Zero Day (John Puller 1)

“Right through the head. Just riding his bike. And bam.”

Strauss nearly tumbled off the bed as Puller fired his gun and the slug ripped into the wall and stayed there.

“Shot him,” Puller continued calmly. “Blew up his brain. I was there, saw it all. Hydrostatic pressure to the head from a supersonic rifle round. A Lapua round, Bill. It was overkill. They wanted to make sure he was dead. He never had a chance. You never would’ve recognized your kid, Bill. He had no face left.”

Strauss pulled himself back up and snapped, “That was not part of the plan. I didn’t know… No one told me that Dickie…” His voice trailed off and he started weeping.

“I suppose you’re sorry he’s dead,” said Puller.

“Of course I am. When you came to my house and told me I was distraught. His mother is devastated.”

“But you had no problem leaving her behind,” Puller pointed out.

“There was no way to bring her. There was no way to explain to her…” He halted, ground his fists into his eyes, wept some more.

“So you kept the missus in the dark over all of this.”

“I’ve set up an account for her. She would never want for anything.”

“Except her husband and son. And since you left her behind, you couldn’t know she wouldn’t die when the bomb went off.”

“I was told… I mean our house was far enough away—”

Puller cut in. “Doesn’t it piss you off that they murdered your son?”

Strauss said nothing.

Puller slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a photo. “I have the autopsy photo right here. You want to see your kid? See what they did to him?”

More tears trickled down Strauss’s face. He made no effort to brush them away. “Wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Well, it did happen, Bill. You want to see?” Puller said in a tighter voice. He held out the picture.

Straus recoiled from it. “No. No, I don’t want to see him… like that,” he said in a hushed voice.

“Somebody did that to my boy I’d want payback. I’d want revenge. I’d want justice.”

“I… There’s no way to do that now.”

“Sure there is.” Puller slipped the picture back in his pocket. “Amends, Bill. You can make it right. You can do it for your son.”

“I can’t. You see my wife. They might hurt—”

“She’s already in protective custody. She’ll go into witness protection. It’s all arranged. All done. All you have to do is the right thing.”

Puller sat back down, holstered the M11.

Strauss said, “What about me? Can I—”

Puller cut him off again. “You’re going to prison, Bill. No deals.”

“So I talk and still get prison?” Strauss said bitterly.

“You get to live. It’s a good alternative to not living.”

“So you are going to kill me? If I don’t cooperate?”

“I don’t have to.”

“Why?”

“The U.S. government will execute you. For treason.”

A few moments of silence went by.

Puller finally said, “I need an answer, Bill. Got wings waiting. Depending on your answer, the jet will take you one place as opposed to another.”

Bill Strauss rose.

“Let’s go.”

Puller stood up and gripped the other man by the elbow.

“Good choice.”

“For my son.”

“Yeah,” said Puller.

CHAPTER

94

PULLER’S CHOICE of running paths was remote and lonely. He liked to come here to sweat and think, and the former helped him do the latter. And he didn’t like other people around while he was doing it.

He inserted the ear buds, turned on his iPod, and started his run. Five miles later he was trotting back to his car.

And then he stopped.

There were six men that he could see. One was leaning against the hood of his Malibu. There were four others providing perimeter security. The sixth man was standing near the rear door of the Malibu. Two black SUVs were parked in front and at the rear of Puller’s vehicle, blocking it in.

Puller started walking. He slipped out his ear buds and cupped his iPod in his right hand.

“Hey, Joe, how’s it going?”

Joe Mason pushed off from the Malibu. “Puller, haven’t heard from you in a while. Thought my orders were pretty clear on that score. You report to me.”

“Well, sometimes orders get gummed up by facts on the ground and then they have to be changed.”

“Is that right?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, nobody told me that. And it’s always good to hear it from the horse’s mouth. That’s why I’m here.”

Puller drew closer to him. He noted the four perimeter guys close in. They were all armed. And they were all the same guys who had once before surrounded him in the parking garage in Arlington after his meeting with General Carson.

“So you’re here because you want a report?’

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Easy enough. There are three basic points. After Dickie was murdered something didn’t feel right so I started doing some digging. And here’s what I found. You and Bill Strauss knew each other. You grew up together in New Jersey. I checked. You served together in the Marines. Strauss tried to B.S. me and said he’d never served. But he knew what a BCD and a DD were. And he made his son join up because he thought the Army could ‘cure’ him of his sexual preference. You don’t do that unless you’ve been in the ranks yourself.”

“Okay, so I knew him. I served with him. Lots of Marines out there.”

“He didn’t last long, just like his son. Dickie got dumped because of DADT. His old man got dumped because he was a petty thief and drug dealer and the Marine Corps just got tired of his ass. The interesting thing is you left around the same time. Now, you had no dings on your record like Strauss, otherwise you never would have gotten on with the Feds, and later at DHS. But I’m thinking that you and Strauss stayed in touch. And when Dickie told his old man about a way into the Bunker that Randy Cole told him about, and what he’d seen when he was in there, Bill called you. He figured with your connections, something good might come out of this. Good meaning lots of money regardless of the chaos and pain it might cause.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, Joe, it is. You came to Drake on the QT, and got into the Bunker and saw what Randy Cole was talking about. Only unlike him, you figured out what was in those barrels. All those nuke cakes just sitting there. Forgotten. What would the value be? Billions?”