Zero Day

by David Baldacci

  “Army and Navy Club. Little function.”

  She nodded and sipped her coffee. “Matt called me about four weeks ago,” she said quickly, as though she just wanted to get this over with. She didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze on the tabletop.

  “And said what?”

  “He’d stumbled onto something. That was his word. Stumbled. It wasn’t planned. And I certainly hadn’t sent him out there on a mission. He was just commuting to be with his wife and kids. His call to me came out of left field.”

  “Okay.” Puller took another drink of coffee and set it down.

  Carson said, “He’d met someone who was involved in something. Correction, he met someone who had found out something.”

  “What and who?”

  “I don’t know the who.”

  “How did he meet this person?”

  “By accident, I think. Anyway, it wasn’t planned.”

  “And do you know the what?”

  “It was big, whatever it was. Matt thought it so big that we might have to call in someone on our end.”

  “And why didn’t you?”

  Her words came fast. “Because I didn’t know enough. I didn’t want to pull the trigger on something and have it blow up in my face. This was totally off mission. Not my jurisdiction. Hell, I don’t even think it had anything to do with the military. I was out of my comfort zone, Puller, you have to understand that. I had no control over the information flow and no way to verify it. Neither did Matt. He was relying on people he didn’t know.”

  “You still could have gone to the police. Or had him go.”

  “And tell them what? Matt didn’t have enough info either, at least according to what he told me. A lot of it was gut.”

  “Did he think this person might have been working undercover?”

  “Undercover?” she said with genuine surprise. “You mean like a police officer?”

  “Sometimes civilians go undercover on their own.”

  “How often?” she said skeptically.

  “Once is enough.”

  “Well, Matt never mentioned anything like that.”

  “And what did you tell him to do? Follow up? See what he could find out? You thought maybe this might be an opportunity for career advancement? Outside the normal scope of work?”

  “You put things pretty bluntly, but you’re right. And the next thing I knew he was dead. His whole family was dead. Wife, kids… everybody.” Her lips started to tremble. When she tried to pick up her coffee cup, her hand was shaking so badly the coffee spilled on her.

  Puller took the cup from her, set it down, wiped the coffee off her with a napkin, and then gripped her other hand.

  “Look, ma’am, maybe you didn’t play this the best way possible, but no one can every time. And I know there was no way you ever intended for any of this to happen.”

  She glanced quickly up at him and then just as abruptly looked away. She turned to the side and used another napkin to dry her eyes. Puller waited until she’d composed herself and turned back to him.

  She said, “Sorry about that, Puller. Generals aren’t supposed to cry.”

  “I’ve seen them tear up over the bodies of their men.”

  She smiled resignedly. “I was talking about female generals.”

  “Okay. When you found out what had happened to the Reynoldses, what did you do?”

  “Quite frankly, I freaked. And when I calmed down, the only thing I could think of was the potential blowback to me. Doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of me, but it’s the truth.”

  “And you figured that the murder of the head of J23 would generate enough interest on its own? You knew there would be a lot of backdoor maneuvering from people in slots way above either one of us. And maybe you dropped some hints that until they knew for sure what was behind it all it was better to go in light with just one CID agent, treat it like a normal homicide investigation? See where the chips fell?”

  “I’m not sure my plan was that refined. But I realized as soon as I said anything that it might come out anyway and I would look really bad. It’s been a hole in my gut ever since.”

  “I can understand that. But you might have been closer to the truth than you thought. You said he fell into it by accident?”

  “Yes. Matt also said he thought it might have national security implications. I mean, he really did say that to me. I had no way to verify it, but I know he believed it.”

  “You ever been to Drake, West Virginia?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, it’s not exactly a hotbed of terrorism, if that’s what we’re talking about.”

  “All I can tell you is what Matt told me.”

  “Fair enough. And someone did kill him because of it.” Puller thought some things through while Carson stared miserably down at her hands.

  “Don’t beat yourself up too hard, ma’am. You were just seeing if maybe you could get something done, something to help the country.”

  “Let’s just call a spade a spade, Puller. I thought I could use this to help get the second star. I was selfish and myopic. And now four people are dead who shouldn’t be.”

  Seven, thought Puller. Actually seven people are dead.

  “Okay. Anything else you can think of that might help me?”

  “Matt did say that he thought whatever it was would happen soon.”

  “Soon because they were afraid of exposure? Or soon because the plan had been in place for a while and it was time to execute?”

  “Probably both, considering they felt the need to kill Matt and his family.”

  “I’m surprised that he didn’t provide you more details.”

  She said, “He didn’t leave any evidence of who the person might be? You’re sure?”

  “We didn’t find much of anything. We do think a soil sample might be involved.”

  She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “A soil sample?”

  He nodded. “The killers may have come back for it, in fact. So it must’ve been important. That ring any bells with you?”

  “Well, he did say that this thing might have far-reaching implications.”

  “But he never said how?”

  “No. Now I wished I had pushed him for more details. I just never thought it would end like this. I guess I should have. The Army teaches you to provide for every contingency.”

  “We’re human, so that means we’re not perfect.”

  “The Army expects us to be perfect,” she shot back.

  “No, they just expect us to be better than the other side.”

  She eyed the notebook. “How will your report read?”

  “That you were very cooperative and provided me with valuable intelligence.”

  “I owe you, Puller. I had you all wrong.”

  “No, you probably had me pegged right. But your aim was a little off.”

  “Hustling for a star and being a female can add up to a lonely life.”

  “You’ve got a big family around you. It’s called the United States Army.”

  She smiled weakly. “Yeah, I guess so. When this is over, look me up. Maybe we can have a drink.”

  “Maybe we can,” said Puller as he closed his notebook and took his leave.

  On the way to his car he glanced at his watch. He had one more stop and then he could be back in West Virginia by taking a morning flight.

  Unfortunately, he probably wasn’t going to make it.

  The four men had surrounded him.

  CHAPTER

  56

  “JOHN PULLER?”

  The men had materialized in the parking garage near Puller’s ride. He noted the twin black SUVs idling nearby.

  “What does Homeland Security want with me?”

  The leader of the bunch, a small, trim man with curly dark hair and frown lines stacked on his forehead, said, “How do you know we’re with DHS?”

  Puller pointed at the waist of one man. “He’s got the SIG nine.” He pointed to another
man. “He’s carrying the SIG forty cal. DHS is one of the few that lets their people mix and match. Add to that you’ve got a DHS lapel pin on your jacket. And my final clue was the Homeland Security parking sticker on one of your rides over there.”

  The man looked around and then smiled. “Good eye. Still need to see our cred packs?”

  “Yeah, I do. And I’ll show you mine. Army CID.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I know you know.”

  “We need you to come with us.”

  “Where and why?”

  “The why will be explained by others. The where is not too far.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really, no.”

  Puller shrugged. “Then let’s go.”

  The ride was ten minutes. They entered another parking garage, swept down two levels, left the vehicles, and took an elevator up five floors. Puller was led down a hall where every single door was shut and secured with key and combo locks. There was nothing to show this was a federal building, which wasn’t unusual, Puller knew. DHS in particular kept ordinary-looking space like this all over the country. But to someone who knew what to look for the place screamed federal. The carpet was government beige, the walls government beige, the doors metal. The government spent a lot of money, Puller knew, but not on the finishes in their office buildings.

  He was led into a room and left there at a small table with the door closed and locked from the outside. He counted off five minutes in his head and was beginning to wonder whether someone had forgotten he was there when the door opened.

  The man was in his fifties and carried the heft and gravitas of a long government career in a field that did not include paper pushing or staple counting. He held a file. He sat. He rustled through the file and then he finally acknowledged Puller by looking at him.

  “You want something to drink?” the man asked. “We got coffee, though ours sucks. We have water. Just tap. The high-end Deer Park perk got whacked last year. Budgets cuts are a bitch. Next they’ll be taking our guns.”

  “I’m good.” Puller glanced at the file. “That about me?”

  “Not per se, no.” He tapped the file. “I’m Joe Mason, by the way.” He reached across and shook Puller’s hand.

  “John Puller.”

  “That one I got figured out,” said Mason. He fiddled with the cuticle on one of his fingers. “How’re things coming in West Virginia?”

  “Figured that was what this was about. Not all that good, actually. I assume you’ve been read in?”

  “You can call your SAC if you want. Don White’s a good guy.”

  “I will call my SAC.”

  Mason pulled out his phone. “Let’s get the perfunctory shit over with so we can move on to more substantive stuff. Call him now.”

  Puller made the call. Don White filled him in on Joe Mason of DHS and told Puller to be cooperative with the man.

  Puller slid the phone back to Mason and looked at the file again. “So do I have to be read in?”

  “I was just now thinking the very same thing, Puller.”

  “And have you reached a decision?”

  “Everything I can get hold of about you tells me you’re a crackerjack guy. Patriotic to the marrow. Tenacious as a bulldog, you’re gonna get whoever you set after.”

  Puller said nothing, just eyed the man. He wanted him to keep talking. He wanted to keep listening.

  Mason continued. “We have a situation out there. Sounds corny, doesn’t it? We have a situation. Anyway, the problem is we don’t know what the situation is.” He looked up from the file. “Can you give us any help there?”

  “Is this why SecArm was so interested in the case? Why they only sent me initially?”

  “The Secretary of the Army is interested in this case because we are. And while you are the only one currently visible, there are other assets deployed on this. And not just from DHS.”

  “I understood DIA isn’t interested in this.”

  “I would not agree with that statement.”

  “FBI in on it?”

  “FBI is in on everything whether we want them or not. However, we did not want to overwhelm you with alphabet suits, so I was picked to deliver the interface.”

  “Okay, there’s a situation, only you don’t know what it is. I would have thought DHS would have more to do than work on something like that.”

  “I would agree with you except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A piece of chatter that NSA picked up two days ago. Want to guess where it was coming from?”

  “Drake, West Virginia.”

  “You got it.”

  “I thought NSA could only listen to the foreign part of a conversation. That it couldn’t listen in or read the emails or texts of Americans.”

  “That’s mostly correct as far as it goes.”

  “What did the chatter say?”

  “Well, it was in a language that one would not expect to be coming from rural West Virginia.”

  When the man didn’t tell him what it was, Puller got a little ticked off and said, “New Jersey? The Bronx?”

  “Try again, and head farther east.”

  “Arabic?”

  “Dari. You know it’s one of the major dialects spoken in Afghanistan.”

  “Yeah, that I know. So Afghanistan. Has it been translated?”

  “Yes. As follows: ‘The time is coming soon.’ And that everyone needed to be prepared. And that justice would be theirs.”

  “And you took that to mean some attack on the United States?”

  “That’s what I’m paid to think, Puller. And also paid to prevent.”

  “Why was this chatter so special? People say stupid stuff all the time that leads nowhere. Even speaking in Dari.”

  “The chatter wasn’t clean. It was encrypted. And it wasn’t encrypted with some fancy computer algorithm. It was in code. Code that my people tell me was very popular with the old KGB before the Cold War ended. Now we also know that the Taliban has started using old KGB codes to communicate with implanted cells. I guess it harks back to the days when the Red Army was rolling around in tanks there.”

  “Taliban using a KGB code in Dari coming from West Virginia. Now that’s diversity for you. But they broke it?”

  “Obviously, or else I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. Ironically, the old code stuff is coming back into vogue, Puller, because we’ve gotten so good at cracking computerized encryption. Bottom line, it made us sit up and take notice.”

  “I haven’t seen one turban in Drake. Just a bunch of proud Americans with a little red around the neck. How can you be sure the plan will be executed in Drake? The terrorists could just be hiding out there and the target could be someplace else.”

  “Other components of the chatter lead us to believe that the target is at least in the vicinity of Drake.”

  Puller sat back, thought about this. “Well, there’s a big concrete dome where a secret government facility operated in the 1960s. That’s probably a good place to start. In fact, it’s the only thing out of the ordinary in the place. Other than a bunch of dead bodies.”