Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

“No, sir, not at all. But I believe that false accusation served as a…template, or an inspiration for someone down the line. I know the staff sergeant is pleading guilty, in exchange for letting his two surviving squad members go free. I believe he’s doing this out of dedication and loyalty to his men. But please, Your Honor, please don’t accept his plea. I’ve gathered information over here that I believe is vital to what’s going on in Sullivan County.”

Pierce hears other voices coming out of the speakers, and Cook turns, nods, and says, “They’re approaching the outer wire now, Your Honor.”

“Hurry up, Major, tell us what you found out,” the judge says, leaning farther over his bench.

“A couple of months ago, the Rangers were sent home early from a regularly scheduled deployment. That happened days after the Rangers discovered a US citizen raping an Afghan civilian in a private home in a small village. A young boy.”

Moans and sounds of disgust come from the spectators, and with three sharp blows from his gavel, the judge quiets down the conversations.

“People!” he yells. “I got a goddamn American soldier under fire, trying to tell us the truth here, and the next person who opens his or her damn mouth is gonna regret it!”

Pierce is staring at the screen, willing the video to remain in view, for the signal not to cut out, and the judge says, “Go on, Major, please.”

Cook says, “It’s my belief, sir, that the Rangers were sent home early, and that they were falsely accused of killing these civilians, to keep their mouths shut about what they witnessed. And what they witnessed was your congressman, Mason Conover, committing this crime, while under the escort of a Georgia National Guard captain, Emma Williams, your county sheriff.”

Another boom from the computer, the screen goes blank, and the courtroom erupts in shouts and yells.

Chapter 103 Afghanistan

IN FRONT OF ME, Kurtz closes down his laptop and says, “Think it’ll work?”

“I sure as hell hope so,” I say, trying to remain very, very still on a padded bunk bed in Kurtz’s communications room. From where I can stretch out my arms, I’m in the Stone Age. But a meter farther away is the twenty-first century, probably edging into the twenty-second, with computer terminals, display screens, surveillance equipment offering up views of the ridges and valleys around this observation post, as well as live feeds from two drones endlessly circling overhead.

One of Kurtz’s men steps in, speaks quickly in Pashto, laughs, and then heads out.

I say, “What do you think the Taliban are going to say about all those hand grenades your guys tossed over the side?”

Kurtz steps back and puts the laptop down among a collection of black boxes with blinking white and red lights that mean absolutely nothing to me. “Oh, that crazy American up there, losing his mind over something. As long as it helped you sell your story to that judge in Georgia, who cares? How’s the pain?”

“Manageable,” I say.

“Good.”

He comes back to me, sits on a campstool. “I won’t be able to get you out of here until light.”

“I’ll manage,” I say. “What about Chief Cellucci?”

“I’ve got two of my guys with radios standing guard so the locals don’t steal his remains or screw with the Little Bird wreckage,” he says. “Either the Night Stalkers or a Ranger unit will come in sometime tonight and retrieve his body, destroy the wreckage. That’s how they roll.”

A little stab of pain makes itself known among my numbed limbs. “I got him killed.”

Kurtz reaches into a deep pocket, pulls out a Hershey bar, which he unwraps. “Nope. A two-man Taliban gun crew using a Soviet-made DShK 1938 heavy machine gun brought him down. The chief was on a mission, even if an unauthorized one.” He takes a bite and says, “Good thinking back there, pointing a Hershey bar at my guys when they found you.”

“I thought it’d work better than a pistol,” I say.

He chews for a moment and says, “Got some stateside news for you that I dug out while you were talking to the judge. I’m sorry, it’s not great news.”

“Tell me,” I say. “I think I’m about to pass out in a minute or two.”

He swallows. “There were a couple of news stories about a shooting in Savannah.”

I know exactly what’s happened. “Is she dead?”

“Nope,” he says. “Critically wounded, in an ICU at some hospital in Savannah. Funny thing is, she’s not alone. Looks like one of your guys is holding her room hostage.”

My tongue is fuzzy. Alive, I think. Connie ’s alive.

“How do you hold a room hostage?” I ask.

He wraps up the Hershey bar, like he’s saving it for later. “She was shot while two gunmen killed a sheriff’s deputy in her presence. Your CID guy is protecting her, won’t let anybody into her room except doctors and nurses. You’ve got one hell of a team there, Major.”

“We do our best,” I say, and then I just close my eyes and let things slip away.

Chapter 104

A NUMBER OF years ago Sheriff Emma Williams saw a great crime movie in which Robert De Niro played one cool fellow robbing banks and armored cars, and there was one piece of dialogue his character stated that stuck with her:

Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

Good survival advice, and she’s taking it, right at this moment.

The heat isn’t around the corner. It’s coming at her like a burst of fire from a flamethrower.

With the voices and shouts, and the judge hammering his gavel, Williams calmly gets up and walks through the gate of the bar, to the court side of the room, and starts walking deliberately to a door she knows will lead right outside.

Everything is gone.

No time to mourn.

Get the hell out, dump the cruiser somewhere on one of the unmarked dirt roads out there in her county, and pick up one of the three plain-looking pickup trucks she’s secured in different locations for just this purpose. Leave Sullivan County, lie low, and at some point, with a new driver’s license and passport and access to funds electronically hidden in the Cayman Islands, get the hell out to one of the lovely islands of Micronesia in the Pacific, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States.

She gets to the exit door, ignoring the courtroom noise, including the shouts calling out her name.

Captain Allen Pierce is standing next to Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson, intent on keeping the Ranger in one place, and he sees Sheriff Williams start to slip out the door.

No, he thinks, not on your life.

“John!” he yells, pointing to the sheriff as she goes through a door marked EXIT. “Don’t let her get away!”

Huang looks both frightened and confused, and Pierce yells, “Lieutenant, haul ass!”

The doctor starts running.

Outside now, in the blessed free air. Her cruiser is right in the RESERVED parking spot. There are some people out there, milling about, but it seems like the horrible news from Afghanistan that just dropped in the courtroom hasn’t reached outside yet.

When she’s a few feet away from the cruiser, a man starts yelling at her.

Huang pushes his way through a small cluster of courtroom officers and attendants, gets through the exit door and to a short hallway.

Left or right? he thinks, heart pounding.

Right.

Where a door leading outside is closing.

He runs down the hallway, bursts outside, and there’s the sheriff, just a few feet away from her cruiser. “Hey!” he yells. “Sheriff Williams, stop!”