sister from me and carried her downstairs, his legs wobbling beneath him. I rushed into the master bedroom, where Debbie was sitting on the side of the bed trying to get her bearings. Even in the darkness I could see the confusion on her face.
“I don't know what's wrong, but there's no air in the house. We need to get everyone downstairs, quick!”
Debbie stood and fell against me, then steadied herself. She held on to me as we moved quickly to Mariah's room. Our breath hung in the chilled air of the house like icy
smoke, illuminated by a beam of light coming from the stairway. Michael had grabbed a flashlight and was coming back upstairs to help. Debbie ran to Mariah and tried to wake her, slapping her wrists and face lightly, shaking her and calling her name repeatedly in the blackness of the room. Mariah's dark eyes opened briefly, then closed, squinting in the flashlight beam. She mumbled something unintelligible and tried to fight off her attackers. Debbie persisted. “Mariah! Something's wrongâyou need to wake up. Come on, Mariah! Get up! Get up now!”
Debbie and I each took an arm and dragged Mariah from the bed and to the door.
“Grab some blankets, Mike,” I directed. “Stay right here with us! Just grab a handful of whatever's on the bed and bring it.”
We slowly descended the stairs, none of us in full control of our limbs. Danielle had passed out again on the floor. Her body was turning blue from the cold and from lack of oxygen.
“Mike!” I said. “Keep Danielle awake, don't let her go to sleep!”
Debbie and I sat Mariah down next to her sister, and Debbie ran for the phone. I knelt in front of my children as the knowledge of what was happening sank into me. “The generator!” I said aloud. I could still hear its rumbling outside the house. The sound had been going so long that I'd stopped being aware of it. I stood to make my way outside, but Michael cried out to me. “Dad! Danielle's not waking up! I can't make her keep her eyes open!”
Now Mariah began retching. Her vomit misted and froze to her and to the blankets she'd wrapped herself in. Michael pulled another blanket from the pile and wrapped it around his sister, trying to comfort her. I looked at Danielle's face in the beam of the flashlight; she was pale as death. Her lips were blue; the tissue around her eyes was dark and sunken, and she was listless and unresponsive.
“God, baby! You have to fight this. Danielle, you have to help Daddy take care of youâyou have to fight. Breathe
for Daddy! Take deep breaths, come on, baby, you can do it!”
Danielle sagged in my arms, still not responding to my voice. Michael began calling her name, yelling at her, trying to make her hear him. It was as if her spirit had already left her body behind, as if she were standing apart, watching us scream and shake her. I held her close to me and screamed as loud as I could, “Don't die, baby, don't die!”
Someone grabbed my shoulder and turned me away from my baby. I swung wildly, striking him in the arm. A bright light pierced the darkness and stopped me cold.
“Take it easy, buddy! We're here to help!” I shielded my eyes as someone passed me and began talking to my daughter.
“What happened here?”
I was still confused; what was happening? Bright light spilled in from the street and yard, casting a supernatural glow over the house. At last the gleam of helmets and a sudden burst of radio traffic made sense.
“It's the fire department, Dad!” Michael tugged on my pant leg.
I sat down on the bottom step of the staircase. “Oh, thank God! Thank you for coming!”
“This one's pretty bad, Captain!” announced the man attending to Danielle. “We need to get her to the hyperbaric chamber stat!” He carried Danielle toward the door. Debbie appeared next to me and put an icy hand on my shoulder. One of the firemen picked up a blanket and wrapped it around the two of us as we sat there on the stairs.
“What happened?” Debbie asked.
“Carbon monoxide poisoning, ma'am,” the captain answered. “At least, that's what it looks like.”
Debbie looked curiously at me. “How could that happen?”
“I don't have any idea,” I said. “Unless the wind blew the gas back into the house.”
“Where's my baby?” Debbie's voice quivered. “Is she going to be all right?”
“Ma'am, the paramedics are looking at her. She was pretty sick, nearly comatose, when we got here. She should be okay if we can get some oxygen in her. The problem is getting the carbon off her red blood cells.”
Debbie, being a critical care nurse, understood what he was talking about. I knew carbon monoxide was deadly, but I had no idea exactly how. “What do you mean, get it off her blood?”
“The carbon molecules stick to the blood cells and don't let any oxygen molecules attach themselves, so you slowly die from lack of oxygen. She was nearly comatose, and that's the last step before death. We were real close.”
The radio in his hand crackled. “Captain? The paramedics think she needs to be medevaced right away. They want to take her to Children's in D.C. and run some tests ⦠. If she's as bad as it appears then they'll get her to Georgetown to the hyperbaric chamber. Right now, though, she's starting to respond to the oxygen.”
“I'll ride with her,” Debbie said. “I work at Children's, in the neonatal intensive care unit.”
Two firemen took Debbie's arms to escort her across the frozen lawn to the ambulance. At the doorway she turned to me. “Find out what happened. I'll give you a call from the hospital as soon as I can.”
“Okay.” But I felt helpless. I couldn't imagine what had happened.
Some firemen attended to Michael and Mariah, while others brought huge fans into the house to blow out the poisonous gas. They also combed the house from top to bottom, taking no chances of leaving someone behind; they knew we weren't completely coherent yet. I began to shake, from the cold or from nerves, I don't know which. I tugged at the blanket, pulling it tighter around me.