CHAPTER
54
WHEN VERONICA KNOX opened her eyes the first thing she saw was a blindingly white light.
That convinced her that she was truly dead. And that somehow, despite having committed a mortal and venal sin or two, she had ended up up rather than down, ecclesiastically speaking.
It’s a bloody miracle, she thought. And she was being literal about that.
The second thing she saw were transparent tubes running into her right arm.
That drove the ecclesiastical element and the thought of miracles forcefully from her head.
The third thing she saw was John Puller hovering over her.
That brought her fully back to earth. And life.
She saw him breathe a sigh of relief, and then he flicked his finger against his eye as though to rub something away.
A tear, her groggy mind thought. But no, men like John Puller did not shed tears. If they did shed anything, it would be blood, not water.
She tried to sit up, but he put a big hand on her shoulder and held her right where she was.
“Just chill, Knox. You took a big hit. Doc says it’s a miracle you’re still here.”
She suddenly looked wildly down at her body. “Am I here? Am I all here?”
He gripped her shoulder tighter to calm her. “Two arms with hands attached, though two fingers on your left hand are broken, hence the splints. You have two legs with feet attached. One head with brain intact, though concussed. And a lot of superficial cuts to your scalp, arms, and legs, hence the bandages. And enough blood loss that they had to give you a replacement bag.”
“But can I move everything?”
“See for yourself.”
She tentatively moved first her right and then her left arm, and then wiggled her fingers, even the ones with splints on them. Drawing a deep breath, she looked down at her legs.
Puller saw tears cluster in her eyes and knew she was thinking back to the Middle East when her legs had not worked. He slipped the sheet up a bit, revealing her feet. He squeezed one of her toes. “Feel that?”
She nodded.
“Now wiggle your toes.”
She swallowed, prepared herself, and did so. She felt them, saw them, and sank back on her pillow with a grateful, “Thank you, God.”
He put the sheet back over her feet. “Legs are just fine, Knox. With that said, you were lucky as hell.”
“I remember flying through…glass,” she said slowly and groggily.
“You picked the right store to fly into. A linen shop. You hit the glass, which was hard. But you fell into a display of comforters and very soft pillows. Sort of cushioned everything.”
“And Carter?” she mumbled.
He shook his head and said grimly, “Didn’t make it. Neither did Sullivan or the driver. Nothing much left of any of them.”
“How long have I been here?”
“They brought you in last evening. It’s now late afternoon.”
“I suppose people want to question me?”
“They do. But I got permission to come in here and sit with you until you came around. The cops and the Feds are all over the crime scene. Lots of people saw things. They’ve got lots of statements.”
“But I bet they don’t know what I saw.”
Puller sat down in a chair next to her bed. “So why don’t you tell me what that was?”
Knox glanced at the glass door to her room and saw a police officer, a man in a suit, and a burly MP standing guard there.
“They’re not taking any chances with you,” he said, following her gaze. “Cops, FBI, and the military.”
She turned back to Puller and slowly but clearly told him what she had seen. The van, the kid, everything.
“So it was a deliberate setup the whole way,” Puller concluded.
“It appeared to be. But why target Carter?”
“Well, he heads up an important part of our nation’s defenses. He’s a target just by virtue of that.”
“No, I get that. I’m just looking at the timing. Why now?”
“You mean is it connected to what we’re doing?”
“It could be.”
He looked her over. “You up for some information sharing?”
She smiled and slid her hand around his forearm. “With you here I’m up for anything.”
Puller placed his hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when this happened, Knox. I should’ve been.”
“You had no way to know I was going off half-cocked on my little sleuthing trip.”
“You tried to save them. Over the phone I heard you screaming for them to get out of the car.”
She shook her head, looked miserable, and put a hand to her face. She let out a sob, her eyes filled with tears, and she moaned, “I didn’t see it fast enough, Puller. I should’ve seen it faster, but I didn’t.”
“You did everything you possibly could. You had seconds, maybe not even seconds. No matter what you did or didn’t do, Knox, they weren’t going to make it. They were already dead. They just didn’t know it. So while you may want to take the blame for it, please don’t. It won’t help you or them.”
She let out another sob, composed herself, rubbed her eyes dry with her sheet, and focused on him. “I guess that was the weirdest phone call you’ve ever gotten, huh?”
Puller looked down. “When I heard the bomb detonate over your open line—”
She reached out and cupped his chin, drawing his gaze back to her. “I’m here, Puller. A little banged up and bloodied. But I’m not dead. Let’s count that as a victory.”
He smiled. “I count it as a lot more than that.”
Their gazes held on one another for a few more moments and then Puller reverted to business mode.
“I spoke to an FBI agent who remembered Adam Reynolds, Susan’s husband.”
“The hit-and-run?” she said.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
He went on to tell her about the rest of his conversation with the agent and then his subsequent meeting with Susan Reynolds’s son, Dan.
That part made Knox try to sit up again, and again, Puller held her back down.
“I know,” he said. “I know. She really is a piece of work.”
“That witch gets her husband killed for some reason. Another man? That’s what Adam Reynolds thought?”
“Apparently so. And she was working in the former Soviet Union.”
“Do we know exactly where?”
“Working on it. But it had to do with the START verification program. She told us that herself.”
“Nuke dismantling.”
“Right. And she works at the WMD Center now,” Puller reminded her.
Again, Knox tried to sit up, and this time he helped her, adjusting the bed control to support her.
“So is that what this is all about? WMDs?”
“Maybe it is now. If she’s a spy then she’s probably covered a lot of territory over the years. WMDs may be the latest on her checklist. But the positions she’s held have given her access to lots of valuable information that our enemies would pay a pretty penny for.”
“And she just stares at you like you’re an idiot for even hinting that she might be involved in something shady.”
“If she’s been doing this as long as I think she has, her poker face has to be exemplary. And by the way her financial history was conceived and hardened, I’m thinking she was seen as a high-level, long-term asset.” He added, “I have to believe the two-million-dollar insurance policy was her idea, not her husband’s.”
“I need to get out of here, Puller. We need to get back to work.”
“Whoa. You need rest. And you need time to heal.”
“I don’t have time to do either. That can wait.”
“No, it can’t wait.”
She tried to get up and he pushed her back down. On the third time she said, “Damn it, John Puller, if I had a gun I’d shoot your ass.”
“Well, good thing you don’t have a gun, then.”
She stopped struggling, lay back, and let out a long, resigned sigh. “Okay, so when can I get the hell out of here?”
“I’ll check with the docs, but probably within twenty-four hours. And after that, bed rest.”
“Shit!”
“It is what it is, Knox.”
“And what are you going to do in the meantime?”
“Follow up on all this.”
“Without me?” she said, stunned by this prospect.
“I will keep you informed of everything, I promise.”
“And you won’t get killed?” She said this in a joking manner, but there was no humor in her look. “I almost bought it, Puller. One more step, one more second, no soft pillows at the end of the runway, I’m not here.”
“I know that.”
“No, maybe you don’t know that.” She reached up and gathered a fistful of his shirt. “Don’t die. Just… don’t.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
She slowly let his shirt go and sank back, breathless.
“I’ll check in later.”
“Yep,” she said, not looking at him.
Puller walked out. He had told Knox everything he knew. Now he had to tell someone else.
His brother.
No code.
Face-to-face.