The Cornwalls Are Gone (Amy Cornwall #1) - James Patterson Page 0,39

enough time on previous interviews with male service personnel, wading through ankle-deep piles of trash—porn magazines, empty pizza boxes, crushed takeout containers—that this is a nice change of pace.

She sits across from him, and he answers her initial questions with ease and no sign of the earlier concern. Born in Washington, local schools, community college. One day, on a 9/11 anniversary, he spent hours glued to the television, seeing the old footage of the collapsing towers, the burning Pentagon, and the smoking hole in the ground in Pennsylvania.

So he enlisted and eventually entered the military’s famed language school in Monterey, learned Pashto, and after additional intelligence training, was sent off to Afghanistan.

“I was assigned to be with Captain Cornwall,” he says, his pale, freckled hands holding his Army cover between his knees. “We were at FOB Healy in Kunduz Province…the place was named after a Navy SEAL hero who died a number of years back. You ever been at a forward operating base, ma’am?”

“No, I haven’t,” she says. “What’s it like?”

“Like…you’re on the surface of the moon. Desolate for klicks and klicks in every direction—rock and sand and scrub brush. Rough mountains where the Taliban would set up mortar positions and drop rounds on us every now and then. A handful of villages off in each direction. Week to week, you never knew which village supported the government or the Taliban. It was…like nothing I’ve ever seen. Nothing. Reinforcements and supplies came in by chopper. We were entirely cut off.”

Even in this safe living room in Virginia, Rosaria could sense the fear and memories coming forth from the young lieutenant. “What was your MOS?”

“Zero-nine-lima, ma’am,” he says, “translator for whatever prisoners came our way, either captured by our patrols or the government forces. I was with Captain Cornwall when she was doing her interrogations.”

“Interesting work?”

He shakes his head. “Most times it was goat herders or poppy farmers who said they weren’t Taliban, that they was just carrying AK-47s for personal protection, stuff like that. Most of the time we just took their photos, fingerprints, DNA swabs, and either sent them on their way or gave ’em back to the government forces.”

Rosaria looks down at the thin file that contains the notes and paperwork for the Cornwall investigation. “But there was one prisoner that stood out, am I right?”

He quickly nods. “That’s right, ma’am. This guy…his name was Mohammed Something-or-another. He was different.”

“Different how?”

“He was older, that’s what. Maybe in his forties, fifties. Pretty well-dressed, in good health…I mean, some of these villages, you see a guy that looks like a grandpa who’s been smoking cigars and eating raw sugar all his life, and you find out he’s only thirty. It’s a hard place. But this guy looked okay. And he spoke English.”

Rosaria pauses. That wasn’t in the initial investigative report. “Really? How well did he speak it?”

Baker smiles. “Crap, better than me. Almost an English accent, like he went to some fancy school in Britain or someplace like that.”

“Why was he picked up?”

“Some tribal leader from one of the villages, he narked him. Said this Mohammed didn’t belong, was from far away, was from the Taliban. But Mohammed said that wasn’t true. He said he was a simple farmer…was just passing through to visit relatives in some other village.”

“Did Cornwall believe him?”

“No,” Baker says.

“Why?”

“Because of his feet.”

Rosaria says, “His feet?”

Another slight smile. “Yeah, his feet. He claimed that he was a simple, poor farmer, did a lot of walking and riding on horses or mules, but Captain Cornwall, she made him take his boots off. And his feet was nice and soft. Not covered with calluses and thick skin like you’d expect.”

“What happened next?”

“The old guy, he kept on smiling. But he shut up. And he was put in one of the cages…and came out the next day for another go-around, and kept his mouth shut, and then another day…and Captain Cornwall, she was getting a lot of calls from up the chain. Demanding answers. Leads. Like I said, this guy didn’t fit in. A farmer? His hands were almost as smooth as his feet. The captain’s superiors…they thought he was a real catch. She was under a lot of pressure to break him.”

Those last two words, break him, catch her attention. “Did she do that, then? Break him?”

“Well…”

“Lieutenant, need I remind you of your responsibility here, to answer my questions fully and faithfully?”

Baker just nods at that, swallowing hard. “It’s like this…she got really pissed and said she was