Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

Cook looks at her and gives her the slightest of nods.

She has the lead.

“Captain, with the battalion deployed, any soldiers we could possibly interview about the four arrested Rangers are now overseas. We’re hoping you can help us fill in the blanks.”

O’Connell shifts in his seat as a bout of pain slides across his face. Connie sees him now as someone who has wounds like Cook, struggling to get through every day.

O’Connell says, “I’ll try, but I was in Bravo Company. They’re in Alpha.”

Connie says, “We know they’re called the Ninja Squad. True?”

O’Connell sighs. “Yeah. Over in the ’stan they were known for being able to target and hit Taliban sites—sometimes little farmhouses—without being detected. Hard and fast at night, got the job done, never injured on their part. I was even in their operating area for a few months during my last deployment, where I saw their work firsthand. Very impressive. Thing is, they believed their own headlines. Which can lead to trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” York asks.

“They think they’re invincible. That’s fine, but other Rangers, they get infected. If the Ninja Squad can slide through without getting hurt, well, why not us?”

York’s not sure how to reply to that, but the major moves his cane for a moment and says, “The Humvee I was in got nailed by a roadside bomb. You?”

The slightest of nods, one warrior acknowledging another. York feels both admiration and jealousy.

“Mortar rounds at our FOB,” he says. “I was caught outside with our local interpreter. Killed him, injured me. Which is why I’m out of here in a few months. My body…just can’t take it anymore. But those Ninjas. Ninjas over there, Ninjas back here.”

Cook says, “I think I know what you mean.”

No, she’s not going to let that one slide, the two men ignoring her. York says, “Sorry, I don’t know what either of you means. Please explain, Captain. What do you mean, ‘Ninjas back here’?”

“Well, it’s the way Rangers think when they’re deployed,” he says. “There’s an intensity and pure raw thrill of being under fire, returning fire, trying to kill someone who’s trying to kill you. It’s a kind of…a high. And having experienced that high, of having everything on the line, of being exposed and seeing death around you, coming back to the post and dealing with what’s called chickenshit—polishing your dress boots, having all the forms filled out and checked off, keeping your uniforms properly ironed—it can push combat soldiers over the edge.”

Connie says, “Ninjas here, then?”

He nods. “They look for action, they crave action. Staff Sergeant Jefferson’s squad, they looked to raise hell here. Either on post or off. Sometimes it made for long nights and weekends for the MPs and local law enforcement within about a thirty-mile radius. But because the locals love the military, no charges were officially filed against them.”

Cook says, “What did these Ninjas do stateside?”

O’Connell shakes his head. “Assaults, drunk driving, breaking and entering private quarters while drunk, vandalism, petty theft. Stunts and pranks against other companies in the battalion. It got to the point where other Rangers here in the Fourth Battalion got a real hard-on against them, thinking those four could break the rules and mostly get away with it.”

York says, “That includes their battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Marcello, am I right?”

“Quite right,” O’Connell says. A helicopter roars overhead, causing some of the desk files to vibrate. “A number of years back a previous battalion commander here had his career ruined because another Ranger squad raised hell like Staff Sergeant Jefferson’s Ninjas. Marcello vowed it would never happen to him.”

York thinks, Hold on. This is something.

The odd evidence, the weird occurrences, the outstanding questions…what Marcello told her and Cook earlier, and now what this officer has just confirmed.

Staff Sergeant Jefferson and his squad were heartily disliked by their fellow Rangers. Sliding through. Never really punished. Never really disciplined.

Until now.

A frame job? Could this be a frame job?

Cook says, “Sorry to interrupt, Captain O’Connell, but something’s caught my attention.”

Yes, York thinks. The major sees what I see.

But Cook has another question.

“Staff Sergeant Jefferson’s squad, they were last deployed to Afghanistan two months ago. From what I’m able to puzzle out from their soldier record briefs, they were supposed to be in their area of operations for six months, not two.”

The helicopter sound fades away. O’Connell is staring hard at her boss.

“But I can’t see anything else about their deployment,” he goes on. “Their area of operations. Any missions they went on. Any after-action reports. Why is that?”

O’Connell shrugs. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

York waits. There’s some sort of new tension between O’Connell and her boss.

Cook says, “Captain O’Connell, I think you do know.”

O’Connell’s eyes flash. “You think shit.”

“Some days, yes,” Cook says, his voice calm but hard. “This is a small base. The Rangers are a tight unit. If something odd happened to them while deployed, you’d know. Not all of the details. But you’d know.”

York waits, wondering what O’Connell will do. His face is firm, his eyes set, and she can feel the anger coming off him, like vapor rising from a hot sidewalk after a rainstorm.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” O’Connell says.

“That’s not going to be an option for you, Captain,” Cook says. “We’re CID. You’re going to answer my questions completely and truthfully or we’ll leave and come back. And come back again. And maybe you’ll miss your deadline of being discharged in a few months because hearings have to be held.”

O’Connell looks like he’s about to come across the desk and grab Cook’s cane and beat him with it, but he waits some more. York thinks the Ranger is struggling.

He says, “A couple of the guys in my company got screwed up because they thought they were Ninjas, too. One’s blind. The other’s in a wheelchair for life. That wasn’t good.”

Cook says, “That’s understandable.”

“You can see I don’t particularly like them,” O’Connell says. “But I’m not about to snitch on them.”

“Whatever you say to us will be confidential, Captain O’Connell,” her boss says. “Nothing in print, nothing official.”

O’Connell looks at her, as if for reassurance. York remains silent, not wanting to shatter this mood.

Sorry, Captain, she thinks. No sympathy from me.

The Ranger captain says, “I believe the reason you don’t see any paperwork from their last deployment is that they weren’t under the command of Fourth Battalion. They were temporarily detached elsewhere.”

York says, “The Afghan National Army?”

With disgust, O’Connell says, “As if. No, our friends up in Langley. Staff Sergeant Jefferson and his squad are so good, the Company borrowed them.”

The air seems heavy and threatening. Now, York thinks, now everything has changed in this investigation. What have she and the major stumbled across? The CIA?

Cook says, “All right. The Company. But why were they sent home so early?”

O’Connell rotates slightly in his chair, back and forth, like he’s hoping the longer he waits to reply, the quicker Connie and her boss will leave.

Connie thinks, To coin a phrase, Captain, “As if.”

“There was an incident,” O’Connell finally says. “Staff Sergeant Jefferson and his squad were sent straight home.”