First Casualty

First Casualty

THIS ARTICLE IS A VERY ROUGH DRAFT

While an embedded reporter with a SEAL team, ZNN reporter Stuart Dunston (John D’Aquino) made a satellite phone call that was allegedly intercepted and gave away the SEALs’ position. The phone call was definitely in violation of an order given by Lt. Laslavic (Cade Courtley), which Dunston had supposedly agreed to obey.

Ambushed by the Taliban, Dunston noticed the injured Petty Officer Hamilton (Russell Richardson) out in the open. Dunston sprang out from cover and pulled Hamilton to safety. Dunston did not report this on the air, presumably because of modesty, but of course Rabb interprets it as Dunston not wanting to draw attention to his unauthorized phone call.

Using obscure and murky precedents, Commander Rabb and Lt. Colonel Sarah MacKenzie recommend to the Secretary of the Navy (Paul Collins) that Dunston be court-martialed. There can only be one convening authority for such a court-martial: the president of the United States.

Admiral Chegwidden calls President George W. Bush. The president agrees to be the convening authority. Rabb and Mac will prosecute, Commander Turner (Scott Lawrence) will defend.

Rabb and Mac go to the ZNN studio to deliver the trial summons. There they meet Dunston’s assistant, Ginny Baker (Susan Pari), a London-born woman who studied languages at the University of Cairo.

Turner of course tries to get the case thrown out. The judge, Admiral Morris (Harrison Page), rejects the motion, but warns the prosecution that he might still throw the case out later.

Rabb establishes that Dunston disobeyed Laslavic’s order for radio silence, but Dunston counters with evidence that no one in Afghanistan intercepted the call. The Taliban use “walkie-talkies with flashlight batteries,” not the sophisticated communication and surveillance equipment available to the Americans.

On a court recess, Mac overhears Baker speak in Farsi on her phone. Fluent Farsi. Baker must be a native speaker. Back in court, Mac calls Baker to the stand and successfully connects her to al-Qaeda. It’s true that Baker was born in London, but she grew up in Iran, where a despotic regime supported by the Americans killed off her family.

Does Baker want to avenge her family? She refuses to answer. Morris orders the bailiff to take Baker into custody. Dunston decides to plead guilty. Morris sentences Dunston to a year’s confinement but recommends to the convening authority that the sentence be suspended.

Dunston apologizes to the SEALs and to the American people for his smug and arrogant attitude on the air. He says he will take some time off, and promises to come back to the job with a different attitude.

Meanwhile, Lt. Roberts gets orders to the USS Seahawk. Roberts looks forward to interesting cases like trying terrorists in tribunals and consulting with allies on status of forces agreements. But when he gets to the ship, he’s disappointed to find that the most interesting case is that two crewmen stole lobsters meant for an officers’ dinner and cooked them on the ship’s boiler.

Roberts’s legalman aboard the ship is Petty Officer Coates (Zoe McLellan). Roberts lets his wife think that his legalman is a man. Roberts and Coates work in a small, cramped office.