The Rock

HUMMEL

Not today. You go ahead.

PARK RANGER JOE

I don't think so hah hah.

Baxter draws a .45 and places it to Ranger ioe's head.

HUMMEL

I think so.

Startled, Park Ranger Joe backs into a cell. Baxter grabs the cell door open/shut lever and yanks it. The cell doors CLANG shut. Hummel, Baxter and the others walk off.

TOURISTS

Hey, what are you doing...? Wait a minute, what's going on... ?

EXT. ALCATRAZ – PARADE GROUND – AFTERNOON

Hummel and Baxter walk up to the PARADE GROUND as THE TWO HUEY GUNSHIPS approach. They hover above the parade ground. Cpts. Frye and Darrow rope-deploy from the Hueys. They stand at attention, saluting Hummel and Baxter.

CAPTAIN FRYE

General Hummel: Captains Frye and Darrow.

HUMMEL

Deploy as planned, Captain.

(unison)

Aye, aye, sir.

FRY AND DARROW

They hand signal to the Huey pilots. The Hueys take off around the back of the island.

CUT TO:

A MONTAGE of short INTERCUT scenes – AFTERNOON

THE INFIRMARY, UPSTAIRS ROOM

A former hospital room will be the command and communications center. PVTS. GAMBLE and STARLING set up a portable desk, chair, and an array of communications equipment (including portable satellite dish and look out).

EXT. THE ISLAND'S SHORELINE

CPT. HENDRIX AND PVTS. ROYCE and SCARPETTI lay motion sensors on the perimeter.

INT. THE PRISON MORGUE

PVTS. COX and MCCOY load the V.X. CHEM ROUNDS from INSULATED COOLING BAGS (size of a big gym bag) into the morguels CORPSE DRAWERS.

MAJOR BAXTER sets up a PORTABLE Rocket LAUNCHER.

EXT. MAIN CELL HOUSE ROOFTOP

CAPTS. FRYE and DARROW set up a second portable rocket launcher.

INT. ALCATRAZ – MAIN CELLHOUSE – DAY

The tourists are now panicked, confused, and making a commotion. Shouting and yelling. A woman is crying.

Suddenly a .45 is fired. Total silence. Hummel and Baxter, followed by Pvts. Gamble and Starling (pulling a gurney stacked with MARINE FIELD RATIONS), walk to the middle of the cell block.

HUMMEL

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. You are my prisoners. I have no intention of harming you. You will be fed regularly. That is all you need to know for now.

Gamble and Starling begin passing out the field rations.

INT. WASHINGTON D.C. – J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING – NIGHT

FBI Director JAMES WOMACK exits his office in a tuxedo, trailed by MARGIE WOOD, a young

FBI Agent.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Can it wait till morning, Agent Wood, I'm going to hear Bruce Springsteen...

AGENT WOOD

(re: Womack's tux)

In that?

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Christ, the concert's for the Prince of Wales or somebody...

AGENT WOOD

I really think you should take this call personally.

They stare at each other and...

CUT TO:

INT. HOOVER BUILDING – DIRECTOR WOMACK'S OFFICE – NIGHT

Womack, grabbing his phone

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

FBI Director Womack.

HUMMEL (V.O.)

First: I am holding eighty-one civilian hostages on Alcatraz Island. Make an excuse to their families and do not alert the media or there will not be eighty. Second: fifteen guided rockets armed with V.X. poison, are currently aimed at the population of San Francisco. I will call again at 0-hundred hours and state my demands.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Wait. Who is this?

HUMMEL

Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel.

CLICK. Womack stares at the phone: calls to outer office:

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Mary Jane, get the Pentagon!

(to Agent Wood)

Call the San Francisco office. It seems Alcatraz was just re-opened.

Agent wood gives him a curious look and...

CUT TO:

INT. ALCATRAZ – INFIRMARY / COMMAND CENTER – AFTERNOON

Cpts. Hendrix, before Hummel.

Frye, and Darrow, and Sgt. Crisp at attention Maj. Baxter at Hummel's side.

HUMMEL

At ease, Gentlemen. It is traditional for me to meet with my officers before an operation. The heart performs one thing, the legs another, the brain another – all better function together or the body becomes ill, is prone to disease.

(beat)

Major Baxter, Gunny Crisp and I have been on the front lines since 'Nam.' Captain Hendrix was my adjutant in the Gulf. Get a haircut, Pete, you're lookin' like a beatnik.

(the crew-cutted Hendrix smiles Captain Frye, Captain Darrow.)

You and your men are new to me.

CAPTAIN FRYE

Would the General like a recitation of our service records?

HUMMEL

I'm well aware of your service records, Captain, they are excellent. I want to be clear on why you – why all of us are here. You both stand to profit from this.

CAPTAIN FRYE

Profit is not my motive, sir. I am here to redress a wrong.

CAPTAIN DARROW

Yes, sir, and to learn some people a lesson.

HUMMEL

This country has places where wrongs are redressed, Captain Darrow: They are called courts of law. In the military, they are called Courts Martial. This country has places where lessons a-re leaned. They are called schools. Am I confusing you?

CAPTAIN DARROW

Well, sir, frankly... EL I see that I am.

(beat)

HUMMEL

The only accurate term for what we are doing here is treason. Plain and simple. An insurrection against a government to which we have sworn allegiance. Everyone in this room must understand that.

Hummel looks from face to face, studying each.

HUMMEL

The question is what kind of traitor are we. Coward or lion? Benedict Arnold, or Thomas Jefferson? I have posed that question to myself, have answered it, and my conscience is clear. Have all of you?

HUMMELS' OFFICERS

Yes, sir.

HUMMEL

Within thirty-two hours you will leave this country and not return. All of you can live with that?

OTHER OFFICERS

(unison)

Yes, sir.

HUMMEL

Well, I cannot. So, regardless of what happens on this island in the hours ahead, I will stay. The men exchange surprised glances.

CAPTAIN HENDRIX

But General, you'll be prosecuted.

HUMMEL

Yes, Captain. And I plan on conducting my own defense. it will make the O.J. Simpson trial look like an episode of "Perry Mason." Take your posts, gentlemen. Semper fi.

Hummel's men fall out and exit. Baxter, the last to exit, salutes Hummel.

INT. PENTAGON – SITUATION ROOM – NIGHT

Many people around a table, each with a DOSSIER on Hummel:

FBI Director Womack (still in tuxedo), FBI agent Margie Wood, White House Chief of Staff HAYDEN SINCLAIR, National Security Advisor LOUIS LINDSTROM, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs GENERAL ALBERT KRAMER, Air Force General PETERSON, and CIA Director MILTON AMWAY.

GENERAL KRAMER

Last night Hummel and eleven marines, under the guise of a security exercise, walked off with fifteen V.X. rockets. It wasn't discovered until the shift change this morning.

ON THE SCREEN – A YOUNGER HUMMEL in Vietnam

GENERAL KRAMER

Here he is in Vietnam – I think a Major at the time.

MORE SLIDES OF HUMMEL in various international theaters

HAYDEN SINCLAIR

Four tours in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm. Three purple hearts... two silver stars and... the Congressional Medal of... Jesus.

(looks up)

The man is a hero.

GENERAL KRAMER

A legend. During Tet he held off a brigade of V.C. single-handedly. Saved his whole company. Hence the nickname "gunfighter."

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

What was this book Hummel wrote on Vietnam? Anybody read it?

RAYDEN SINCLAIR

No. Give me the skinny.

GENERAL KRAMER

The "skinny," Mr. Sinclair, is that the U.S. should have either won the war or gotten the hell out of Vietnam and stopped wasting American lives. I happen to share General Hummel's view.

The door opens. A NAVAL ATTACHE pokes his head in.

NAVAL ATTACHE

General, it's him. The call connects to a phone on the table.

GENERAL KRAMER

Frank, this is Albert Kramer.

HUMMEL

Hello Al. How're Judy and the kids?

GENERAL KRAMER

They're fine. I'm with General Peterson, FBI Director Womack, Chief of Staff Sinclair, Security Advisor Lindstrom, and CIA Director Amway. You've got a lot of people worried, Frank. Can you help us out?

INTERCUT – PENTAGON and ALCATRAZ

HUMMEL

I'll come straight to the point, General Kramer: Eighty-three Force Reconnaissance Marines have died under my various commands. Forty-seven in northern Laos and southern China...

HAYDEN SINCLAIR

Southern China? We never admitted we sent troops into China.

There is a pause.

HUMMEL

Who is that. Identify yourself.

Everyone stares at Sinclair.

HAYDEN SINCLAIR

White House Chief of Staff Sinclair, General.

HUMMEL

How old are you, white House Chief of Staff Sinclair.

RAYDEN SINCLAIR

I'm thirty-three.

HUMMEL

Well White House Chief of Staff Sinclair, by your ninth birthday I had led over two hundred incursions into China and personally killed that many of the enemy. General, put some duct tape over Mr. Sinclair's fat, ignorant mouth. He has shit for brains and he is wasting my time.

Sinclair's irritation is relieved by the Naval Attache, entering again, who hands him a phone and whispers:

NAVAL ATTACHE

The President calling from Moscow.

Sinclair walks to the far corner of the room with the phone, speaking sotto voice.

GENERAL KRAMER

Continue Frank.

HUMMEL

Eighteen others died in covert, illegal operations in Chile and El Salvador. Remember the Gulf War. Those pretty "smart bomb" pictures on C.N.N.? My men lased those targets. Ten were left to rot outside Baghdad when the conflict ended – and let's not even mention Mogadishu, gentlemen. No benefits were paid to their families; no medals conferred. These men died for their country and they weren't even given

a coddamn military burial.

(beat)

This situation will not stand: you will transfer 100 million dollars from a Grand Cayman "Red Sea Trading Company" account to an account I designate. From these funds, reparations of one million dollars will be paid to each of the 83 marines, families. The rest of the money will pay for my outfit's expenses. Am I clear?