Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(71)

“He ever talk to you about anything unusual going on out there?”

“He never talked to me about West Virginia, period. It was a personal family matter and I never asked. None of my business.”

“Well, someone murdered him and his family out there.”

“Yes, they did. And it’s your job to find them.”

“Which is what I’m trying to do.”

“Okay, but I think the answer lies in West Virginia, not in the Pentagon.”

“Did you know his wife?”

Carson glanced at her watch and then at the phone. “I have a conference call coming up shortly. And the J2 is out of the country so I’ll be presenting the briefing to the Chairman tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll try to make it snappy,” said Puller, but he looked at her expectantly.

“I knew Stacey Reynolds only through Matt. I saw her at the occasional function. We were friends, but not close friends. That’s all.”

“And Colonel Reynolds never mentioned that something unusual was going on in West Virginia?”

“I thought I already answered that.”

Puller sat patiently looking at her.

“No, he didn’t,” she said, and Puller wrote this down in his notebook.

“When I was assigned this case I was told that it was unusual. I assumed it was unusual because it involved the murder of a DIA field grade officer who had access to highly classified intelligence.”

“Thankfully, murders of such people don’t happen often, so that I guess it would qualify as unusual.”

“No, I think the term was in reference to the fact that we were going light on assets with this investigation. And if Reynolds was not doing anything of importance for DIA and you don’t think his murder had anything to do with his assignment to DIA, why would it have been described to me as unusual? Then it just becomes another homicide.”

“Since I wasn’t the one who described it that way to you, I have no way of answering that question.” She glanced at her watch again.

“Anything else you can think of that might help my investigation?”

“I can’t think of a one.”

“I’ll need to interview Reynolds’s coworkers.”

“Look, Puller, do we really need to go there? I’ve told you all there is to tell. My people are very busy trying to keep this country safe. The last thing they need is to be distracted by something like this, which has nothing to do with them.”

Puller sat up straighter and closed his notebook. “Your friend and colleague was murdered, General Carson. I’ve been assigned to find out who did it. I intend on accomplishing that mission. I’ll need to talk to his coworkers. I’ll do it efficiently and professionally, but I am going to do it. Right now.”

They had a stare-off, which Puller ended up winning.

She picked up her phone and made some calls.

As Puller rose to leave she said, “Maybe I was wrong about you.”

“In what way?”

“Maybe you do have what it takes to lead.”

“Maybe,” said Puller.

CHAPTER

50


THEY LEFT the J2’s office, grabbed a left on Corridor 9, and took the escalator to the basement. The lower level at the Pentagon was a bewildering maze of sterile white corridors that not a drop of sunlight would ever touch. It was Pentagon lore that there were DoD employees from the 1950s still wandering around down here trying to find their way out.

The personnel of J23 were analysts and graphic artists, about two dozen in total, who methodically built the briefing book each week, using intelligence input not only from DIA but also from other agencies like CIA and NSA. Then they would tweak it to the current Chairman’s intelligence preferences. It was a PowerPoint presentation set in hard paper and was succinct in getting to the meat of the matter without delay. In the Army brevity was a virtue beyond all others.

The people in J23 were a mix of uniforms and civilians. Thus Puller saw fatigues, old green uniforms, new blue uniforms, slacks, button-down shirts, and the occasional tie. The unit operated around the clock and the perk for the night crew was that they got to wear polo shirts. Reynolds had been the highest-ranking officer here.

Since J23 was housed in a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, room, Puller and Bolling had to put their cell phones and other electronic devices inside a locker on the wall outside the entrance. No picture-taking or outside communications capabilities were allowed in an SCIF.

They were buzzed in and Puller eyed the reception area. It looked like many others he’d seen in the Pentagon. This was the only way in or out, except for possibly a fire emergency exit somewhere in the back. At the end of the corridor was an open bay. Here individual cubicles were lined up and analysts and artists toiled away on the product that General Carson would be poring over tomorrow at 0500. The lights in here were dim. The lights at the cubicles were better. Still, Puller thought, half the people here probably needed eyeglasses after less than a year fighting terrorists from their desks mostly in the dark.

Puller and Bolling showed their creds and were granted access to Reynolds’s coworkers, the highest ranking of whom was a lieutenant colonel. There was a small conference room where Puller conducted his interviews. Each person was spoken with separately, a common enough interview tactic. Witnesses questioned together tended to tell the same story, even if they had different information and perceptions to begin with. They were informed by Puller and confirmed by Bolling that Puller was cleared for everything up to “TS/SCI with polygraph” and had a “valid need to know.” In the intelligence world those phrases opened many a locked door and mouth.