“Hey, hon,” he answers, “what’s up?”
His wife, Lucille—whom everyone calls LuLu—says, “God, Clay, I’m sorry to bother you, but the pharmacy just called. The cough syrup for Kimmy’s ready to be picked up. You think you can swing by when your shift’s over?”
“Sure, Lu, I can do that,” he says, keeping an eye on the black Wrangler and the driver.
Something is wrong.
He keeps his eyes on the Jeep and says, “How’s her cough?”
“Pretty rough,” his wife says. “For a six-year-old, I can’t believe how loud she is. Maybe the three of us can get some sleep tonight if that syrup works.”
“That’d be great, Lu,” he says. “Look, I’m in the middle of something and—”
“I know, I know,” she says, laughing. “And tell you what, if our little patient gets to sleep early tonight, I’ll give you a nice big reward later on.”
He smiles, feels something stir within him. “Thanks, babe. You’re gonna make the rest of my shift fly right by.”
His wife whispers, “Be safe, come home, okay?”
“Okay.”
He picks up the driver’s license, registration, and Armed Forces ID from the seat, and just waits one more second.
What’s bothering him?
The Wrangler is parked, the engine is off, the driver is sitting there with both hands up on the steering wheel—
That’s it.
She’s sitting there, hands up on the steering wheel, like she’s guilty of something, like she’s done something wrong and she doesn’t want to raise any suspicions.
Huh, he thinks, opening the cruiser door. Sorry, driver, you’ve just done the opposite.
Hancock slowly walks to the Wrangler, one hand holding the paperwork, his other on the butt of his pistol, ready to pull it free in a second’s notice.
CHAPTER 32
I LOOK again at the highway patrolman coming at me via my Jeep’s side-view mirror, and his face is still flat, impassive, and I don’t like it. He seems to be trying to look cool and collected, and it’s having the opposite effect on me.
My right hand is still curved around the Ruger revolver.
I start to tear up.
This cop doesn’t know it, but whatever decision he’s going to make in the next sixty seconds or so is going to determine whether he gets shot on the side of this empty Tennessee highway.
Hancock positions himself again safely behind the open window, and passes in the paperwork to the driver, who seems very relieved to get it back, and then he lowers his head and says, “Everything looks fine, miss.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You in the Army?”
“I am.”
“What’s your rank, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Captain.”
“Wow, that’s impressive,” he says, looking again in the rear seat, seeing the stuffed duffel bag, and then back to the passenger’s seat, with open maps and atlases on top of the black leather bag.
Where her hand is resting, inside.
All right, then.
He pulls his pistol free but does so quietly and without moving much, so the driver won’t notice. “Mind telling me where you’re going, ma’am?”
A slight hesitation. “Chattanooga.”
“Really? I didn’t know there was an Army base in Chattanooga.”
“There isn’t,” she says. “I’m taking a few days’ leave, meeting up with an old girlfriend of mine from school. Going to spend a few days relaxing and pampering ourselves at a hotel.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, the pistol calmly in his hand.
The duffel bag.
He imagines his wife, LuLu, spending a few days with a girlfriend. Would she just dump a bunch of clothes into some ratty duffel bag? Or pack up nice and neat?
Enough.
Hancock steps back, brings up his pistol, and says in a clear and loud voice, “Ma’am, show me your hands. And then exit the vehicle.”
No reply.
“Ma’am?”
Then the damnedest thing happens. From the driver’s side-view mirror he can make out her face, and she’s starting to cry.
“For God’s sake,” she says, “don’t do this.”
CHAPTER 33
SPECIAL AGENT Rosaria Vasquez is sitting on a hard plastic chair in the main terminal at Nashville Airport when she makes the call. The terminal is wide and airy, looking like the set of a fifty-year-old science-fiction movie promising a sweet and peaceful future with lots of white plastic and exposed concrete. Surprise of surprises, her call goes right through, and a brisk voice says, “Major Wenner speaking.”
“Major, this is Special Agent Vasquez calling. How are you, sir?”
His voice goes down a notch. “All right, I suppose, Agent Vasquez.”
“Outstanding, sir,” she says. “I’m conducting a bit of a follow-up from yesterday, sir.”
“Yes?”
She shifts her weight on the hard plastic. “Well, sir, I’m just checking on something I thought Colonel Denton said yesterday. About Captain Cornwall. If you may recall. Sir.”
“And what’s that?”
“Well, if I recall correctly,” she says, while thinking, Got you, you squirrelly bastard, “just before I left yesterday afternoon, your colonel told me that you’d be giving me an update today on Captain Cornwall’s health. Am I correct, sir?”
The guy’s good, for he quickly says, “Yes, you’re absolutely correct, Special Agent, and I’m sorry I’ve not gotten back to you today. We had a visit from the SecDef to the base this morning, and I’ve just been buried.”
“Sir, do you consider yourself unburied now?”
A cold pause. “I don’t think I appreciate that question, Special Agent.”
“Sorry, sir, I meant no disrespect.” As if, she thinks. “Right now I’m in the beginning stages of a very important investigation involving the death of a civilian in Army custody in Afghanistan, under the command of Captain Cornwall. Is she still ill?”
“I…believe so.”
“Sir?”
The cold voice changes its tone. “Special Agent, she’s not reported to work, and it appears she’s not at home.”
“Do you know where she is, sir?”
“No, I don’t.”
Out in the terminal lobby two soldiers in ACUs stride by, coming from one of the four concourses, carrying knapsacks and wearing tan boots, and Rosaria feels a stir, looking at the strong young men. Her brothers. Her family. She doesn’t know their names but doesn’t have to. They are still family.
“Sir,” she says. “Right now, with Captain Cornwall’s absence, I don’t have much to go on. Can you think of any officer at your base who might be able to give me insight into her and her service in Afghanistan?”
“Well, I, uh, I did serve with the captain for a while in the ’stan.”
“Major, no disrespect, but I’m looking for someone of her rank or lower. Sir.”
Another pause. “No names readily come to mind.”