Daylight (Atlee Pine, #3)(70)

“He was going to, I think.”

“So you were being followed last night?”

“Yes. We ran into two thugs earlier who were going to come down heavy on Sands, probably over drugs. We chased them off. I don’t think it was them.”

“So maybe whoever Sands was going to finger?”

“I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

The door opened and they both turned to see who it was. Pine was expecting the surgeon and praying it would be good news.

But the tall man in his late thirties was wearing Air Force ABUs, that service branch’s camouflage version.

“Are you Atlee Pine?” he asked.

Pine rose and looked at the man. He was an inch shorter than Puller and not as muscular, but the face and the eyes didn’t lie.

“You’re Robert Puller,” she said, shaking his hand.

“I came as soon as I got your message.” He glanced at Blum, who nodded at him, a sympathetic expression on her features.

“This is my assistant, Carol Blum.”

“What’s his condition?” asked Puller.

“He’s still in surgery. They promised to come in here after it was over.”

“You said you were there. How bad is it?”

“Had to have been a rifle round. Went through Jeff Sands’s skull before it hit your brother, so that was good. A lot less kinetic energy.”

“Where did the round hit him?”

Pine touched her upper torso on the left side. “Here. In and out, which I hope was good. But he bled a lot. I stopped it as best I could. Then the paramedics arrived and took over. He was in and out of consciousness, then they put him on a drip, and he went under. His vitals on the ride were critical, but stable.”

Pine had to sit down because recounting all of this so clinically and impersonally had suddenly run up against the fact that the person she was discussing was a friend and that he might still die.

Puller sat down next to her and gripped her shoulder. “He’s the toughest man I know, Agent Pine. If anyone can pull through, he will.”

Pine leveled a far calmer gaze on him. “Please, make it Atlee.” She paused, desperately wanting to change the subject. “John mentioned you used an algorithm to turn up Gloria Miles, which led us to Jeff Sands. How did you do that, Colonel Puller?”

“I go by Robert.” Puller sat back and brushed at his regulation short hair. “From what John explained to me, I concluded that we were operating in exalted circles. No run-of-the-mill drug dealer can get a vice chair removed from his assignment at the Pentagon on a day’s notice because the man was making inquiries. That narrowed things down quite a bit. I ran a script on possible connections between highly ranked politicos and any connection at all to criminal activity, including drug dealing, because it seemed to have a nexus to what you were looking into. I ran a series of calculations and the one name that kept popping out was Jeff Sands and his grandfather, Peter Driscoll. Next, I looked for any connection to them that John could use as an investigative point of contact. That’s how I got to the godmother, Gloria Miles.”

“How long did all of this take you?” asked a wide-eyed Pine.

“I did it over lunch. I’m not that fast, but the computers I use are, and the databases they have access to are truly immense.”

“Can the FBI borrow you for like the rest of your life?” interjected Blum.

Puller added, “But now Sands is dead. So that lead is dead, too.” “At least we know more now than we did,” said Pine. “But all I want right now is to hear that John is going to be fine.”

At that moment the door to the visitors room opened once more. The woman was in her fifties and she wore blue scrubs and spectacles. Her hair was salt and pepper and her expression was one, it seemed to Pine, of relief.

“Agent Pine?”

“Yes,” she said, jumping up. Robert Puller did likewise.

“He’s out of surgery and stable. He’s going to make it. He’s quite a strong young man.”

“Yes he is. This is his brother, Robert Puller.”

Puller shook hands with the surgeon. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“I noticed that he had several previous wounds that had healed.”

“He’s Army. Middle East.”

The doctor nodded. “That explains it. Well, he just added another one to the collection.”

“When can we see him?”

“He’s in recovery and needs to rest. I would say later today or tomorrow even. He’s strong, but he’s been through a lot.”

Pine said, “Will . . . will he make a full recovery?”

“I think he’ll be fine.”

“I mean, physically and all. Like he was before. He’s a CID agent in the Army.”

“Oh, I see.” She looked from Pine to Puller. “Well, I can’t make any guarantees, but I hope that he will. I can’t say one hundred percent. There was some internal damage. But from the looks of him, and from what you just told me, I wouldn’t bet against him, either.”

She left and closed the door.

Pine and Puller collapsed into their chairs. Pine put a supportive arm on Puller’s shoulder. “He’s going to make it, Robert, that’s what’s most important.”