The Escape (John Puller, #3)(116)

Now Puller did lose it. “Four months! And you’re just telling me about this? What the hell is wrong with you, Knox?”

He turned away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Not the time or place for that. I’m sorry,” he said again.

She put a hand on his shoulder and tugged slightly. “Look at me, Puller. Please.”

He turned back around to stare at her.

She was trembling. And in the bed she looked small and helpless.

“I deserve anything you want to say, Puller. You can yell and curse and even punch me if you want. It’s okay.”

“I’m not going to do any of those things, Knox. Not now.”

“I should have told you before now. I know that. But I didn’t. Seems like it’s a sickness with me. I can’t tell people the truth.” She said this last part in a small voice. Her features were full of disbelief, perhaps that she had made such an admission. To him. To herself.

Puller sat back, nodding thoughtfully. “Let’s forget about the timing of what you told me and focus on what you told me. Four months? It would have taken that long to prep the hit on him. Question is, how did they find out you guys were going to take another look at Bobby?”

Knox looked deeply troubled. “The simple answer is we have a mole in INSCOM, which is astonishing. Remember, I alluded to that before?”

He eyed her appraisingly “So that’s why you were brought on this case? Not just to keep an eye on me.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Would have been nice to know before now.”

Her face flushed and her lips trembled. “I should have told you that too, Puller. I know you were spinning your wheels trying to figure out the catalyst for all this. And I just sat back and said nothing.”

“I’m not happy about it, Knox. But that’s water under the bridge.”

Knox looked relieved by this.

He continued, “And maybe we know the anonymous source now.”

“Who?”

“Niles Robinson.”

“Why?”

He gazed steadily at her. “I have my secrets too.”

She looked put out by this, but because of what she had withheld, it wasn’t as though she could press the point.

Puller was thinking that that must have been what Robinson had been referencing when he’d told Bobby that he had tried to make it right. He apparently had tried to make it right, by contacting INSCOM, albeit anonymously.

“Any idea who your mole might be?”

“Not a clue. But it’s really hampered everything we do. We’re not sure who we can bring in on something.”

“I can see that.”

“And we never even thought that they would plan to kill your brother at DB. If we had any inkling of that we would have taken steps to ensure his safety.”

“I believe you,” Puller said quietly.

“In fact, it was that attack that made us realize we had a problem in our own ranks. The leak had to come from our side.”

She fingered her last fry, looking uncomfortable. “So do you bring all the girls meals like this?”

“I haven’t been associated with that many girls.”

“That’s pretty hard to believe.”

“Okay. Only the ladies in hospital beds for bomb-related injuries get this kind of special treatment.”

That brought a brief smile to her lips.

She popped her last fry into her mouth. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“In your heart you’re a spy plain and simple. And they just can’t let it all hang out. Now finish your burger. But hands off my fries,” he added when he saw her greedily eye his untouched pile.





CHAPTER





58



ROBERT PULLER WAS sitting in his pickup truck watching her. The Kansas plates had seemed to stick out here, so he had replaced them with D.C. plates he’d lifted from a car sitting in a D.C. impoundment lot.

Susan Reynolds was eating dinner at a table in the front window of a restaurant on trendy H Street. She looked like she didn’t have a care in the world, but looks could be deceiving. And he wasn’t going to underestimate the woman. Not again. He had gone back through her professional history multiple times, focusing on parts he had skimmed before. He had taken all of this and built it into a new mosaic, which had presented some interesting possibilities.

She was dressed to entice tonight, that was clear to see. The skirt was knee-length but tight, and the starched white shirt with the two top buttons undone was suggestively revealing. The shoes were long spikes and the stockings had seams down the backs.

He sank lower in the driver’s seat as a D.C. patrol car sailed past. He knew cops everywhere now would be alerted to his possible presence in the metro area.

He had picked up his tail on Reynolds at her home and followed her here. He didn’t recognize the man she was with, but he was dressed like a lawyer or lobbyist, which meant he was dressed expensively. Puller had gotten a look at him when he drove up shortly after Reynolds arrived. He had arrived in an Aston-Martin. So there was money there if nothing else. As he watched, she laughed at something the man said.

It must be nice to be able to still find amusement in life when your boss just got blown to dust. Puller could imagine that the rest of DTRA must be mourning their slain chief. And Blair Sullivan. And the driver. Three innocent men who would not get to live one day longer. But not Reynolds. She just trucked on with not one blemish on her. Not an ounce of remorse.