CHAPTER
57
AFTER LEAVING ABERNATHY, Puller took a minute to compose a coded email to his brother telling him what he had found out from the bereaved lawyer. Daughtrey was gay and they had used that to blackmail the man into betraying his country. And maybe they had killed him because he had refused to do so anymore. He might have even threatened to turn them in. That would certainly have warranted a bullet to the head. They seemed to have no problem killing anyone at any time for any reason.
His brother’s coded response came swiftly.
Puller had to smile grimly when he read it.
We have to get these assholes. Every single one of them.
Agreed, Bobby. Agreed. But how?
As he was driving along he checked his watch. It was after visitors’ hours, but he was confident they would make an exception. He stopped by a Smashburger and bought two burgers with the works, two large fries, and two fountain Cokes containing enough soda to fill a bathtub.
After getting the okay from the guards stationed outside her door, Puller opened the door a crack and peered in. Knox was lying on the bed with her eyes closed. She still had a tube in her arm and she was still hooked up to a monitor. He read her vitals, and all looked good.
He walked over to her bed and sat down in the chair set next to it.
“Knox?” he said quietly.
She slowly opened her eyes. “Do I smell food, Puller?” she said.
“Wow, that’s good, Knox. Were you a bloodhound in an earlier life?”
“The food here—they call it food, any way—sucks.”
“It’s a hospital. If the food were good you’d want to stay, and that just wouldn’t work, would it?” He pulled out the burgers and fries and set everything up on the meal table that he rolled over to her. Finally he powered the bed so that Knox rose up to a seated position.
She looked at the burger and fries and then gave him a skeptical look.
He said a little guiltily, “I know it’s not your usual healthy stuff, nuts and twigs and nonfat cottage cheese. But I thought that—”
“I love you,” she interrupted.
“What?” he said, startled.
“Come over here so I can hug you.”
He did so, and she embraced him for a few seconds, pushing her face into his chest.
When they pulled apart she said, “When I rowed crew I ate stuff like this all the time. It’s only when I got older that I realized I couldn’t keep doing it unless I wanted to weigh three hundred pounds.”
“Nice of you to share that little secret.”
She took a huge bite of burger and a long gulp of the Coke and said, “You’re like a knight in shining armor come to save me from a tower filled with limp noodles and stuff here they call meat but tastes like aluminum foil spray-painted brown.”
“I’m not so sure how shiny my armor is.”
She took another mouthful of burger and then stuffed some fries in after it. She still managed to mumble, “God, so good.”
“You might have to run ten miles and do two Insanity routines to work this sucker off.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
She wiped her mouth with a napkin and watched him take a bite of his burger. “Did you just come to feed me or do you have something else?”
“I have a lot.”
He looked around the room.
She followed his gaze.
“Problem?”
“There might be more than four ears in here,” he murmured.
She sat back, ate another fry, then leaned over, opened the drawer of the nightstand, pulled out a pad of paper and a pen, and handed them to him.
“You can swallow it after you show it to me,” she said in a low voice.
He wrote it all down and handed it to her.
She read it all, her eyebrows hiking at several spots. She handed him the paper and he crumpled it up and put it in his pocket. “I’ll swallow it later, after I finish my meal. But until then—”
He pulled out his phone, dialed up his music library, and cued up a song. The music wafted through the room as Puller drew closer and looked at Knox. If they were being eavesdropped on, it would be very difficult to do so now.
“Damn, Puller,” she said. “Daughtrey. Poor guy. I never imagined.”
“Yeah. So we have the motive.”
“Like Niles Robinson. No winner, no matter what you did.”
“But not Reynolds.”
“No. She made her choice for reasons that all benefited her.”
“So they eliminated Daughtrey because he probably was no longer willing to do what they wanted. And he wanted out of the military They couldn’t allow that.”
“That’s the way I see it.”
She sat back against her pillow and looked anxious.
“What?” he asked.
“Promise you won’t get really mad at me?”
Puller looked taken aback by this question, and he was. But then his features softened. “You almost died in an explosion. How mad could I get?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Okay, I promise I won’t get mad.”
“I think I know why your brother was targeted. And the timing of it too.”
Now Puller looked dumbstruck.
She eyed him nervously. “Are you starting to rethink your promise about not getting mad?”
“Just tell me, Knox!”
“We received a warning about your brother.”
Puller gazed at her stonily. “You received a warning about my brother?”
“Yes.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“INSCOM.”
“And who was the warning from?”
“We don’t know. It was anonymous.”
Puller took a deep breath. He was clearly close to losing it. Knox seemed to realize this, because she sank back into her bed like she was trying to disappear.
“What exactly did the warning say?” Puller asked, his voice tense but under control.
“That Robert Puller had been framed, and that the DoD should take another long, hard look at it.”
“When exactly was this?”
“About four months ago. That’s what I meant about the timing.”
Now Puller did lose it. “Four months! And you’re just telling me about this? What the hell is wrong with you, Knox?”
He turned away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Not the time or place for that. I’m sorry,” he said again.
She put a hand on his shoulder and tugged slightly. “Look at me, Puller. Please.”
He turned back around to stare at her.
She was trembling. And in the bed she looked small and helpless.
“I deserve anything you want to say, Puller. You can yell and curse and even punch me if you want. It’s okay.”
“I’m not going to do any of those things, Knox. Not now.”
“I should have told you before now. I know that. But I didn’t. Seems like it’s a sickness with me. I can’t tell people the truth.” She said this last part in a small voice. Her features were full of disbelief, perhaps that she had made such an admission. To him. To herself.
Puller sat back, nodding thoughtfully. “Let’s forget about the timing of what you told me and focus on what you told me. Four months? It would have taken that long to prep the hit on him. Question is, how did they find out you guys were going to take another look at Bobby?”
Knox looked deeply troubled. “The simple answer is we have a mole in INSCOM, which is astonishing. Remember, I alluded to that before?”
He eyed her appraisingly “So that’s why you were brought on this case? Not just to keep an eye on me.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Would have been nice to know before now.”
Her face flushed and her lips trembled. “I should have told you that too, Puller. I know you were spinning your wheels trying to figure out the catalyst for all this. And I just sat back and said nothing.”
“I’m not happy about it, Knox. But that’s water under the bridge.”
Knox looked relieved by this.
He continued, “And maybe we know the anonymous source now.”
“Who?”
“Niles Robinson.”
“Why?”
He gazed steadily at her. “I have my secrets too.”
She looked put out by this, but because of what she had withheld, it wasn’t as though she could press the point.
Puller was thinking that that must have been what Robinson had been referencing when he’d told Bobby that he had tried to make it right. He apparently had tried to make it right, by contacting INSCOM, albeit anonymously.
“Any idea who your mole might be?”
“Not a clue. But it’s really hampered everything we do. We’re not sure who we can bring in on something.”
“I can see that.”
“And we never even thought that they would plan to kill your brother at DB. If we had any inkling of that we would have taken steps to ensure his safety.”
“I believe you,” Puller said quietly.
“In fact, it was that attack that made us realize we had a problem in our own ranks. The leak had to come from our side.”
She fingered her last fry, looking uncomfortable. “So do you bring all the girls meals like this?”
“I haven’t been associated with that many girls.”
“That’s pretty hard to believe.”
“Okay. Only the ladies in hospital beds for bomb-related injuries get this kind of special treatment.”
That brought a brief smile to her lips.
She popped her last fry into her mouth. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“In your heart you’re a spy plain and simple. And they just can’t let it all hang out. Now finish your burger. But hands off my fries,” he added when he saw her greedily eye his untouched pile.