“The Rangers broke in and stopped him?”
“Yes.”
God.
Then it comes to me, like a series of lightning flashes in the distant sky, remembering a man, with a woman, at a campaign rally, expressing his support of the troops and how he had visited them on the battleground.
Chapter 93
STAFF SERGEANT CALEB JEFFERSON is in a familiar place, standing at attention in front of a supposed superior. Even with his hands cuffed in front of him, he’s still maintaining his military bearing. The judge is an old man who looks like he keeps photos of his grandpappy in Klan robes in a secret drawer in his desk, but he starts off the process by reading some official paperwork, and the droning goes on and on.
Jefferson looks around the courtroom, crowded with reporters, locals, law enforcement, and, standing up against the wall, the Army doc and lawyer back there, looking tired and discouraged. Poor guys. They thought they could help him and his men. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen.
He—Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson, Second Platoon, Alpha Company, Fourth Battalion—is going to take care of his men.
Jefferson spots Sheriff Emma Williams sitting in the front row, arms folded, looking pretty damn pleased with herself.
Same look as a week ago.
Chapter 94
Afghanistan
THE MEMORY FROM that time at the campaign rally back in Sullivan is fresh in my mind, and I say, “The American was a congressman, from Georgia.”
Kurtz grins. “He was.”
“And he was being escorted by a woman public affairs officer. From the Georgia National Guard.”
A happy nod. “Damn, you are a good investigator, Major Cook.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened? The Rangers weren’t officially there, nothing officially happened, and to make sure I kept quiet, that woman made some calls, pulled a few strings, and here I am.”
A thump shakes the little bunker, and dust falls from the overhead rocks.
“Ah, shit,” Kurtz says. “Looks like the muj want to let us know they’re around.”
Another, closer thump.
I turn. “Mortars?”
“The same,” he says. “Excuse me. I’ve got to get to work.”
“But—”
“Sorry, pal, you’re our guest for the foreseeable future.”
He snaps out a series of orders in Pashto, the men grab their AK-47s, and Kurtz stands up, pulling aside a nearby blanket. “Come along, Major. We’re going to wait this one out.”
The men rush past me as I look at Kurtz, then grab my rucksack and head outside.
Kurtz yells but doesn’t follow me as I go after his men, who are moving under the netting, taking up binoculars and grid maps, looking out, two of them talking quickly on handheld radios, probably trying to reach their observers out there among the rocky peaks.
The sun is setting.
I check my watch.
I’ve been here nineteen minutes.
Where is Chief Cellucci? Where’s his Little Bird helicopter?
Twenty minutes.
Twenty-one minutes.
The Night Stalkers pride themselves in arriving on time at a mission, give or take thirty seconds. I have the information to free the Rangers back in Georgia—Kurtz’s statement combined with my eventual recovery of travel records and manifests to show Representative Conover and Sheriff Williams were here in Pendahar—and I’m stuck here on a rock in a mountain wilderness, with men out there trying to kill me.
Twenty-two minutes.
Is Cellucci still out there? Was he called to another mission? Is my watch wrong?
A louder, closer mortar explosion tosses up dust and rock fragments, and knocks me down.
Chapter 95
ALMOST A WEEK AGO, Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson’s chest hurt, his arms hurt, and his eyes were sore from the pepper spray used during his arrest at the roadhouse. He and his guys had been unwinding there two nights after tuning up that drug-dealing creep who nearly killed his stepdaughter.
Even his wrists bled from where the metal cuffs dug in.
Across from his cell in the Ralston jail, seated before him, was the county sheriff, whom he immediately recognized. The last time she had been in an Army uniform, outside Pendahar in Afghanistan, screaming and slapping a naked congressman in a ratty hovel with two Afghan businessmen in Western suits looking on in amusement.
“Well,” she said, “here’s the situation, Staff Sergeant.”
“Go on,” he said.
“You and your boys saw something you shouldn’t have seen, back in Afghanistan. You saw a good man falling to temptation. A man who will do great things for this nation. And a man who will become senator in under two weeks.”
“Some man,” he said.
She said, “All great men have their faults. FDR, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr.…yet they did great things for their nation. As the congressman will do when he gets back to Washington, as a senator this time.”
Jefferson stayed silent. He knew where this was going.
“But here’s the situation,” Williams said. “How do I keep you and your three boys quiet about what you thought you heard and saw back in Afghanistan?”
“I’m certain about what I saw and heard,” he said. “As are my men.”
A slight toss of the shoulders. “Not going to debate that. Which goes back to my original problem: keeping you quiet. Which is why you’re here. You see, we know what you and the other Rangers did at The Summer House, you beating up Stuart Pike. Maybe that could have been enough to keep you quiet, me holding that over your heads. But I doubted it. So later…well, bad things happen to bad people.”
Jefferson clenched his fists. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Bad things,” she said. “Gunmen later went in there and killed everybody in that home. There’s forensic evidence and witnesses placing you four Rangers at the scene. You’re all under arrest. You’re here until I say otherwise. And you’ll stay here until the Wednesday after the election, and then…oops! You’ll get released. Faulty evidence and all that. Then you’ll keep your mouths shut…forever. Because, Staff Sergeant, there’s no statute of limitations for murder. And it’s amazing what new evidence can pop up at the right time.”
Jefferson gave her one good hard stare, and she returned the favor. He said, “I get a phone call. I get a lawyer. I tell him or her everything you just told me here. How’s that for evidence?”
Then, like a sniper shot coming from nowhere, hitting him right in the center of his ballistic plating, taking his breath away, the sheriff said, “And how’s your lovely stepdaughter doing. Carol, right? Carol Crosby?”
Jefferson couldn’t talk.
“She’s at the Damon Harbor Rehabilitation Facility, isn’t she? Over in Hilton Head. Second floor. Her day nurse is Sonny Law, her night nurse is Kim Christo. Damn close thing it was, her nearly getting killed.”
The sheriff scooted her metal chair up closer to the bars. “You damn idiot, how do you think that Pike fella got that fentanyl to your stepdaughter? Huh? By accident?”
He closed his eyes. He wanted to break down this cell door and kill this smug sheriff sitting in front of him.
But that wasn’t possible.
“All right,” he said. “My mouth is shut. The same for my guys.”
“Then you get free that Wednesday morning, and your mouths stay shut.”
Jefferson said, “All right. Me and my three guys…that’s what we’ll do.”
The sheriff grinned, slapped her hands together in satisfaction, stood up. “Wonderful. Hey, no hard feelings, all right, Staff Sergeant? You and your Rangers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He said, “Sheriff, that’s our damn job description.”
Jefferson snaps to, keeping an eye on the judge, feeling the eyes of the sheriff nearly bore a hole into his unprotected back. So what? With Vinny Tyler dead, the deal has changed. It’
s on him, and only him. His guys go free, and he’ll keep his mouth shut. And right now, he’s sure Major Frank Moore has kept his promise of working with his aunt Sophie to move his stepdaughter, Carol, to another, safer facility.
Jefferson will do anything and everything to protect his remaining guys and Carol.
A dark, deep memory, of his dying wife, Melissa, her whispering, You protect my girl, Caleb Jefferson. You do that.
“Staff Sergeant Jefferson?”
“Sir?” he asks.
The judge says, “Before we proceed, I just want to ensure that you are here of your own free will, that you have decided to waive counsel, and that you plan to represent yourself. Is that correct, Staff Sergeant Jefferson?”
He says the words with force and certainty. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“All right,” the judge says. “We will proceed.”
Chapter 96
Afghanistan
I GET UP, coughing, touch my forehead, pull away my hand, and see bloody fingers. My ears are ringing. The men are shouting. Smoke and clouds of dust are drifting away. Two more explosions—thump, thump—hit the other side of this peak, the ground shaking from the impacts.
I scramble up, cough some more, find my rucksack.
A heavy, thrumming noise bursts out, like a high-speed M134 Minigun, its rotating barrel shooting out thousands of rounds every minute, and I duck and scramble across the rocky surface, thinking, When in the hell did the Taliban get that weapon? as a black Little Bird helicopter roars up into view from a deep ravine, circles, and then flares down to a landing, its engine sounding just like a weapon.
I grab my rucksack, lower my bleeding head, and run as fast and as best as I can to the churning little aircraft that represents my way out of here, my way to get the Rangers free. Dust and gravel roar around me, and the passenger door opens up. Chief Cellucci is leaning across the empty seat. I can’t hear what he’s yelling, but I’m sure it’s Move, move, move!
Unlike before, I have no difficulty getting into the Little Bird. I toss my rucksack into the rear, get into the seat, grab the crash helmet. The next few seconds are a crazed blur as Cellucci lifts the helicopter before I can even get the seat belt and harness fastened. The Little Bird seems to fly up just a score of meters or so, Cellucci wrestling with the controls, before it dives fast and to the right, dipping into the ravine.
I clench my teeth, trying hard not to vomit. The helicopter bounces up and down as we skim over another wide peak, and I get my seat belt and harness fastened, cinching it as tight as possible.
It takes two good tries to get the helmet on, and I fumble with the communications gear before Cellucci’s voice comes through loud and clear.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asks.
“Yes.”
Cellucci swears, hops us up over another rocky ridge. “Good. Because they’re about to get hammered. Saw lots of movement heading their way.”
I say, “How long before we get back to the FOB?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes if I push it,” Cellucci says.
“Push it,” I say. “Can you raise the Ranger detachment there? Major West?”
“I’ll see—”
A flare of light just ahead of us.
Tracer rounds come from a heavy machine gun set in the rocks before us, reaching up and up, wanting to touch us and—
Cellucci swears.
Powers us to the left.
We dive, desperately trying to get ahead of the tracer rounds.
The ground is so close it looks like it can reach up and slap us hard.
Instead the bullets get to us first.
It sounds like a sledgehammer is pounding the metal.
Alarms start sounding from the instrument panel.
Flashing red lights.
Cellucci says, “Brace for—”
We hit, bounce.
Upside down.
Hit again.
Go dark.
Chapter 97
SITTING COMFORTABLY ON the crowded bench in the Sullivan County courtroom, Sheriff Emma Williams doesn’t mind being closed in. She feels like she’s in some sort of religious ceremony, where the powers of right—meaning her, of course—are about to get their due.
The courtroom is as it should be, even with that bitch Peggy Reese of the Sullivan County Times sitting on the other set of benches, quickly scribbling in her reporter’s notebook, as if she’ll be the one to scoop all the media rivals on this. For years Williams has ignored the woman, being just a little irritant in her day-to-day business, but once she gets to DC, she’ll send word to her deputy, Clark Lindsay, that this situation needs to be resolved.
Earlier today she received a text from a detective at the Savannah Police Department, saying that her poor deputy Dwight Dix had been shot yesterday in an apparent robbery at a Waffle House near Savannah, and could she give him a call when she’s free?
Yeah, she thinks. Tomorrow, considering how her day is going.
Before her, Judge Howell Rollins continues his droning, pausing every now and then for a heavy cough.
“…in the name of and on behalf of the citizens of the State of Georgia, charge and accuse Caleb Jefferson with the offense of malice murder, for that the said Caleb Jefferson, in the County of Sullivan and the State of Georgia, on or about the twenty-first of October, did unlawfully, with malice aforethought, cause the death of Stuart Pike, a human being, by shooting Stuart Pike with a handgun, contrary to the laws of the State of Georgia, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.” The judge coughs. “Mr. Jefferson, how do you plead to this charge?”
Williams takes another look around at the quiet spectators, and then she hears the staff sergeant say in that strong voice, “Guilty.”
How confident.
Time to shake that arrogant man’s confidence.
“…on or about the twenty-first of October, did unlawfully, with malice aforethought, cause the death of Lillian Zachary, a human being…”
More blah, blah, blah from that alcoholic judge, and then again, Jefferson’s voice: “Guilty.”
From her pants pocket, she takes out a newspaper clipping from yesterday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Waits.
“…on or about the twenty-first of October, did unlawfully, with malice aforethought, cause the death of Polly Zachary, a human being…”
At the mention of the little girl, more sighs and muttered voices from the courtroom attendees, and when the noise settles down, Jefferson doesn’t hesitate at all.
“Guilty,” he says.
The last name.
She waits for Judge Howell Rollins to make the final arrangements, gavel everything to a conclusion, so that Jefferson will be taken into her county jail, when he shakes his head, wipes at his lips, and says, “Fifteen-minute recess.”
He slaps the gavel down and stands up from the bench, and the courtroom attendant calls out, “All rise!”
Williams can’t help herself—she turns to the woman standing next to her and whispers loudly, “Looks like the judge needs a rise, too,” and there’s laughter.
The judge’s face flushes in embarrassment. He probably heard what Williams just said, but so what? This is her county, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and next week—forever.
When the judge leaves and everyone sits down, she catches the attention of Cornelius Slate, the district attorney, and beckons him over.
He walks to her, puzzled, and she leans over the court railing, hands him the newspaper clipping.
“Here,” she says. “Take this to Staff Sergeant Jefferson.”
Slate looks at the newspaper clipping. “Why?”
“Because I said so,” she says. “Get a move on, Corny, before the judge comes back.”
Like a good boy, Slate walks over to the Army Ranger, puts the newspaper clipping on the table, and walks back to his chair.
Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson glances at the newsprint, and it’s like he’s just been transported from this safe Ge
orgia courtroom to an FOB in the ’stan, guys yelling, They’re coming through the wire!
The same feeling of danger, of impending death, a dizzying feeling that the safety of one minute ago is gone forever.
The headline reads:
Body of Murdered Ranger Officer Recovered
There’s a small photo of Major Frank Moore, and he doesn’t bother reading the story.
Moore is dead.
The man who was going to protect his stepdaughter, Carol.
He turns in his seat and sees the happy, smiling face of Sheriff Williams looking at him, and if it weren’t for the armed men in this room, he would leap over the railing and strangle her with his handcuffed hands.
Chapter 98
Afghanistan
I COME TO, resting on my side on a bunch of sharp rocks. What a goddamn mess. I turn and grind my teeth at the pain. The crumpled metal and broken glass and torn cables from what was once a multimillion-dollar and gorgeous flying machine lay all around me. All I see is the destroyed Little Bird and lots of rocks.
My legs are stuck.
I gingerly move them.
Both hurt like hell, as well as my left hip.
I cough. Blood in my mouth.
“Hey, Chief,” I call out. “You there, Chief?”
I hear the sound of the wind and the snap-crackle of electric circuitry shorting out somewhere.
Nothing else.
I smell spilled aviation fuel, and the memory of being trapped in that shattered Humvee and seeing the flames approach my trapped legs makes me start shaking.
“Not again,” I whisper. “Please, God, not again.”
There’s a glow of something still working in the shattered instrument panel, and as my eyes adjust, I see the slumped form of Chief Cellucci, still fastened in his seat, dangling upside down, his arms free.
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