David Baldacci: Zero Day

He stopped once to take a leak and grab another cup of black coffee. He hit Drake, West Virginia, population 6,547 as the sign said, at three in the morning. Sunrise would be in a little over three hours. He had gotten lost once, when the GPS led him down a two-lane road on the outskirts of Drake.

His headlights had hit on a neighborhood of abandoned houses. There must’ve been at least a hundred of them, maybe far more. They looked to be prefabricated and mass-assembled on site. There was a string of electrical and telephone poles down one side of the street. Yet as his car glided down this little “detour,” Puller had changed his mind. The houses weren’t abandoned; at least some of them were occupied. There were old cars parked out front. But the lights that glowed in a few of the windows didn’t seem to be electrical. Maybe gas or battery-operated. He kept going, and then his lights hit on something else peculiar. It was a huge dome-shaped mass formed out of concrete that rose up out of the woods.

What the hell is that?

Despite his natural curiosity he had driven on, anxious to get to where he was going. The GPS had recalibrated and he soon found himself on the right path. When he arrived he wasn’t tired. In fact the long ride had both relaxed and energized him. He decided to get to work.

He’d called ahead and reserved a room at the only motel in the area. It was a few notches below a Motel 6, but Puller didn’t care. He’d spent years of his life in tin cans in swamps and deserts with a bucket for a shower and a hole in the earth for a bathroom, so this particular crevice in the wall was like the Ritz.

The door to the office was locked, but on the third ring of the buzzer, the door opened. Later, after she checked him in, the sleepy old lady in hair rollers and ratty robe standing behind the counter asked him what he was in town for.

As he palmed the room key Puller said, “Vacation.”

That had made the old woman laugh.

“You’re a slick one you are,” she said, her voice lisping through a large gap between her front teeth. She smelled of nicotine, garlic, and salsa. It was an impressive combination. “And big.” She gazed up at him from her five-foot-one-inch perch on earth.

“Any place you’d recommend to eat at?”

Army Rule Number One: Find a dependable place for chow.

“Depends,” said the woman.

“On what?”

“On whether you mind coal dust in your eggs.”

“Can’t be any worse than depleted uranium in your morning coffee. And I’m still standing.”

She cackled. “Then any place in town will do. They’re all about the same, honey.”

As he turned away she said, “You married?”

“You looking?” he replied, turning back to see her gap-toothed grin.

“If only, honey. If only. Get a good night’s sleep.”

Puller headed out. Sleep was not on his agenda.

Puller had called the police officer in charge of the investigation a number of times on the drive to West Virginia and left multiple messages. He hadn’t received a response. Maybe the locals were not going to be as cooperative as his SAC had suggested they would be. Or maybe they were just overwhelmed with four bodies and a massive forensics puzzle. Puller could hardly blame them if they were.

The motel was a one-story courtyard configuration. On the way to his room Puller passed a young man lying unconscious on a strip of grass near a Pepsi machine that was chained to a metal post thirty feet from the motel office. Puller checked the man for injuries and found none. He made sure he had a pulse, smelled the liquor on his breath, and kept going. He carried his bag into his twelve-by-twelve room. It had a bathroom so tiny he could stand in the middle and easily touch the opposite walls simultaneously.

He made some coffee from his own stock and using his portable percolator, a habit he’d picked up while on assignment overseas. He sat down on the floor with the file spread in front of him. He eyed the numbers, slid out his cell, and punched them in.

The voice was female, groggy. “Hello?”

“Sam Cole, please.”

“Speaking.”

“Sam Cole?” he asked again in a louder voice.

The voice became rigid and more alert. “Short for Samantha. Who the hell is this? And do you have any idea what time it is?”

The local accent thickened with the level of anger, Puller noted.

“It’s 0320. Or twenty after three for civilians.”

Long pause. He could see her wheels spinning, translating this to something comprehensible.

“Damn, you’re Army, right?” Her voice was now husky, attractive.

“John Puller. CID special agent from the 701st MP Group out of Quantico, Virginia.” He recited this in staccato fashion as he had a million times before.

He envisioned her sitting up in bed. He wondered if she was alone. He didn’t hear any male mumbles in the background. But he did hear the percussion of a Zippo followed by a few seconds of silence. Then there was an intake of breath followed by an elongated exhale of smoke.

“You miss the surgeon general’s warning, Ms. Cole?”

“No, it’s right here on the side of my smokes. Why the hell are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

“You’re listed in my file as the officer in charge. I just got into town. I need to get up to speed. And for the record, I called you four times over the last six hours and left messages each time. Never got a call back.”

“I’ve been busy, haven’t even checked my phone.”

“I’m sure you have been busy, ma’am.” He thought, And I’m sure you did check, but didn’t bother to call me back. Then his SAC’s admonition came back to him.

Play nice.

“I’m sorry to roust you out of your sack, ma’am. I thought you might still be at the crime scene.”

She said, “I’ve been working this thing all day and most of the night. My head just hit the damn pillow an hour ago.”

“Which means I have a lot of catching up to do. But I can call back later.”

He heard her get up, stumble and curse.

“Ma’am, I said I can call back later. Just go back to sleep.”

“Will you just shut up a minute?” she snapped.

“What?” Puller said sharply.

“I have to pee!”

He heard her drop the phone on the floor. Footsteps. Door closed, so he didn’t actually hear Cole relieving herself. Another minute went by. He wasn’t wasting time. He was reading through the report again.

She came back on. “I’ll meet you there at seven o’clock-excuse me, oh zero seven hundred o’clock a.m. or whatever the hell it is you say.”

“Zero-seven-hundred Juliet.”

He listened to another long inhale and then exhale of smoke.

She said, “Juliet? I told you my name is Sam.”

“Means local daylight saving time. If it were the winter and we were in eastern standard time it would be zero-seven-hundred Romeo.”

“Romeo and Juliet?” she said skeptically.

“Contrary to popular belief, the United States Army has a sense of humor.”

“Goodbye, Puller. Oh and just so you know, it’s Sergeant Samantha Cole, not ma’am, or Juliet. Romeo!”

“Got it, Sergeant Cole. I’ll see you at zero-seven. Look forward to working with you on this case.”

“Right,” she growled.

He could visualize her throwing the phone across the room and falling back into her bed.

Puller put the phone down, drank his coffee, and went through the report page by page. Thirty minutes later he gunned up, slipping one M11 into his front holster and the other into a holster attached to his belt in the rear. After fighting his way through the Middle East, he never felt as though he had enough weapons on his person. He put on a windbreaker and locked his motel room door on the way out.