The Summer House(98)
“Oh, they’re home all right,” Cellucci says. “But maybe they’re too busy to chat. Okay, Major, unsnap your straps, drop your crash helmet, get ready to hop out. I’ll be back in twenty.”
It feels like a cold fist has just punched my gut. “You’re not staying with me?”
He curses. “Are you nuts? How long do you think me and my Little Bird will last if I stay up there, like a goddamn fly on a tabletop? The muj will start dropping in mortar rounds in about ninety seconds.”
The rocky surface rushes up.
“Nope,” he goes on. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes to pick you up, head back to the FOB. Hope you can get your business done in that amount of time. You got a gold pass for one round trip, and that’s it.”
I tense up because at our rate of descent, my mind is screaming at me that we’re going to crash, but being the expert he is, Chief Cellucci works the controls and flares us up, the twin landing skids barely touching the ground.
He slaps me on the shoulder. “Go! Get the hell moving before I get a mortar round in my lap!”
I get the straps and buckles undone, reach behind me, get my rucksack, open the side door, and toss the rucksack out. I take off the borrowed crash helmet and shift and drop to the ground—making sure I land on my good leg—and I close my eyes and hold my breath as I’m engulfed in a whirling cloud of dust and kicked-up small rocks.
With a humming roar, the Little Bird lifts off and then dips into a ravine, until all I hear is the dimming noise of the engine. Then it pops back into view, and I spot Cellucci as he hugs the contours of the nearest ridge, waggling back and forth, like he finally wants to show off.
Fair enough.
I grab my rucksack and start toward the hidden bunkers of OP Conrad. I notice faded white PVC tubes stuck in the dirt—homemade urinals—and there is netting hanging up, and dirt berms, and HESCO barriers, made of metal webbing and about the size of large freezers, filled with rocks and dirt. There are antennas and satellite dishes, and one, then two, then four men emerge from a dirt entrance, like spelunkers coming up after being lost for a month.
“Hey,” I say.
The four men come closer, and now I understand why Cellucci couldn’t raise the outpost’s radio.
The four men are wiry, tall, bearded, and wearing the traditional sandals, cotton pants, sheepskin vests, and flat wool hats of Afghan villagers.
And fighters. All are carrying AK-47s, with belts and pouches around their skinny waists.
With horror, I realize that at some recent point the Taliban must have overrun this place. I drop my rucksack on the ground, hold out my hands—I have my service weapon holstered at my side, but going for it would be an instant death sentence—and I say, “Hey, does anyone—”
The closest one yells something I don’t understand and then hits me in the stomach with the butt of his AK-47.
Chapter 89
THE HEARING ROOM in the Sullivan County Superior Courthouse is packed, with not a single seat available along the two sets of four long wooden benches. Before the benches is a wooden bar with a swinging gate, and to the left is the juror’s box, which is empty. Captain Allen Pierce and Dr. John Huang are standing against a wall near the doors leading into the outer hall. Only by showing their CID badges and appealing to the patriotism of the courthouse attendants were they able to get in.
Huang says, “What a circus.”
Pierce doesn’t say a word, just takes it all in. Across from the empty jury box are two tables and sets of chairs. One table is occupied by District Attorney Cornelius Slate, sitting slumped in his chair. The other table and chairs are empty, and that’s where Pierce expects Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson to show up in a few minutes. At the other side of the enclosure is a witness booth, the raised bench for the judge—also empty—and another booth that looks to be occupied by an older African American woman, probably the court clerk. Two male uniformed court attendants stand by the judge’s bench.
Huang nudges him with an elbow. “Look. Over there. Do you see who has a prime seat?”
Pierce spots Sheriff Emma Williams sitting in the first row, with her campaign hat in her lap, and she’s laughing and whispering to everyone near her.
Huang says, “She looks happier than hell. Why is that?”
Sheriff Emma Williams checks her watch. In a few minutes that old fool Judge Howell Rollins will come in—hopefully not stumbling after his usual breakfast of two Bloody Marys—and get this show on the road.
She smiles as she takes in all of her people in the courtroom and doesn’t even break her smile at seeing those two sad-looking Army folks standing over there against the wall, like theatergoers who were promised orchestra seats and now are forced to stand throughout the show.
And what a show today promises to be. Behind this courthouse is the Sullivan County Jail, and that place is hers. Boyd Tolliver is in a two-person holding cell, and when that double-crossing piece of shit Staff Sergeant Jefferson pleads guilty and is sent back there, in preparation for being transferred to a state prison, well, the official story will be that he attacked this poor citizen out of rage, and said citizen had to defend himself.
The other two will be taken care of later, tonight or early tomorrow morning.
Of that she has no doubt.
And the woman CID agent who nearly got her head blown off, Williams heard late last night from a nurse at the hospital that she’s in a coma and probably won’t make it. She rubs at a healing scratch on her hand. Hell, even those two redneck clowns she put down a couple of days back near Hunter Army Airfield haven’t yet been reported missing.