David Baldacci: Zero Day

When Puller let his pants leg drop back down the guard said apologetically, “Just doing my job, sir.”

“I would’ve given you hell if you didn’t, MP.”

Wide-eyed, the soldier said, “Did you get those in combat, sir?”

“I didn’t shoot myself.”

Puller grabbed his car keys out of the bowl he’d put them in and slid his license and cred pack back into his shirt pocket. He signed the visitor’s log.

The heavy door was buzzed open and he walked a few paces to stand in the visitor’s room. There were three other inmates receiving visitors. Young kids played on the floor while husbands and their wives or girlfriends talked quietly. Kids were forbidden from sitting on their daddies’ laps. One hug, kiss, or handshake at the beginning and end of the visit was allowed. No hands could dip below the waist. In between, a visitor and the inmate could intertwine fingers. All conversations had to be conducted in normal voices. You could only converse with the inmate you’d come to see. One could bring in a pen or pencil but not paints or crayons. That rule, thought Puller, had come from a big mess that someone had made, probably a child. But it was a stupid rule, he thought, since a pen or pencil could easily be turned into a weapon whereas a crayon wouldn’t be much of a threat.

Puller stood there and watched as a woman who looked to be the mother of an inmate read the Bible to him. You could bring books in, but you couldn’t give them to the inmate. Neither could you give them a magazine or newspaper. You couldn’t bring in any food, but you could buy your inmate food from the nearby vending machines. They were not allowed to buy things themselves. Perhaps it would have seemed too much like normal life, thought Puller, which was not something prison was designed to provide. Once a visitor entered the room, leaving it instantly terminated the visit. There was only one exception to this rule, of which Puller would never be able to take advantage: breastfeeding. There was a room for that upstairs.

The door at the opposite end of the room opened and a man in an orange jumpsuit walked through. Puller watched him come forward.

He was tall but an inch shorter than Puller, and possessed a more slender build. The face was similar, though the hair was darker and longer. There was a touch of white in places that Puller did not have. Both men’s jaws were square, the line of the noses narrow and slightly off to the right, and the teeth large and even. There was a right-side dimple and eyes that appeared green in artificial light and blue in the sun.

Puller also had a scar across the left side of his neck that angled down toward the back. There were other distinguishing marks on his left leg, right arm, and upper torso both front and rear. They all represented unwelcome intrusions of foreign objects fired with violent velocity into his person. The other man had none of these, and his skin was white and smooth. No suntanning in here.

Puller’s skin had been roughened by brutal heat and wind and equally debilitating cold. He would be described by most as rugged-looking. Not handsome. Never cute. On good days he could perhaps be attractive, or more likely interesting-looking. It would never occur to him to even think about those things. He was a soldier, not a model.

They did not hug. They shook hands briefly.

The other man smiled. “Good to see you, bro.”

The brothers Puller sat.

"Lost weight?” asked Puller.

His brother, Robert, leaned back in his chair and draped one long leg over his opposite knee.

“Chow here’s not as good as the Air Force.”

“Navy does it the best. Army’s a distant third. But that’s because the wings and the water guys are wimps.”

“Heard you made warrant officer. No longer an SFC.”

“Same job. Little bump in the pay.”

“Way you want it?”

“Way I want it.”

They fell silent. Puller looked to his left, where a young woman was holding hands with her inmate and showing him some pictures. Two little towheads played on the floor at Mom’s feet. Puller gazed back at his brother.

“Lawyers?”

Robert Puller shifted his weight. He too had been watching the young couple. He was thirty-seven, had never been married, and had no children.

“Nothing left for them to do. Dad?”

Puller’s mouth twitched. “The same.”

“Been to see him?”

“Last week,” he said.

“Docs?”

“Like your lawyers, not much they can do.”

“Tell him hello for me.”

“He knows.”

A spark of anger. “I know. I’ve always known that.”

Robert’s raised voice drew a long, hard stare from the burly MP stationed against the wall.

In a lower voice Robert said, “But still tell him I said hello.”

“Need anything?”

“Nothing you can provide. And you don’t have to keep coming.”

“My choice.”

“Younger brother guilt.”

“Younger brother something.”

Robert slid his palm across the tabletop. “It’s not that bad in here. It’s not like Leavenworth.”

“Sure it is. Still a prison.” Puller leaned forward. “Did you do it?”

Robert glanced up. “Wondered why you never asked me that before.”

“I’m asking now.”

“I’ve got nothing to say on that,” replied his brother.

“You think I’m trying to sneak a confession out of you? You’ve already been convicted.”

“No, but you are CID. I know your sense of justice. I don’t want to put you in an untenable conflict of interest or of the soul.”

Puller leaned back. “I compartmentalize.”

“Being John Puller’s son. I know all about that.”

“You always saw it as weight.”

“And it’s not?”

“It is whatever you want to make it. You’re smarter than me. You should have figured that out on your own.”

“And yet we both joined the military.”

“You went officer route, like the old man. I’m just enlisted.”

“And you call me smarter?”

“You’re a nuclear scientist. A mushroom cloud specialist. I’m just a grunt with a badge.”

“With a badge,” repeated his brother. “I guess I’m lucky I got life.”

“They haven’t executed anybody here since ’61.”

“You checked?”

“I checked.”

“National security. Treason. Yeah, real lucky I got life.”

“Do you feel lucky?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then I guess you just answered my question. Need anything?” he asked again.

His brother attempted a grin, but it failed to hide the anxiety behind it. “Why do I sense a finality with that query?”

“Just asking.”

“No, I’m good,” he said dully. It was as if all the man’s energy had just evaporated.

Puller eyed his brother. Two years apart in age, they had been inseparable as young boys and later as young men in uniform for their country. Now he sensed a wall between them far higher than the ones surrounding the prison. And there was nothing he could do about it. He was looking at his brother. And then again his brother was no longer really there. He’d been replaced by this person in the orange jumpsuit who would be in this building for the rest of his natural life. Maybe for all of eternity. Puller wouldn’t put it past the military to have somehow figured that one out.

“Guy was killed here a while back,” said Robert.

Puller knew this. “Installation trusty. Baseball bat to the head on the rec field.”

“You checked?”

“I checked. Did you know him?”

Robert shook his head. “I’m on 23/1. Not a lot of time to socialize.”

That meant he was locked up twenty-three hours a day and then allowed out for one hour of exercise alone in an isolated place.