This deputy, this disgraced soldier, this killer sitting so calmly across from her, he is her own Help feature.
Damn, won’t the major be happy when she calls him later.
“But here’s the big question, Dwight,” she says. “Why? What was the real reason to frame the Rangers for those killings? What was it?”
He seems to be wrestling with something, and she says, “Dwight, what I signed there, I’m behind it one hundred percent. I won’t let you be by yourself. I promise.”
The man squeezes his hands together. “It had something to do with Afghanistan, when they was there.”
Afghanistan, she thinks, just like Major Cook thought.
“Dwight,” she says, “tell me.”
In the parking lot of the Waffle House, Bo Leighton carefully parks the stolen Honda Accord that he and his cousin Ricky lifted a few minutes ago after they had tailed the guy earlier from Sullivan. Lesson he learned a long time ago is that if you need wheels, get something dull-looking and ordinary that doesn’t stand out, and then use it quick, ’fore the owner makes the call and the stolen car is sent out over the wires.
He and Ricky are both wearing black wrestling sneakers, loose khaki pants, and short black hoodies. Each has a ski mask on his head, ready to be pulled down in the next thirty seconds when they start dancing.
Bo switches off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. He says, “You ready?”
His cousin says, “Damn it, now that I’m here, I’m kinda hungry. Why can’t we get something to eat and then do the job?”
Bo feels the usual frustration bubble to the surface. His cousin has dead-aim with a gun and is quick with his fists and boots, but most times he fails to see the larger picture. Like the time when he was first picked up on an adult charge that got reduced, and he was on work release, with two weeks left on his sentence, and he left a county lawn-mowing job to get a beer at a nearby tavern. In doing so, he got an extra twelve months tacked on for attempted escape. And why? I was thirsty for a beer, he said.
Bo swivels in his seat and picks up a black gym bag, unzips it, and hands over a Desert Eagle .45 semiautomatic pistol. “Because we were told by Sheriff Emma that the job has to be done now, as soon as possible.”
“Funny thing, what we’re about to do to that deputy, ’cause of his boss.” Ricky works the action of the Desert Eagle, sits up, and slides it into his waistband.
Bo does the same with his. “Don’t worry, he’ll get a nice cop funeral. Make his family so proud.”
Before Bo opens the door, Ricky says, “What happens if some other cop or do-gooder gets in the way?”
Bo says, “Kill ’em all.”
Chapter 73
THE DEPUTY BEFORE York is about to speak when two men burst through the door at the far end, wearing ski masks over their heads and brandishing pistols. One yells out, “Nobody moves! This is a goddamn robbery!”
York instantly thinks, No, no, it isn’t—she doesn’t believe in coincidences—and lowers her right hand to her open bag to grab her SIG Sauer. She says, “Stay put, Dwight, stay put.”
But Dwight’s flipped his head around, spots the two men. “Shit,” he says.
The first gunman is pointing his pistol at the cashier, making her put cash into a small green plastic bag. The nearer gunman is slowly walking down the center aisle. He yells out, “Hands on the table! Now! Hands where I can see ’em!”
Some whispers and words from the customers as they all follow the shouted directions, and the gunman says, “Freeze! I want everybody to stay put. We’ll be outta here in a minute!”
York doesn’t believe him. She quickly grabs a napkin, covers her right hand with it, and in a moment has both hands on the table, the napkin concealing her pistol.
In a low voice she says, “Dwight. Slide under the table, now.”
With the man at the other end focusing on getting the money—a cover for what they’re actually here for, York has no doubt—the approaching gunman is looking at each customer as he comes down the aisle.
But the mask is screwing up his peripheral vision.
They have a few seconds of grace.
“Dwight,” she says again. “Slide under the table.”
But Dwight says, “Screw this.”
He jumps up from the booth, runs to the door marked EXIT, and York pulls her gun hand free as the nearest gunman says, “Gotcha, Dwight!”
He fires twice, and York fires just as quickly.
Screams, shouts.
Dwight collapses against the closed door, his white T-shirt torn and bloody, and York stands up, both hands on her pistol, and approaches the gunman sprawled out on the floor as his companion whirls and dives out the front door.
“Federal agent!” she yells. “Everybody, stay where you are!”
Screams, shouts, dishes falling to the floor and breaking. She gets closer to the gunman, looks down at him, then quickly glances around at the frightened customers, making sure there isn’t a third gunman hidden out there.
York points to a bearded man with a John Deere cap and yells. “You! Call 911!”
The gunman has three wounds right in the center of his chest, and his legs are crumpled underneath him, like all the muscles and ligaments have turned to jelly.
His pistol is on the floor.
A young boy in a nearby booth turns around and reaches to pick it up.
York yells, “Kid, no, don’t touch the gun!”
And the second gunman comes back in the front door.
York lifts up her pistol—
A gunshot and a hammering blow to her head.
Darkness.
Chapter 74
SPECIAL AGENT MANUEL SANCHEZ is on his way to the Ralston jail, the other Ford behind him, Pierce driving, Doc Huang sitting next to him.
After York left for her trip to the Waffle House—How in hell can anybody seriously eat at a place that sounds like it belongs in a Disney park? Sanchez thinks—they went back to the convenience store to see if they could get the current manager to say anything more about the indictment that’s put the store in danger, but the manager they talked to last had been replaced by a gracious woman with about a half dozen English words in her vocabulary.
Another visit to the funeral home revealed the director is gone on an unexpected trip to Atlanta, and District Attorney Cornelius Slate is in the middle of a trial and can’t be disturbed.
The sky is overcast, and Sanchez feels, yeah, a big-ass storm is coming, and everyone’s heading for the hills.
Sanchez is in a hurry, but he’s keeping his speed right below the limit. No use giving Sheriff Williams and her criminal gang an opportunity to pull them over for speeding. He did the same back in LA as a cop, when looking for any excuse to—
The other Ford is flashing its lights, honking its horn, and his phone starts ringing.
Damn it, he thinks, something must be up.
He pulls over the Ford, braking hard, tossing up a cloud of dust from the side of the road. Around them are nothing but trees, fields, barbed wire, and skinny cows.
Sanchez gets out as Huang and Pierce come over to him, both looking worried.
“Give,” he says.
The dust settles. Huang gives him his phone, set to the home page of an Atlanta TV station.
Two killed, one seriously wounded at Waffle House robbery.
Sanchez tries to scroll through the screen, but he does it wrong, and a goddamn weather app shows up.
Pierce wipes at his forehead. “They’re not identifying the two dead,” the JAG lawyer says, “but the seriously wounded is a woman. We’ve been calling Connie’s cell ever since the story broke. No answer.”
“What now?” Huang says. “Manny, what do we do now?”
Sanchez gives the smartphone back to Pierce. “I’m heading to Savannah. You find out what hospital York’s been taken to, let me know. If she learned anything before the sons of bitches started shooting, I want to find out.”
“And what
about us?” Pierce asks.
Sanchez walks back to his rental. “You two stay on the job. Get to the Ralston jail. And—”
He stops.
Their original goal was to try to see the Rangers again, to find out why in hell the staff sergeant is planning to plead guilty tomorrow.
But the ambush of York changes everything.
Sanchez quickly walks back. “You two get to the jail. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but you’re going to protect those three Rangers. Got it? All the witnesses in this county are gone, and now they’re going after us. The Rangers are next. Get to the jail, do what it takes to protect them.”
Pierce says, “How?”
“Figure it out.”
From Huang: “But…”
“But what?” Sanchez says. “We’ve got no time.”
Huang looks at Pierce. “We’re…a lawyer and a doctor. That’s all. How can we do this?”
Sanchez says, “You’re wrong, Doc. You’re both armed officers of the United States Army. Act like it.”
Then he heads back to the rental and, after his first two steps, starts running.
Chapter 75
SHERIFF EMMA WILLIAMS is having her photo taken with a crew of young volunteers for the Conover for Senate campaign late that Wednesday afternoon when the day’s burner phone starts vibrating in her right-hand trousers pocket.
She keeps her smile frozen in place as the photographer for the Sullivan County Times, a young pimply boy who’s taking himself way too seriously, maneuvers the young boys back and forth, making sure their handmade cardboard signs are held up at the correct angle. KIDS FOR CONOVER they say, and there are also a few of her own, REELECT SHERIFF WILLIAMS, in the mix.
As her cell phone continues to vibrate, Williams wants to shout to the photographer in this Baptist church hall in Sanders, a small town at the western end of the county, Move your skinny ass!
But that would earn the wrath of all assembled here, she’s sure.
For God’s wrath, well, he hadn’t sent a lightning bolt yet to scorch her butt, so either he’s ignoring her or he doesn’t exist.
Finally, the young boy in a T-shirt and long shorts that go below his knees lifts his camera to his face, and after a quick series of click-click-click, he says, “Now, y’all stay in place so I can get your names straight, okay?”
The kids seem excited that their photo will end up in the paper, and Williams squeezes the shoulder of an older woman volunteer and says, “Do you mind? I have to take a phone call.”
The woman smiles and points. “If you need some privacy, the food bank pantry is right over there, Sheriff.”
Williams nods in thanks, walks quickly over to the small room with shelves stacked with canned foods and boxes of macaroni and cheese, and answers her burner.
Congressman Mason Conover says, “My latest polling shows we’re going to win by at least ten points next Tuesday. Tell me you’ve got everything under control.”
Williams says, “I’ve got everything under control.”
“Good,” he says, his voice suddenly sounding cheerful, a tone she’s not heard in months. “That being the case, Emma, you can start packing your bags in the morning.”
He disconnects the call, and Williams needs to lean against the nearby concrete wall for relief.
So close, so very, very close.
She jumps as her burner phone rings again.
“Yes?”
“You know who this is,” comes another familiar male voice.
“I do,” she says. “How did it go?”
“We did what you asked us to do, but there’s…”
Her sense of relief flashes away, like a sliver of ice dropped on the sidewalk in the middle of August. “What happened? What went wrong?”
“Ah…Sheriff, like I said, we did what you asked us to, but there was more…shooting. Seems like DD was talking to this woman, and she was armed, and she shot back. My poor nephew Ricky, he got himself killed.”
Williams says something extraordinarily foul and obscene about the man’s nephew Ricky and then says, “Go on. What else.”
“Well, his cousin Bo, he fired back, and he shot that woman in the head. Near enough killed her. And later I found out…Damn it, Sheriff, that woman is some sort of agent or investigator with the Army.”
Williams feels like the concrete-block wall she’s leaning against is now pushing back at her, threatening to collapse and bury her at this very moment.
Her mouth suddenly dry, Williams says, “How long was DD with her?”
“I don’t know,” the man says. “It’s just that DD and her were sittin’ in a booth when Ricky and Bo went in.”
“But she’s alive.”
“Barely, I guess,” he says. “Took a round to the head. I tell you, Bo must have been some angry and spooked to miss like that, not take the top of her head off.”
She stands up from the wall. “Then Bo will have a chance to make it right.”
“What’s that, Sheriff?”
Williams closes her eyes, concentrates. “The shooting took place outside Savannah. Gunshot wound to the head. Nearest trauma unit is…Memorial Health University Medical Center, in Savannah. Tell Bo to get over there and finish the job. I can’t have any loose ends out there, especially if that bitch wakes up.”
“Sheriff…”
“And another thing,” she says. “Your idiot brother. Tell him to be home tonight and all through the morning. I need to talk to him about a job. Got it?”
A pause from the other end of the line.
“I said, got it?”
The man’s voice changes to a pleading tone. “Sheriff, I don’t know if Bo is up to it. I mean, he’s good at tuning folks up if they do you wrong, making a truck delivery down to Mobile, or lifting whatever car you might need, but getting into a hospital and—”
She takes a step. “You listen to me, you squirmy little peckerwood bastard! Those two nephews of yours, I sent them on a job, because you told me they could do it and do it well! And they screwed it up! Now that Bo of yours is going to get over to Savannah as quick as he can, and he’s gonna end it! You understand me? I said, do you understand me?”
The voice is meek. “Yes, ma’am.”
She won’t let it go. “Well, just to make it clear, you slimy little toad, I want that woman gone. Got it? I want her out of the picture this afternoon, and I want confirmation. And it better be a firm and complete confirmation or I’ll send you in next time to saw off her goddamn head and give it to me as a trophy! Do you get it now?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man replies again, sounding like he’s six years old and he just peed in the bed.
“Good!” she says. “I didn’t work and sweat and bleed to get where I am just to throw it all away ’cause of idiot men like you! Get the job done!”
Williams disconnects the call, turns, and is horrified to see two young girls there, maybe eleven or twelve, dressed in sweet little pink and yellow dresses. The girl on the left is holding one of her campaign signs, and the one on the right is holding a black marker clenched in her tiny hands.
“Sorry you girls had to hear that,” Williams finally says, taking the black marker pen from the one girl and scrawling her name on the poster held by the other. “You’ll learn soon enough what I was talking about, how important it is not to depend on men.”
Chapter 76
SPECIAL AGENT MANUEL SANCHEZ is speeding east on Interstate 16, about fifteen minutes outside Savannah, when he glances up at the rearview mirror and sees a dark-blue police cruiser right on his tail, blue lights flashing.
Sanchez looks at the speedometer.
One hundred two miles per hour.
It’ll be hard to talk his way out of this one, but he’s going to try.
He switches on the Ford’s directional and slowly pulls over to the side, where there is nothing around save for tall pines and flat swampy areas, while recalling the text he got a few minutes ago from Pierce, back at Sulliva
n.
YORK IN CRIT CONDITION, ICU, MEMORIAL HEALTH UNIV MED CTR, SAVANNAH.
A thought comes to him. If he’s lucky and can spin a good tale, maybe this trooper will let him go. Hell, almost everyone down here is a huge supporter of the military. Say the right words, Sanchez thinks, and maybe the trooper back there will give him a police escort to the hospital, shave off some of the desperate minutes left in his travel time.
The cruiser pulls to the side as well, comes up to him, and in Sanchez’s rearview mirror, he spots that it’s from the Georgia State Patrol. The cruiser sits there, and Sanchez taps his fingers on the steering wheel, impatient for the process to start. From the glove box he pulls out the rental agreement and takes his driver’s license out of his wallet.
The door to the cruiser opens up. A heavyset African American woman steps out, putting on her gray campaign-style hat, and starts walking in his direction. She has on a light-blue uniform shirt and gray trousers with a black stripe down the side.
Sanchez lowers the window, switches off the engine.
She maintains a distance behind him and says, “Are you sick, sir? Is there an emergency?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “But there is an emergency. I’m trying to get to Memorial Health in Savannah as fast as I can.”
“I see,” she says. “Family member?”
“No, ma’am,” he says. “My coworker. I’m a special agent with the US Army. She’s been shot.”
The woman bends over a bit. “May I see your license and registration?”
He passes over his California driver’s license and rental agreement. “I don’t have a registration. This vehicle is a rental.”
“Uh-huh,” the officer says. She seems to take her time examining his license and the rental agreement.
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