No Man's Land

38

ARE YOU GOING to tell me, or are you just going to keep driving?”

Puller was staring directly at Knox.

“I’m trying to process it all in my head so I can give you an efficient version,” she replied.

“Where have you been?”

“Finding out things.”

“And did you?”

“Processing, Puller, give me a sec. I was wheels down just an hour ago. It’s still a bit garbled in my head.”

He waited until she pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. She put the car in park, undid her seat belt, and said, “I need coffee. You want some?”

“Okay.”

She got out, went in and bought two large coffees, came back to the car, presented one to him, and took a sip of hers.

“Are you done processing?” he asked.

She nodded and sat back. “There was a lot about this case that didn’t add up. The FBI pulling out of a serial murder case? That’s unheard of. The forensics not being professionally done. Investigators getting stonewalled. No leads at all with four women dead. And the playing field being manipulated by so-called ‘higher-ups,’ which is very convenient because it lets anonymity reign.”

“Agreed on all points,” said Puller. “Just so you know, Ted Hull got reassigned and his phone number was given over to a woman from the Department of Agriculture, so no one could contact him. And I’m supposed to be on a flight to Germany because I got pulled off the case too.”

“So why aren’t you on the plane?”

“Because another higher-up intervened, this time on my behalf.”

“Which higher-up.”

“I can’t tell you because I was ordered not to disclose it.”

“Ordered, by someone in the military?”

“This isn’t a guessing game with clues, Knox. We were discussing what you found out?”

She took another sip of coffee and he saw a vein pulsing at her temple. He also saw her hand quiver just a bit as she set her coffee in the cup holder.

“We might have stumbled onto something so big I’m not sure I can even comprehend it, Puller, much less deal with it.”

“Let’s start small. Give me some details.”

“I spoke with a man named Mack Taubman. He was my mentor. He was the reason I survived my early years in the field. He served his country in the intelligence field for over forty years and did it better than anyone I know. He’s retired now, but he was square in the middle of things in the 1980s.”

“Meaning what?”

She met his eye. “Mack told me that on the Fort Monroe installation back then there were some highly classified-some might say disturbing-research projects going on.”

“By the Army?”

“You heard of DARPA?”

“Of course,” he said.

“They finance some interesting projects.”

“Like the one at Fort Monroe?”

“Yes. There was a facility there. A Building Q.”

“Sounds like a James Bond thing, “commented Puller.”

“It might have been, actually.”

“What does this have to do my mother?”

“I don’t know. All I know is a man I greatly respect didn’t want to even talk about this in hypotheticals. When I brought up the murdered women in Williamsburg, I thought Mack was going to have a heart attack.”

“He thinks they were connected to whatever was going on at this Building Q?”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly was going on there?”

She shook her head. “Mack either didn’t know or, more likely, did know but wouldn’t tell me. Mack always took the oath of confidentiality very seriously.”

“So you’re telling me that some government project resulted in the deaths of four innocent women?”

“It could be the case, Puller.”

“But it wasn’t like they were injected with some super-secret new poison as guinea pigs and died from that. They were attacked and murdered, Knox. By someone!”

“I read the reports, Puller. And I’m sitting right next to you, so you don’t have to shout.”

He thumped the dashboard and looked out the window. “And my mother? How is she connected to this?”

“She may have been the fifth victim.”

He turned to stare at her dully. “Did your friend tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t actually know about Jackie Puller’s disappearance. That’s just speculation on my part.”

“We need more than speculation.”

“Well, let’s see where this all logically leads us. Your mother disappeared from Fort Monroe. Building Q is located there. Whatever happened to those four women seems to have emanated from Fort Monroe. Your mother disappears right in the middle of all that and is never seen again. Just a coincidence?” she added sarcastically.

“No, probably not.”

“So if a government project went haywire and resulted in four, or five, murders-including the wife of a one-star no less-that means there was a cover-up of massive proportions.”

Puller said, “Do you think the women could have been killed by someone on our side, and then it was all made to look like a serial killer’s work?”

“For what reason?”

Puller said, “The women might have known something incriminating. They might have all had a connection to Building Q.”

“Well, that’s something we’ll never know, since their places of employment had been deleted from their files. But remember what the Williamsburg homicide detectives said about the injuries. Like an animal, only human. Crushing.”

“So maybe the disturbing and classified research at Building Q thirty years ago had to do with building some sort of…”

“Fighting super freak?” suggested Knox.

“Yeah.”

She hiked her eyebrows. “This is all speculation, Puller.”

“That’s all we have, Knox! Speculation! That’s what happens when you have no damn facts to work with. But my theory is no more out there than yours. You think a cover-up happened at very high levels. That’s why your friend clammed up.”

She looked down at her hand and then up at him. “I’m not used to having my side against me.”

“You think I am?”

“This is scaring the crap out of me, Puller.”

“Okay, let’s get back to investigative basics. We have some facts to work with. Something happened at Fort Monroe in Building Q. The results of that were four women being murdered, and the powers that be covered it up. And if that is the case, the powers that be are probably no longer in power. They might be dead after thirty years.”

Knox shook her head. “Even if they are, there is no way the government wants this to come out. Think about what it would do to current projects. Even if these guys aren’t around, it would ruin their reputations. And some of them might still be around. And in power.”

“Which would explain the stonewalling, the shuttered investigations, Hull and me getting pulled off the case. They don’t want it to be solved.”

“Four murders unresolved,” said Knox. “Four families with no closure because someone’s rep might take a hit.”

“Five families, maybe,” said Puller quietly.

“Yeah, maybe five,” she replied, looking at him closely. “I know how hard this must be for you.”

They were both silent for a while until Knox said, “So how and where do we start?”

“I told Shireen Kirk to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason I’m telling you to do the same thing.”

“You’re not serious?” she said, obviously stunned.

“I’m very serious, Knox. I have a reason to follow this up. You don’t. I’m not going to let you put your career and maybe your life on the line for this. You nearly died already helping me and my brother. I’m not going to risk that happening to you again.”

“Puller, I’m already involved. I’m already here.”

“I appreciate what you told me. It gives me a place to start. But it’s just going to be me from now on.”

“Puller!”

He opened the car door, took out his duffel, popped the trunk, grabbed his investigation bag, hoisted them over his shoulders, and leaned back into the open car door.

“Thanks, Knox. I owe you.”

“John, please don’t do this.”

He pushed the car door closed with his knee and set off down the sidewalk.