CHAPTER
38
SUSAN REYNOLDS SLIPPED into her car after putting some shopping bags in the trunk. It was thirty minutes to her home and the traffic was light. She reached her house and carried her bags in. She set them down and turned off the alarm. She was about to switch on the light when the voice called out.
“Please don’t move. There’s a gun pointed at your head.”
Reynolds started to turn around.
“Do not turn around,” the voice said sharply.
Reynolds froze where she stood.
“Now, walk forward and turn into the living room. Sit in the chair nearest the television.”
“You seem to know my house very well,” said Reynolds calmly as she began to walk in that direction.
She turned into the living room and sat in the designated chair. When she reached for the light on the table next to her the voice said, “I’ll do that.”
She slowly pulled back her hand and laid it in her lap while the person behind her turned on the light to its lowest setting.
“How did you get in here? The alarm was on.”
“An alarm is only as good as the password, and yours wasn’t very good.”
“But then you reset it? Why?”
“Well, not resetting it would have given my intrusion away, wouldn’t it?”
He moved fully into the room but kept behind her.
Robert Puller had on a hoodie pulled up and a ski mask that covered everything on his face except his eyes and lips. His gun was pointed at the back of Reynolds’s head. Across the room he had placed a mirror he’d found in her bathroom on a table. It was angled so that he could see her face reflected in it, while he remained hidden from her. He wanted to see her face, and more important, her reactions to his questions.
He said, “I would presume that you’re armed. Take your weapon out holding it by the muzzle or the next sound you hear will unfortunately be the last one you ever will.”
She drew out the compact Sig nine-millimeter by the muzzle and placed it on the carpet.
“Kick it behind you.”
She did so and Puller reached down and pocketed it.
“What do you want?” asked Reynolds. “I have some money in the study. My credit cards are in my purse. I don’t have gold bullion on the premises, if that’s what you’re looking for,” she added snidely.
“Who paid you to lie about what you saw?” Puller asked.
She stiffened and Puller added, “I thought you would have recognized my voice before now, Susan.”
“It’s been two years.”
“Over two years, actually. But still, I remembered your voice.”
“I’ve had a lot more to do over the last two years than you.”
“Actually, I’ve had a lot to think about, if that counts.”
“And what did you conclude, Robert?”
“That you were well compensated, judging by the size of your house and the luxury car you drove up in. Uncle Sam doesn’t pay that well for someone at your level.”
“I invested smartly and I had some money to start with. It’s all been checked out. My security clearances justify that.”
“Not always, as you well know. Granting security clearances these days is not what it used to be. But I’m not here to discuss your financial circumstances, other than to find out who paid you off.”
“Nobody paid me off. I saw what I saw. You stole classified information from STRATCOM. The DVD was found in your pocket. The evidence doesn’t get much clearer than that.”
“Which is why you put it there, pulled the fire alarm, and then told others to search me.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault? Do you have any idea how many people are after you? You killed a man to get out of prison. You didn’t get the death penalty for some reason last time, but this time you will. Oh, and your brother was here to interview me. It was clear that he believes you’re guilty.”
“So you won’t tell me who hired you?”
“No one hired me. Being at DB must have made you delusional. And on top of it you’re now a murderer. I hope God will have mercy on you after they stick the needle in you, Robert.”
“I think God will have mercy, but it won’t be directed at me, because I don’t require any.”
“And what about Niles Robinson? Spin that one.”
“I don’t have to spin it. He lied. Same as you. You were in it together. Bought off by the same party.”
“Well, this is obviously getting us nowhere.”
Puller said, “How did you end up at the Center for Combating WMDs?”
“How did you know about that?”
“Please, Susan, don’t insult my intelligence.”
“I’m at the center because it’s a job. There, satisfied?”
He studied her face in the mirror. But her expression was inconclusive. And her hands remained in her lap.
“But it’s an unusual job for someone like you. Your work in the past had to do with inspection of nukes, but your more recent specialty was not in that arena.”
“That’s my business.”
“But it does make sense in one respect.”
Reynolds stiffened once more, Puller noted as he watched her in the mirror.
“To combat WMDs one must know where they are located. Is that why you’re working there, Susan?”
“I have expertise in WMDs from when I worked on the START verification program. Now would you please leave so I can call the police?”
“I’ll get to the truth one way or another.”
“So, you’re going to kill me too? Like you did the man back at DB?”
“He was sent there to kill me. I don’t know if you were told that part of the plan or not.”
“Have fun explaining that convoluted mess to the MPs.”
“If you cooperate with me, I’m sure you can work a deal. You might not have to go to prison for the rest of your life. A good deal, actually.”
“I’m not going to prison. You are. Back to prison. Or dead, more likely.”
She cried out when the needle pricked her neck. She grabbed at the spot a second after Puller removed the hypodermic. He placed it on the table behind him.
She started to turn. He pulled back the hammer on his pistol. “Don’t do it.”
“What did you inject me with?” she snapped.
“Something of my own concoction. You’ll feel your heart start to beat erratically any second now.”
She clutched at her chest, which started to heave. “You poisoned me. You bastard, you poisoned me!”
“But I also have the antidote with me. You answer my questions and you can have it.”
“I can’t trust you!”
“Well, you’re going to have to, because I see limited options.”
“I will kill you,” she roared. She tried to get up, but he put a hand on her shoulder and held her down. She struggled against him but he was too strong.
“I should warn you that physical exertion such as this speeds up the process. Then not even the antidote will work. And your death will not be painless, I can assure you.”
Reynolds immediately stopped moving.
“Now, try to breathe normally. Long, slow breaths. Like you’re doing yoga. Long and slow.”
He waited while she did so.
“That’s better.” He paused, watching her in the mirror. Now came the real questioning. “Who hired you?”
“How long do I have before the antidote won’t work?”
“Five minutes, maybe less now that you let your heart rate spike. The poison has been distributed throughout your bloodstream far faster than optimal.”
“Nothing about this is optimal,” she snapped.
“Calm yourself, Susan. Let your heartbeat fall and answer my questions. Who hired you to set me up?”
“What’s the poison you administered? Tell me!” she demanded.
“An organophosphate. AKA a nerve agent.”
“Shit! And the antidote?”
“Two-PAM, pralidoxime chloride. With a little side of atropine since two-PAM isn’t great at blood-brain barrier penetration. And some pilocarpine in case there’s a reaction to the atropine.”
Reynolds started breathing easier. “You’ve got atropine?”
Puller said, “So named after Atropos, one of the three Fates in Greek mythology. She was the Fate who chose how a person was to die. I thought it appropriate under the circumstances. After all, you had counted on my being put to death by lethal injection for your crime. I’m just returning the favor. Potentially, at least.” He paused.
“Now, since time is running out, who hired you?”
“I don’t know,” she replied sharply.
“Not nearly good enough.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know. The instructions came through a secure coded link on my private email.”
“So because of an email you committed treason?”
“It wasn’t just that. I did meet with someone.”
“The name of the person?”
“He didn’t exactly hand out business cards.”
“Well, at least I know it was a man. Who was he with?”
“Not our country.”
“Which one?”
He focused particularly hard now, awaiting her response as he watched her reflection in the glass.
She lifted her eyebrows and rubbed at her nose. “Russia,” she said.
Puller relaxed just a bit. “Okay, and he persuaded you to do what exactly?”
“What we set you up for. Providing backdoor access to our systems.”
“But after you set me up they checked for that. Why call attention to the fact?”
“They checked your access points, not anyone else’s.”
“So you threw me to the wolves to throw them off you?”
“Something like that.”
“And the back doors are still there?”
“I would assume they are.”
“And they’ve been used?”
“I doubt they paid not to use them.”
“And now you’ve been assigned to the WMD Center. Interesting.”
“That has nothing to do with anything. The Russians have WMDs. They don’t need anyone else’s.”
“That’s if you assume I believe you that it was the Russians behind this. I don’t.”
“You’ve poisoned me. Do you think I’d lie?”
“Of course I think you would. That’s what you are, a liar.”
“You have no chance, Puller. No chance at all. You’re going to die.”
“The Russians are easy to blame things on. So you mentioning them as your source is not particularly creative. I would have expected better from you.”
Reynolds blurted out, “How much time do I have left? Give me the damn antidote.”
Puller continued, as though he hadn’t heard her, “Niles Robinson said he saw me with an Iranian agent. Again, he wouldn’t have said that if Iran had actually been involved. So we can leave that rogue nation out of the mix. I’m just thinking out loud here. Feel free to jump in anytime with the actual answer.” He reached his hand into his pocket.
“You asshole! I bet you don’t even have the atropine.”
He plunged the tip of another syringe into her neck and depressed the plunger. In a few seconds she toppled over in her chair and lay there unconscious from the sedative he’d administered. The “poison” had been a simple saline solution.
He had already searched her house and found her gun cache in the safe. She had made a mistake there, using the same code as her house alarm. One pistol was missing from its box, which was how he had deduced that she was armed. He had taken pictures with his phone of any documents that looked promising. And he had hacked her computer and downloaded files to his portable drive.
He let himself out, took off his mask, walked to his truck parked across the street, and drove off. There had been pluses and minuses to his visit with Reynolds. The plus was she had admitted setting him up. And she had provided him some clues to the truth. The negative was obvious. She would tell others that he had been to her home and threatened her. This would alert them that he was in the area. And this would also increase everyone’s conviction that he was indeed guilty. Not that they needed any such convincing.
But in the end, it had been worth it, because for the first time ever he felt like he was finally going to figure this all out.