Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

I wonder what’s going on in Georgia. How the Rangers are doing. How that meeting with Connie and someone involved with the shooting went. Has she found out what I now know, that this whole mess began here in Afghanistan, when the Rangers stumbled across something they shouldn’t have witnessed?

I open my eyes, yank the top of my rucksack, manage to get it open.

I push my right hand in, dig around, a few items falling out.

There.

Got the Iridium satellite phone.

I breathe hard, bring it up, push the power button.

Nothing.

The small screen remains dark.

I push the button again and again.

The satellite phone is dead. I drop it, take up the SIG Sauer, put it into the open rucksack.

It’s almost completely dark, and a few stars appear overhead.

I think I hear voices.

I stop moving.

Damn, I’m not thinking anymore.

I am hearing voices.

Fear is digging right into my gut.

A memory comes to me, of the research I did before my first deployment to Afghanistan, and the books I read, including the poetry of Rudyard Kipling and his tales of British soldiers serving in India and Afghanistan.

A stanza comes right to my mind, about what a young British soldier should do if wounded on Afghanistan’s plains, and when the Afghan women came down at you with knives:

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I whisper, “But I’m no soldier. I’m just a goddamn cop.”

A wounded, trapped, and alone cop at that.

I try again to free my legs, but the pain digs in deep, like hidden knives are carving me up.

The voices grow louder.

I hear the approaching men, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.

Yet I know what they’re saying.

Here ’s a shot-down American helicopter. Let’s see who’s alive.

A light comes on, illuminating the wreckage, the dead body of the chief, and then me.

That’s when I go to the rucksack, for one final, desperate gamble.

Chapter 99

CAPTAIN ALLEN PIERCE is waiting for the judge to come back from his unexpected break, wondering what he’s going to do next. A minute after the judge left—which was nearly a half hour ago, and definitely not fifteen minutes—there was a look exchanged between Sheriff Williams and Staff Sergeant Jefferson.

A look of hate from the Ranger; a look of satisfaction from the sheriff.

The Ranger is about to be sentenced for the seven homicides committed here just over a week ago—or as it’s called in this state, malice murder—and yet he’s staring at the sheriff. Not the judge, not the district attorney who’s representing the state.

What is going on here?

Huang whispers, “Allen, you’ve got to do something.”

Pierce whispers back, “Like what? Raise my hand? Throw myself on the mercy of the judge? Does he look like somebody who’s flexible enough to bend the rules and let an outsider lawyer interrupt?”

Pierce wants to say something else, but what’s the point? Seeing Staff Sergeant Jefferson sitting by himself, an African American defendant in this courtroom, at this time, with so many of the court audience being white. How many of Jefferson’s brothers and sisters—hell, Pierce’s own brothers and sisters—have been in a similar position? Facing alleged justice with a white judge and a nearly all-white group of residents?

He’s no bomb thrower and knows a lot of progress has been made, but seeing Jefferson up there just stirs old history and old memories in him. Seeing the relaxed nature of the attendees in the courtroom, enjoying the break to talk and gossip with their neighbors, Sheriff Williams even holding court with four locals who’ve come up to talk to her, strengthens those old memories. So many cases of black defendants being railroaded.

The staff sergeant looks back again to the smiling sheriff, sitting in all her glory.

Why is this Ranger allowing himself to be railroaded? Why is he doing this?

Huang’s voice comes back to him: You’ve got to do something.

A door opens up, and the court attendant calls out, “All rise!” as the judge slowly walks in and back up to the bench. The attendees stand up, and the judge gavels the session back into order.

How many times has Pierce heard those words, from scared defendants he’s represented over the years, facing minor offenses that would ruin a career, or after a drunken brawl that got out of hand or a mistaken case of auto theft. All those defendants, looking to him to find some obscure phrase or reference in a law book to set them free.

You’ve got to do something.

The judge says, “Staff Sergeant Jefferson, I’m going to take a few minutes to repeat myself here, just so there’s no misunderstanding. Now. Before I pass sentence, I need to confirm once more, for my own peace of mind, that you are here of your own free will.”

“I am, Your Honor.”

“That you’re not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

“I am not, Your Honor.”

“That no threats or pressure have been made upon you to enter this guilty plea, correct?”

Just the slightest bit of a hesitation that Pierce notices from Jefferson, a slight tensing of the Ranger’s shoulders.

“Not a single threat or mention of pressure, Your Honor,” he says.

Something is not right.

Something is wrong.

You’ve got to do something.

He steps forward, trying to formulate something he’ll say after yelling, Your Honor, please! when his iPhone suddenly chimes.

Incoming text.

The judge stares at him, the district attorney turns to look at him, almost everyone in the courtroom is now looking at him.

He brings up the iPhone, slides his fingers across, sees the text, and shakes his head in amazement.

By God, he is going to do something.

Chapter 100 Afghanistan

I FIND MYSELF awake again, my left hip and legs still twisting and burning and crawling with pain. I look up, see chiseled rock and stone. I’m in a place, somewhere.

I spit, blood still in my mouth.

What the hell has happened?

The foreign voices continue talking out there, and I wish I had spent some time learning Pashto back in the day.

It might have been useful.

Might have been.

The voices grow louder. I now remember what’s happened in the last long minutes, and as I hear the footsteps of the men coming toward me, I close my eyes and it goes dark again.

Chapter 101

SHERIFF EMMA WILLIAMS of Sullivan County thinks it’s about time Judge Howell Rollins steps down, because that brief recess stretched to nearly an hour, and it’s a wonder the old drunk can keep his eyes open, but her thoughts and mood are abruptly interrupted by the sound of someone’s handheld device sounding off.

Hoo boy, she thinks, someone is about to get their ass in a sling, because the judge hates cell phones and hates being interrupted, but before the judge can say a word, that smart-alecky Army lawyer steps forward and starts talking in a loud voice.

“Your Honor, if I may please approach the bench, sir, my name is Allen Pierce, and I’m an Army captain, serving in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.”

Loud murmurs and talk from the spectators, and Rollins hammers down his gavel twice. “Are you here to represent Staff Sergeant Jefferson? I’m sorry to tell you, that opportunity is gone. That ship has sailed, Captain Pierce.”

“I understand, Your Honor,” the lawyer says. “I’m here as part of the Army investigation into those homicides and the alleged participation of the Rangers who were arrested.”

At last Corny Slate stands up and says, “Your Honor, this is unacceptable. There is no alleged participation…There is evidence from the county sheriff’s investigation, overwhelming evidence that’s led to this Army sergeant pleading guilty.”