A Marine has been accused of treason but claims to have been brainwashed. The prosecution doesn’t buy it.  Lee, of course, having had first-hand knowledge of such things requested JAG to include him as a material witness as to the legitimacy of brainwashing.  Bad  memories, those.  If anyone hurts Lee again I won’t be responsible, friend or foe.

The People’s Republic  had kidnapped Lee, held him for three days, torturing him psychologically and physically with  electroshock, in effect brainwashing him in order to thwart a new weapon we were going to place in some deep trenches.  Mighty weapons that once placed could very easily insure that no power would even want to tangle with us.

Lee started to sabotage things, which he did pretty successfully, but the kicker was when he was ordered to kill me. Later Forrester, whose aim was fast and true to maim  not kill him,  told me Lee’s hand was shaking so hard there was a good chance that Crane’s aim wouldn’t have come close to it’s mark. And Lee is normally a crack shot.

It was heartbreaking to question Lee in Sickbay, his befuddled mind spilling out that he was a ‘sworn agent’, as incongruous it could be. A real agent would rather have died than spill the beans. He looked so vulnerable, so helpless on that gurney, while he spoke those words by rote, fighting his conditioning with what was left of American loyalty. Confused and hurting, Lee was increasingly agitated and Doc made us stop questioning him.

There was another ‘sworn agent’ aboard too, who nearly blasted the view ports with a special explosive that not even Seaview’s high tensile strength plastic could resist. Fortunately we broached surface just in time. Parker was wounded  by a bullet as well. He too, had been kidnapped and conditioned separately from Crane.

I filed a full report to the SecNav and Lee and Parker spent the next few weeks undergoing psychological examinations to determine if they were no longer ‘under the influence,’ so to speak. 

While that was happening, Doc asked me how Lee got a slight bruise on his cheekbone. I had to admit we’d had words early in the mission, and I’d slapped him. But considering the circumstances, I don’t think Doc’s all that upset with me.

In retrospect, I should have realized something was seriously wrong with Lee since so many things were going wrong on the cruise, and removed him from command for the duration of the mission, but still, what good would that have done? He’d still have followed his captor’s orders. 

He still broods at times how he very nearly succeeded in betraying his country, brainwashed or not, and also that he was responsible for Evan’s  near death when his sabotaged PDR shorted out. Evans is fine, and suffered no lasting effects, but Lee, being Lee, well, he sometimes still hurts from it. As for the damage to Seaview, even at the hand of another man, he thinks he should have been able to stop it somehow.

The shrinks said he wasn’t quite over it, but I countered that if he didn’t have these occasional feelings of guilt we should be more worried.

And so Lee will be offering testimony as to how brainwashing affected him, and that there’s a very real possibility that the Marine’s excuse is justified. We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, the staff  and crew are stuck with my little moods and I even heard Angie complaining to Curley that she wished Captain Crane could be if only to ‘beard the old bear in his den,’ that’s how good he is at it.