The Escape (John Puller, #3)(103)

“Well, by now it’ll be long gone, original or not,” said Puller.

“I guess so,” Knox agreed glumly.

“I think I was wrong about Reynolds, though.”

“What! You mean you believe she’s innocent?”

“No, I believe she’s a lot more dangerous and a lot more capable than I thought she was. She just kicked my ass. Not to sound full of myself, but I’m not used to that happening.”

“Well, neither am I,” replied Knox. “She lied about your brother. The sedative was in her bloodstream. She never got her gun and scared him off. We can use that against her.”

“She’d have an explanation for that, Knox. She self-medicated, hoping to slow down the advance of the poison.”

She said resignedly, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But we can’t let that bitch win, Puller.”

“She’s not going to win. But it’s not going to be easy either.”

“If only we had something against her.” She looked at Puller, who was now gazing off and obviously not listening to her.

“Puller, where is your head?”

He said, “I just think I missed something.”

“Missed something? Where?”

“That’s just the point. I don’t know where. But something…was off back there. I just don’t know.”

“Well, that neatly sums up where we stand on everything to do with this case, doesn’t it?” she said grimly. “We just don’t know.”





CHAPTER





52



KNOX PARTED COMPANY with Puller at Fort Belvoir, where INSCOM was located. She wanted to check in and she had some paperwork to complete. They made arrangements to meet later at her hotel.

Before driving back to Quantico, Puller stopped at a coffee shop and pulled out a phone he had recently purchased, one of a pair, actually. His brother had the other one. Over coffee he took his time to thumb in a long message and then sent it off.

His brother’s unbreakable code would be put to the test, he thought. But then again, he had considerable confidence in Robert’s skills.

As he was pulling in to his apartment complex his new phone buzzed. He parked and pulled it out. His brother’s response matched the length of the original message. He hurried to his apartment and, using a pad of paper and a pencil, was able to decode the message in about thirty minutes.

His brother had come up with the code when they were boys. He had based it on the concept of a one-time pad key he had read about, but one that could be reused. It really was unbreakable, because it was similar to a substitution cipher but based on a story that Robert Puller had created and then taught, word for word, to his younger brother over and over until even all these years later Puller could remember it in detail. If one didn’t know the story, one couldn’t break the code. And the only ones who knew the original story were the two Pullers.

Puller had told his brother of the results of their meeting with Reynolds and then Carter and Sullivan and also the facts of Reynolds’s financial history. Robert’s decoded message was succinct: She covered her tracks well. Find out what you can on the death of her husband. That fact that he was an FBI agent is intriguing. She never mentioned that to me or anyone else I know that knew her. The more that I understand her hostility to me, the more likely it is that she was the one Niles Robinson was alluding to on the phone call I had with him. But jealousy could not be the primary motivation. It was to replace me with Tim Daughtrey. So you need to investigate him in greater detail. Everything about his career that you can uncover, John. And I mean everything.

However, the last part of his brother’s message was the most surprising, and intriguing: Reynolds being part of the START verification team is also of importance. She told me that when we “met,” but I didn’t focus on it then. But you mentioning her relaying that to you when you saw the photo in her office brought it back to my mind. Find out what you can about that, because it may very well tie into her present assignment. And that may well be the brass ring we’ve been looking for.

Puller stared down at this part of the message for another moment or two before deleting it all. He could see what his brother might be getting at. If Reynolds was a spy, then spies didn’t just spy on one thing over the years. They went where the most was to be gained by their treachery.

But it couldn’t be just Reynolds. There had to be someone else who had an ocean of juice. And there could only be a few at that level.

And one of them might be Donovan Carter.

The head of DTRA could have listened to them last night during the nightcap just to learn what they knew. He could have told Reynolds everything, so that she would be fully prepared for them today. And while her financial picture seemed perfectly logical and would have normally convinced Puller, he knew the woman was a liar.

He wrote his brother a short message and pocketed the phone. He had a lot of work to do and he better get to it.

Starting with the late Brigadier General Tim Daughtrey.





After numerous phone calls, Internet searches, and a quick trip to Bolling Air Force Base in D.C., Puller had accumulated a great deal of material on the dead man. He sifted through this information while sitting in the W’s hotel lobby. He had still not heard from Knox, but expected to at any time. He figured he would meet up with her at the hotel.