The Summer House(14)

Or facing serious trouble stateside.

Save for him. His wife died two years back from ovarian cancer, and her daughter—his stepdaughter, Carol—is under the care of an aunt in Savannah and is mending at a treatment center in Hilton Head.

His team is lean and mean, just the way he wants it.

Tyler calls out, “Staff Sergeant Jefferson?”

“Right here,” he says.

“Everything…everything’s gonna be fine, right? You’re sure, right?”

Jefferson thinks of that old house with the filth inside and the yells and shouts, and he knows Tyler is scared. It’s one thing to fly hot into an LZ or to take fire from a tree line or to make a dynamic entry into some rock-and-dirt farmhouse over there in Afghanistan.

But this is here, this is CONUS, this is the blessed safety zone.

“Everything is going to be fine,” he says. “Don’t you worry none.”

Ruiz says, “Hey, Specialist?”

Tyler says, “Yeah, Ruiz, what is it?”

Ruiz swears in Spanish. “You second-guess the sergeant one more time, the first chance I get, I break your freakin’ nose.”





Chapter 11



SPECIAL AGENT MANUEL SANCHEZ is sitting next to Special Agent Connie York as she drives the rental Ford sedan down a bumpy dirt road, and Manuel is holding on to the door handle, trying very hard not to upchuck his morning breakfast of greasy sausage, eggs over easy, and grits. Grits! He has yet to figure out the attraction of grits—just a fancy name for mush. And beans for breakfast? Not here, not in this place.

At the entrance to this dirt road was a wrought-iron metal pole—pockmarked with rust—and dangling to the side was a very worn wooden sign with painted carved letters saying THE SUMMER HOUSE 1911.

In the rear of the sedan, Major Cook—sitting so his injured left leg is stretched out—says, “Connie, you can slow it down.”

“Sir, we’re running up against the clock. I think we’re almost—yep, there it is.”

Manuel knows what Connie means about the clock, because he’s been here in Georgia less than six hours, and after the rushed briefing before breakfast, he already feels like he and the rest of the squad are a day behind. Four Rangers in jail, seven civvies dead—including a two-year-old baby girl!—and pretty soon reporters will be dogging their every step.

Connie brakes the Ford to a halt and dust rises, then they all get out, Major Cook struggling for a few seconds with his cane. Connie and he pretend not to notice, though he enjoys noticing Connie. In the morning heat she’s discarded her black jacket, and the slacks are pretty tight around her curvy bottom, and the white blouse is clinging nicely to her torso.

But Manuel knows better than to look too much at his fellow special agent, because he’s still deeply in love with his wife, Conchita, back home in East LA with their three girls, a sweet little home in a relatively quiet neighborhood.

Besides, Connie is wearing her Army-issue SIG Sauer in a waist holster and is a better shot than he is.



As he and Connie wait for the major to join them, Manuel examines the old two-story house. At one time it was probably a destination to be proud of, a place to unwind from the city. Two wooden pillars at the front, black roof and black shutters, wide wooden door in the center. But the paint is faded, shingles are missing from the roof, and the pillars are cracked and sagging. There’s yellow-and-black crime-scene tape fluttering across the door, along with an official sheriff’s department adhesive seal pressed against the doorjamb.

Two pickup trucks are parked nearby, along with a Sentra whose trunk is being held closed by a length of frayed clothesline. A light-blue Volvo sedan with a Delta Air Lines parking sticker on the windshield is set some meters away, like the driver was concerned the run-down vehicles here would somehow infect it.

In every direction, except the dirt road they just came down, there’s nothing save brush and tall pine trees, though through the brush at the far end of the lot there looks to be a body of water. Manuel frowns. Too much emptiness, too many trees. He grew up in a crowded LA neighborhood, joined the Police Academy, and went over to the Army when the police department was shedding personnel to balance its budget, plus the Army at the time was promising a hefty enlistment bonus.

“Looks damn empty and quiet, Major,” he says.

“True,” Cook says. “Connie?”

She glances down the dirt road. “Odd. Only one real entry in and out. You come in for a hit, and you leave yourself open for trouble if a UPS truck or some lost soul comes down the road. It could block you, get people curious why you’re here.”

In the distance a dog barks.

“Let’s take a look around,” Cook says, and he leads the way, leaning heavily on his cane. Manuel and Connie follow.

It doesn’t take long. The perimeter is trashy, with discarded tires, rusty fifty-five-gallon drums, piles of lumber and chicken-coop wire, and sodden pizza boxes. Manuel wonders if the ghosts of the rich folks who built this place mourn the once-perfect yard. On the far side of the house one of the windows is open, and from another window a rusting air-conditioning unit is sagging on supporting two-by-fours, looking like it could fall at any moment.

One and then two helicopters roar overhead.

The other two windows on that side are closed, and so are the ground-floor windows on both sides. One of the windows is covered with plastic.