David Baldacci - Zero Day

“Nothing keeping you here.”

“My brother is here.”

“Take him with you.”

“Randy? To Italy?”

Puller glanced over at Randy Cole. He was sitting by himself on a bench looking like he didn’t even know where he was.

“He finally went to a doctor, right?”

She nodded. “He has a brain tumor. It’s not one of the ones that’s always fatal. The doctors think they can treat it, or at least slow its progression, but we don’t know how much time he may have left.”

“Then I think you both could use a fresh start. Good luck.”

He started to walk away.

She called after him. “Puller, I’m having a reception at the house. I was hoping you could come.”

Puller kept walking. He didn’t have time for receptions.

He had a case to finish. And he was going to finish it. For himself.

But mostly for Sam Cole.

The man lit his cigarette, waved the match until it stopped burning, and tossed it down on the damp cobblestone street. He was dressed in a dark blue jacket and white linen pants with a hat pulled low over his forehead. His shirt was not monogrammed. It was stained with coffee and a small hole had been burned into the cuff by a cigarette.

It had rained most of the day and the clouds were still puffy with moisture. The air was humid but edged with a chill that made him shiver slightly.

He looked right and then left and crossed the street.

The bar had a neon sign that sputtered with each ebb and flow of the unreliable electrical supply. The door to the bar was battered and pocked with what looked to be an arc of bullet holes. That sight didn’t bother him. This was not the first time he’d been here.

He edged through the crowd to the bar. He spoke the language passably, certainly enough to order a drink. Some in the crowd here knew him, at least by face if not by name. The passport he carried was a fake, but looked real enough to allow him to travel here. He had no idea how long he would stay. He hoped it wouldn’t be all that long.

He took his drink, gave over his coins to pay for it, turned in his seat, and surveyed the crowd. Most were locals, some were tourists, and still others were probably here on business. He never looked directly at anyone. But he had become adept at noting anyone paying him unusual attention. There was none of that tonight. He turned back to the bar, but he listened for the door to open. When it did, he would turn back around to gaze at the newcomers. It happened twice. Locals and a tourist.

The woman approached him. She was young, pretty, her hair dark, her accent strong but lyrical. He had seen her here before. She liked to mingle. She had never mingled with him before. She usually chose someone closer to her own age.

Did he want to dance? she asked.

No, he told her.

Would he buy her a drink?

No, he told her.

Could she buy him a drink?

He turned to her, dipping his chin low so she could not see him clearly.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I am lonely,” she said.

He looked at the others in the crowded bar.

“I don’t see how that’s possible. I’ve seen you in here before. The men are very friendly towards you.”

She pulled out a cigarette and asked him for a light.

He produced the match, struck it, and ignited the end of her smoke. He waved the match out and gazed again at her.

She took a puff, blew the smoke to the stained ceiling where a fan with bamboo blades slowly moved the hazy air from one side of the bar to the other. It was hotter in here. He could feel the sweat stain his armpits.

“You are not local,” she said in English.

“I know I’m not. But you are?”

“Since I was in the womb. Why do you come here?”

“Why does anyone go anywhere?”

“I have never been anywhere. I would like to get away from this place.”

“To get away.”

“What?”

He felt the urge to talk to her, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was lonely too. “That’s why I’m here. To get away.”

“To get away from what?”

“Life.”

“Was your life so bad?”

“Pretty bad. But also pretty good.”

“You are not talking sense.”

He sat straighter on the bar stool. “It does make sense. If you put it in context.”

She gazed at him, obviously perplexed. “Context? What is this context?”

He finished his drink and tossed up his hand, ordering another. It was produced a few seconds later and he drank that down too, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Context is everything. It’s truth. It’s really the only thing that matters.”

“You talk funny, but I like you.” She swept one hand through his hair. Her touch, and her smell, awoke something in him.

He thought he now understood why she had come to him in the bar.

He paid for his drink and then for hers.

She kept her hand on his shoulder, and then it dipped to the small of his back. He kept one hand near his wallet, but he was reasonably sure that wasn’t what she was after. Well, in a way she was.

Money.

For services.

He had a desire to be serviced.

They left the bar thirty minutes later. They walked back to his hotel. It was only five minutes. It was the best hotel in the city, and it was still a dump. But he was not going to be staying here. Not for long, anyway.

They went up to his room at the top of the stairs. He took off his hat and his jacket and let them fall to the floor. She unbuttoned his shirt, helped him off with his shoes. When his pants were off, she said, “Give me a few minutes to freshen up.” He put his hand on her substantial rump and squeezed. She kissed him on the neck. His hand went under her skirt and glided over smooth flesh.

She kissed him again, tonguing his cheek, his ear.

His other hand reached for her breasts, but she was gone. Off to the bathroom. To freshen up. He lay back on the bed, in the dark. The ceiling fan whirred overheard. He watched it, counted the revolutions, then closed his eyes, waited for the bathroom door to reopen, see her silhouetted there. Perhaps naked, perhaps nearly so. His life had changed so much in such a short period of time.

It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

Then a man said, “Hello, Bill. It’s time we talked.”

Bill Strauss sat up when he heard the man’s voice. His body started to tremble. It was an immediate, visceral reaction that was paralyzing.

He watched as the silhouette came forward. The bathroom door opened, the woman slipped through it and then out of the room, closing the door behind her.

A setup. He had fallen for it.

The silhouette turned to hard flesh.

The man stood in front of Strauss and looked down.

John Puller said, “You’re a long way from Drake, West Virginia, Bill.”

Strauss just sat there staring upward at the far bigger man.

Puller grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and sat down facing Strauss. In his right hand was one of his M11s.

“How did you know? The fact that I ran for it, I guess?”

“Actually, I knew before then. You’re not a good liar. I could read you pretty easily the night we came by the house to tell you your son was dead. At Trent Exploration you were the second banana. But you wanted the bigger house. You were the brains and Roger was the front. Why should he get the lion’s share? And you were in the perfect position to rip him off. No one would suspect you, the money guy, because everyone assumed that if the business tanked, you would as well. But that wouldn’t be the case if you’d already taken all the cash. And the plans to the Bunker were in your safe, Bill. Not Roger’s. That was the clincher. You knew all about the place. And you figured out that Treadwell and Bitner had discovered the plans.”