Daylight

Chapter 44

Pine had never liked hospitals ever since she nearly died in one as a child back in Georgia. She had been in and out of consciousness in the ambulance that had taken her there. Bright lights, masked people, tubes and lines being inserted in her.

Her anguished and sobbing mother.

The race down the hallway on the gurney, the white, antiseptic room, strangers hurtling around her, machines beeping, overhead lights like a cluster of suns, so intense they hurt, so she closed her eyes and then there was a prick of something, another something covered her mouth.

Dark.

Then she rose again, like Jesus, or at least her tired mind had remembered this little tidbit from vacation Bible school.

Her mother had been there. Her father. Others. A man with a white coat, a smiling nurse.

She would live, it seemed.

Now she sat in the visitors room at the hospital where the ambulance had taken Puller. She had ridden over with him, every memory of her own frantic ambulance ride coming back to her in waves conjured from thirty years ago.

She held his hand, whispered encouragement into his ear, unsure if he could hear her, whether he was actually conscious. But she had felt him squeeze back, however weakly. And then he was whisked off for emergency surgery.

When Mercy had vanished, six-year-old Pine had prayed every night for her sister’s safe return. She had prayed all the way until the eighth grade. And after that, she had prayed no more.

Until now.

She got down on her knees and pressed the palms of her hands together.

God, this is a good man. A just man. Please, don’t let him die. Please. We need him. I need him. Please save him.

She quickly rose when Blum bustled in. “How is he?”

“Still in surgery. They said they’d come in when they were done and let me know how it went.”

“Have you reached his family?”

“His father has dementia. I left word for his brother at a number I scrounged up. I don’t know if it’s good.”

“Do you know his father and brother?”

“His father is an Army legend and John’s namesake. His brother, Robert, is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, a once-in-a-generation talent with computers, according to Puller. I’ve never met either of them.”

“It must have been awful last night.”

“It was... pretty awful, yes.”

“Did you see the shooter?”

“No. I covered Puller with my body when he went down. I knew Sands was dead. Half his brain ended up on Puller’s clothes. I fired in the direction of the shot, but they didn’t return fire. By the time the police got there, it was way too late. The shooter was gone.”

“And did Sands tell you anything helpful before he was killed?”

“He was going to, I think.”

“So you were being followed last night?”

“Yes. We ran into two thugs earlier who were going to come down heavy on Sands, probably over drugs. We chased them off. I don’t think it was them.”

“So maybe whoever Sands was going to finger?”

“I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

The door opened and they both turned to see who it was. Pine was expecting the surgeon and praying it would be good news.

But the tall man in his late thirties was wearing Air Force ABUs, that service branch’s camouflage version.

“Are you Atlee Pine?” he asked.

Pine rose and looked at the man. He was an inch shorter than Puller and not as muscular, but the face and the eyes didn’t lie.

“You’re Robert Puller,” she said, shaking his hand.

“I came as soon as I got your message.” He glanced at Blum, who nodded at him, a sympathetic expression on her features.

“This is my assistant, Carol Blum.”

“What’s his condition?” asked Puller.

“He’s still in surgery. They promised to come in here after it was over.”

“You said you were there. How bad is it?”

“Had to have been a rifle round. Went through Jeff Sands’s skull before it hit your brother, so that was good. A lot less kinetic energy.”

“Where did the round hit him?”

Pine touched her upper torso on the left side. “Here. In and out, which I hope was good. But he bled a lot. I stopped it as best I could. Then the paramedics arrived and took over. He was in and out of consciousness, then they put him on a drip, and he went under. His vitals on the ride were critical, but stable.”

Pine had to sit down because recounting all of this so clinically and impersonally had suddenly run up against the fact that the person she was discussing was a friend and that he might still die.

Puller sat down next to her and gripped her shoulder. “He’s the toughest man I know, Agent Pine. If anyone can pull through, he will.”

Pine leveled a far calmer gaze on him. “Please, make it Atlee.” She paused, desperately wanting to change the subject. “John mentioned you used an algorithm to turn up Gloria Miles, which led us to Jeff Sands. How did you do that, Colonel Puller?”

“I go by Robert.” Puller sat back and brushed at his regulation short hair. “From what John explained to me, I concluded that we were operating in exalted circles. No run-of-the-mill drug dealer can get a vice chair removed from his assignment at the Pentagon on a day’s notice because the man was making inquiries. That narrowed things down quite a bit. I ran a script on possible connections between highly ranked politicos and any connection at all to criminal activity, including drug dealing, because it seemed to have a nexus to what you were looking into. I ran a series of calculations and the one name that kept popping out was Jeff Sands and his grandfather, Peter Driscoll. Next, I looked for any connection to them that John could use as an investigative point of contact. That’s how I got to the godmother, Gloria Miles.”

“How long did all of this take you?” asked a wide-eyed Pine.

“I did it over lunch. I’m not that fast, but the computers I use are, and the databases they have access to are truly immense.”

“Can the FBI borrow you for like the rest of your life?” interjected Blum.

Puller added, “But now Sands is dead. So that lead is dead, too.” “At least we know more now than we did,” said Pine. “But all I want right now is to hear that John is going to be fine.”

At that moment the door to the visitors room opened once more. The woman was in her fifties and she wore blue scrubs and spectacles. Her hair was salt and pepper and her expression was one, it seemed to Pine, of relief.

“Agent Pine?”

“Yes,” she said, jumping up. Robert Puller did likewise.

“He’s out of surgery and stable. He’s going to make it. He’s quite a strong young man.”

“Yes he is. This is his brother, Robert Puller.”

Puller shook hands with the surgeon. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“I noticed that he had several previous wounds that had healed.”

“He’s Army. Middle East.”

The doctor nodded. “That explains it. Well, he just added another one to the collection.”

“When can we see him?”

“He’s in recovery and needs to rest. I would say later today or tomorrow even. He’s strong, but he’s been through a lot.”

Pine said, “Will... will he make a full recovery?”

“I think he’ll be fine.”

“I mean, physically and all. Like he was before. He’s a CID agent in the Army.”

“Oh, I see.” She looked from Pine to Puller. “Well, I can’t make any guarantees, but I hope that he will. I can’t say one hundred percent. There was some internal damage. But from the looks of him, and from what you just told me, I wouldn’t bet against him, either.”

She left and closed the door.

Pine and Puller collapsed into their chairs. Pine put a supportive arm on Puller’s shoulder. “He’s going to make it, Robert, that’s what’s most important.”

“Thank God,” Puller said quietly.

To herself Pine added, “Yes, thank you, God. Thank you.”