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!”
The woman turns around and, spotting him, just laughs.
Huang is humiliated.
What the hell can he do?
“Don’t you dare leave!” he yells again.
The woman yells something obscene and opens her cruiser door.
Huang gets to the parking lot and, knowing she’s about to slip away in the next few seconds, does the only thing he can do.
Like she’s part of some dark comedy film, Williams hears that Chinaman yell out, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
For real?
She looks back, and whaddya know, that Army doc is running at her, holding a pistol in both hands.
“Doc,” she yells at him, “put that away before you hurt yourself.”
He yells back, “I mean it! Stop right there or I’ll shoot!”
Williams pulls out her service weapon and yells, “I mean it, too, Doc,” and she fires at him, and there’s return fire and—
A heavy blow to her chest.
Huang stops, panting.
He shot her.
He can’t believe it.
He just shot her.
Huang saw her pull out her pistol and a bit of training came forth. He swerved and ducked and, for all that’s holy, heard the round whee! overhead as he fired back.
The sheriff is on the ground, writhing back and forth, clutching at her chest.
He steps forward, his medical training kicking in, but before the doctor part of him can get to work, the Army lieutenant works first.
Huang kicks away her weapon.
As an Army officer would.
Chapter 105
A WEEK AFTER my return from Afghanistan, I’m in t
he hospital room of Special Agent Connie York of the US Army CID. With me is Special Agent Manuel Sanchez, also of the CID, and Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson, Second Platoon, Alpha Company, Fourth Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. The other two members of my squad are at their respective home commands, being debriefed, criticized, and probably disciplined. Captain Allen Pierce is at JAG headquarters in Washington, DC, and Lieutenant John Huang is at the US Army Medical Corps in Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.
As for me, I got a late-night phone call yesterday from Colonel Ross Phillips, who chewed me out between bouts of coughing.
When there was a pause, I asked him, “Are you still in the hospital, sir?”
“Shut up,” he said. “That’s the mess you’ve made, Major. A pretty deep, muddy hole, pissing off a whole lot of folks in CID, the Medical Corps, and JAG. But…”
I waited, daring not to say a word.
“But on the upside, you and your folks took out a pervert congressman before he became a pervert senator, which is nice, and you also saved three Rangers and the reputation of the Rangers, which means a big deposit in your depleted karma bank.”
I asked him, “What about my group?” knowing full well how experimental it was, but at that point he hung up on me.
In the room, Connie is in a standard hospital bed, still bandaged about her head, her face horribly bruised and her eyes swollen, still hooked up to IVs and sensors, but breathing on her own. The doctors who’ve talked to me say that part of her skull is missing from where she was shot, and that she might have suffered some brain damage.
Too soon to tell, although what is known is that she hasn’t woken up yet.
I’m sitting in a fancy padded wheelchair, both legs stretched out and in casts, and I also have a few stitches here and there. Sanchez is in jeans and a red polo shirt, sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs, while Jefferson stands, wearing a plain black T-shirt and khaki slacks. The Ranger looks uncomfortable, like he will never, ever allow his body to relax in civilian clothes.
The mood is quiet, and Sanchez says, “I know I’m not going to be charged with anything, but damn it, I’m tired of having the hospital’s security force trail me every time I go down to the cafeteria.”
I smile, but Jefferson stands like a polished statue of black granite. I catch his attention and say, “I’m sorry about Specialist Tyler. I wish…I wish it could have ended differently.”
For a moment I think he doesn’t hear me, but in a low voice he says, “Not your fault, Major. Not his fault, either. Everybody’s got a breaking point, especially when you belong to a system that keeps on rotating these boys in and out, in and out, until they’ve done four, five, six deployments. They get trained to be the best wolves in the world, and then they’re expected to come home and put that all away and become nice little sheep again, be quiet, peaceful, and not raise a fuss.”
He shakes his head. “Until they’re called up to be wolves again. The tour before our last one, there was a marketplace. A kid was coming up to us, showing some DVDs he wanted to sell. Vinny was on point. There was something else in that bag, heavy, not a DVD. The kid wouldn’t stop. The kid wouldn’t stop…and after Vinny shot him, they found a fragmentation grenade in the bag with a trigger cord. Would have taken out our fire team. But Vinny…to him, he hadn’t saved us. He had killed a kid.”
Then Jefferson clears his throat. “And Major Moore, our XO, he was trying to do right by me, by protecting my stepdaughter, Carol. Look what that got him.” He shifts and looks directly at me. “Tell me there’ll be justice for Major Moore.”
I say, “With Sheriff Williams’s arrest, her deputies are turning on one another like a Mafia crew after their godfather’s been nailed. From what I’ve heard, she’s being kept in the Sullivan County jail, in the general population. Considering everything she’s done, I don’t think she’s going to get a warm reception from her cellmates. Yes, Staff Sergeant, I’m sure there’ll be justice for Major Moore.”
“Good,” he says.
We remain quiet for a while. On the small table next to Connie’s hospital bed is my Bruce Catton book about the Civil War, Glory Road. The cover’s torn, some pages are damaged, and most of all, it smells of smoke and Afghanistan. It’s battered but still here, like me.
But what now?
I think about that Kipling poem. And again I think, no, I’m not a soldier. I’m a cop. Just a cop, playing make-believe Army.
Maybe it’s time to put in for retirement, heal my legs and hip, and maybe heal my broken family. I tried calling my daughter, Kelli, and son, Kevin, but neither of them returned my messages.
Connie moves a bit in her bed. I reach over, take her hand.
The Ranger says, “There’s something else, Major.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“An apology,” he says, his voice still firm and low. “My guys…and other frontline grunts, you know how it is. We don’t trust, don’t respect, and don’t much like you guys in the rear echelons. The paper pushers. The support staff. The pampered officers. The Fobbits. But you and your crew…you worked for my fire team and me. Even when I was a thickheaded idiot and turned you away. You suffered. You put yourselves out there. You sacrificed for us, when you really didn’t have to. Excuse me for what I’m about to say, sir, but that’s a fucking big deal. On behalf of my Rangers and me, thank you, sir. We’ll never forget.”
My eyes seem to get moist and puffy. I squeeze Connie’s hand. Sanchez, on the other side of the room, is looking down at his sneakers.
I say, “It was our job, Staff Sergeant. And it was our honor as well.”
Quiet returns to the room, until I hear a cough, and a weak voice says, “How the hell do you expect me to sleep with all you guys yapping? Shut up, will you?”
Snap-quick, I turn, and there’s Connie, eyes open, her mouth working, stretching some in her bed.
Sanchez gets up and says, “I’ll go grab a nurse.”
Connie lightly squeezes my hand—and, like the tough cop she is, immediately asks, “Did we get her?”
“Yes,” I say.
“The Rangers okay?”
Staff Sergeant Jefferson is at the foot of her bed. “Yes, ma’am. Thanks to you and your folks, we’re all okay.”
Connie smiles, closes her bruised eyes. “That’s good.”
Sanchez comes back, saying, “Two nurses are right behind me, Major.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Sanchez says, “It’s going to get pretty crowded in here. It’s almost 1:00 p.m. You want to step out, get some lunch?”
I squeeze Connie’s hand once more and look at her, and then at the staff sergeant, who’s looking at me with something I’ve rarely seen from a combat soldier.
Respect.
“No,” I say, thinking of Connie and the Army. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Acknowledgments
Coauthor Brendan DuBois would like to thank the following for their assistance: US Army Lieutenant Colonel Brian Thiem (Ret.), former deputy commander, Third MP Group (Criminal Investigation Command); former captain Vincent O’Neil, company commander, First Battalion (Airborne), 508th Infantry Regiment; Colonel Keith Landry (Ret.), Airborne Ranger; First Sergeant Matt Eversmann (Ret.), Seventy-Fifth Army Ranger Regiment; Michael Davidson, former officer, Central Intelligence Agency; Laura Gray, director of public relations and communications, Memorial Health University Medical Center, Savannah; Kristin Fulford, public information officer, District Attorney’s Office of Chatham County, Georgia; and District Attorney Meg Daly Heap, Chatham County, Georgia.
Want more James Patterson?
See what’s coming next, win advance copies, and find deals.
The official James Patterson newsletter.
About the Authors
James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maxi
mum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. For his prodigious imagination and championship of literacy in America, Patterson was awarded the 2019 National Humanities Medal. The National Book Foundation presented him with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and nine Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.
Brendan DuBois is the award-winning author of 22 novels and more than 180 short stories, garnering him three Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America. He is also a Jeopardy! game show champion.
Coming Soon
1st Case
The Coast-to-Coast Murders
Three Women Disappear
Deadly Cross
The Russian
The Summer House Page 33
