“I won’t lie to you, Garrett,” I said. “You were a major player in the killing of Greg, Melanie, and Maddie Dawes. Because of your participation, Addie’s life has been shattered.”
“Killing me won’t bring them back,” Unger said. “All I did was allow it to happen. If I hadn’t, DeMeo would have killed my family.”
“You were in a tough spot,” I said, “and you’re still in a tough spot. As you say, killing you won’t bring them back. But money’s the great healer, and enough money will help all of us cope with the loss.”
“I’ll do whatever you ask,” he said.
I thought about that for a minute. “Garrett, we’ll see how it all plays out. If you help me get at least twenty million dollars from Joe DeMeo, I won’t kill you.”
He looked at Quinn. “What about him?”
“Same thing.”
“You’ll let me walk?”
“Hell, I’ll even have someone drive you home.”
“Can I take a cab instead?”
“That’s fine, whatever.”
“Can I call my family?”
“Not until this is over.”
He nodded. “In the meantime,” he said, “where will I sleep?”
I said, “Quinn and I are going out of town in a couple hours. Until I get back, you can sleep in my bed.”
“That’s very generous,” Unger said. “Thank you.”
I waved my hand in a dismissive manner. “Think nothing of it,” I said, wishing I could be there to see his face when Lou escorts him to my subterranean prison cell for the night.
CHAPTER 42
Colby, California, was a small town, and it wasn’t unusual to spot Charlie Whiteside coming out of his shrink’s office on Ball Street. It was no secret that Charlie’s depression had gotten him washed out of the Afghanistan war. Used to be, pilots of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, had it easy. Charlie could sit in an air-conditioned room at Edwards Air Force Base and launch remote-controlled killer drones while munching fast food. He’d put in a day’s work studying live surveillance footage, lock onto the occasional target, press the button on a joy stick—and be home in time for dinner with the wife and kid.
In fact, it seemed such an easy way to fight a war that in the early weeks of therapy, it had been difficult for his shrink to understand just what it was Charlie was whining about.
“You’re a guy,” she said, “who’s had to deal with frustration and ridicule your entire life.”
Charlie had closed his eyes as he ran the highlight reel through his mind. “And much worse.”
Charlie wasn’t exaggerating. While his parents had been normal, it had taken Charlie many years to grow to his full height of thirty-two inches. His father, having dreamed of spawning a scholarship athlete, found it impossible to derive joy from any of Charlie’s accomplishments. For her part, Charlie’s mother had accepted his condition from the beginning—but with a stoic detachment and much embarrassment. While neither parent clinically abused him, neither did they embrace or nurture him. They took care of him in a casual way, met his physical needs. But had anyone cared to notice—and none did—it would have been clear that Charlie’s role in the family dynamic had been relegated to that of accessory in his parents’ lives.
It was in public school that Charlie Whiteside first learned true pain and suffering. But that was a different issue, and his shrink, Dr. Carol Doering, had been satisfied early on that Charlie had made peace with his childhood. He’d overcome the neglect, the taunting, the bullying on his own, without therapy, and had somehow managed to put those terrible formative years behind him without carrying any serious emotional scars into his adulthood.
Which is why this whole depression thing about flying killer planes from a comfortable armchair five thousand miles removed from the action seemed out of whack with Charlie’s coping mechanism.
In the early sessions, Dr. Doering had found it difficult to identify with Charlie’s condition because she had an emotional connection to the very subject of his complaint. She tried to keep her personal connection out of the therapy, but one day she let her guard down and it just popped out.
“Charlie,” she said, “let me tell you something. My brother’s an F-16 fighter pilot stationed in Iraq. He dodges enemy fire all day, and at night he sleeps in a tent in blistering heat under constant threat of attack.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charlie had said. “I’m not meaning to compare my service to his. He’s a true patriot. While I love my country, I’m simply not physically able to serve overseas, so this is the only job I could take where I felt I could make a difference.”
Carol Doering felt her face fl ush. “I didn’t mean to imply …”
“It’s all right ma’am, I know what you mean. Does your brother have a wife and kids?”
“He does. Let me just apologize for my temporary lack of professionalism and get us back to your situation.”
“It’s connected,” Charlie said.
“How so?”
“I understand that your brother is putting his life on the line every day to help preserve our freedom, and I mean him only honor and no disrespect.”
“But?” Carol said.
“But when your brother approaches a target at six hundred miles per hour, he drops his payload and keeps
