The Summer House(99)

Then…Tuesday, Election Day, and the day after, she’ll start packing her bags.

Williams scans the room, seeing her people. Will Fletcher, who took out a loan from her four years back when his dump trucks needed repair and will be paying off the loan for another three years. Moss Gray, who refused to give her a cut of his ’shine business, and whose two sons are now doing time over in Georgia State Prison. Ray Cass, who illegally dumps waste oil and gasoline from his three service stations in the local state forest, and who is going to do a favor for the sheriff late tonight, by disabling the bay doors for the Ralston Volunteer Fire Department so they can’t respond when an electrical fire breaks out at the Ralston jail, incinerating the poor prisoners incarcerated there.

Just the two, of course, but that will be enough.

Williams catches the eye of the tired-looking Chinaman standing back there and gives him a little wave and a smile.



Huang nudges the JAG lawyer with his elbow. “Did you see that? Did you? She waved at us. A big smile and she waved at us.”

Pierce says. “Confident little witch, isn’t she?”

Huang whispers again, “You don’t understand.”

“Then clarify it, Doc. The games are about to begin.”

“The sheriff is more than just confident,” he says, recalling the look on her face. “She’s taunting us. She’s telling us that no matter what happens today, it’s all going to come out in her favor.”

Pierce says, “That’s news? Staff Sergeant Jefferson is pleading guilty.”

“No, it’s more than that,” Huang says, desperately trying to keep his voice low. “Remember our stay at the jail last night, when the jail attendant told us that she heard the DA had pissed off the sheriff by getting that guilty plea? That humiliated her. She’s not a woman to be humiliated.”

A door at the far end of the courtroom opens, and an older man with snow-white hair and wearing black robes slowly comes in.

The woman clerk calls, “All rise!”

Huang whispers, “Allen, I think she means to kill the staff sergeant.”





Chapter 90





Afghanistan




ONCE MY EYES adjust to the gloom of the bunker’s interior, I see five men of various ages and beard lengths staring at me, four of them sitting against a rough rock wall with AK-47s leaning against their knees. The one without an automatic rifle is minding a little gas stove that is heating up a kettle of water. A sixth one, who disarmed me earlier, is about to go through my rucksack.

Electric lamps illuminate the rough interior, and dirty gray blankets are hung in two places, probably leading into other portions of the observation post. Fly strips dangle from the ceiling, dead flies attached.

My breathing is starting to ease, my left leg actually doesn’t hurt as much as it should, and I’m leaning against a folded-up gray blanket.

The man with my rucksack opens the top, takes out a plastic bag, grunts, and holds up a fistful of Hershey chocolate bars.

The men laugh.

I say, “Go ahead, laugh. Bet you clowns have never tasted chocolate in your life.”

The man with the kettle pours the hot water into a teapot, gently stirs it. In perfect English he says, “Oh, you might be surprised.”

I stare at him.

“Care for a cup of tea, Major?”

I say, “Are you Kurtz?”

He carefully sets out small metal cups for the brewed tea. “Apparently so,” he says, smiling.



The chocolate bars were passed over to Kurtz, and my weapon and rucksack were returned to me. I now hold a filled cup in my hand but don’t take a sip.

“Hell of a welcoming committee,” I say. “What’s your problem?”

He shrugs. “No problem. I didn’t feel like having visitors today. That’s why I didn’t answer. In two weeks there’s a scheduled resupply drop…and your pilot wasn’t sending along the necessary code groups to let me know about an unscheduled visit.” He pours tea in other cups, and the men reach forward. “I figure, you get a bit roughed up, you’ll bring the message back to wherever you came from not to come up for some tourist visit.”

I say, “This isn’t a tourist visit.”

“Oh, my apologies,” he says. “Who are you, then, and why are you here?”

“Major Jeremiah Cook,” I say. “I’m with the Army CID.”

“Criminal investigations? Really? I’m afraid you have zero jurisdiction over me and my men.”

“It’s not involving your actions,” I say. “I’m investigating the arrest stateside of a Ranger squad that was under your temporary command. Headed by Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson, Alpha Company, Fourth Battalion.”

A slight smile through the beard. “Ah, yes, the famed Ninjas. Damn, they were good. I’d give them a house to raid, and I don’t know how they did it so well—concealment, taking their time, using distractions—but they could raid the house before the dogs even started barking. What happened to them stateside?”

I say, “Four of them were arrested for multiple homicides, killing seven civilians in a house.”

The cup is in midair. “That’s pretty screwed up. Do you think they did it?”