Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(82)

Puller didn’t hesitate. “I’d rather see for myself.”

“Pretty sure you’d say that. You’ll have full access. You can go right after you leave here.”

“Thanks.”

“Now that the prelims are out of the way, fill me in on your investigation.”

Puller gave him the condensed version. Mason perked up when he mentioned the probable videotaping of the Reynolds family.

“That sounds ominous,” he said.

“Yes, it does,” replied Puller.

When he got to the soil report, Mason stopped him. “I’d like to see it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why a soil report?”

“Must’ve been important somehow.”

“And we don’t know from where it was taken?”

“No.”

“After you go by the Reynoldses’ you need to get back to Drake. I’d let you ride on DHS wings, but I don’t know who might be watching. Right now I’m not trusting many people.”

“Not a problem. I’ll go the way I came.”

As they walked down the hall Mason said, “Samantha Cole? Asset or liability?”

“Asset.”

“Good to know.”

“What’s your gut telling you about this?”

Mason stared straight ahead. “That it’ll make a lot of people forget 9/11.”

Mason turned left down another hall.

Puller kept walking straight ahead.

Right now it was the only direction he could go.

CHAPTER

57


PULLER DROVE DIRECTLY to the Reynolds home in Fairfax City. It was in an older neighborhood of modest homes. Reynolds had probably been transferred back and forth from the D.C. area several times during his military career. For those who had to sell their homes at the lows of the real estate market and then buy back in at the highs, it could be rough financially. Puller didn’t know Reynolds’s personal situation, but he concluded the man was probably looking forward to a fatter paycheck in the private sector to offset all those years of earning far less than he was worth while serving his country.

Two hours later Puller sat in the living room of the home holding a picture of the Reynolds family in his gloved hands. Though the place had already been processed by DHS, he never broke crime scene procedures.

In the photo the Reynoldses looked happy, normal, alive.

Now they were none of those things. He had noted baseball gear in the boy’s room and swim and tennis posters in the daughter’s room. There were photos of Matt and Stacey during various military functions. And on vacation. Sailing, skydiving, swimming with the dolphins. There were pictures of their children on tennis and basketball courts. The daughter in her prom dress. The son, then just a toddler, hugging his old man when he was in uniform. Puller could easily read the expressions on their faces.

Dad was being deployed.

The son was not happy about it. He was hugging his father tight, trying to keep him from going.

Puller put the photo back where he’d gotten it. He locked the door on the way out. He sat in his car for a while gazing up at a house that had no one left to live in it. It would go on the market, be sold, the belongings dispersed, and the Reynoldses would live on only in the memories of their friends and family.

And in mine.


Afterwards, Puller drove to his apartment and packed a duffel bag full of clean clothes. By the time he got there it was very late. He spent a few minutes with AWOL while he thought through the night’s events. He’d changed his return flight to Charleston for the next morning. He’d missed the last direct flight there tonight.

Carson had been more right than she thought and also more wrong. There was something big going on. Only she had thought that Reynolds and she were the only ones on the federal side who knew about it. That was incorrect. She had thought she had blown it by not contacting the authorities. Obviously, the authorities had known, albeit after Reynolds was dead. The fact that the Reynolds family had been slaughtered did not give Puller much confidence in DHS’s ability to cover his back if need be. But for the chatter, they’d still be clueless.

As he stroked AWOL’s ears his thoughts turned to Sam Cole. How much if any of this could he tell her? The official answer was simple: He could tell her little if anything. The unofficial answer was far more complicated. He didn’t like putting people in harm’s way without telling them the lay of the land. He would have a short flight and then a longer car ride from Charleston to think about it.

He checked his watch. He had prearranged this. He had to, otherwise it couldn’t happen.

He made the call. He spoke to a line of people and gave the appropriate responses. Finally, the familiar voice came over the line.

“Surprised when they told me you’d set up a call for tonight,” said Robert Puller.

“Wanted to catch up.”

“It’s late on the East Coast.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“The call’s monitored,” his brother said. “There are people listening.” He changed voices, dropping it deliberately into a deep baritone. “Can you hear us clearly enough, Official Monitor? If not we’d be glad to speak up while we plot the destruction of the world.”

“Knock it off, Bobby, they might cut the call off.”