McKenna, though… this son of a bitch was a born questioner of authority. How he had survived this long in the Rangers was a mystery. He’d done what he had been told for years, but his records showed several insubordination incidents, all of them minor. McKenna followed orders—that hadn’t ever been a problem—but he always wanted to understand why he was doing so.
In the darkness, the readout from the polygraph flickered on a screen. Traeger stood with his aide, Sapir, and studied the screen closely.
“He’s good,” Traeger said with a chuckle.
But the quiet laugh wasn’t amusement. It was irritation. Sapir sensed that and handed Traeger a bowl of Nicorette. Traeger had been chewing the damn things non-stop and he took one now, almost without thinking about it.
“He was tortured in Kandahar,” Sapir said. “Didn’t break once.”
“What does he want, a medal?” Traeger sneered.
“Actually, uh…”
“I know, I know. Silver Star. That’s why we have to tread lightly. We can’t just bury him behind the woodshed.”
He popped the nicotine gum into his mouth and started chewing.
“Uh, I think you’re supposed to park that in the corner of your—” Sapir began.
Traeger shot him a withering glance. “You say something?”
Sapir kept silent. Traeger kept chewing vigorously, waiting for the nicotine rush. He needed it.
McKenna was bored. He rolled his eyes. “Look, I get it,” he said. “Mexico. Someone doesn’t want any witnesses.”
Ugly Tie looked startled. “Excuse me?”
McKenna looked him in the eye, and then fixed each of the other guys in the room with a brief but meaningful stare. “You’re not here to find out if I’m crazy. You’re here to make sure the label sticks.”
Making an effort to regain control of the situation, Ugly Tie arched an eyebrow. “You think you’re being railroaded. Is that it?”
“I can see the tracks on the floor,” McKenna replied. The tone in the bastard’s voice confirmed it all. Sounding paranoid would only help their case if they wanted to discredit him. He sighed. “By the way, I don’t really see tracks on the floor. Relax. Jesus.”
Undeterred, the asshole went on. “You spend most of your time now in country. Estranged from your wife and son. Alone.”
Ugly Tie glanced at the polygraph. McKenna didn’t have to look to know the needle would be flickering now. He could feel his anger boiling.
“You feel like a stranger on your own planet, don’t you, Captain?”
McKenna tilted his head, studying the man. “Like an alien, you mean?”
It felt like every molecule in the room had stopped moving. Even the polygraph tech seemed to hold his breath.
“Is that what you wanted?” McKenna asked. “Do I get a cookie now?”
The psychologist stared at him half in triumph, half as if he was a wild beast that might spring forward at any second. McKenna didn’t think he’d be getting any cookies.
6
The MP escorting McKenna out of the administration building was either stupid or impatient. He followed too closely, gave McKenna the occasional bump or shove, and muttered under his breath. Under other circumstances—if McKenna felt sure of his surroundings or feared he might be killed—he’d have been able to take the MP out in the blink of an eye. The guy might be decent enough at guarding someone in a cage or watching the front gate, but escorting prisoners was not his strong suit. Fortunately for him, McKenna had no interest in fighting actual US military personnel unless he had no other choice.
Outside, a colorless, hulking bus idled in front of the building. It looked like a prison bus, but without the associated markings. A second MP waited at the bus. As McKenna approached, the MP stepped up inside and waited for the new prisoner to climb aboard. When McKenna stepped onto the bus, MP number two opened the cage that separated the driver from the prisoners locked in back. McKenna shuffled in and paused to regard the five figures scattered around the shadowed benches. Although out of uniform, a moment’s consideration told him they were all military, either vets or currently serving.
Well, not currently, he thought, considering they were all locked in the same cage he’d been thrown into. The men were clad in civilian clothes, but something about their demeanors suggested they hadn’t been arrested as a group. A scruffy guy in a baseball cap fanned out a deck of cards and manipulated them like a stage magician, despite the manacles cuffing his wrists. A goateed bald guy glanced up at McKenna, a manic glimmer in his eyes. A guy toward the back of the cage wore a bomber jacket, which seemed appropriate, because something about his brooding presence resembled a ticking time bomb. Beside him was a long-haired Jon Snow-looking son of a bitch with a gang tat on his neck and a gold crucifix dangling at his throat.
They were hard men without a doubt, and yet for all that, McKenna sensed an air of mischief about them. He dropped into the nearest seat, next to the fifth man, a powerful-looking guy who wore the same heavy manacles as the rest of them.
The bus started to move.
As it did so, the big man beside McKenna seemed to stir. Leaning toward McKenna, he asked mildly, “Got a smoke?”
McKenna regarded him. “Pretty sure they don’t allow that on the bus.”
“Don’t allow blowjobs either, but if Katy Perry walks in, I’m gonna ask.”
McKenna settled in. The bus rumbled, and the men seemed content to worry later about where it might bring them. He scanned the group again, pausing to watch the scruffy magician work his sleight of hand with the cards. As someone who’d never been able to reliably pull off a card trick, McKenna felt confident in thinking the guy was talented. Not fucking Houdini, or he’d have escaped from the bus, but when it came to prestidigitation, he had the chops.
He wondered how long these guys had been lumped together, where they were being transported to and from. All of them were apparently psych cases of one sort or another, so his being thrown in with them began to make sense. Traeger and his fake VA doctors were trying to make it seem like McKenna was a nutjob in order to discredit anything he might say.
But what the hell? He’d been in worse company.
He extended his hand toward the big guy beside him. “McKenna. You?”
Manacles clanking, the man shook. “Nebraska Williams.”
“That your real name?”
Williams paused a moment, wincing slightly. Then with a wry smile he admitted, “Name’s Gaylord.”
McKenna nodded gravely. “Good call, then.”
“You do your psych eval yet?” Williams asked.
“Yup.”
Nebraska eyed him up and down. “You crazy?”
McKenna didn’t know how to answer that—not when he’d just met these men. “Yup,” he said. “How’d you snag a ticket on this shitmobile?”
The big man gave an impassive shrug. “Put a bullet in the CO.”
That gave McKenna pause. Even on a bus full of loonies, the idea that Nebraska Williams had shot his commanding officer unsettled him. This wasn’t a guy with PTSD or who’d started seeing enemies that weren’t there. This was a whole other level.
“Any particular reason?”
Another shrug. “He was an asshole.”
A warm breeze drifted in through the slightly open windows. McKenna was no coward, but he decided his best option right now would be to sit very still and try to avoid irritating his fellow passengers.