No Man's Land

55

KNOX WAS FALLING through open space, so fast that she knew she would die as soon as she hit something solid. It was not survivable. This was it.

She opened her eyes and saw Puller staring down at her.

“What the hell?” she managed to say in a garbled voice.

He held up his Ka-Bar knife. “Lucky I was able to reach this.”

He helped her up.

“Where are we?” asked Knox.

“Not sure.” He pulled out his phone. “But let’s see.”

“It still works?”

“Waterproof,” he said, hitting some keys.

“Williamsburg is a mile that way,” he said, pointing to his left.

They started walking in that direction.

“Should we call somebody, let them know what happened?” asked Knox groggily.

“Who exactly would that be?”

She looked at him. “I…I guess you’re right.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Paul was…it was so terrible, Puller.”

“They screwed with his brain so he could kill and not feel bad about it.”

“You mean they made him a monster.”

“But the monster didn’t kill us. He saved us.”

“So he could get information.”

“He got information and he still let us live.”

She nodded slowly. “Does that mean the mind control thing they built into him is wearing off?”

“I think more likely that whoever Paul was before is reasserting itself.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Clearly Jericho tried to kill us tonight. She’s afraid of what we might find out. So I say we keep working to justify that fear.”

“She may not know that we’re alive.”

“That’s right.”

Puller’s phone buzzed. It was a text. From his brother.

In all caps it said, CALL THIS NUMBER NOW. NO MONITOR. BTW RICKY STACK HAD NO CHANCE.

Knox was looking at the screen. “Who is Ricky Stack?”

“The biggest kid in third grade who tried to take my lunch.”

“What happened?”

“He learned the error of his ways. That’s Bobby’s way of confirming that it’s him on the other end of the text.”

He called the number as they walked along. His brother answered on the first ring.

“Are you okay, Junior?” he asked immediately.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because three hours ago an unauthorized use of a DoD satellite was made in Hampton, near Fort Monroe. In fact on the grounds of Fort Monroe. That was too much of a coincidence for me.”

“So that’s how they took over the car.”

“Come again?”

Puller quickly explained what had happened.

“Claire Jericho,” Robert said in a hushed tone.

“You know her?”

“I know of her. She’s at the very highest levels, John. I mean, she meets with the Joint Chiefs. She goes to the Oval Office. I’ve heard her lecture. She’s brilliant. Beyond brilliant. Once-in-a-generation intellect.”

“She’s also a monster, Bobby.”

“How so?”

“Are you sure there’s no one monitoring this?”

“I’ve bounced this signal off so many pieces of sky hardware and encrypted it to such an insane degree that I’m surprised we can even understand each other.”

“Okay.” Puller took five minutes to tell him about Paul. When he was done his brother was silent for so long that Puller was afraid someone had intercepted the call and taken his brother away.

“John, this is not good.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. The thing is the women that were killed? I think they all helped build Paul. And this last victim, Audrey Moore, I’m sure will have the same sort of connection.”

“So he killed them in retaliation?”

“I’m sure he would have loved to kill Jericho, but he probably couldn’t get to her. The five women were the next best thing.”

“Jesus,” said Robert. “Talk about guilt by association.”

“Bobby, if this Jericho is such a rock star, how come Knox and I have never heard of her?”

“She wants it that way. Even when she comes out and speaks it’s only to a select few. No publicity at all. She’s always in the background. She has people run the companies she ostensibly works for.”

“Like Chris Ballard thirty years ago and Josh Quentin with Atalanta Group now?”

“I know about Ballard, and I know a little about Atalanta Group. I don’t know Quentin.”

“Well, Quentin is passing government secrets to a bar owner in Hampton. And she’s passing them on to some French-speaking guy in Williamsburg.”

“What?” exclaimed Robert. “Do you have proof?”

“I have pictures. I can send them to you. Maybe you can run this French guy down. Knox was going to try, but you might have a better shot.”

“What sort of government secrets?”

“I’ll send you the screen shots I took. Knox says it looks like it has to do with cell mutation and organ regeneration.”

“Okay.”

“And the woman’s name is Helen Myers. She owns a bar called the Grunt in Hampton.”

“Send me the stuff and I’ll see what I can find.”

Robert gave him a secure site to send the photos to.

“Okay. But this Paul guy said he didn’t remember seeing Mom?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you believe him?” asked Robert.

“Yeah. He basically confessed to killing five women. What was one more?”

“I suppose.”

“You said there was unauthorized satellite use. Can you trace it? Can you tell if they were able to remotely take control of my car? I know that’s possible.”

“If someone was good enough to hijack one of our birds, they’re sophisticated enough to cover their tracks. We might be able to reverse engineer a trail from your car’s computer.”

“Doubtful. It’s under thirty feet of water. I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do to the rental car company.”

“You really think it was Jericho?”

“Five minutes after leaving her and talking in our car about not abandoning the case, someone drives my car into the channel? Let’s not make this too complicated.”

“One thing is really puzzling me,” said Robert.

“Just one? You’re way ahead of me, then.”

“Paul said he killed Chris Ballard. Or who he thought was Chris Ballard.”

“That’s what he said.”

“And he couldn’t have been mistaken?” asked Robert.

“He said he threw the old guy headfirst out a four-story window.”

“Then it was a double.”

“Right, maybe for security reasons.”

Robert said, “Ballard could afford enough security to keep would-be murderers out of his fortress on the beach. If he felt so insecure in his protection that he thought he needed a double handy to take on a potential attacker, then he should have just spent the money on a new protection team.”

“So what can you do with that?”

“I can dig, that’s what,” replied his brother.

“You mentioned the fortress on a beach. I didn’t tell you that.”

“I have access to satellites, little brother. And Ballard, though retired, personally owns a slew of patents that are very important to our defense efforts.”

“Is there any connection between his old company and Atalanta?”

“I’ll check.”

“When do you think you might have something for me?”

“When I know, you’ll know. And John?”

“Yeah?”

“Every flank you have is exposed and no reinforcements are being dialed up. You’re rolling solo, bro.”

Puller glanced over at Knox, who had clearly heard this.

“Copy that,” said Puller. It was pretty much the same thing his CO, Don White, had previously told him.

He clicked off and looked at Knox.

She smiled weakly. “Well, the good news is we’re still alive.”

“And the bad news is that’s all the good news we have,” replied Puller.