Дэвид Балдаччи - Zero Day

Puller took a bite of sandwich and followed it with some chips.

“Shooter knew what he was doing. Rifle was first-class, so was his ammo choice. He picked his position well, executed his shot, and nearly made his escape. I had to hustle to beat him and also bagged some luck in the process. And I’m really good at hunting down shooters in pretty much any environment.” He paused. “And he still almost got away. And his partner was good. Not as good as me, but really good.”

“Modest,” said Cole.

“Realistic,” replied Puller. “Underestimating or overestimating your ability can be fatal. There are guys out there better than me. He just wasn’t one of them.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s assume Dickie, Treadwell, and Molly were in on the meth dealing. I said Dickie struck me as a guy who was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was dealing meth, which he obviously wanted to keep secret, but he had also stumbled onto something else that was far worse.”

“You said he was meeting with you tonight? Any idea what he was going to report?”

“No. Maybe nothing. I was the one who called the meeting.”

She popped the fridge and pulled out two bottles of Deer Park. She handed him one.

“A pipeline and a nuclear reactor,” she said. “And we have two days. That’s nuts, Puller. Nuts.”

“It is what it is.”

“You have to call in the heavy artillery.”

“I’ve tried, Cole. The guys upstairs aren’t budging on this.”

“So they’re just hanging us out to dry?”

They stood there facing each other across a few inches, but it seemed to Puller like miles. He had served his country most of his adult life. And serving your country, in essence, meant serving its citizens. People like the woman staring hopelessly at him right now. He had never felt so conflicted in his life.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Cole. I really don’t.”

She said, “Well, there’s one thing I need to do.”

“What’s that?” Puller asked warily.

“I need to tell Bill Strauss he’s lost his son.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I do.”

They rose and left together.

They drove there in Puller’s Malibu. The night air seemed even more stifling than it had been during the day when the temperature had hovered in the nineties with a matching humidity level. The spray of his headlights picked up swarms of mosquitoes just waiting for victims. A deer leapt out from the woods on the left about fifty feet ahead of them. Puller tapped his brakes. A few seconds later what looked like a small mountain lion exploded from the brush, cleared the asphalt in two bounds, and disappeared into the woods on the other side.

Predators, it seemed, were out in force tonight.

“It was hotter than this in the Middle East, but no humidity. This reminds me more of Florida,” said Puller as he piloted his ride along the curvy back roads that seemed to be the only kind Drake had.

“Never been to Florida,” said Cole. “West Virginia is the only place I’ve ever been. This is my home.”

He punched the AC button to max and rubbed a line of sweat off his forehead even as her words stung him.

“Let’s talk it out,” he said.

“This puts me in the mother of all awkward positions, Puller.”

He glanced at her. “I know. You’re an officer of the peace. A public servant. Protect and defend.”

“Right. So what am I supposed to do? Evacuate the county?”

Puller gripped the steering wheel tighter and peered out into the darkness. Cole had been telling him which way to go to get to the Strausses’ home, but apparently they were on a long straightaway, at least long by local standards, and Cole had obviously seized the opportunity to voice her concerns.

“You can try, I guess. But without more to go on, I’m not sure how effective you’ll be.”

“But if you back me up? And the folks up in D.C.?”

“That won’t be happening,” said Puller bluntly.

“Why the hell not?”

Puller decided to tell her the truth. “They see you guys as an opportunity to write a new page in the playbook and nail some bad guys in the process.”

“You mean we’re guinea pigs?” she snapped.

“Yeah, you’re guinea pigs. The Feds figure if we hit the panic button the bad guys will just pull up stakes and go to another place and do it there.”

“But this is my hometown. I was born here. I know the people. I can’t just wait around for them to be wiped out.”

Puller had been staring at her, but now he looked away.

“Puller? Do you understand where I’m coming from?”

“Yeah, I do. And that means I probably shouldn’t have told you.”

“The hell you shouldn’t have!”

“Bottom line, the Feds are going to do nothing to precipitate this. They want to see it play out. They’ll call in the troops at the last minute. It should be enough time to ensure minimal collateral damage.”

“Should be enough time? Minimal collateral damage?”

He interrupted her. “But that doesn’t mean that we just have to sit here with our tails tucked between our legs. We can try to solve this sucker before the trigger is pulled.”

“But what if we can’t?”

“It’s the best plan I have.”

“You’re asking me to decide between my country and my people.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything, Cole. I’m just telling you what they told me. I don’t like it any better than you do.”

“So what would you do?”

“I’m a soldier. It’s easy for me. I just follow orders.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it is.”

“So?”

He gripped the wheel so tightly that he could feel it give a little. “So, I don’t know.”

They ate up more ground in silence. She broke it only to give him the final directions to Strauss’s place.

As they neared it she said, “What if I decide to raise the alarm?”

“It’s up to you.”

“You won’t shoot me?”

“It’s up to you,” Puller said again. “And no, I won’t shoot you.” He took a long breath. “In fact, I’ll back you up.”

“You will? Why?”

He looked over to see her staring at him.

“I just will,” said Puller. “Right thing to do. Sometimes the brass forgets about that little detail. Right thing to do,” he said again.

They saw the lights of the Strauss home up ahead. As Puller turned into the driveway he said, “We can get through this if we keep working together.”

She pressed the palms of her hands against the dash, as though trying to slow down runaway thoughts attempting to escape her mind.

He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not alone, Sam. I’m right here with you.”

She turned to him. “First time you’ve called me Sam.”

“I’m in the Army. We’re a formal race of people.”

This drew a rare smile from her. She patted his hand.

“I’m good… John.” She looked at him. “Is that okay? That I sometimes call you John? I know that probably sounds silly with everything that’s going on, to worry about something like that.”

“It’s fine. And it’s better than Romeo, I guess.”

“Or Juliet,” she replied.

The Strauss home was a little over half the size of the Trents’, which meant it was enormous by Drake standards. And by most American standards, Puller thought. It stood within its own five-acre grounds and even had a little gate out front, though there was no guard here as there was at Trent’s mansion.

Cole had called ahead and roused Strauss and his wife from their beds. The couple was waiting for them when they rang the doorbell. Mrs. Strauss was a large-boned fleshy woman who had taken the time to fix her hair after being awoken in the middle of the night. She wore slacks, a blouse with the bottom untucked, and an expression that was devastated.