Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,68

They meant him to rot in this foreign jail, face a firing squad, or hanging. It all depended on what crime he was charged with.

Without letting his disappointment show, Walker handed the paper back. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. Can you tell me why I’m being held? On what charges?”

“Yes, oh, yes. You are charged with the murders you committed in Jordan. War crimes, sir. Surely you did not think you could get away with that?”

Jordan? That was new. “Who exactly did I murder?”

Hans blinked as if he couldn’t believe Walker was that stupid. “Why Prince Jamalud Khalid and his entire family. Do not act as if you do not know. I have seen the proof. There are many pictures of you walking into the wedding tent with the bomb that day. I have watched as you set it on the wedding table. The prosecutor has a very solid case. He has witnesses. Lying will only create more trouble for you.”

“I killed a family in Jordan?” Interesting. Walker had never set foot in that country. Had always wanted to, but Jordan hadn’t been part of his orders. “May I at least see the photos and proof? You do have evidence, don’t you?”

Hans’ head bobbed. By now, he was wringing his hands, twisting the gold band on his ring finger around and around. “Yes, you may see it. All of it. Tomorrow morning. But I must ask you, sir. I must know in order to prepare a proper defense. Why did you do such a heinous thing? You bombed a simple family wedding. You killed over a hundred people. There were children there. Babies. Grandfathers and grandmothers. How did their deaths serve your needs?”

Wow. Over a hundred innocent people. If this were an actual event, it must’ve happened while he’d been on an operation. Walker had honestly never heard about it. “When did this supposedly happen?”

“Last year. January.”

That explained it. The same month Walker had been on those three weeks’ leave to Guatemala. “The exact date?”

“January 30th.”

The day before he’d come home from Guatemala. He’d spent that first night in America with Quinn Dooley and his grateful family in Norfolk, Virginia, then flown to San Diego the next day. Only to be arrested and incarcerated in the Navy brig in Miramar, San Diego, before the sun came up. Had the official record of that confinement been expunged like his Navcompt 3065 request for leave had? “Sounds like you’re already convinced I’m guilty. Are you?”

The man ran a nervous hand over his thinning hair. “No, b-b-but…” Hans should never play poker. His expressions were dead giveaways. The current one clearly said, ‘You’re a liar and not worth my time.’

Walker went for slow and easy. “But what, Hans? You want me to talk to you, well, I need you to talk with me, too. If we’re going to work together, we need to be honest with each other.”

Hans looked like he needed to sit down before he fell down. “B-b-but...”

Walker cocked his head, trying to get a read on this guy. Hans was too edgy. Something was off. That prickly sensation of being watched tickled the short hairs on the nape of his neck, until they’d turned into tiny, hyper-active radar dishes. Of course he was being watched. He was in prison. Yet this feeling was more like a premonition. A sniper’s internal sense of something coming for him. But how could things get any worse?

At last, Hans looked Walker dead in the eye. “Because it is your Admiral Pickering who provided the video evidence. He is a very powerful man in your government, yes?”

Walker never flinched. Didn’t bat an eye. But his instincts snapped to attention at the revelation. Pickering, huh? So that was how far up the chain this betrayal went, all the way to a four-star commissioned naval flag officer. Shit, an O-10, the highest appointment a man could reach in the US Navy, for Christ’s sake.

At last, Poseidon’s stars were beginning to line up in Walker’s black-as-ink sky. Wanna bet Admiral Edgar Pickering was also the bastard behind Goff’s white-gloved rise to power?

“Are… are you okay, Lieutenant Judge?” Hans asked, fidgeting with his glasses. But the eyes behind those smudged lenses were bright with concern for a change. Almost interested.

“Actually, I am,” Walker replied evenly, intent more than ever on proving to his lawyer that whatever so-called evidence Pickering had provided was fake, photoshopped, or straight-up CGI. If Walker believed in