Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“Ma’am, that’s medical information, and that’s confidential,” he says, putting an edge into his voice. “Now, will you bring Specialist Tyler to me, or are we going to have to wait here until Chief Kane returns from Sweeney’s Tract and have him order you directly? And then have another conversation with you later? Ma’am?”

Her shoulders slump. “Hold on.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” John says.

Ten minutes later, he’s in a small meeting room, with one-way glass built into the wall, a table bolted to the floor, and two black plastic chairs. He’s sitting in one chair and Specialist Vinny Tyler is sitting in the other, wearing an orange jumpsuit that says RALSTON PD JAIL in faded black letters on the back.

John is smiling and gracious with the young man, who’s got a lot of muscles and strength under that jail clothing. His red hair is trimmed short, and there’s stubble on his chin and cheeks. His eyes look green. His face is pale, but he constantly looks around the room with suspicion, like he’s waiting for a net to drop from the ceiling or for the sprinklers to start spraying out water.

John says, “Specialist, I’m Lieutenant John Huang, a psychiatrist with the Army’s Medical Corps. How are you doing? How’s the food? Are the staff treating you well?”

His eyes continue to flick around the room. “Doing okay. Food sucks, but I’ve eaten worse. And the staff seems to be just one guy or gal, so that’s about it. Why are you here?”

“Here to talk to you.”

“About what?”

John shrugs, leans back in his chair, and relaxes his legs and arms in an open position, wanting the Ranger before him to see John not as a threat but as a possible ally or even friend.

“About whatever you’d like,” he says. “Where you grew up. Why you joined the Army. Why you became a Ranger…I’ve seen the training courses you guys have to go through. Incredibly difficult, aren’t they?”

The specialist doesn’t take the bait. His eyes have stopped flickering. They’re boring right into John.

He continues. “Or you can talk about your deployments. The missions you were on. What you saw, what you did.”

Tyler moves his wrists, like he still can’t believe he’s manacled.

“Or why me and the team got arrested for what happened over in Sullivan,” the Ranger calmly says, like he’s reading out a map grid of numbers and letters. “You want me to talk about that?”

Defiance, John thinks. He’s talking but there’s will and defiance there.

“If you’d like,” he says.

“Sure,” he says. “Then you’d use it against me. Right?”

“Not exactly,” he says. “But I need to inform you, Specialist, that I’m here as a psychiatrist, attached to a special investigative CID unit. I’m not here to represent you as a patient.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that what I learn in talking with you will be part of the CID’s investigation into what might have happened that led to your arrest.”

“A cop.”

“No,” Huang says. “A doctor who’s looking for truth.”

“To use against me.”

“To be used in seeking justice,” Huang says. “To find out who you are, what you’re thinking, to see if there are any extenuating circumstances. To make this CID investigation fair and complete. You have my word.”

The young man’s eyes continue to drill into him. John doesn’t yet know the specifics of his service, but he knows from experience the outline of what this hard young man has done. Rangers are the proverbial tip of the spear. They go in hard and fast and get the job done. They are sent into the hottest and most dangerous places, and even though in another life Specialist Tyler could have been an automotive technician or a home contractor, John is under no illusions.

This young man before him has killed in the service of his country, and has seen friends of his wounded, maimed, and killed right beside him.

“Your word…” Tyler says, dragging the two words out. “You think I’d trust the word of a pogue?”

Pogue, John recalls—person other than a grunt.

“I would hope so.”

“What do you know about me, ’bout what I do?” he starts demanding. “You ever go overseas? You ever been in a pit in a forward base, hearing the mortars whistle in? You ever shove wads of combat gauze into a buddy who’s bleeding out? You ever been up against some sandbags, and all of a sudden sand pours down on your head and you hear the gunshot from the sniper who almost drilled one into your forehead?”

John says, “I don’t think that really—”

Tyler quickly changes the subject. “You a virgin, Doc?”

“That’s something I’m not here to talk about,” he says.

A jingle-jangle of the handcuffs as Tyler moves his hands. “Oh, yeah, it is. You know what I mean. There’s a whole lot of difference ’tween reading about having great sex with a hot chick and actually doing it. No books, no magazines, no porn videos, nothing is like the real deal. That’s the difference between you and me, although we’re both Army. You just don’t know what it’s like out in combat.”

John has heard this before, and he says, “Then why did you agree to talk to me?”

Tyler struggles, sits back in the chair, blinks his eyes, looks down at the dirty tiled floor, and then looks up again.

“Sometimes the guilt just gets so hot and raw you need to talk to someone other than your team buddies,” Tyler says, his voice softer. “When things don’t go right…when innocents pop up…”

His voice softly dribbles away to heavy silence.

“Please tell me more,” John says, putting as much sympathy and empathy as he can into his voice. We’ve made progress, we’re opening him up, this is going to work. He’s looking forward to reporting back to Major Cook what he’s about to find out.

“Please,” John repeats. “Talk to me.”

Tyler gets up, chair scraping, cuffed hands before him.

“No,” he says. “I’ve changed my mind.”

Chapter 18

TIME PASSES SLOWLY, but Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson is in no rush. Earlier, when Specialist Tyler unexpectedly left, he whispered quick orders to Barnes and Ruiz, the other members of his fire team, about what to do next, and like the good men they are, they followed his orders.

A door opens up with a metallic clunk, and the woman jail attendant—Marcy—brings Ruiz in, putting him back into his cell, and Jefferson stands up.

Marcy comes to the old-fashioned barred cell door and says, “Your turn, Sergeant Jefferson, if you wish.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You promise to be a gentleman, like before?”

“Absolutely, ma’am.”

“You know what’s next.”

“I do, ma’am.”

He puts his hands through a slot in the bars so Marcy can handcuff them, and after the shackles snap into place, he steps back, as she uses a large metal key on a wooden stick to unlock the door.

With the cell door open, she gestures him forward, and he follows her direction. She and the other jailers seem in awe of him and his team, which is just fine, because they are widely ignorant of what he and they are capable of.

Jefferson thinks that in under a minute he could hurt and disable Marcy, free himself, Barnes, Tyler, and Ruiz, and get out of this small town in under ten minutes, never to be seen again.

It’s certainly something to think about.

In the small interrogation room, he stares at the Army psychiatrist as he pulls his chair up close to the small table and lets his handcuffed hands and thick arms stretch across the tabletop, invading Dr. John Huang’s personal space.

Jefferson knows a lot about shooting people, leading men, and blowing things up, but he also knows a bit of how an officer’s mind works.