The Summer House(105)

“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.

“Chief!” I call out. “Hey, Chief! Are you okay?”

My eyes adjust better to the deepening darkness. A piece of metal broken from the helicopter’s frame has gone right through his neck and out the back.

Guilt hits me like a cold wave. The man is dead because of me, because I bribed him to take me on an unauthorized trip to see a CIA guy…and for nothing.

I tug again at my legs, grit my teeth in pain.

I roll to the left, see my rucksack. I strain and strain with my left arm, grab a strap, drag it over to me.

It takes a lot out of me.

I close my eyes, catch my breath.

At least the crackling of the circuitry is gone.

Maybe the damn thing won’t catch fire after all.

Something is digging into my right hip. I move around, take out my SIG Sauer.

Worthless for the moment.

I wonder what’s going on in Georgia. How the Rangers are doing. How that meeting with Connie and someone involved with the shooting went. Has she found out what I now know, that this whole mess began here in Afghanistan, when the Rangers stumbled across something they shouldn’t have witnessed?

I open my eyes, yank the top of my rucksack, manage to get it open.

I push my right hand in, dig around, a few items falling out.

There.

Got the Iridium satellite phone.

I breathe hard, bring it up, push the power button.

Nothing.

The small screen remains dark.

I push the button again and again.

The satellite phone is dead. I drop it, take up the SIG Sauer, put it into the open rucksack.

It’s almost completely dark, and a few stars appear overhead.

I think I hear voices.

I stop moving.

Damn, I’m not thinking anymore.

I am hearing voices.

Fear is digging right into my gut.

A memory comes to me, of the research I did before my first deployment to Afghanistan, and the books I read, including the poetry of Rudyard Kipling and his tales of British soldiers serving in India and Afghanistan.

A stanza comes right to my mind, about what a young British soldier should do if wounded on Afghanistan’s plains, and when the Afghan women came down at you with knives:

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.



I whisper, “But I’m no soldier. I’m just a goddamn cop.”

A wounded, trapped, and alone cop at that.

I try again to free my legs, but the pain digs in deep, like hidden knives are carving me up.

The voices grow louder.

I hear the approaching men, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.

Yet I know what they’re saying.

Here’s a shot-down American helicopter. Let’s see who’s alive.

A light comes on, illuminating the wreckage, the dead body of the chief, and then me.

That’s when I go to the rucksack, for one final, desperate gamble.





Chapter 99



CAPTAIN ALLEN PIERCE is waiting for the judge to come back from his unexpected break, wondering what he’s going to do next. A minute after the judge left—which was nearly a half hour ago, and definitely not fifteen minutes—there was a look exchanged between Sheriff Williams and Staff Sergeant Jefferson.

A look of hate from the Ranger; a look of satisfaction from the sheriff.

The Ranger is about to be sentenced for the seven homicides committed here just over a week ago—or as it’s called in this state, malice murder—and yet he’s staring at the sheriff. Not the judge, not the district attorney who’s representing the state.

What is going on here?

Huang whispers, “Allen, you’ve got to do something.”

Pierce whispers back, “Like what? Raise my hand? Throw myself on the mercy of the judge? Does he look like somebody who’s flexible enough to bend the rules and let an outsider lawyer interrupt?”

Pierce wants to say something else, but what’s the point? Seeing Staff Sergeant Jefferson sitting by himself, an African American defendant in this courtroom, at this time, with so many of the court audience being white. How many of Jefferson’s brothers and sisters—hell, Pierce’s own brothers and sisters—have been in a similar position? Facing alleged justice with a white judge and a nearly all-white group of residents?

He’s no bomb thrower and knows a lot of progress has been made, but seeing Jefferson up there just stirs old history and old memories in him. Seeing the relaxed nature of the attendees in the courtroom, enjoying the break to talk and gossip with their neighbors, Sheriff Williams even holding court with four locals who’ve come up to talk to her, strengthens those old memories. So many cases of black defendants being railroaded.

The staff sergeant looks back again to the smiling sheriff, sitting in all her glory.

Why is this Ranger allowing himself to be railroaded? Why is he doing this?

Huang’s voice comes back to him: You’ve got to do something.

A door opens up, and the court attendant calls out, “All rise!” as the judge slowly walks in and back up to the bench. The attendees stand up, and the judge gavels the session back into order.