Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(5)
“I checked.”
“National security. Treason. Yeah, real lucky I got life.”
“Do you feel lucky?”
“Maybe I do.”
“Then I guess you just answered my question. Need anything?” he asked again.
His brother attempted a grin, but it failed to hide the anxiety behind it. “Why do I sense a finality with that query?”
“Just asking.”
“No, I’m good,” he said dully. It was as if all the man’s energy had just evaporated.
Puller eyed his brother. Two years apart in age, they had been inseparable as young boys and later as young men in uniform for their country. Now he sensed a wall between them far higher than the ones surrounding the prison. And there was nothing he could do about it. He was looking at his brother. And then again his brother was no longer really there. He’d been replaced by this person in the orange jumpsuit who would be in this building for the rest of his natural life. Maybe for all of eternity. Puller wouldn’t put it past the military to have somehow figured that one out.
“Guy was killed here a while back,” said Robert.
Puller knew this. “Installation trusty. Baseball bat to the head on the rec field.”
“You checked?”
“I checked. Did you know him?”
Robert shook his head. “I’m on 23/1. Not a lot of time to socialize.”
That meant he was locked up twenty-three hours a day and then allowed out for one hour of exercise alone in an isolated place.
Puller did not know this. “Since when?”
Robert smiled. “You mean you didn’t check?”
“Since when?”
“Since I belted a guard.”
“Why?”
“Because he said something I didn’t care for.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing you need to know about.”
“And why is that?”
“Trust me. Like you said, I’m the smart brother. And it wasn’t like they could add any more time on to my sentence.”
“Anything to do with the old man?”
“You better get going. Don’t want to miss your flight out of here.”
“I’ve got time. Was it the old man?”
“This isn’t an interrogation, little brother. You can’t pump me for info. My court-martial is long since over.”
Puller looked down at the shackles on his brother’s ankles. “They feeding you through the slit?”
There were no bars at USDB. The doors were solid. For prisoners in solitary their food was delivered three times a day via a slit in the door. A panel at the bottom of the door allowed the shackles to be put on before the door was opened.
Robert nodded. “Guess I’m lucky they didn’t stamp me NHC. Or else we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“Did they threaten No Human Contact status?”
“They say lots of things in here.”
The men sat in silence.
Finally Robert said, “You better get going. I’ve got stuff to do. Keep real busy here.”
“I’ll be back.”
“No reason. And maybe a better reason not to.”
“I’ll tell the old man you said hello.”
The men rose and shook hands. Robert reached out and patted his brother on the shoulder. “You miss the Middle East?”
“No. And I don’t know anybody who served over there who does.”
“Glad you came back in one piece.”
“A lot of us didn’t.”
“Got any interesting cases going?”
“Not really.”
“You take care.”
“Right, you too.” Puller’s words were empty, hollow, before they even left his mouth.
He turned to leave. On cue the MP came to get his brother.
“Hey, John?”
Puller looked back. The MP had one big hand on his brother’s left upper arm. Part of Puller wanted to rip that hand off and knock the MP through the wall. But just a part.
“Yeah?” He locked gazes with Robert.
“Nothing, man. Just nothing. It was good to see you.”
Puller passed the scan MP, who jumped to attention when he came by, and hit the stairs, taking them two steps at a time. The phone was ringing when he reached his rental. He looked at the caller ID.
It was the number for the 701st MP Group out of Quantico, Virginia, where he was assigned as a CID special agent.
He answered. Listened. In the Army they taught you to talk less, listen more. Much more.
His response was curt. “On my way.” He checked his watch, swiftly calculated flight and drive times. He would lose an hour flying west to east. “Three hours and fifty minutes, sir.”
There was a slaughterhouse in the boonies of West Virginia. One of the victims had been a full colonel. That fact had triggered CID involvement, although he wasn’t sure why the case had landed in the lap of the 701st. But he was a soldier. He’d gotten an order. He was executing that order.
He would fly back to Virginia, grab his gear, get the official pack, and then it was burnt rubber to the boonies. However, his thoughts were not on the murder of a colonel, but rather on that last look on his brother’s face. It perched in a prominent corner of Puller’s mind. He was good at compartmentalizing. But he didn’t feel like doing it right now. The memories of his brother from a different time and place slowly trickled through his thoughts.