CHAPTER
52
KNOX PARTED COMPANY with Puller at Fort Belvoir, where INSCOM was located. She wanted to check in and she had some paperwork to complete. They made arrangements to meet later at her hotel.
Before driving back to Quantico, Puller stopped at a coffee shop and pulled out a phone he had recently purchased, one of a pair, actually. His brother had the other one. Over coffee he took his time to thumb in a long message and then sent it off.
His brother’s unbreakable code would be put to the test, he thought. But then again, he had considerable confidence in Robert’s skills.
As he was pulling in to his apartment complex his new phone buzzed. He parked and pulled it out. His brother’s response matched the length of the original message. He hurried to his apartment and, using a pad of paper and a pencil, was able to decode the message in about thirty minutes.
His brother had come up with the code when they were boys. He had based it on the concept of a one-time pad key he had read about, but one that could be reused. It really was unbreakable, because it was similar to a substitution cipher but based on a story that Robert Puller had created and then taught, word for word, to his younger brother over and over until even all these years later Puller could remember it in detail. If one didn’t know the story, one couldn’t break the code. And the only ones who knew the original story were the two Pullers.
Puller had told his brother of the results of their meeting with Reynolds and then Carter and Sullivan and also the facts of Reynolds’s financial history. Robert’s decoded message was succinct: She covered her tracks well. Find out what you can on the death of her husband. That fact that he was an FBI agent is intriguing. She never mentioned that to me or anyone else I know that knew her. The more that I understand her hostility to me, the more likely it is that she was the one Niles Robinson was alluding to on the phone call I had with him. But jealousy could not be the primary motivation. It was to replace me with Tim Daughtrey. So you need to investigate him in greater detail. Everything about his career that you can uncover, John. And I mean everything.
However, the last part of his brother’s message was the most surprising, and intriguing: Reynolds being part of the START verification team is also of importance. She told me that when we “met,” but I didn’t focus on it then. But you mentioning her relaying that to you when you saw the photo in her office brought it back to my mind. Find out what you can about that, because it may very well tie into her present assignment. And that may well be the brass ring we’ve been looking for.
Puller stared down at this part of the message for another moment or two before deleting it all. He could see what his brother might be getting at. If Reynolds was a spy, then spies didn’t just spy on one thing over the years. They went where the most was to be gained by their treachery.
But it couldn’t be just Reynolds. There had to be someone else who had an ocean of juice. And there could only be a few at that level.
And one of them might be Donovan Carter.
The head of DTRA could have listened to them last night during the nightcap just to learn what they knew. He could have told Reynolds everything, so that she would be fully prepared for them today. And while her financial picture seemed perfectly logical and would have normally convinced Puller, he knew the woman was a liar.
He wrote his brother a short message and pocketed the phone. He had a lot of work to do and he better get to it.
Starting with the late Brigadier General Tim Daughtrey.
After numerous phone calls, Internet searches, and a quick trip to Bolling Air Force Base in D.C., Puller had accumulated a great deal of material on the dead man. He sifted through this information while sitting in the W’s hotel lobby. He had still not heard from Knox, but expected to at any time. He figured he would meet up with her at the hotel.
Daughtrey’s career had proceeded along a tried-and-true formula of nose to the grindstone, checking off all the boxes for continued promotion, and going to where he needed to go and doing what he needed to do at each of those stops in his relentless chase for the shoulder stars. In that regard he was like many men and women who had done the very same thing over the years. His strengths and experiences, however, had not been in the battlefield, but rather in technology, which might be the battlefield of the future. At least that’s what everyone at the Pentagon seemed to be saying. The general consensus was that Daughtrey was well liked and his death had been a huge loss to the country’s defenses.
Puller collected all of these facts and then sent them in a coded message to his brother.
He next turned to the issue of Reynolds’s dead FBI agent husband. He found some old news clippings on the Internet. Adam Reynolds had been an agent in the Washington, D.C., Field Office. He was only in his early thirties when he was hit and killed by a car near his home.
Puller had a contact at the Bureau and made a call to that person, who remembered the case and had actually worked briefly with Adam Reynolds many years before. Reynolds had been one of the few FBI agents ever killed, although it had not been in the line of duty.
“He was walking back from a coffee shop in a strip mall near his house,” said the agent.
“How do you know that?”
“If I remember correctly, they found the coffee cup about ten feet from his body. And someone from the coffee shop remembered him coming in.”
“Where was this exactly?” asked Puller.
“In Burke, Virginia. His wife said he walked there all the time. Adam liked his coffee, like most of us.”
“Was his wife home at the time?”
“No, I don’t believe so. No, that’s right. She was out of the country. She worked for Uncle Sam too. Don’t remember where.”
“But they had young kids back then. Who was with them?”
“I’m not sure about that. They might have been old enough to stay by themselves for a few minutes. You know things were different back then. You could leave your kids for a bit without people screaming at you or seeing it posted on Facebook.”
“And they never found the driver?”
“Never did. It was pretty late at night. Where he got hit there were no houses, so no one saw anything.”
“Did you think he was targeted? That it was work-related?”
“We always think that initially. But the official conclusion was that it was probably some drunk who hit him and then took off. Damn shame, because Adam was a good guy.”
“Good marriage? Everything okay on that end?”
“As far as I know. But we weren’t best friends or anything. I’d met his wife a few times. Seemed like a nice sort. She was gone a lot, according to Adam. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just groping around for a few leads on something.”
“Something to do with Adam’s death? After all these years?”
“It might tie into something I’ve got going on. I suppose you don’t know where their kids are? I think her son is a lawyer.”
“He is. With the Bureau actually. I guess he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps. At least partly.”
“You got contact info for him?”
“I can look it up right now. I’ll give it to you on the condition that one day you tell me what the hell this is all about, Puller.”
“I promise I will. And thanks.”
Puller wrote down the information and clicked off. He called Dan Reynolds, who was in the FBI’s D.C. office. When Puller explained who he was and what he wanted to talk about, he expected the young man to either ask a lot of questions or hang up on him. But instead Reynolds said, “In about twenty minutes I can meet you at the Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner from WFO.”
Surprised by this, Puller quickly agreed and headed to his car. On the way to the parking garage he texted Knox about this development.
The Dunkin’ Donuts was fairly busy when Puller got there. But he had no problem spotting Dan Reynolds, for the young man had taken after his mother in height and looks. Puller introduced himself and they bought their coffees and headed outside to sit at a small table on the sidewalk.
Dan Reynolds, in addition to inheriting his mother’s good looks and height, had her penetrating gaze. He took a sip of coffee and stared at a car passing by.
“So why is an Army CID agent looking into my father’s death all these years later? He wasn’t in the military.”
“It might be connected to another case of a military nature,” Puller answered.
“Mind telling me which one?”
Puller mulled this over. “A former colleague of your mother was murdered at Union Station.”
“Niles Robinson,” said Dan.
“That’s right.”
“And that’s the case? But Robinson wasn’t in the military either.”
“No, but he was a witness in a case involving a military member.”
Dan turned his gaze directly to Puller. “And how could that be connected to my father’s death?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I’m poking around trying to find a lead.” He paused and then added in a casual tone, “I suppose I could talk to your mother.”
Dan made a cutting motion in the air with his hand. “I wouldn’t bother with her if I were you.”
“Why not? She works in the area.”
“At DTRA. But you’ll learn nothing from her.”
“I don’t understand. It was her husband.”
“Yeah, it was her husband, how about that?”
Puller leaned forward. “I really need to understand what you’re saying here.”
Dan had looked away again at the passing cars. “I was eleven when my dad was killed. My sister was nine.”
“Must’ve been tough.”
“It was hell. My dad left to walk to the store and he never came back.”
“His favorite coffee shop.”
Dan looked at him. “No, he went to the store to get some things.”
“But they found a coffee cup from his favorite shop near the body. At least that’s what I was told.”
“I didn’t know that. I knew he went to the store. He usually didn’t leave me and my sister alone like that. But she’d called.”
“Who had called?”
“My mother.”
“And told him what?”
“To get some things from the store. Stuff she said we needed. At least that’s what my dad said. He wasn’t happy about it, because like I said he didn’t like to leave us. But she had that way about her.”
“What way?”
“To get what she wanted. My dad was a tough FBI agent. But around her, well, he just seemed to shrink to nothing. I think he was afraid of her.”
“I understand that she’s a fine shot.”
Dan looked disgusted. “Her guns! She’s so proud of her guns. Loved them more than she loved us. I went in and messed up her ‘trophy room’ one day when I was seven. Threw her hardware all over the damn place. I just wanted to get her attention. I thought she was going to beat me to death. It was lucky that Dad was there.”
“She sounds unbalanced. It’s a wonder she could pass a polygraph and get her security clearances.”
“Jekyll and Hyde, Agent Puller. She could walk the walk and talk the talk when she wanted to. What went on inside our house was a totally different story. But you’ll never find a finer actress. Meryl Streep has nothing on my mother.”
Puller ran through some possible questions and angles in his mind before saying, “Your dad could have taken you with him to the store that night.”
“No, my sister had broken her leg that summer and she was in a cast. In fact, she was already asleep when my mom called. He would never have left her alone. I stayed to watch her.”
“Where was your mom?”
“Overseas somewhere. Eastern Europe maybe.”
“Well, if it was night where you lived on the East Coast, it would be very early morning over there.”
“I guess so. But she called. I heard the phone ring. And I talked to her for a minute or so.”
“And then your dad went out?”
“Yeah.”
“If he wanted to hurry because you two would be alone, why not just drive?”
“The car wouldn’t start. He came back into the house mad as hell about that. So he just grabbed his jacket and went on foot. It wasn’t that far.”
“And you only had the one car?”
“My mother’s was at her workplace. She always left it there when she was overseas.”
“So he was on his way back because they found the coffee cup but they didn’t find any of the stuff from the store? How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know. It was a hit-and-run. At least that’s what we were told. We were kids, they didn’t tell us much.”
“Look, if I’m wrong on this, please say so. It’s just the cynical investigator coming out in me.” Puller hesitated, choosing his words with great care. “But you seem to have doubts about this whole thing. Am I right or wrong?”
Dan turned to look at Puller again. “If you’re asking whether I think my mother set my dad up to be killed, then, yeah, I do.”
Puller took this revelation in slowly. “That’s quite an allegation.”
“I’m a lawyer, I know it’s a serious allegation.”
“So when did you arrive at this conclusion? Surely not when you were a kid.”
“No, it was later, when I was grown.” He gave a wry smile. “When I became cynical too.”
“Okay,” said Puller encouragingly.
“Things didn’t add up. Why call him that late to go to the store to get stuff? Why couldn’t it have waited? And my dad had taken the day off and driven my sister to the doctor for her leg and the car worked fine. So why wouldn’t it start later?”
“So he’d have to walk to the store, that’s what you concluded?”
“And get hit by a car, yeah.”
“Did you ever raise this possibility with anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My mother can be pretty intimidating for an adult, much less a little kid. And by the time I became really suspicious, what could I do? Years had gone by. The evidence was gone. There would have been no point.”
“There was a large insurance payout.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell anyone about your mother’s phone call that night?”
“No one ever asked me. My mother flew home the next day. She handled everything.”
“Meaning she kept you and your sister from talking to anyone?”
“Pretty much, yeah. And the cops were convinced it was just a hit-and-run. They weren’t looking beyond that.”
“I’ve actually spoken to your mother. She intimated that she thought it might have been connected to one of your dad’s cases.”
“Did she tell you that she had called him that night?”
“No, she somehow left that out.”
“Well, then?”
“I take it you don’t get along with her?”
“No, I don’t. Even if this hadn’t happened with my father, my mother is not the warm fuzzy type. She had her kids but I don’t think she had any interest in actually being a mother. I was a lot closer to my dad. And after he died my grandmother pretty much raised us, not her. So now I have nothing to do with my mother. And she seems perfectly fine with that.”
“Does she know you suspect her?”
“I’ve never mentioned it to her. She scares the shit out of me if you want to know the truth.”
“I think that’s a good thing, actually. I meant the not mentioning part.”
“I truly wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“If she did have a role in his death, do you think it was for the money?”
Dan shrugged. “I would hear my dad sometimes in his little den after he’d been hitting the booze a bit.”
“What would he say?”
“He had really bad arguments with my mother about things. And when she wasn’t around, he would go to his den and talk to himself.”
“And say what exactly?”
“I just caught snatches here and there. And he didn’t seem to be making much sense. But it seemed he had a problem with my mother and what she was doing in her job.”
“And do you know what that was?”
“I know she spent a lot of time in Russia.”
“As part of a START verification team?”
“I think that’s right, yeah. At least I found out about that later. She never talked to me about her work.”
“Why would that bother him? She was helping to dismantle nukes.”
“It didn’t seem like he had a problem with that. I think it was more personal.”
“Meaning someone she worked with?”
“All I know is I heard my dad once say he’d kill the guy if he had the chance.”
“Kill the guy?”
“Yeah. And my dad was a pretty calm person. I don’t know what he found or heard, but he was definitely pissed off about it.”
“What does your sister think?”
“She was closer to our mom than I ever was. She wouldn’t agree with anything I’ve been saying. They see each other a lot. They’re tight. My mom has even helped my sister out financially.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Gaithersburg, Maryland. She has a clothing store up there.”
“She do well with it?”
“She does okay. Like I said, I know Mom helps her out financially.”
“Does that surprise you? I mean, given what you’ve told me about your mother?”
Dan shrugged. “My sister won’t bite the hand that feeds her. So she tells the woman what she wants to hear. But to give our mother her due, if she loves anyone, it would be my sister.”
Puller wrote some notes down and said, “She told me about making the Olympic team in the biathlon. She said she might have won the gold.”
“Did she tell you she didn’t compete?”
“Yeah, some sort of medical issue.”
Dan laughed.
“What’s the joke?” asked Puller.
“ I was the medical issue.”
“Come again?”
“She was pregnant with me. They wouldn’t let her compete.”
“Was she upset about that?”
“She was so upset about it that she never mentioned it. I only found out from my dad.”
“Hey, it takes two to tango. She knew what she was doing.”
“My dad said she claimed he messed with her birth control pills.”
“Did he?”
“Who knows? If she wanted to win a medal in the Olympics she knew she couldn’t do it while heavily pregnant. Maybe my dad did do it. She was so controlling. Maybe he wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine. And it might be one reason she never really took to me. I guess I represented her missed opportunity at glory.”
“It may or may not have been someone’s fault, Dan, but it sure as hell wasn’t yours. You weren’t even born.”
“Sounds logical. But some people are not swayed by logic.”
They sat in silence drinking their coffees.
Puller finally said, “I’m surprised you’ve talked to me about all this.”
Dan gave a mirthless laugh. “I guess I surprised myself. But when you called out of the blue, I thought, well I just thought—”
“That the truth might come out and justice would be finally served for your father?”
The two men locked gazes. Dan said, “After all, it’s why I joined the FBI’s legal office. And I really loved my dad.”
“Well, I hope I can make that happen for you,” Puller said.
And for my brother, he thought.
He thanked Dan Reynolds and headed back to his car. Before he got there his phone buzzed. It was Knox.
“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you,” he said. He listened for a bit and said, “Shirlington, huh? Okay, it was definitely worth a shot. Why don’t you stay with them and we can hook back up later.” He paused, listening, but she broke off in mid-sentence. His features grew tight. He said, “Knox? Knox?”
He heard her yelling something, not at him, at someone else.
When he heard her words he started to run.
The next sound he heard made Puller redouble his efforts. As he ran full out to his car he screamed into his phone. “Knox? Veronica!”
She never answered.
And then the line went dead.