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Rapp took it and looked inside. He pulled out a worn leather baseball glove, a baseball, and a copy of Mein Kampf. “What the hell is this?”

Ridley was known as one of the biggest pranksters in the agency, which had endeared him to many. He flashed Rapp his signature boyish grin and said, “I just thought I’d help put you in the mood. You know, The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. You, stuck here in the cooler…playing catch against the wall…reading Adolf Hitler’s autobiography. I just thought I’d help get you in the right frame of mind, since you might be here for a while.”

“You’re a dandy.” Rapp laughed while he put on the glove and began pounding the ball into the old mitt. “Great movie, by the way.”

“One of the best.” Ridley held up his phone for Rapp to see and then gave him a wink.

Good, Rapp thought. He carried the same phone. It would emit a ten-foot umbrella of white noise and render the cell’s listening devices useless. The cells were wired to record everything. It would stand to reason that since he was a U.S. citizen anything he said would not be admissible in court, but that was a pretty low threshold, considering what they were about to discuss.

“Seriously,” Rapp said, “what took so long?”

“There’ve been some complications.”

“Such as?”

“Such as you hitting a United States Air Force officer and almost breaking his wrist.”

“You can’t be serious,” Rapp groaned.

“Did you have to hit him?”

“I didn’t hit him.”

“Really,” Ridley said in a tone of disbelief. “How did he get the shiner?”

“He fell.”

“Come on.”

“Seriously…he tried to pull his gun on me.”

“And?”

Rapp stopped pounding the ball into the mitt. Stopped moving entirely. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m very serious. Some of this we have a shot at fixing, but you striking this guy has caused quite a stir.”

“I didn’t strike him. He went to draw his gun.” Rapp shrugged. “I felt it was excessive force.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It wasn’t the only reason, but I sure as hell don’t like guns being pointed at me. Especially by some snot-nosed little prick like that.”

“Fair enough. That’s basically what I told them, but this captain is making a big stink out

of it. Any other reasons why you may have done it? Just between you and me.”

“Of course…he was getting ready to call the MPs in and send them to arrest the others. I needed to buy a little more time for the others to get away, and I didn’t hit him. He was bringing his gun around on me, I grabbed it, twisted it free, and in the process, he fell and hit his head on a chair.”

“I had a chance to talk to the base commander in private.”

“General Garrison.”

“Yeah…he pretty much corroborates what you just said, but this captain is…” Ridley stopped and rolled his eyes.

“A little puss, is what he is. I should have broken his fucking jaw.”

Ridley moaned. “That type of attitude is not going to help.” Ridley leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. “I think if you make a heartfelt apology to the captain we could probably get him to drop this whole thing.”

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