The Summer House
- Автор: Паттерсон Джеймс, Дюбуа Брендан
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-53955-5
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Summer House». Краткое содержание книги:
To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate. But the major and his elite team arrive in sweltering Georgia with no idea their grim jobs will be made exponentially more challenging by local law enforcement, who resists the Army’s intrusion and stonewall them at every turn.
As Cook and his squad struggle to uncover the truth behind the condemning evidence, the pieces just won’t fit — and forces are rallying to make certain damning secrets die alongside the victims in the murder house. With his own people in the cross-hairs, Cook takes a desperate gamble to find answers — even if it means returning to a hell of his own worst nightmares...
It’s near noon local time, and in the distance two twin-rotor Chinook helicopters are taking off. I find it hard to catch my breath because of the thin air, but the bulky and armed Rangers move like they’re college boys on spring break, relaxed and strong. I fade in and out, and there’s talking, more soldiers around, and we pause outside a hangar. I want to ask what’s happening, and the sergeant returns to me and says, “We’ve got an open window of about ten minutes, Major, before somebody official comes over to check us in. Where can we take you?”
“Putnam,” I say. “Putnam Road.”
He strides away with confidence, and I take in the sheer size and noise of Bagram, then the other two Rangers flank me, holding me up, and a minute or two pass before I’m bundled into an unarmored Humvee, and we drive away.
Eventually we’re traveling down Baskin Road, and there’s traffic going back and forth, and civilian workers walking by, wearing orange reflective vests, lanyards holding their identification, bouncing around their necks.
I’m in the rear with one of the Rangers who’s been holding me up, and he says, “Can you believe this damn place has a Pizza Hut? Can you believe that?”
The Humvee comes to a halt at the intersection of Baskin and Putnam. The sergeant turns away from the steering wheel and says, “End of the line, Major. We need to get our asses back ’fore we get in the shits. Good luck, sir.”
Some hustle and bustle, and now I’m alone at this dusty intersection, my heavy rucksack on my aching back, cane in my hand, and my breathing is still labored as I turn and limp my way down Putnam Road.
As I move along the narrow road, past tan-colored ribbed cargo containers, squat concrete one- or two-story buildings, blast walls, and utility poles, I run through my mind what I’m going to say, and how I’m going to say it, when I arrive at the CID office.
Two heavyset bearded contractors walk past me, nodding, and both have sympathy in their eyes at seeing me struggle along. Probably think I’m one dedicated trooper, sticking to his job, and I know that’s not true. Months ago I left this place and attempted to put everything away in a box and on a shelf, but the smells and the wind and the constant noise of generators and aircraft taking off and landing are bringing it all back.
I even remember the last time I was here in Bagram, working with local MPs, an FBI agent, and two women investigators from SIGAR, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, as we arrested two National Guard engineers from Alaska who were faking invoices and work orders so they could sell fuel oil to local Afghan merchants.
A long time ago, a simple crime. I don’t know if I’ll ever again recognize a simple crime.
Up ahead now. To the CID office and maybe I can get some coffee, something to eat, as I try to convince them to get me from here to the village of Pendahar.
I stop.
The familiar tan-colored concrete cube of a building is right where I remember it, but there’s been a change.
The metal front door is padlocked shut. The two small windows have metal shutters drawn down. The colorful sign marking the CID presence is gone, leaving just four empty bolt holes in the concrete.
Damn it!
A male voice speaks up behind me. “Sir? Is that you, Major Cook?”
I pretend not to hear the inquiring voice and do my best to quickly limp down a side alley.
“Sir,” another voice barks out. “You need to come with us.”
I grit my teeth, increase my walking speed.
It’s all I can do.
Chapter 66
Across from Special Agent Connie York, Peggy Reese says, “There. You made me talk. Proud of yourself? Just remember. You can do your job and then leave, and we few innocents will be around to face whatever wrath will rise up.”
“I’m glad you said what you said,” York says. “But I’m surprised that—”
“Surprised? I thought an Army investigator like you wouldn’t be shocked by nearly anything.”
“You’d be wrong,” she says. “It’s just that in these times, I can’t see how—”
“You can’t see how a woman like her could get away with it?” Peggy asks, scratching the chin of one of her cats, her voice harsh. “There’s 159 counties in the great state of Georgia. What, you think all of them are run on the straight and narrow? You don’t think there are opportunities for graft and corruption?”
“But your newspaper, I mean—”
Peggy says, “My newspaper is owned by Tyron Bogart, an old fogy who believes in one thing and one thing only: the bottom line. A good chunk of the paper’s advertising comes from the county: printing legal notices, court settlements, stuff like that. His printing plant also prints up county documents. How long would the paper last if the county pulled its business? And if the county pressed on other advertisers to do the same if he ran stories that he should?”
“The internet—”
“Sure,” she says. “When I’ve had bouts of bravery here and there, I’ve tried contacting other news organizations, from the Journal-Constitution to USA Today to every TV station that broadcasts in Sullivan County. No dice. Haven’t you read the news, Agent York? Newspapers and real reporting are dying. Nobody cares anymore about local news. It’s all scandal, all the time, whether from DC or Hollywood. Meanwhile, Sheriff Williams builds her little empire and staffs it, and only a few care, and those few keep their heads down. Otherwise they get pulled over for going a mile over the speed limit or their construction permits get turned down or their electricity gets shut off for no good reason at all.”
York feels like she’s been dropped into one of those old black-and-white movies with the cliché of the corrupt Southern sheriff running a criminal enterprise, and she quickly remembers that every cliché has a basis of truth.
“How can she do it alone?”
Peggy sighs. “She doesn’t do it alone. Haven’t you noticed her big manly deputy sheriffs? She recruited them carefully and—”
It snaps to for York, how she thought she knew the deputies from somewhere before.
“The military,” Connie says. “They’re all from the military.”
“Half right,” Peggy says. “Her deputies are all ex-military, but not the ones who’ve served and been honorably discharged. No, she picks up those who’ve been quietly separated by something called a failure to adapt discharge.”
York says, “Enlistees who can’t make it through the first six months, even if they’ve gone through their training and been deployed overseas. They can’t, or won’t, adapt to military life. They have discipline problems, mental problems — situations like that. They’re discharged... not a dishonorable discharge, but something close to it.”
“You’ve got it right, Agent York,” she says. “Sheriff Williams picks up those fellows who have Rambo fantasies. When she gets them, they’re upset, disappointed, ashamed. And the good sheriff offers them a gun, a uniform, and a good job, respect and all that. She pays them well above the going rate, from her cut of the various criminal enterprises that go on in the county. These losers get a second chance. And they will do anything for her. Anything.”
Anything, York thinks. Anything.
“But how can she do that? How does she know how and where to get these soldiers?”