The Escape (John Puller, #3)(32)

Schindler and Rinehart exchanged glances. Rinehart said, “Shortly after we left you, Daughtrey left us.”

“So around eleven a.m. yesterday?” Puller glanced at his watch. It was now eleven in the morning and he hadn’t yet gone to bed.

“Correct,” answered Rinehart.

“Did he say where he was going? What he was going to do? Someone he was going to meet?”

“No,” said Schindler. “We flew in early yesterday morning, had our meeting with you, and then went our separate ways.”

“Where was he staying? At Leavenworth?”

“No. At the Hilton downtown. I did hear him mention he was going to make a run down to McConnell AFB in the next couple of days.”

“The Air Force base near Wichita?” asked Puller, and Schindler nodded. “He was a one-star, wasn’t he traveling with a staff? Entourage? Security?”

“If so, they traveled here separately,” said Schindler, and Rinehart nodded in agreement. “We flew out together on an Army jet. General Rinehart had his people with him. He’s staying in officer quarters at Leavenworth. I’m also staying at Leavenworth as a guest of the general’s.”

Puller nodded and wrote all of this down. “So who would want to kill Daughtrey? Any ideas?”

Neither man said anything.

“Does that mean you have no ideas, or you can’t tell me the ones you do have?”

“Every man of his rank has made an enemy of someone,” said Rinehart. “But I wouldn’t think to such a degree that they’d blow a hole in his head.”

“He was assigned to STRATCOM?” said Puller suggestively. “Maybe the reason comes from there.”

“I’ll make inquiries,” said Schindler.

Rinehart added, “STRATCOM, after all, is why the three of us were interested in this in the first place.”

“OSI will be on to that angle as well, you can count on that,” said Puller.

“As I said, I will run the interference on that,” said Rinehart.

“Different branch of service,” Puller pointed out, putting away his notebook.

“I’m not without influence over there,” said Rinehart. “And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was the best man at my wedding right out of West Point.”

Schindler said, “Puller, your mission is still to find your brother. His escape may not be connected to the death of General Daughtrey.”

“Or it may be the reason for it,” replied Puller.

“Or,” said Schindler, “your brother might have been the one who killed him.”





CHAPTER





16



PULLER CHECKED INTO another motel about a half mile from the other one. He locked the door and put a bureau against it, pulled the shades, put his phone on silent mode, turned out all the lights, lay on the bed fully dressed, and fell dead asleep for over six hours with AWOL next to him purring and licking her paws.

When he woke it was dinnertime and he had a voice mail on his phone.

It was Knox. She wanted to meet. He didn’t call her back, at least not yet, because he didn’t know if he wanted to meet. And he also had a few phone calls to make.

Later, he showered and changed into jeans, a windbreaker, and a white collared shirt. He slipped on his shoes and finally called her back while sitting on the bed.

“So where the hell have you been?” she said after two rings.

Already got me on her contacts list, interesting, he thought.

“Sleeping,” he said.

“Nice.”

“Yes, it was, thanks. What’s up?”

“Developments.”

“What are they?”

“Let’s do it face-to-face,” she said.

They met at the same diner where they’d had dinner the previous night. He had a slab of ribs coated in a Jack Daniel’s rub, coleslaw heavy on the mayo, a side of salted steak fries, and a vegetable that looked green but was otherwise unrecognizable. He was washing it all down with a Budweiser.

Knox had a chef’s salad with dressing on the side and water.

She looked his meal over and said, “You know, you could eat a little better.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure the processed meat in that salad and the chemicals in the dressing won’t give you cancer in ten years.”

She sat back and glanced glumly down at her salad. He quickly looked her over. She was dressed in blue slacks, cream blouse, and a matching jacket. She didn’t look remotely military. He had wondered about this before.

INSCOM. INSCOM on the creds.

He figured he had mysteries at both ends of this sucker, and all down the middle too.

He finished eating, downed the last swallow of his beer, and looked at her expectantly. “Okay, let’s talk developments,” he said in a prompting tone.

“I have info on the people who took the blown transformers.”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back. “How’d you do that?” he asked slowly.

“Made some calls and ran down some leads while you were taking your beauty rest.”

“Uh-huh. And?”

“And they weren’t with the military.”

“You’ve got my attention, Knox. The bay doors are wide open, so drop the bomb.”