Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

Cook says, “Connie? Get a copy of this, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” she says, going into her bag, fumbling around for a second, coming out with a thumb drive.

But she knows she won’t need it.

What she’s just seen in the surveillance tape will remain sharp and clear in her mind for years to come.

The four Rangers, all dressed in fatigues, boots, and MOLLE harnesses.

Jumping into their truck and quickly driving away.

Off to perform a mission.

Chapter 31

CAPTAIN ALLEN PIERCE finds the law offices of Cornelius Slate busier this Monday morning than during yesterday’s visit. It’s already been a grueling time since he arrived here, and he hasn’t gotten much sleep. At first he thought it might be a treat—okay, sexist and rude, but he’s male after all—to share a room with Agent York, but she has been brisk and no-nonsense, and goes to bed in shorts and a T-shirt. Nothing untoward has happened.

Which is fine.

He yawns repeatedly and barely has enough energy to do his job.

Slate’s waiting area has five chairs, and all of them are occupied. A man holding metal crutches stares at the cast on his lower left leg. A young man in jeans and a T-shirt sits slumped, fingers working on his cell phone, baseball cap sideways. An older couple sit stiffly next to each other, one periodically turning a head to whisper harshly to the other.

The interior door opens. A woman in a floral dress belted in slim black leather steps out. Her brown hair is cut short, and her round glasses look vintage 1985.

“Captain Pierce? Attorney Slate will see you now.”

“Thanks,” he says, getting up and grabbing his case, following the woman into Slate’s office. He sees her belt has missed a loop at the rear and decides to keep that observation to himself.

Slate is better dressed today—blue shirt with a white collar, red necktie, gray slacks—and he comes around his desk to say, “Captain Pierce! Good to see you again. Glad I could make time to fit you in. Have a seat, have a seat. Coffee?”

Remembering the vanilla swill he had yesterday, Pierce says, “No, thanks. I’ve already had my morning allotment.”

Slate grins, goes back to his desk, and says, “Well, I’ve got some news for you, Captain Pierce.”

Great. No more son . At least Slate didn’t call him boy instead, which Pierce sees as a small victory. He says, “What’s that, Mr. Slate?”

Slate looks down at his desk. “We’ve got the arraignment hearing set up for those four Rangers this coming Thursday, only three days away. Circuit judge Howell Rollins shuffled his schedule, so the judicial process is starting to grind its way along.”

“But not much is going to happen at the hearing, correct?”

“Nope, not at all,” Slate says. “Official reading of the charges and pleas entered. That’s about that.”

“How about representation?” Pierce asks.

“That’s a funny thing,” Slate says.

There’s a line from a Joe Pesci movie Pierce is tempted to use— Funny how? —but instead he says, “Could you explain?”

“Sure,” the district attorney says. “I visited the prisoners this morning, just to see where things are. And those four are refusing outside representation.”

“But…you’re saying the hearing is still scheduled for Thursday? Even without representation?”

Slate nods. “That’s right, Mr. Pierce. You see, the thing is, these four plan to represent themselves.”

Chapter 32

SPECIAL AGENT MANUEL SANCHEZ pulls his Ford sedan into the front yard of Wendy Gabriel’s home and sees the Volkswagen is still there. Good. He gets out of the car and starts up to the old, sagging house, which looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.

But he slows as he approaches the porch.

It looks the same, but it sure doesn’t sound the same.

No noise is coming from inside the structure.

No dog barking.

No dog?

Sanchez steps onto the porch, knocks on the door.

“Ma’am?” he calls out. “Are you home?”

Quiet.

Two more heavy knocks, and he stops, listening.

Nothing.

What now?

In another time and place he would contact the locals for assistance, explain what’s going on and how he needs to reinterview a vital witness.

But here and now?

Sanchez has a flicker of suspicion that just won’t go away. From his nearly being run down last night to Agent York and Major Cook being trailed to the sharp looks he and the others get from the civilians, he knows the locals are not his allies. They are up to something.

He looks at the door and its lock. Typical pin tumbler. He goes back to the trunk of the Ford, rummages through his go bag, filled with all sorts of technical goodies, chooses a small zippered black case, and carries it to the front porch.

Sanchez looks again at the lock, then removes from the case two tools: a small tension wrench and an even smaller tool called a short hook. He gets to work, and in less than fifteen seconds, he unlocks the door.

He pushes it open. Puts the lock-picking tools in his coat pocket. Takes out his SIG Sauer.

“Mrs. Gabriel? Are you here?”

No reply.

He steps in and says, “Toby! Toby Baby!”

No sound of paws thumping on the rug or nails rattling on the linoleum floor. Sanchez steps farther in, takes a breath.

With the door and windows closed to the outside heat, the stench inside nearly knocks him back.

The smell…rotten fruit, greasy food, piles of bagged trash decaying in the far corner.

He moves slowly through the crowded living room, clearing the place as best he can without any backup, and as he walks, he’s able to separate some of the stench.

He doesn’t smell something he’s expecting: the smell of a bloated, decaying, and putrefying body.

A narrow staircase is packed on both sides with piles of books and magazines. He takes his time, but upstairs he does what he can. There’s a bathroom that is so filthy and jammed with towels and soap bottles that he doesn’t even bother to enter.

The bedroom has a narrow path to the bed and a bureau that has just a few papers on top—what a surprise—and that’s it.

When he gets out of the house, back onto the porch, he takes a deep, cleansing breath.

The house was locked, the car is still here, and there’s no sign of violence or a struggle.

But Wendy Gabriel is gone.

Sanchez holsters his pistol, walks back to the car.

Check that.

The witness is gone.

Chapter 33

SPECIAL AGENT CONNIE YORK is with Major Jeremiah Cook in the small and nearly empty office of Captain Rory O’Connell, the officer in charge of the Fourth Battalion’s paperwork, family issues, and supply matters during any overseas deployments.

O’Connell’s in his early thirties, trim, with black hair streaked with gray, narrow black eyebrows, and tired yet alert brown eyes. He has on an Army combat uniform, and the cinder-block walls of his office enclose a desk with a phone, a computer terminal, and piles of papers and file folders stacked on either end.

O’Connell’s voice is quiet and whispery, and only when he starts talking does Connie note the scar tissue around the base of his throat. “Let’s make this as quick as we can, all right? In a half hour I’ve got a Ranger wife coming in, scared to death her husband’s truck is going to be repossessed, and thirty minutes later, I need to check in on a sick ten-year-old girl who’s afraid Daddy’s never coming home. And then I need to find out where in hell the battalion XO has gotten himself. He’s due to leave here in twelve hours, and I have a shitload of paperwork for Major Moore to sign before he heads out. What a goddamn mess. I was hoping the deployment would stay on schedule, but it was moved up, which meant I got picked to initially take care of things while they’re gone.”