Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Jack nodded yes at his father.

“Why didn’t you tell us this when we had you in here a few weeks ago?” Freddy Montoya snapped.

“I aim to kill the bastards that murdered Marco,” Jack shot back. “If I told you that, what would you do then?”

“I’d help you, damn it!” Sergeant Montoya blew.

Alice Montoya gave her cousin a hard elbow. “Even off the record, Freddy, you can’t say stuff like that. You’re a police sergeant.”

“According to the arrest report, it says that you and three sixteen-year-old boys were in the El Gomez Club drinking beer and got into a brawl with a group of men. I take it they were Barrio-Aztecas, given the location of that den of iniquity?” Judge Archer said, scanning the report.

“Your Honor, my daughter came to me this morning, after getting the news that Jack and three others from the football team were arrested, and asked me to help,” Paul Cruz said. “She told me the whole story. How Marco Gonzalez had gotten killed New Year’s Eve last year, and how Jack had become obsessed, hunting the killers. A couple of months ago, a mutual friend of Jack’s and Marco’s told Jack that he heard a guy they call ‘Chui’ had bragged about giving a maricon what he deserved. Jack put two and two together and went after him.”

“I know Chui, real name Rafael Baca,” the police sergeant spoke up. “He and his crew of Aztecas hang at the Gomez club. Bad hombres , all of them.” He looked at Jack. “Son, you’re no match for those dogs. Not even the whole T-Birds football team, with guns.”

Jack smiled at the cop.

“You know, for the last ten years, my wife, Patricia, has worked for the Drug Enforcement Agency at the El Paso Intelligence Center,” Paul Cruz said. “If it’s any consolation, Jack, DEA’s close to dropping a net on Chui Baca and his crew. It’s only a matter of time. Let the pros handle it.”

“Mr. Cruz,” Jack said, no longer caring. “That’s all fine, sir, but I want to be the one who turns out Chui’s lights.”

“That’s not happening, Jack!” Harry Valentine fired at his son. “You know how my heart breaks for Herman and Lola, losing their son. I loved Marco, too! But we can’t go killing people! Those gangsters are the animals, not us.”

“We’re gonna get Chui. I promise,” Freddy Montoya added, and put his arm around Jack. “Let the law kill him.”

Darius Archer looked over the tops of his glasses at Jack, studying his beat-up face. Contempt still raged inside the young man, and the judge knew it.

“El Paso, Texas, grows two kinds of people, Jack,” the judge said, pursing his lips between thoughts. “Those that live to serve greater humanity, like us here, your mom and dad, and like Herman Gonzalez and other hard workers just like him. Or those that die in gangs, living out their short, unhappy lives on the wrong side of the law, destroying everything good around them. Good and evil, son.

“Hunting a man to kill for revenge, unleashing your wrath, committing murder, corrupts your soul. It’ll take you to those dark places where the devil lives and turn you into a beast just like Chui Baca and those other monsters.

“You need to think about that, son, and make some serious choices. A day soon comes in all our lives when we reach that moment where we each have to choose which direction we take. Jack, today’s your day. You’re at the crossroads.”

Harry Valentine put his arm around his son, and tears ran from the strong man’s eyes. He looked at the judge and swallowed hard. Paul Cruz shouldered by him and put his arm over Harry’s shoulder.

“Son, since we’re still off the record, let me explain a few things. This session before my bench today is supposed to be simply an arraignment,” Judge Archer said to Jack, and gave a look at the prosecutor, then at Paul Cruz. “I can throw out any or all of the charges I deem have no merit, or I can bind you over for trial and charge you with this whole laundry list of mostly trumped-up nonsense that Sonny Gomez has put in this police complaint.”

The judge stopped and looked at Alice Montoya. “Counselor, did you or anyone else even investigate any part of this mess? Attempted armed robbery, assault, menacing, willful destruction of property? Seriously? What were you going to do, just throw this boy’s life away for a bunch of no-account hoodlums?”

Alice Montoya lowered her head, and mumbled, “I thought we might negotiate a deal for reduced charges, Your Honor. After all, he did go in there with a gang, started a fight, and caused damages, according to the property owner.”

Judge Archer shook his head and sighed.

“Paul, here’s the choice I want your client and his father to consider while we’re still in recess,” Darius Archer said to the defense lawyer, all the while looking eye to swollen eye with Jack. “Young Mr. Valentine can go to trial and face this crock of bullshit, but like the prosecution pointed out, at the end of the day, the lad will have to face judgment for the crime of going to that bar and starting a fight. No matter how we cut that piece of meat, at best your boy’s facing assault and property damages. Even if he got the shitty end of the stick in that fight, Jack started it. He took it to Chui, went to his hangout for the express purposes of causing him harm. So, Jack pays. That’s a criminal conviction and a life changer.”

The judge waited and let his words soak in, still looking eye to swollen eye with Jack Valentine. Then he added, “Or. And that’s a big or, son.”

“Yes, Your Honor?” Paul Cruz answered.

“I served in the United States Marine Corps from 1968 to 1973,” the judge began. “I made sergeant in three years, went to college on the GI Bill, and got my law degree at Georgetown University. That gave me a fine profession, a good life, and I sit here as a Texas district judge today.”

Paul Cruz smiled, and so did Harry Valentine. Jack hung his head and stared at his scuffed-up boot toes.

“In order for my client to join the Marine Corps these days, he cannot have a police record or any arrests, much less a conviction,” Paul Cruz told the judge.

“I am aware of that fact.” Judge Archer nodded. “As I said previously, I have the power to throw out this whole mess of nonsense for lack of merit and evidence and wipe the slate clean. No arrests ever took place. We can do that, can’t we, Freddy? And let those other three walk, too, with a good warning.”

Sergeant Montoya, also a Marine Corps veteran, smiled big, and said, “Yes, sir, Judge Archer, Semper Fi.”

“How about that, Prosecutor Montoya? Will this be a problem with the district attorney?” the judge asked. “Can you take care of your end, or do I need to see him?”

“No, Your Honor, I can take care of everything.” Alice Montoya smiled.

“How about it, Jack? Life or death?” Judge Archer asked young Valentine.

“Yes, sir. Life,” Jack answered. “It’s a deal.”

“No more fighting. No more hunting Chui Baca?” the judge added.

“No, sir,” Jack answered.

“Freddy,” Darius Archer said, looking at the police sergeant. “Run downstairs to the military recruiters’ offices and see if that Marine gunnery sergeant, Mike Seacrest, will come up here and bring paperwork to get this boy signed up. Since Jack is just seventeen, we have his daddy right here, happy to sign the papers for his son to be a Marine.”

“Yes, sir, Your Honor,” Sergeant Freddy Montoya said, laughter in his voice as he jogged out of the courtroom.

Second week of January 1991, Lance Corporal Jack Valentine squared away his gear inside a white hardback barracks with a white-metal roof in an expeditionary encampment built by Seabees over the past three months outside Goatville in northern Saudi Arabia. Half a million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, along with another 436,000 troops from thirty-four other nations had massed since mid-November in similar expeditionary garrisons across the northeastern flank of Saudi Arabia, spitting distance from the Iraq border.