CHAPTER
49
THAT AFTERNOON, Puller boarded a commercial jet out of Charleston heading east. He landed at Dulles Airport less than an hour later. He rented a car and checked in at CID headquarters in Quantico to fill in his SAC, Don White. Next, he drove to his apartment and let AWOL out. While the cat was enjoying some fresh air, Puller filled up its food and water dishes and cleaned out the litterbox.
He’d made an appointment with Matthew Reynolds’s superior at DIA for the next afternoon. After six full hours of sleep, he woke, had breakfast, ran five miles, lifted some weights at the gym at Quantico, showered, made some phone calls, and finished up some overdue paperwork.
He dressed in his combat fatigues and drove north to the Pentagon in his rental. A special agent from the DIA Office of Counterintelligence and Security met him at the Pentagon Metro exit and they headed into the Pentagon together. Both men showed their cred packs, announced that they were armed, and were given clearance into the building without an escort.
The DIA agent was named Ryan Bolling. He was a compact five-ten former Marine who’d been with DIA for a decade. He was a civilian now, as were all of the personnel at DIA’s Counterintelligence and Security.
As they walked along Puller said, “Thought you guys would be a little more hot to trot on this case. Feeling lonely out there all by myself.”
“Not my call. I just do what I’m told, Puller.”
They walked along Corridor 10 to A Ring and kept navigating the Pentagon’s complex passageway system until they arrived at the home of the J2. There was a large reception area where the executive assistant and the secretaries sat. On the backside wall was the door to the J2’s office. National colors plus the flag officer’s flag. It was red with two white stars. Puller had been in there once years ago. It was well appointed, with the ubiquitous “I Love Me Wall” that was filled with photos of the flag officer and his famous friends.
The J2 was out of the country. His second in command, the vice chair’s office, was to the left. The red flag held only one star. Off to the right was a small conference room where J2, or the vice chair if the J2 was out, would meet for staff meetings. He would also come here every morning at 5 a.m. to preview the daily briefing he would later give to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Puller had been cleared to speak to the vice chair. She was Army, a one-star brigadier general named Julie Carson and also Matt Reynolds’s direct superior.
Before they entered the woman’s office Puller asked Bolling, “What’s the book on Carson?”
“You’ll have to find out for yourself. I’ve never met the woman.”
A few moments later Puller was seated across from General Carson in her office. Bolling sat in the opposite chair. She was tall, trim, and taciturn. Her blonde hair was cut short and she was outfitted in her dress blues.
“We probably could have done this over the phone,” began Carson. “I don’t have much to tell you.”
“I prefer the face-to-face,” replied Puller.
She shrugged. “You CID guys must have more free time than the rest of us.” She glanced at Bolling. “I’m sure you’re thrilled to be babysitting this guy.”
Bolling shrugged. “I go where they tell me, ma’am.”
Puller said, “Field grade officer? Murdered. Guy was in charge of J23. Oversaw prep of the briefing book for the J2 and then up the line to the Chairman? Minute the guy was identified as DIA a barrage of memos went up the line to you, ma’am, the J2, the Director of DIA, and on up. Even the SecArm is interested.”
She leaned forward. “And your point?”
Puller leaned forward too. “Your casual attitude puzzles me, quite frankly.”
“My attitude is not casual. It’s just that I don’t think I have any information that will be helpful to the investigation.”
“Well, let me see if I can change that opinion. What can you tell me about Colonel Reynolds?”
“Our career paths crossed from time to time. We were rank equals until the last few years when I started to hit the fast track. It was ironic that I ended up with the star and he didn’t. But he wanted to get out and I wanted the star. He was a good man and a good soldier.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Friday before he was found murdered. He was leaving early to go to West Virginia. We had a meeting about a matter he was working on, and then he left. In fact, we met in the conference room across the hall.”
“Did he seem disturbed or anxious about anything?”
“No, he seemed perfectly fine.”
“You say you two had served together at other places?”
“Yes. Fort Benning, for example.”
“Know it well.”
“I know you do. I checked your record. And how’s your father doing?”
“Fine.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
Puller said nothing. He glanced at Bolling. The man did not seem to know what they were talking about.
Obviously sensing that Puller was not going to react to this, Carson changed subjects. “How did a soldier with your combat record and leadership qualities end up at CID?”
“Why not?”
“Best and the brightest are meant for higher things, Puller. They’re meant for command.”
“Do the best and the brightest sometimes commit crimes?”
She looked puzzled but said, “I guess.”
“Then how are we supposed to catch them if the CID doesn’t have some of the best and brightest too?”
“It’s not a joke, Puller. If you’d gone the West Point route one day you could be sitting here with a star on your shoulder and more to come.”
“Stars get to be real heavy, ma’am. I like to stay light on my feet.”
Her lips pursed. “Maybe you aren’t cut out for command. Too much of a joker.”
“Maybe,” said Puller. “But this meeting isn’t about my career shortcomings, and I don’t want to take up more of your time than is absolutely necessary. As you said, you’re busy. What else can you tell me about Reynolds?”
“He was very good at his job. He kept the folks in J23 working like a well-oiled machine. The briefings were strong and the analysis underlying them was spot-on. He was retiring and going into the private sector, which was a loss for the country. He was not involved in anything at DIA that could have led to his murder in West Virginia. That about cover it for you?”
“If he was helping to put the briefings together he was privy to some highly classified and potentially valuable information.”
“We have a lot of people here who qualify for that distinction. We’ve never had any problems in this office regarding personnel. I don’t think Reynolds would be the first.”
“Money problems? Personal problems? Any motivation to sell out to an enemy?”
“It’s not easy to do, Puller. My people are looked at six ways from Sunday. Reynolds had no financial problems. He was as patriotic as they come. He was happily married. His kids were normal and well adjusted. He was a deacon in his church. He was looking forward to retirement and carving out a new career in the private sector. There’s nothing there.”
Puller looked at Bolling. “You guys have any occasion to look at Reynolds for any reason?”
Bolling shook his head. “Checked before I came over here today. Guy was spick-and-span clean. No basis for any blackmail, stuff like that.”
Puller turned back to Carson. “So you knew he was going out to West Virginia?”
“Yes. He told me. His wife’s parents were ailing. He commuted on the weekends. It never interfered with his work so I had no problem with it.”
“He ever talk to you about anything unusual going on out there?”
“He never talked to me about West Virginia, period. It was a personal family matter and I never asked. None of my business.”
“Well, someone murdered him and his family out there.”
“Yes, they did. And it’s your j
ob to find them.”
“Which is what I’m trying to do.”
“Okay, but I think the answer lies in West Virginia, not in the Pentagon.”
“Did you know his wife?”
Carson glanced at her watch and then at the phone. “I have a conference call coming up shortly. And the J2 is out of the country so I’ll be presenting the briefing to the Chairman tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll try to make it snappy,” said Puller, but he looked at her expectantly.
“I knew Stacey Reynolds only through Matt. I saw her at the occasional function. We were friends, but not close friends. That’s all.”
“And Colonel Reynolds never mentioned that something unusual was going on in West Virginia?”
“I thought I already answered that.”
Puller sat patiently looking at her.
“No, he didn’t,” she said, and Puller wrote this down in his notebook.
“When I was assigned this case I was told that it was unusual. I assumed it was unusual because it involved the murder of a DIA field grade officer who had access to highly classified intelligence.”
“Thankfully, murders of such people don’t happen often, so that I guess it would qualify as unusual.”
“No, I think the term was in reference to the fact that we were going light on assets with this investigation. And if Reynolds was not doing anything of importance for DIA and you don’t think his murder had anything to do with his assignment to DIA, why would it have been described to me as unusual? Then it just becomes another homicide.”
“Since I wasn’t the one who described it that way to you, I have no way of answering that question.” She glanced at her watch again.
“Anything else you can think of that might help my investigation?”
“I can’t think of a one.”
“I’ll need to interview Reynolds’s coworkers.”
“Look, Puller, do we really need to go there? I’ve told you all there is to tell. My people are very busy trying to keep this country safe. The last thing they need is to be distracted by something like this, which has nothing to do with them.”
Puller sat up straighter and closed his notebook. “Your friend and colleague was murdered, General Carson. I’ve been assigned to find out who did it. I intend on accomplishing that mission. I’ll need to talk to his coworkers. I’ll do it efficiently and professionally, but I am going to do it. Right now.”
They had a stare-off, which Puller ended up winning.
She picked up her phone and made some calls.
As Puller rose to leave she said, “Maybe I was wrong about you.”
“In what way?”
“Maybe you do have what it takes to lead.”
“Maybe,” said Puller.
CHAPTER
50
THEY LEFT the J2’s office, grabbed a left on Corridor 9, and took the escalator to the basement. The lower level at the Pentagon was a bewildering maze of sterile white corridors that not a drop of sunlight would ever touch. It was Pentagon lore that there were DoD employees from the 1950s still wandering around down here trying to find their way out.
The personnel of J23 were analysts and graphic artists, about two dozen in total, who methodically built the briefing book each week, using intelligence input not only from DIA but also from other agencies like CIA and NSA. Then they would tweak it to the current Chairman’s intelligence preferences. It was a PowerPoint presentation set in hard paper and was succinct in getting to the meat of the matter without delay. In the Army brevity was a virtue beyond all others.
The people in J23 were a mix of uniforms and civilians. Thus Puller saw fatigues, old green uniforms, new blue uniforms, slacks, button-down shirts, and the occasional tie. The unit operated around the clock and the perk for the night crew was that they got to wear polo shirts. Reynolds had been the highest-ranking officer here.
Since J23 was housed in a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, room, Puller and Bolling had to put their cell phones and other electronic devices inside a locker on the wall outside the entrance. No picture-taking or outside communications capabilities were allowed in an SCIF.
They were buzzed in and Puller eyed the reception area. It looked like many others he’d seen in the Pentagon. This was the only way in or out, except for possibly a fire emergency exit somewhere in the back. At the end of the corridor was an open bay. Here individual cubicles were lined up and analysts and artists toiled away on the product that General Carson would be poring over tomorrow at 0500. The lights in here were dim. The lights at the cubicles were better. Still, Puller thought, half the people here probably needed eyeglasses after less than a year fighting terrorists from their desks mostly in the dark.
Puller and Bolling showed their creds and were granted access to Reynolds’s coworkers, the highest ranking of whom was a lieutenant colonel. There was a small conference room where Puller conducted his interviews. Each person was spoken with separately, a common enough interview tactic. Witnesses questioned together tended to tell the same story, even if they had different information and perceptions to begin with. They were informed by Puller and confirmed by Bolling that Puller was cleared for everything up to “TS/SCI with polygraph” and had a “valid need to know.” In the intelligence world those phrases opened many a locked door and mouth.
The coworkers expressed more shock and sorrow over the death of Matthew Reynolds than his commanding officer had. However, they also could not provide any useful information or leads about why Reynolds had been murdered. His work, while classified, did not involve anything that would have led to his death, they told Puller. When he was done he was no further along with his investigation than he had been when he’d entered the building.
Next, he searched Reynolds’s office, which had been secured ever since he had left for West Virginia and been murdered. While J23 was technically open storage space, meaning if you put something somewhere, there it would stay safely, Reynolds might still have had a safe in his office. As it turned out, he didn’t. Neither could Puller find anything in the man’s office that would assist the investigation. It was clean and sparsely furnished, and computer files, which he went over in Bolling’s presence, yielded no clues.
He exited J23, retrieved his cell phone from the locker, walked back to one of the main exits with Bolling, and left the DIA man there. He returned to his car in the vast parking lot. But instead of driving off right away, he sat on the hood of his green Army Ford and studied the five-sided building that was the single biggest office space in the world. It had received a sharp punch in the face on September 11, 2001, but had come back stronger than ever.
The Pentagon had started a long renovation of the then nearly sixty-year-old building back in the late 1990s. The first wedge finished, ironically enough, had been the part hit by the American Airlines jumbo jet temporarily flown by madmen. More than ten years later the entire renovation of the building was nearly complete. It was a testament to American resilience.
Puller looked the other way and watched as kids of Pentagon personnel played inside the fence of a daycare center within the Pentagon grounds. He guessed that was what the military was always fighting for, the rights and freedoms of the next generation. Watching little boys and girls sailing down plastic slides and riding toy horses somehow made Puller feel a bit better about things. But only a bit. He still had a killer to catch and he felt no closer to doing so than he had when he had first been given the assignment.
His cell phone vibrated and he slipped it from his pocket. The text message was brief but intriguing:
ARMY NAVY CLUB DOWNTOWN TONIGHT 1900 I’LL FIND YOU.
He didn’t know whom it was from, but the sender obviously knew how to contact him. He studied the words for a few more seconds before putting the phone back. He checked his watch. He would have enough time. He’d been meaning to do this when he came back east anyway. And after spending time with the dysfunctional Cole family, it seemed more important
still.
He punched the gas and left the Pentagon in his rearview mirror.
CHAPTER
51
“WHAT ARE YOU doing here, XO?”
Puller stood at attention as he gazed down at the man.
“Reporting in, sir,” he said.
His father sat in a chair next to his bed. He was wearing pajama bottoms, a white T-shirt, and a pale blue cotton robe cinched at the waist. He had socks and slippers on his long, narrow feet. He had once been over six-three, but gravity and infirmity had sliced two inches off