The chief takes out a key set, unlocks the door leading into the cell area, and the three deputies walk in. Pierce follows as well, with Huang right behind him. Deputy Lindsay sees this and says, “Hey, Chief, those Army guys shouldn’t be here! Keep ’em out!”
Pierce won’t let the chief answer and says, “Let us in, Chief. You don’t want an accident or anything untoward to happen to the staff sergeant right now, do you? Dr. Huang and I will just be witnesses, representing the US Army.”
Deputy Lindsay says, “Dick, I’m telling you, keep those soldier boys out!”
“Well…” Chief Kane starts.
Pierce is pleased when Huang jumps in. “Chief Kane, this is your facility, correct? Not the county sheriff’s, am I right? That means only you have the authority here, not Deputy Lindsay.”
The chief has a sly smile on his face, like after months of losing at poker with the deputy, he’s about to win this hand. “That’s right. C’mon, Clark. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
The deputy says, “I won’t forget this, Dick. And neither will the sheriff.”
Pierce says, “Fine, none of us will forget it. We’ll all be Mensa candidates later today. After you, Chief.”
The small procession goes down the concrete hallway, past two interview rooms, and then to the cells.
The three Army Rangers are standing straight and tall, hands right beside their legs. Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson steps close to the bars. “Nice group of visitors,” he says. “What a lucky guy I must be.”
Deputy Lindsay steps forward and says, “Caleb Jefferson, my deputies and I are here to transport you to the Sullivan County Superior Courthouse. Put your hands through the cell door, we’ll get you cuffed and on your way.”
Pierce sees Jefferson’s dark eyes narrow. “What about my guys? Corporal Barnes and Specialist Ruiz? That was part of the deal. They go free.”
Chief Kane speaks up. “Not a problem, Staff Sergeant. I got a phone call a few minutes ago from the district attorney, Mr. Slate. He says your men will be released by the end of the day today. Seems there’s so much going on at the courthouse, he just can’t get away at the moment.”
Jefferson doesn’t say a word but quickly looks over at the other two Rangers. “All right,” he says. “Chief, I’m holding you responsible for my guys’ safety and freedom. Just make sure it happens.”
Deputy Lindsay says, “Boy, you threatenin’ the police chief?”
“No,” he says, thrusting his hands through the cell door opening. “Not making a threat, just making sure there’s no misunderstanding down the road.”
Lindsay takes handcuffs from his duty belt, snaps them shut around Jefferson’s wrists. “Step back now.”
Jefferson takes three steps back, and Chief Kane unlocks the cell door, swings it open. Jefferson steps forward, and the other two Rangers snap to attention.
“You take care, Sergeant,” Barnes says.
“We got your back, Sergeant,” Ruiz says.
As the procession makes its way out of the cell area, Chief Kane says to no one in particular, “That was weird. I thought those two other fellas, I thought they were going to give him a salute.”
Pierce says, “That’s Hollywood bullshit. Nobody gives a salute indoors, and nobody gives a salute as a prisoner.”
“Oh,” the chief says.
“Yeah,” Pierce says. “This is reality, as real as it gets.”
Chapter 87
SPECIAL AGENT MANUEL SANCHEZ is sitting in a corner of trauma room 2 with a grievously injured Special Agent Connie York in a hospital bed and one dead assailant sprawled out on the floor. Nothing you really see in cop TV shows or movies, but after just a few minutes a freshly shot body starts to smell, when certain muscles relax and let loose body waste, and now it’s been hours, and long hours at that.
Sanchez is on the floor, with a chair and a small cabinet dragged in front to offer some mode of protection. He’s impressed that he’s managed to stay awake during the night. A few hours ago it looked like a small black snake was about to come into the room, but Sanchez knew it was a flexible optic surveillance device, checking out the situation.
He resisted an urge to give it a cheery wave.
Now suddenly a strong male voice comes from the outside corridor. “Hello, the room!”
Sanchez says, “Hello right back!”
The man says, “I’m Lieutenant Harry Lightner, Savannah Police Department. Who am I talking to?”
“Special Agent Manuel Sanchez, US Army CID,” he says. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”
“Same here,” the Savannah officer replies. “We’ve got quite the situation here, don’t we?”
“That’s true, amigo,” Sanchez says.
“You seem pretty concerned about Agent York’s safety.”
“Yep.”
“You said earlier that you’d only allow two medical personnel at a time into the room to check on Agent York,” Lightner says.
“Roger that,” Sanchez says.
“You know we can’t allow that, not with you holding a weapon and having discharged it.”
Sanchez doesn’t know much about emergency medicine, but in looking up at the equipment stationed near York, nothing seems to be in the red or sounding off an alarm.
“Ah, gee, Lieutenant,” Sanchez says, “just when I was beginning to establish a bond of trust with you, you have to go ahead and spoil it by insulting me. I didn’t discharge my service weapon. I shot a guy trying to murder my boss. And you know and I know he doesn’t work for the hospital. I bet you’ve done a head count of the hospital’s security staff and there isn’t one missing.”
Sanchez waits for a reply, and then the lieutenant says, “You know, this yelling back and forth, it sure is cumbersome. How about I slide in a portable phone, we can talk easier?”
Sanchez laughs. “Sure. A portable phone with a hidden microphone and camera or a flash-bang grenade or a tear-gas canister. Not going to happen, Lieutenant.”
He takes out his iPhone, sends off a quick text message. He doesn’t think he’s going to have much more time in here and wants to make things clear to Pierce and Huang as this day proceeds.
“All right,” the lieutenant says. “Can we get you anything in the meantime, Agent Sanchez? Water? Juice? Something to eat?”
He takes another sniff. Damn, is it getting foul in here.
“I want two cops,” he says.
“What?”
“Two cops,” Sanchez says. “Dressed in nothing except their underwear. No shoes, no socks, nothing. They come in with hands out, and they slowly turn around and lower their shorts, so I know they’re not concealing anything. Got it?”
The Savannah lieutenant says, “Are you joking, Agent Sanchez? You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, serious indeed,” he says. “Those two cops come in, just as I say, and they take out the dead guy. That gives you a chance to fingerprint him, do an ID, find out why he tried to kill my boss. How does that sound?”
Sanchez looks at his iPhone. In the upper left-hand portion of the screen, small letters now announce, where they didn’t before: No service.
The cops are blocking his cell phone.
No matter.
Sanchez settles in for a long wait, and looks up to York and says, “Hang in there, boss. We need to know what you know.”
Captain Allen Pierce is driving their rental Ford sedan right behind the dark-brown van of the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department when his phone chimes, and so does Huang’s.
He says, “What’s up, John? Who’s trying to talk to us? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution?”
Huang holds his phone close to his face. “It’s from Sanchez.”
“What does it say?”
“It says, Still guarding York. Pierce in charge. Protect the Rangers.”
“Text him back.”
“And tell him what?”
Pierce takes a look in the rearview mirror, sees the line of rented cars and vans
belonging to the news media streaming behind them like some ghoulish parade.
“Tell him message received,” Pierce says. “Nothing else. Poor guy’s got his hands full.”
Huang’s fingers start working on the handheld’s screen. “So do we. Shit, why haven’t we heard from Major Cook?”
Pierce says, “Maybe he’s gotten held up in some carpet bazaar. Forget Cook for the moment, John. We’re on our own.”
Gus Millner is a maintenance worker and transport assistant at the Memorial Health University Medical Center, and he’s having a busy day. When the ER is busy, he’s busy, and right now he’s carrying a heavy plastic bag that holds the belongings of a female gunshot victim who was admitted yesterday. There was some sort of foul-up yesterday in delivering this bag, so he needs to bring the bag up to the ICU’s nurses’ station. Afterward, there’s a restroom on the third floor that needs attention.
He’s alone in an elevator, going up, when something starts ringing in the bag.
It keeps ringing.
He opens the bag, looks inside. Black slacks, shoes, and—
A heavy phone with a big keypad and a thick, stubby antenna. Not a type of cell phone he’s ever seen.
What to do?
Answer it?
He closes the bag, and when he gets to the right floor for the ICU, it stops ringing.
Good.
Last month one of his buds got shit-canned for answering some patient’s phone in a bag of possessions like this, and Gus isn’t about to lose his job over something so simple and silly.
Chapter 88
Afghanistan
I SWITCH OFF my Iridium phone and put it back in my rucksack. Chief Warrant Officer Cellucci is standing to the right of the Little Bird helicopter and waves me forward. It’s windy out on the airstrip, hitting us with dust and gravel.
“No answer, Major?”
“None,” I say, walking to him as best as I can without my cane, rucksack in my right hand. I’m dressed in a dark-green flight suit, carrying an oversized crash helmet in my left hand.
He shrugs. “Happens sometimes, the signals don’t go through. Cosmic rays, sunspots—the atmospherics around here are pretty strange. Here, I’ll take your bag.”
Cellucci grabs it with little effort, tosses it into the rear, which is used for storage. I go to climb in and hesitate, my left leg screaming at me how stupid this is, and then Cellucci says, “Here you go.”
He grabs two fistfuls of my flight-suit fabric and pushes me in, the fabric from the one-piece suit jamming into a very sensitive area, and I sit down in the small, tight canvas seat. Cellucci helps strap me in and then walks around the bubble-glass front, eases himself into the pilot’s seat.
“Put your helmet on. Let’s get the comm set up so we can chat with each other.”
He helps me put the borrowed helmet on, adjusts the mic in front, hooks up the communications cable. I feel like I’m being put into a carnival ride by some smug traveling carnie who secretly hopes I piss myself when the ride ends.
After he buckles himself in, Cellucci starts working the switches, and I try to take it all in. There’s a control stick in front of me, with an identical one in front of Cellucci. Large pedals are on the floor, and I keep my feet away from them. Between us is a large console with a square screen and round dials, and I think I recognize a compass, and that’s about it.
Cellucci adjusts something, and his voice crackles through the helmet’s earphones. “Hear me, Major?”
I adjust the mic in front of my mouth and say, “Just fine, Chief.”
“Good,” he says. Overhead the engine starts to whine, and he says, “Okay, quick safety demo before we get airborne. If we’re up there and I get hit or disabled, so you’re the only one conscious, this is what you’re going to do. Okay? Pay attention.”
Earlier I was warm in my borrowed flight suit, but now I’m near shivering with apprehension. “Paying attention, Chief.”
“Good,” he says. “If I’m slumped over and you can’t revive me, and we’re heading to the ground, you unsnap your harness, here, here, and here”—he slaps at my torso—“and slip off your helmet quick as you can, and do your best to kiss your ass good-bye before we hit.”
He laughs and maneuvers the control stick in front of him, the collective control by his seat, and working the pedals, he lifts us off from FOB Chadwick.
I’ve flown other times in helicopters—military and NYPD—and they are Cadillacs compared to the Little Bird, which feels like a Volkswagen Beetle with helicopter blades overhead. Cellucci turns another dial, and I can hear him broadcast. “Tower, this is November Sierra Four,” he says. “Clear for departure to the south?”
“Roger that, November Sierra Four,” comes the female voice of the airstrip’s flight controller. “You are clear.”
He takes us up, and my stomach does a few loop-de-loops, for in front of us is a huge Plexiglas bubble, which gives me the feeling that at any moment I could slide out of my seat and break through the window. The fading afternoon sunlight flickers overhead, from the spinning blades casting shadows over the curved bubble. The control stick in front of me moves whenever Cellucci moves his stick.
I swallow twice and look at Cellucci, who smiles at my discomfort and gives me a thumbs-up.
“Doing all right, Major?” he asks, voice strong and confident through the earphones.
I swallow again. “Chief, I know you’re an elite flier. The Army knows you’re an elite flier, and so does everyone else in the Night Stalkers. Just a favor, all right?”
“What’s that, Major?”
I say, “Please don’t feel like you have to prove anything to me. Let’s just skip that step.”
A laugh comes through. “Roger that, Major.”
It doesn’t take long for us to leave the flat plain that holds the city of Khost and FOB Chadwick. The southern part of the Hindu Kush range, separating Afghanistan from Pakistan, rises straight up before us, left to right, huge stony peaks riven with valleys and ravines containing trees and small forests. Twice I spot a small village, stone and brick homes built on the steep slopes of the lower range.
“Pretty remote down there, ain’t it?” Cellucci says.
“It looks like the ends of the earth.”
He says, “Maybe so, but there are eyes on us down there, tracking us. Right now cell phones and handheld radios are ringing in every direction for about fifteen or twenty klicks, saying the Americans are coming.”
“You ever get shot at?”
“All the time, Major, all the time,” he says. “But usually we’re moving too fast. The T-men love to track the Chinooks and hit them when they’re landing or taking off. That’s one of the good things about the Little Birds.”
Higher and higher we go, my ears popping, and Cellucci says, “This is the God’s honest truth, Major, but last year I inserted a team into a real remote and deep valley, the kind of place where it looks like you have to pipe in the sunshine, and the villagers there, they thought we were the Russians. Can you believe that?”
I say, “Must be true if you say it. Could have been worse, though.”
“How?”
“They could have thought you were British.”
That earns me a laugh from my pilot as we continue to climb into the ragged mountains.
In less than fifteen minutes Cellucci tilts us as he turns to the left, and he says, “Okay, Major, there it is. OP Conrad, straight ahead.”
I look and see just a flat peak with tumbled rocks, stunted trees, and brush.
“Where?”
“You’ll see, soon enough,” he says, and then he starts transmitting, and I hear his voice. “Oscar Papa Charlie, this is November Sierra Four, November Sierra Four. Do you copy?”
The helicopter starts to descend.
“Oscar Papa Charlie, this is November Sierra Four, inbound. Do you copy?”
I think I see shapes appear.
Then a satellite dish. Another one. A set of antenn
as.
A cleared, rocky space, about half the size of a basketball court.
“Oscar Papa Charlie, November Sierra Four calling. We are inbound. Do you copy?”
I say, “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”
“Oh, they’re home all right,” Cellucci says. “But maybe they’re too busy to chat. Okay, Major, unsnap your straps, drop your crash helmet, get ready to hop out. I’ll be back in twenty.”
It feels like a cold fist has just punched my gut. “You’re not staying with me?”
He curses. “Are you nuts? How long do you think me and my Little Bird will last if I stay up there, like a goddamn fly on a tabletop? The muj will start dropping in mortar rounds in about ninety seconds.”
The rocky surface rushes up.
“Nope,” he goes on. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes to pick you up, head back to the FOB. Hope you can get your business done in that amount of time. You got a gold pass for one round trip, and that’s it.”
I tense up because at our rate of descent, my mind is screaming at me that we’re going to crash, but being the expert he is, Chief Cellucci works the controls and flares us up, the twin landing skids barely touching the ground.
He slaps me on the shoulder. “Go! Get the hell moving before I get a mortar round in my lap!”
I get the straps and buckles undone, reach behind me, get my rucksack, open the side door, and toss the rucksack out. I take off the borrowed crash helmet and shift and drop to the ground—making sure I land on my good leg—and I close my eyes and hold my breath as I’m engulfed in a whirling cloud of dust and kicked-up small rocks.
With a humming roar, the Little Bird lifts off and then dips into a ravine, until all I hear is the dimming noise of the engine. Then it pops back into view, and I spot Cellucci as he hugs the contours of the nearest ridge, waggling back and forth, like he finally wants to show off.
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