The Simple Truth

by David Baldacci

  wrong.” Ramsey’s words truly irked her, since the chief justice had no problem overturning precedents of long standing when it suited him.

  Anderson said, “With all due respect, I think the military is better suited to handle this matter internally, Justice Knight.”

  “Mr. Anderson, do you dispute this court’s jurisdiction or authority to hear and decide this case?”

  “Of course not.”

  “This court has to determine whether serving your country in the military ironically carries the price of stripping away virtually all protections one has as a citizen.”

  “I wouldn’t phrase it quite that way.”

  “However, I would, Mr. Anderson. It’s really a question of justice.” She locked eyes with Ramsey. “And if we can’t deliver justice here, then I truly despair to think of where one could find it.”

  As Fiske listened to these impassioned words, he looked again at Sara. As though she somehow knew he was looking, she glanced at him.

  Fiske had the strong sense that she was thinking the same thing he was: Even if they somehow solved this whole mystery and the truth finally came out, would Rufus Harms ever really find justice?

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Josh Harms finished his sandwich and then idly smoked a cigarette as he watched his brother doze in the front seat of the truck. They were parked on an old logging road in a dense forest. Driving through the night, they had finally stopped because Josh could barely keep his eyes open, and he didn’t trust his brother to drive, since Rufus hadn’t been behind the wheel of a vehicle for almost thirty years. Besides, when they were on the road, Rufus, for obvious reasons, had to be in the back of the truck. Rufus had kept watch while his brother had dozed and now Josh had taken up the sentinel.

  They had talked during the drive about what they were going to do. Much to his own surprise, Josh found himself arguing that they shouldn’t go to Mexico.

  “What the hell’s going on with you? I didn’t think you’d want any part of that. You said you didn’t,” Rufus had said in wonderment.

  “I didn’t. But once we made up our mind — hell, once I made up my mind — then all I’m saying is we should stick to it. I don’t like being no wimp on shit like that. If you’re going to do something, then you should do it.”

  “Look, Josh, if Fiske hadn’t thought real fast, we’d both be dead right now. I don’t want you on my conscience.”

  “See, that’s where you ain’t thinking. Hell, it ain’t going to get any worse than it is. Why don’t we see what we can do to help it get better? You were right: They deserve what’s coming to ’em. Seeing those two boys at Rider’s office, I almost shot ’em down in cold blood, and I ain’t never done nothing like that in my whole life. Fiske and that woman, they stood up for us. Maybe they’re shooting straight.”

  Rufus had stared at him. “And you don’t have a problem with them?”

  “What the hell, you think I’m racist?” Josh had pulled out a cigarette as he said this, a grin lighting his face.

  “I can’t figure you out, Josh.”

  “You ain’t got to figure me out. I ain’t figured me out, and I’ve had a long time to do it. All you got to do is decide if you want to go to Mexico or you want to stick it out. And don’t worry about me. If there’s anybody that can take care of himself, then you’re looking at him.”

  That had done it, and as soon as his brother woke up, they were going to head back toward Virginia, hook up with Fiske and see what they could do. If it was proof that was needed, then they could get proof, somehow, some way, Josh believed. They had the truth on their side, and if that still didn’t count for something, then they might as well go ahead and get themselves shot up.

  Josh eyed the surrounding woods. The leaves had already started to turn here, and the way the sunlight cut and dipped through the foliage presented a pleasing combination of colors and textures. He often sat in the woods when hunting; he’d find an old log and rest his bones, taking in the simple beauty of the country, a marvel that didn’t cost you a dime. After coming back from Southeast Asia, he had avoided the woods for several years. In Vietnam, the trees, the dirt, everything around you meant death by some of the most ingenious methods the Vietnamese could devise. He checked his watch. Another ten minutes and they would have to be on their way.

  He looked back out the window and squinted as the sunlight reflected off something and hurt his eyes. He sucked in his next breath instead of letting it go, spit his cigarette out the window, started the engine and put the truck in gear.

  “What the hell,” Rufus said as he was jolted awake.

  “Get your gun and keep your damn head down,” Josh hollered at him. “It’s Tremaine.”

  Rufus gripped his pistol and ducked down.

  Tremaine charged from the woods and opened fire. The first shots from the machine gun hit the tailgate of the truck, blowing out one of the lights and riddling the frame with holes. A cone of dirt kicked up in the truck’s wake and momentarily blinded Tremaine, who stopped shooting and ran forward, trying desperately to get a clear field of fire on the truck.

  Sensing what Tremaine was trying to do, Josh cut the wheel to the left and the truck went off-road and onto what appeared to be the dry remains of a shallow creek bed. It was a good move for another reason, as Rayfield came flying down the road in the Jeep from the other direction, trying to box the truck in.

  Rayfield stopped to let Tremaine climb in and they went after the truck.

  “How in the hell did they catch up to us?” Rufus wondered aloud.

  “Ain’t no sense wasting time thinking about that. They’re here,” Josh shot back. He glanced in the rearview mirror and his eyes narrowed. The Jeep was more nimble and better built to maneuver through the woods than the bulky truck.

  “They’re going to shoot out the tires and then they got us like sitting ducks,” Rufus said.

  “Yeah, well, Vic should’ve shot those tires out first thing. That was his second mistake.”

  “What was his first?”

  “Letting the sunlight hit his binoculars. I saw that long before I spotted that little bastard.”

  “Let’s hope they keep making mistakes.”

  “We count on ourselves, and hope that’s enough.”

  Back in the Jeep, Tremaine hung out the side and fired his weapon. The machine gun wasn’t really worth a spit long-range, although in close quarters it could take out an entire platoon of men in a few seconds; he wanted just two. He slipped the machine gun strap off his shoulder and pulled out his sidearm.

  “Get as close as you can,” he barked to a very nervous-looking Rayfield. “If I can take out one of their tires, they’ll plow right into a tree and our problems are over.”

  Rufus looked back through the window in the camper and saw what Tremaine was attempting to do. He slid open the glass separating the cab from the interior of the camper and drew a bead on the Jeep. He had not touched a gun in almost thirty years, basic training with a rifle his last experience with a firearm. When he fired, the explosion pierced his ears, the truck’s cabin immediately full of the sickening fumes of burned metal, flashed powder. The bullet shattered the rear glass door of the camper shell and then flew at the Jeep like an angry, metal-jacketed hornet. Tremaine ducked back into his vehicle and the Jeep swerved a little.

  “Hit anything?” Josh asked.

  “Bought us a little time.” Rufus’s hand was shaking, and he rubbed at his ears. “I forgot how loud these things are.”

  “Try firing an M-16 for three years. They’re real loud, especially when they explode in your face. Hold on.”

  Josh cut the wheel to the right and then to the left to avoid several trees that had toppled across the creek bed. Beyond was a mass of scrub pines, oaks and brambles. With the Jeep closing in, Tremaine was again taking up his shooting position. Josh cut the truck to the right and through a narrow cleft in the trees and brush, leaves and slender branches slapping and tearing at the truck. But
the maneuver had its intended effect because Tremaine had to duck back inside the Jeep to avoid having his head torn off by a tree limb.

  The Jeep slowed down. The narrow lane ahead opened up a little, and Josh decided to take advantage, hoping Rayfield was losing a little of his nerve.

  “Hold the wheel,” he shouted to his brother.

  Rufus gripped the steering wheel hard, alternating between looking at his brother and eyeing where the truck was heading.

  Josh pulled his pistol and scanned the trees ahead. They were on a fairly level bit of ground now, so the truck didn’t rock as much. He gripped the pistol with both hands, doing his best to figure distance and speed, and then selected what he wanted: a thick oak branch high up on a forty-footer. The branch was at least twenty feet long and four inches thick, with other, smaller branches growing from it, and it hung directly over the narrow lane. What had drawn Josh’s attention was the fact that the branch was so long and heavy it had started to crack where it was attached to the trunk.

  Josh slid his arm out the window, kept it parallel to the truck, took aim and started firing. The first bullet hit the tree trunk directly above where the branch joined it. Having now gauged the trajectory, Josh continued to fire, and each bullet after that hit squarely at the juncture of branch and trunk as the truck hurtled closer. For him it wasn’t that extraordinary a display of marksmanship. As a game, he had been shooting at tree branches since he was old enough to carry a.22 rifle. Scaring coons and squirrels, having fun. Still, he had never attempted it in a moving vehicle with two men shooting at him.

  Rufus had to keep his eyes open to steer, but he scrunched up his face with each shot. His ears were ringing so loudly you could have shouted in his face and he would not have been able to hear you. The heavy branch dropped a couple of inches as its support weakened. Josh kept firing, as sprays of wood chips shot off the oak like steam from an old train engine.

  Tremaine saw what he was doing. “Gun it, gun it.”

  Rayfield hit the gas.

  Josh never took his eyes off the branch as he kept firing. It gave some more, and finally gravity took over and it cracked and swung down. A layer of bark clung to the tree, then the branch slapped hard against the trunk, broke free completely and started coming down. Josh slammed on the accelerator and took the steering wheel back, passing by the tree as he did so.

  “Go, go,” Tremaine screamed at Rayfield.

  However, Rayfield slammed on the brakes as about a thousand pounds of tree branch smashed into the middle of the narrow lane directly in front of them. Tremaine was almost thrown from the vehicle.

  “Dammit, why in the hell did you stop?” Tremaine looked ready to turn his pistol on the man.

  Rayfield was breathing very hard. “If I hadn’t, that damn thing would’ve crushed us. This Jeep doesn’t have a hard top, Vic.”

  Josh looked up ahead and then to the right where the path opened up some. He braked hard, swerved to the left, swung the truck around and then headed right and gunned the motor. The truck broke free from the brush, lifted a little off the ground as it went over a shallow gully, and landed in a clearing. Rufus’s head hit the top of the cab’s interior as the truck came back to earth.

  “Damn, what’re you doing?”

  “Just hold tight.”

  Josh slammed on the gas again and Rufus looked up in time to see the small shack ahead of them that his brother had spotted seconds before.

  Josh looked back and saw what he expected to see. Nothing. But it wouldn’t take Tremaine and Rayfield long to work the Jeep around the obstacle.

  Josh looked past the shack at an angle and could see the road that lay beyond it. He had been right. Where there was a shack in the woods, there usually was a road. He pulled the truck around onto the other side of the old structure. Both brothers’hearts sank. There was a road there, all right. But it had a large steel barricade blocking any passage. And on either side of the barricade were impenetrable woods. Josh looked back. They were trapped. Maybe he could hoof it, but Rufus wasn’t built for speed, and Josh wasn’t leaving his brother behind.

  Josh’s eyes narrowed again as he looked at the shack. The Jeep would be on them in another minute or so. Even now he could hear the machine gun efficiently tearing the tree limb apart so the Jeep could shove it aside.

  A minute later the Jeep scaled the gully and made its way to the clearing. Rayfield slowed down as they scanned ahead and immediately saw the shack.

  “Where’d they go?” he asked.

  Tremaine checked the area with his binoculars and spotted the road as it snaked off through the woods. “That way,” he shouted, pointing ahead.

  Rayfield hit the gas and the Jeep shot around the corner of the shack. Instantly both men saw that the road was blocked off and Rayfield slammed the Jeep to a stop. With a roar, the truck, which had been hidden on the far side of the shack, exploded forward and hit the vehicle broadside, knocking it over on its side and flinging Rayfield and Tremaine out.

  Rayfield landed on top of a pile of rotted stumps, his head at a vicious angle. He lay still.

  Tremaine took cover behind the overturned Jeep and opened fire, forcing Josh to back the truck up, his head below the dashboard. Finally the truck engine died, steam pouring out from the hood, the front tires flattened by the machine-gun fire.

  Josh came out the driver’s side while Rufus covered him. Josh lunged, dropped to his knees and rolled until he made it to the rear of the truck, and then he peered out. Tremaine hadn’t moved from his position. Josh could see the tip of the machine gun. Tremaine was probably putting in another clip just as Josh was doing, and taking a moment to study the tactical situation.

  Josh’s heart was pounding, and he rubbed at his eyes to clear the dirt and sweat away. He had been in many battles on both foreign and American soil, but the last one had been almost thirty years ago. Besides, it didn’t matter: Every time, you were terrified that you were going to die. When somebody was shooting at you, it didn’t exactly make you think more clearly. You reacted more than anything else.

  Josh had an edge, though. There were two of them and only one of Tremaine. Josh peered out once more and then sprinted from behind the truck and made it to the edge of the shack.

  “Rufus,” he hollered. “On the count of three.”

  “Start counting,” Rufus shouted back, tremors of fear in his voice.

  Three seconds later Josh opened fire on Tremaine, the bullets pinging off the Jeep’s frame. Rufus hustled to the back of the truck. He was stopped there, however, when Tremaine managed to fire a burst between the truck and the shack. The air smelled of gunfire, and of the sweat of frightened men.

  Josh and Rufus looked at each other, and then Josh cracked a smile, sensing the rising panic in his brother.

  “Hey, Vic,” Josh yelled out, “how ’bout you throw down that damn widowmaker and come on out with your hands up?”

  Tremaine responded by blowing a chunk of wood off the shack a little above Josh’s head.

  “Okay, okay, Vic, I hear you. Now, you be cool, you hear me, little buddy? Don’t you worry, we’ll bury you and Rayfield. Ain’t gonna leave you for the bears and shit to chew on. That’s bad shit. Animals eating dead bodies. You saw that in Nam, didn’t you, Vic? Or maybe you was running too fast the other way to see that.” While he was talking, Josh was motioning for Rufus to stay put and then pointing around the shack to show his brother what he was going to do.

  Rufus nodded to show he understood. Josh was going to try to flush the man into his brother’s field of vision and let Rufus cut him down. Rufus gripped his gun and slipped in a new clip, grateful that his brother had taken the time to show him how. He was having trouble breathing; his arms felt heavy holding the gun. He was afraid that he would not have the nerve, the killer instinct, much less the skill to shoot the man down, even if Tremaine came at him, firing with that damn machine gun. Rufus had fought many men in prison in order to survive — with his hands only, even though his oppon
ents had always been armed with a shiv or piece of pipe. But a gun was different. A gun could kill from a distance. But if he didn’t shoot, his brother would die. And for once he could not pray to God to help him. He could not speak to his Lord for assistance in killing another.

  In a half crouch, Josh made his way across the front of the shack, stopping at intervals to listen intently. Once he dared to raise his head up to one of the windows, in order to perhaps see through it and out the rear window to where the Jeep was, but the angle was wrong and his view was blocked. Josh was totally focused now. The fear was still there, it was very much there, but he had done his best to transform it into adrenaline, to heighten every sense he possessed. He pointed his pistol directly in front of him, knowing full well that if Tremaine had figured what his plan was, his best course of action would be to slip out from behind the Jeep and come around the shack the other way, with the result that he would meet Josh head-on somewhere in the middle. Machine gun against pistol, a hundred rounds to one, meaning Josh would die, and then so would Rufus.

  He moved forward another foot. Then he heard the machine gun open fire again and listened as the bullets tore into the pickup truck. He raced forward and rounded the corner. While Tremaine was busy firing at Rufus, Josh could outflank him and silence the sonofabitch once and for all.

  This plan vanished when he went around the corner, for Tremaine was standing there, his pistol pointed at Josh’s head. An astonished Josh stopped so abruptly that his feet slid in the gravel and his legs went out from under him. This was fortunate, since the bullet slammed into his shoulder instead of his brain. His momentum carried him forward and his legs clipped Tremaine’s, and they went down hard, both their pistols sailing out of reach.