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...
“I was hoping I could talk to you,” I say. “In private.”
His grin doesn’t waver. “Mind if I ask why? Sir?”
I take out my identification, display it for him. “I’m with the CID. Does that answer your question?”
As one, his three breakfast mates go, “Ooooh, the Looch is in trouble, the Looch is in trouble,” and he says something profane to them. They pick up their coffee and plates and leave us alone as I sit down across from him.
“Do I need representation?” he asks. “You looking to jam me up?”
“No, not at all,” I say, smelling the sausages and pancakes still before him, my stomach grumbling from not quite remembering the last time I ate.
“Then what’s this about?” he asks. His smile is still there, but there’s wariness behind those sharp brown eyes.
“I need transport,” I say.
He says, “This is a hell of a way to make a request. You got the paperwork, push it through channels.”
“I don’t have any paperwork.”
That takes him aback, and he laughs. “What, you think me and the guys here are flying a taxi service, Major? Where are you looking to go?”
“Observation Post Conrad,” I say. “It’s up in the nearest mountain range. That’s all I know.”
He stares at me and starts laughing again. “OP Conrad? For real? Why not Mars while you’re at it?”
“Remote, then?”
He shakes his head, takes off his Yankees cap, scratches at his nearly bald head. “Yeah, remote as hell, and the place is legendary. And not in a good way. There’s one American up there, a guy named—”
“Kurtz,” I interrupt.
The cap goes back on. “That’s right, Kurtz. Like Brando in that Vietnam movie. Far away from whatever passes for civilization, he’s up there with a group of Pashtun tribesmen who are loyal to him and their tribe, and nothing else.”
“What do they do up there?”
“Whatever the hell they want,” he says. “Why do you need to see him?”
“I need to talk to him about an investigation I’m conducting.”
“Go through channels, get the paperwork. Hell, I wouldn’t mind taking a trip up there. That’s some ass-puckering flying.”
“I don’t have time,” I say. “I need to talk to him today.”
Another shake of his head. “You think you can get Kurtz to answer your questions? You know he’s Agency, right? Won’t talk to anyone... unless you have a fistful of Hershey bars.” Cellucci notices my confused expression and repeats himself. “Yeah. Hershey bars. And not the ones with the almonds. One guy who went up there six months ago for a supply run — even a scheduled one — told me he couldn’t even drop his load until Kurtz got his Hershey bars. Tell me, Major, you got some Hershey bars in your ruck?”
“No.”
“Then we’re just wasting each other’s time. Sorry, Major. Wish I could help.”
He starts to get up from the picnic table, and I say, “Brooklyn?”
Cellucci says, “Nope. Queens, through and through.”
“My bad,” I say. “I’m from Staten Island.”
He gathers up his trash. “No kidding. How did you end up in CID?”
“NYPD,” I say. “Detective second class, Midtown South. I was in the Reserves and decided to stick around after I got injured from an IED.”
“Well, good for you. Bet some days you wish you stayed home.”
I nod. “Some days.”
“Sorry, gotta run, Major.”
One last chance. “Get out of jail free card.”
He pauses as he puts a crumpled brown paper napkin on his plate. “What?”
I say, “You get me up there to see Kurtz, I’ll make it so that you don’t get another speeding ticket, parking ticket, or any other motor vehicle violation. For a year, starting when you get back home.”
That gets his attention. “You got that kind of pull?”
Probably not, I think. “I’m serious.”
“I can tell,” he says. “Man, you must really want to go up there bad.”
“I do.”
He crumples everything up in his two strong hands. “Major... sorry. No can do. That’s way out-of-bounds, and you know it.”
Cellucci goes to a rusty fifty-five-gallon metal drum near a set of weights, drops in his trash, and I rub at my face and turn, just as two soldiers come in from the other side, wearing Military Police brassards on their left arms.
Looking for me, I’m sure.
Chapter 84
Afghanistan
As casually as I can, I get up from the picnic table, leaving my cane behind — too blatant a sign of who I am — and I follow Cellucci and two other warrant officers as they walk back into the nearest building. The three of them are laughing and joking, and don’t notice me following them, and I hope the two MPs on the other side of the compound are doing the same thing.
They pass through a swinging plywood door, and I’m in a ready room, with couches, chairs, large-scale maps pinned up on the wall, flags from various states, and pennants from every type of sports team imaginable. Some Night Stalkers are seated, thumbing through magazines or playing with handheld video games.
Where to go?
Anywhere, I think, anywhere away from that door the MPs will eventually come through.
Once they get to me, check my ID, it’s done. Over.
And what’s going on back in Georgia?
Five times since I left Bagram I called Connie on my Iridium, and five times there was no answer. Once or twice I could believe it was due to some satellite problem or solar flare interference, but not five times.
I don’t like it, knowing she’s back there, riding herd on my crew, with a hostile and criminal county sheriff keeping an eye on everything, and her going to a meeting with a guy who says he knows the truth about the massacre.
I go down a narrow corridor with a concrete floor, more plywood doors and cubicles on it, and the smell is of aviation fuel, sweat, and ill-washed clothes. This smell is also called FAN, for feet, ass, and nuts.
The corridor opens into an operations center with computer screens, communications equipment — radios, secure telephones — and more maps and photographs up on the walls.
Boy, I really don’t belong here.
An officer with a colonel’s rank starts to get up and say something, and I turn around and take three quick steps, nearly knocking down Chief Warrant Officer Carmine Cellucci, who’s carrying a tan plastic bag in his right hand.
He laughs. “Hey, Major, there’re two MPs out there looking for a Major Cook who’s using a cane. What a coincidence, huh?”
I say, “You see me with a cane?”
“Ah, no, but the MPs will probably go beyond just that,” he says. “By the way, two years.”
“What?”
He takes my upper arm, starts leading me away from the inquisitive colonel back in the operations center. “You give me what you promised back there, except it’s for two years, not one.”
“Deal.”
“And it includes my girlfriend.”
“You’re pushing it, Cellucci.”
He stops, opens the plastic bag, and lets me look inside. A pile of Hershey’s chocolate bars, in their familiar dark-brown packages with gray lettering. “You need to pay to get in.”
I don’t hesitate. “Your girlfriend, too.”
He closes up the bag. “Good,” he says. “Just don’t tell the wife. C’mon.”
“But orders,” I say. “Paperwork. What changed?”
“Oh, a sweet coincidence,” he says. “One of the Little Birds in my company just finished a maintenance cycle. Somebody needs to take it up for a test flight, make sure the oil doesn’t leak or a screw doesn’t fall off. How does that sound?”
“Sounds great,” I say.