Chapter 2

Chapter 2

State Corrections Facility, Texas.

Present day

 

Matt Stevens stared in silence at the ceiling above him. White, everything white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, white, sterile.

Stevens had resigned himself to the inevitable, days, weeks, even months ago. He had considered his actions time and time again. He had reasoned that if the same conditions applied, he would take exactly the same action. His only comfort was that in taking one life he had in fact saved countless others. Thinking back now to that February morning back in 1991, Operation Desert Storm was in full swing. The Iraq war was quickly finished thanks in a large part to the superior aerial superiority of the Coalition Forces. When Major Matt Stevens took off on the final sortie of the day in his FA-18 Hornet, twin engine multi-combat fighter, he had a bad feeling. His wing man that evening was an Air Force Captain whom Stevens had previously had a run in with over his gung-ho attitude towards civilian casualties. His motto was, ‘If you’ve got em, then drop em’, referring to any unused ordnance that the aircraft may bring home to base. The day’s target, a mobile supply line on the approach to Basra did not appear and the intel was not good. Stevens, as the senior officer, called an abort and return to base. After a four hour flight from Northern Cyprus, Captain John ‘Wayne’ Calder, call sign ‘Cowboy’, called in an alternative target sighted. The target was a civilian convoy. Local citizens, with cars, donkeys even, and trucks full of household wares. As ‘Cowboy’ called in the alternative strike to ground control mistaking the farm trucks for combat vehicles Stevens, call sign ‘Quarterback’, interrupted.

‘Cowboy, this is Quarterback. Negative on the new target. This is not a military convoy, repeat Not Military’.

Cowboy either did not hear or mis heard and brought the second Hornet around in a wide arc until the civilians were in his line of sight. During the first pass Cowboy dropped two cluster bombs which took out at least three farm trucks and a dozen civilians. His cannon fire accounted for at least another six to eight. As Cowboy returned for a second pass Stevens saw the head vehicle, a white van displaying the distinctive red cross. This was not just a civilian convoy. This was a medical convoy.

‘Cowboy, this is Quarterback. Desist your attack. This is a medical convoy. Repeat, desist. This is an order’.

Cowboy continued towards his second run at the convoy. As he came within range two sidewinder missiles were released by Cowboy. Stevens could not accept the US Military taking out unarmed civilian medical casualties.

Stevens was coming at Cowboy head on. Flicking the switch Stevens pressed and released his own sidewinder before arcing off to the right and heading back to the Northern Cypriot base.

His last communication of the campaign was, ‘Bird down. This is Quarterback. Cowboy is down, repeat Cowboy is down’.

Now, he was about to be taken down.

 

There were others inside the room, but he paid them no attention. There were people staring at him too, but he chose not to stare back.

There was a clock. It ticked. It ticked so loudly he could feel the passage of time. He wondered whether it was designed that way to remind the occupant of this room of the value of time. He could see the clock. It was a digital clock. How could it tick. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Did others think like him or was it just him. He looked at the clock and it read 23.59.

Suddenly Stevens was elevated from a horizontal position to a vertical one. He could now see his audience clearly. Suits, lots of suits, some in Army fatigues too. It was a strange feeling. He seemed to be on display, like in a shop window. Although this was no shop window. There were no smiling faces today at the shop.

Then a voice sounded. ‘Do you have anything to say before sentence is carried out’.

Stevens, even at this late stage was defiant.

‘I am Major Matthew Stevens of the Army Air Corps and I regret nothing’.

The suited man who had spoken simply nodded his head and Stevens was brought back down to the horizontal. No more faces, just white, everything white. And three tubes.

His arms, ankles, upper and lower torso were all restrained by heavy duty leather straps. They were heavy, polished but not uncomfortable. They had definitely had some previous use. Stevens knew it, sensed it.

Stevens turned his head slightly to the left, just enough to see his left arm. He watched as the coloured liquid rushed out of the machine up the first of three tubes heading into his vein. He wondered one last time how it had come to this. He was Army and flying mad from an early age and when the opportunity arose to combine both he grabbed it with both hands. He was a Pilot in the Army. He had seen action in both Iraq wars, with medals to prove it. He had only ever carried out his orders. Only one time did he stray, and for the right reasons too. Civilians would have died, many, many civilians. He had done the right thing.  Now they were executing him for it.

 

He could feel the change in his body now, a relaxed feeling, almost pleasurable. The first tube was now pouring into his arm and the second had already set off on its short journey. It was a traffic light system. Why was that? he thought. A strange thought for his last.

The green had arrived and done the job. The amber was nearly there. Drowsy now, Stevens fought against closing his eyes. Were they really going to kill him?

The answer was yes. This was his last battle on this earth? If so, he was going to fight hard to the end. Forcing his heavy eyes open one more time he saw the second tube, the amber one had reached his veins and the third was now heading towards him. The red poison was coming for him.

Struggling for breath now Stevens felt like his lungs were burning. A strange sort of cold burning. Was there an icy wind in here? His lungs were full of cold air. They were in fact collapsing in on him.

Breathing more heavily, he was panting. He tried to focus on the tubes. It was them against him. How long could he hold out. He fought hard not to close his eyes. He was straining now as he tried to focus on the tubes again, on the red liquid. It was nearly at the entry point. The battle almost over, he could do no more. The fight was done for Major Matt Stevens as he closed his eyes for the last time.

The warden made a note of the time. It was 00.09. It had taken 9 minutes for this execution, two more than is normal. He would need to report this.

Fifteen minutes later Stevens body was taken from the execution chamber. It was put straight into cold storage.

An hour after that it was collected from the prison mortuary and flown to an Army medical facility in Nevada. Stevens had no surviving family and had signed away his body to medical science years earlier on joining the Corps.

It now belonged to the Army.