The Summer House(6)
The tone of his voice instantly changes. “A red ball case, down in Georgia. Seven civilians killed in a house in the town and county of Sullivan. Four Rangers from Hunter Army Airfield have been arrested and are currently in the custody of the county sheriff.”
“Oh, shit,” she says.
“Get down to Georgia, soon as you can. I’ve called out Pierce, Huang, and Sanchez, but you’ll be the first on the scene.”
“Yes, sir,” she says.
“And once you get there, arrange transport to Sullivan and get us accommodations with an extra room to use as a meeting area. You’re not going to talk to the county sheriff, the State Patrol, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or any news media.”
“Yes, sir,” she says again, biting off the words. “You want me to set up housekeeping, am I right?”
“Agent York,” he says, his voice just as sharp, “that’s right. And I’m trusting you, as my second-in-command, to do that job to the best of your abilities. Got it, York?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he says. “And among the civilian dead is a two-year-old girl. So enough with the pushback.”
“Oh, boss,” she says, “that’s horrible.”
“It’s bound to get worse,” he says. “See you in Georgia.”
Chapter 5
IT TOOK LESS than four hours to fly via Delta from Dulles to Savannah and its small, fifteen-gate airport—grandly named Savannah/Hilton Head International—and I was fortunate to have an aisle seat to stretch my leg. The long, brick terminal is topped by a glass atrium. Using a cane and rolling my black carry-on luggage, I walk past a number of potted tropical trees in the few minutes it takes to get outside.
It’s just past 5:00 p.m., with less than two hours of daylight left, and I’m planning to use as much of that time as possible. It’s muggy warm—low eighties, it seems—and I spot among the coach buses and other vehicles trundling through the ground transportation area Special Agent Connie York standing next to a parked silver Ford Fusion, the rental vehicle of choice for government travelers.
She has on a simple black suit-jacket-and-slacks outfit, with a plain white buttoned blouse, and I have a quick, inappropriate observation that I’ve never seen her in a dress. That’s the atavistic, chauvinist part of me, which thankfully is almost always overruled by the competent leadership part of me that recognizes her skills as a CID investigator.
Besides, I’m also plainly dressed in one of my two black suits, and like her, I’m armed with a 9mm SIG Sauer P228 pistol.
Connie pops open the trunk, respectfully allowing me to pick up and toss in my luggage.
“How many history books do you have packed in there, boss?” she asks, slamming the lid shut.
“Just enough,” I say. “Barely.”
She steps to the driver’s door, and as I enter the pleasant, clean, and cool passenger side of the car, I struggle for only a moment, fastening the seat belt without it tangling around my cane.
Connie accelerates from the concrete parking area into a flat landscape dotted with trees and mowed grass, and she says, “How was your flight?”
“On time.”
“And how’s your leg doing?”
“Still connected to my hip, still hurting like a son of bitch,” I say. “What quarters did you get for us?”
We’re out of the airport proper and on I-95, heading south, and Connie says, “The best the town of Sullivan has to offer. The Route 119 Motel and Coffee Shop. Less than an hour out. We have three rooms plus a room to use for work.”
“Good job,” I say. “What else do you know?”
She speeds up the Ford. “You told me to set up the unit’s housekeeping. That’s what I did.”
“And I know you did more,” I say. “Give.”
The traffic on the interstate is moving fast and freely, and suddenly I’m back in my convoy roaring through the desert. Mouth dry, I scan for slow-moving trucks or cars, or clusters of men standing at the side of the road, looking for a particular man who holds a cell phone programmed to trigger a bomb.
I chew my tongue, try to get the saliva working. Georgia, I tell myself. We’re in Georgia. We’re not in bandit country. We’re in the Peach State, so relax already. We’re not in Afghanistan. We’re never going back to Afghanistan.
“The story’s now made all the papers, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Savannah Morning News to the local Sullivan County Times, but no television coverage yet, though that will change,” she says. “The initial reporting just has four Army personnel in custody, with no mention of their Ranger affiliation or the number of civilians murdered. But once the news gets out about who they are, who they killed, the headlines and coverage will go berserk.”
A low bank of thunderclouds is off to the south. I see two flashes of lightning illuminate the gray-black of the clouds. Connie’s thick blond hair, trimmed short, seems to be wilting after a day in the humid Georgia air.
“Where are the Rangers now?”
“They’re being held in the town of Ralston, just south of Sullivan. The county sheriff arrested them late last night, at a roadhouse in that town, and took the four of them to the nearest jail.”