CHAPTER
21
JOHN PULLER SAT in his motel room staring at a wall. He and Knox had slept in after their late night. Then they had driven back to the motel where Daughtrey had been found. Puller didn’t know what he expected to find there the second time around. And ultimately he had discovered nothing new or helpful. Then he and Knox had spent the entire day running down more leads, but absolutely nothing had popped on any of them. Now it was night again and their investigation hadn’t progressed one iota.
And something Knox had said was sticking in his head like a Ka-Bar knife driven into his skull.
Or do you not want to know if your brother is really guilty or not?
Do I want to know? Or not?
He slipped his phone out of his pocket. It felt like a brick.
He thumbed through his contacts list until he settled on the one he wanted. He checked his watch. It was late and even later on the East Coast, but the person was a night owl. Puller knew many such night owls; he tended to be one himself.
He listened to the phone ringing. On the third ring he heard the gruff voice.
“Yeah?”
“Shireen?”
“Who the hell is this?” The gruff had moved on to annoyance.
“John Puller.”
Puller heard a thump, like a book had been dropped, and a clink, like a glass with ice in it had just been set down. And knowing Shireen as he did, the glass was not filled with water. More likely gin with a splash of tonic, and ice cubes, because as she had once told him, it was important to keep cool and hydrated.
A few moments of silence were followed by, “John Puller? What are you doing with yourself these days?”
Shireen Kirk—her full name, Puller knew, was Cambrai Shireen Kirk—was a Judge Advocate General, or JAG, attorney. She’d had her professional shingle out for nearly twenty years and had been involved in several of the cases that Puller had investigated. Each of those cases had resulted in a conviction. She was now forty-four years old, petite and thin, with reddish-blonde hair cut in a bob and bangs that still showed plenty of her freckles—Irish sprinkles, she had called them once. She was based in D.C. and had a reputation for being brilliant, scrupulously honest, diligent, fair-minded, and a woman who would kick your ass if you lied to her, regardless of military rank. And she could drink anyone of Puller’s acquaintance—and that included many large male beer lifters of prodigious capacity—under the table.
“This and that, Shireen,” replied Puller.
“We haven’t worked a case in a while.”
“Maybe we’re about due.”
“Wait a minute, didn’t you just shoot somebody in Nebraska?”
“Oklahoma.”
“Right, one of those flyover states. Saw something come across my desk about it. You okay?”
“I’m fine. The other guy isn’t. I didn’t kill him, but he’ll be walking funny for a while. Not how I wanted it to go down, but he didn’t give me a choice.”
“Where are you now?”
“Kansas.”
There was a long moment of silence. Puller could almost hear her mind sorting through things and compiling data, with a conclusion soon forthcoming.
“DB,” she said.
“DB’s here, all right.”
“A little surprised you are,” she said warily, as though she were being wiretapped and suspected a legal trap.
“I was too. But it’s all official and authorized.”
She said in an incredulous tone, “You’re not saying you’re investigating the escape?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Get off it! You’re shitting me.”
“No.”
“Has the Army lost its damn mind?”
“I can’t really answer that.”
“Then have you lost your mind?”
“I hope not.”
“Well, I hope your authorizations go about as high as they can go, otherwise I might be prosecuting you for about a dozen violations of military law, Puller.”
“I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t, Shireen.”
“In writing. Sometimes a CO’s memory sucks when the shit hits the fan.”
“Got ’em in writing. Army three-star and the NSC with trickle down the chain of command to my CO good enough for you?”
“Well sonofabitch, will wonders never cease? Why are you calling? If you’re in Kansas it’s too far to catch a beer together.”
“I’m calling about my brother.”
“What would I know about your brother? Other than he’s apparently escaped from DB? And you’re there, apparently investigating a crime you shouldn’t be within a continent of?”
“That word ‘apparently’ again.”
“What about it?”
“You’re not the first to use it when talking about what happened.”
“Well of course, Puller. Think about it. People don’t escape from DB. And do you believe for one second the Army wants to admit to something like that? The bigwigs are probably still praying he got stuck in a ventilation hole and it was all a big misunderstanding.”
“So my brother?”
She said nothing, but Puller could hear papers rustling and thought he detected the sound of a pen clicking. She seemed prepared to take notes. Whether this was a good thing or not, he wasn’t sure.
“I need to find out about his case.”
“His case?” she said.
“His court-martial.”
“Find out what?”
“Basically everything.”
“You don’t already know about it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It was sealed. I’m assuming because of the issues involved.”
“National security,” she said, and Puller could imagine her head nodding and her perhaps frowning at this. He had found that Shireen Kirk did not like secrets on either end of a case. They were a lot alike in that regard.
“Right. But why do you need to know about his case?”
“I’m trying to find him. If I knew what he went to DB for it might generate some leads for me.”
He hoped the late hour had reduced the efficiency of her bullshit meter.
“O-kay,” she said slowly, skepticism oozing from both syllables.
“I think you’d agree that breaking out of DB is pretty remarkable.”
“I think we can agree on that.”
“And maybe he had help to do it.”
“So you think whoever he was involved with before helped him escape?”
“It’s a theory.”
“He’s been at DB for how long?”
“Over two years.”
“Long time to wait to bust somebody out.”
“Not really. Not if you have to acquire the tools with which to do so.”
“Inside help, you mean?”
“That wouldn’t come easily or cheaply. At least I hope it wouldn’t, since it might implicate folks in uniform.”
“Well, if the file is sealed, I’m not sure there’s much I can do. And if you’ve been authorized to investigate this case you should be able to get it unsealed going through appropriate channels.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But right now I prefer not to employ proper channels. And I was thinking that you might know people who could unseal it.”
“That would take a court order, Puller,” she said sharply. “Because it would have taken a court order to seal it.”
“Well, I remember from high school science class that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.”
“Yeah, and I remember from law school that a fool and her license to practice are soon parted.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything unethical, Shireen, because I know you wouldn’t. All I’m asking is for you to just see if there’s any way I can find out about the case. Something I can read. Someone I can talk to. Anything is more than I have right now. The military never throws anything away. There has to be some record of it somewhere.”
There was another pause and Puller started to wonder if she had hung up.
“Shireen?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. I’m just taking a minute to pull my head out of my ass for even contemplating helping you.”
“But you are contemplating?” noted Puller hopefully.
“I’ll make some calls. Anything comes of it, you’ll hear from me. If nothing comes of it, you won’t. Good enough?”
“Good enough. Thanks, Shireen.”
“Don’t thank me. This shit stinks so bad it’s a wonder you’re still breathing.”
“I know it’s out of the ordinary.”
“It’s not just out of the ordinary, it’s unthinkable. Letting you work on this case violates every rule the Army has. And you better get your head out of your ass and wonder why they’re really letting you do it. Because I can’t think of a single reason that would benefit you, three-star and NSC approvals notwithstanding.”
She clicked off and Puller put his phone back in his pocket.
He wasn’t a lawyer, but he had spent enough time around them to know that they could smell a problem and potential downside from the other side of the world. They definitely looked at the glass half-empty. And right now, maybe he should too.
Why do they really want me on this case?
Schindler, Daughtrey, and Rinehart had given him reasons for it. They seemed sound and plausible. But after what Shireen had just said they didn’t seem that sound or that plausible. And now Daughtrey was dead.
He was still thinking about this when he heard the woman scream.