The lieutenant nodded and then heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness you’ve got him. There might still be time.”
“Time? For what?”
The SEAL ignored the question. “Deputy, I need to take custody of your prisoner.”
“Take custody? I—”
The officer leaned closer, as if preparing to share some profound secret. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this — hell, I’ve already said more than I should have — but this is a matter of national security. I don’t — no, make that we don’t have time to pussyfoot around with ‘proper channels.’” He made quote marks with his fingers. “Where I’m taking him…well, it’s somewhere rules and proper channels won’t be a problem.”
Conway gaped. “Is it really that serious?”
Maxwell shrugged. “Officially? I can’t comment on that. Unofficially, let’s just say that if you don’t turn him over to me ASAP, tomorrow’s headlines might be…memorable.”
The deputy’s first impulse was to pick up the phone and call his department head at home. The navy man seemed to read his intention. “Tick tock, son. If you don’t have the cojones to act decisively, then you’d damn well better call someone who can.”
Conway bristled. “Screw that, sir.” He picked up the phone, but instead of dialing an outside line, he called the deputy stationed in the holding area. “Rex. Bring out the Indian.”
“He’s Pakistani,” the SEAL insisted.
Conway didn’t pass along the correction. Instead, he added: “Wait for me. This guy could be trouble.” He set the handset back in the cradle and turned to Maxwell. “You want to come along?”
“Right behind you.”
Conway pushed a button on his desktop to temporarily disable the electronic door locks, and led the SEAL into one of the holding areas. They’d given the Indian — or rather, the Pakistani — his own cell instead of locking him up in the drunk tank. Once the responding deputies — four of them in all — had subdued the man, he’d been cooperative enough. Now, a few hours closer to sober, he appeared completely docile, offering no resistance as a deputy ushered him out of the cell. But when the tall prisoner caught sight of the man in the Navy duds, his expression hardened. He locked his gaze on the SEAL. “You.”
Before the prisoner could elaborate, the lieutenant spoke. “Deputy, if he so much as looks at me cross-eyed, you have my leave to use your baton on him until he’s a quivering puddle of Jello on the floor. Do I make myself clear?”
Although he was addressing the deputy, his eyes never left the prisoner.
“It would be my pleasure,” Conway answered, resting a hand on the grip of his nightstick.
The big man raised his hands, but his swarthy face twisted into something that looked almost like a smile. “You win, paleface. Let’s bury the tomahawk, or whatever the hell that saying is.”
Conway threw a perplexed glance at the SEAL; he was pretty sure that wasn’t the sort of thing a Pakistani would say. Maxwell however kept his stare fixed on the prisoner. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your trap shut.”
The prisoner barked a derisive laugh, but the SEAL was done talking to him. He gestured toward the exit. “Put him in my car. I’ll take it from there.”
He led the procession through the building and out the visitor’s entrance to a non-descript sedan with government motor pool license plates. Once there, he opened the rear door and gestured for the prisoner to get inside.
Conway frowned. “Sir, I know you SEALs are all badass and everything, but are you sure it’s safe for you to escort him by yourself?”
Lieutenant Maxwell cast an appraising eye at the hulking prisoner. “I don’t think he’s going to be any trouble. But on second thought, maybe you’d better put him up front where I can keep an eye on him.”
Once more, Conway got the sense that the SEAL had missed the point, but surely the guy knew his business, and despite being a little unsteady on his feet, the big drunk Indian—Pakistani, Conway corrected himself — did not resist in the least as he was guided into the passenger seat. With the door firmly closed, the officer donned his hat and circled around to the driver’s side.
He lingered behind the open car door for a final exhortation to Conway. “Thanks for your assistance, deputy. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that what happened here tonight needs to be kept under wraps. National security, you know.”
Conway nodded. “Where you taking him? Leavenworth?”
The SEAL’s craggy expression cracked into something almost like a wry smile. “Trust me, where I’m taking him makes Leavenworth look like a vacation resort.”
CHAPTER 3
Deputy Conway had been right about one thing; the drunken prisoner was indeed an Indian — not an “India, Indian” but rather a Native American, a Cherokee to be precise. He had the unlikely name of Uriah Bonebrake, but most of his friends — those few who were willing to tolerate his acerbic, politically incorrect, and too often unfunny jokes, not to mention his weakness for strong drink — simply called him “Bones.”
More than three hours had passed since his arrest, slightly more since his last drink, and the passage of time had lowered his blood alcohol level a little; he was no longer falling-down-drunk, but merely just mean and disinhibited.
“I suppose you think I’m supposed to get down on my knees and thank you, right?” he snarled at the man in the officer’s uniform behind the steering wheel. “Keep dreaming, Your Holiness.”
The driver, who was in the process of removing the plastic name tag from his shirt pocket, looked over at Bones with thinly disguised contempt. “I don’t want thanks or anything else from you, Bones.” He braced the steering wheel of the moving sedan with one knee, quickly affixed a different name plate to his uniform; this one read: Maddock. “I didn’t do this for you. Personally, I would have been happy to let you rot in there, but unfortunately, when you make an ass of yourself, it embarrasses the whole team.”
Bones snorted. “You’re one to talk about the team.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Bones gave him a long hard stare. “The team is the guys on the field. You don’t want to be part of the team; you want to be the star. An army of one, or a navy of one. Whatever.”
Dane Maddock stifled his impulse to deny the accusation, partly because he knew that Bones was still half-plastered and that any argument would be wasted on him, and partly because the big man’s underlying premise wasn’t entirely incorrect.
Bones wasn’t finished. “Dude, don’t you get what it means to be part of a SEAL team? Work hard and play hard…only you’re so uptight that you can’t ever just let down and relax with the rest of us when the mission is done. That’s what being part of a team is all about; if you’re gonna be willing to die for your swim-buddy, you’ve got to be willing to hang out with him. We all get that. Except for you, mister tight ass. I thought I’d managed to chill you out on our trip to Boston, but you wouldn’t stay loosened up.”
“We were off-duty.” Dane shifted in his seat. “Besides, I’m impersonating an officer for you. I should get some credit for that. Do you know what will happen if Maxie finds out?”
Bones stared at him for several long seconds and then broke into a guffaw.
Dane hadn’t meant it as a joke, but decided he was glad Bones had interpreted it that way and happier still with the silence that followed.
Bones wasn’t wrong. Dane had been questioning his place among the hard-fighting, hard-playing SEAL team, particularly since their return from a four-month deployment.