“Right, thanks for the heads-up. He’ll be going up to his room?”
“So you know about that?”
“I saw him head up there last time. I figured that’s where your VIPs go. They’re not going to be in general pop, are they?”
“General pop?”
“Just a term I’ve heard used. Should I just clear his whole party in without checking IDs? He seemed a little ticked off when I did that the first night.”
“Yes, just let them in. I’ll vouch that they’re all legal,” she added with a smile tacked on.
“Will Karl be in tonight?”
“He’s already here. In the back.”
“I’ll stop in and see him before I go on duty.”
“Good.”
He left her there and continued on to the back to see Karl. The big man was seated at a table and looked better. Rogers saw no cane. And Karl wore no sunglasses.
Karl motioned for Rogers to take a seat. He did so.
“I heard about the ‘incident’ the other night.”
“How?”
“Cop on the beat is an old bud of mine. He told me. These punks are starting to be a real problem.”
“I can handle it.”
“I have no doubt of that. But the thing is, we don’t want that kind of trouble. You kick the shit out of some of these college boys, or maybe even kill one, it’s not good for business. See what I mean?”
“I see. And I won’t do anything to mess it up for the bar.”
“Good man.”
Rogers left him and went back into the bar area in time to see Myers ascend the stairs, unlock the door to the VIP room, and go in. He drew back and watched. A minute later she reemerged and shut the door behind her. In her right hand was the door key. But she had something in her left hand that hadn’t been there before.
He backed up and then came around the corner as though just emerging from the back hall.
They met at the bottom of the stairs.
She said, “How’s Karl?”
“Like a new man,” said Rogers, glancing down. Myers was gripping something in her left hand, but he couldn’t see what it was.
She looked back at him. “Anything else?”
“No. I’m good to go.”
Chapter
38
ARE YOU GOING to tell me, or are you just going to keep driving?”
Puller was staring directly at Knox.
“I’m trying to process it all in my head so I can give you an efficient version,” she replied.
“Where have you been?”
“Finding out things.”
“And did you?”
“Processing, Puller, give me a sec. I was wheels down just an hour ago. It’s still a bit garbled in my head.”
He waited until she pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. She put the car in park, undid her seat belt, and said, “I need coffee. You want some?”
“Okay.”
She got out, went in and bought two large coffees, came back to the car, presented one to him, and took a sip of hers.
“Are you done processing?” he asked.
She nodded and sat back. “There was a lot about this case that didn’t add up. The FBI pulling out of a serial murder case? That’s unheard of. The forensics not being professionally done. Investigators getting stonewalled. No leads at all with four women dead. And the playing field being manipulated by so-called ‘higher-ups,’ which is very convenient because it lets anonymity reign.”
“Agreed on all points,” said Puller. “Just so you know, Ted Hull got reassigned and his phone number was given over to a woman from the Department of Agriculture, so no one could contact him. And I’m supposed to be on a flight to Germany because I got pulled off the case too.”
“So why aren’t you on the plane?”
“Because another higher-up intervened, this time on my behalf.”
“Which higher-up.”
“I can’t tell you because I was ordered not to disclose it.”
“Ordered, by someone in the military?”
“This isn’t a guessing game with clues, Knox. We were discussing what you found out?”
She took another sip of coffee and he saw a vein pulsing at her temple. He also saw her hand quiver just a bit as she set her coffee in the cup holder.
“We might have stumbled onto something so big I’m not sure I can even comprehend it, Puller, much less deal with it.”
“Let’s start small. Give me some details.”
“I spoke with a man named Mack Taubman. He was my mentor. He was the reason I survived my early years in the field. He served his country in the intelligence field for over forty years and did it better than anyone I know. He’s retired now, but he was square in the middle of things in the 1980s.”
“Meaning what?”
She met his eye. “Mack told me that on the Fort Monroe installation back then there were some highly classified—some might say disturbing—research projects going on.”
“By the Army?”
“You heard of DARPA?”
“Of course,” he said.
“They finance some interesting projects.”
“Like the one at Fort Monroe?”
“Yes. There was a facility there. A Building Q.”
“Sounds like a James Bond thing, “commented Puller.”
“It might have been, actually.”
“What does this have to do my mother?”
“I don’t know. All I know is a man I greatly respect didn’t want to even talk about this in hypotheticals. When I brought up the murdered women in Williamsburg, I thought Mack was going to have a heart attack.”
“He thinks they were connected to whatever was going on at this Building Q?”
“Yes.”
“And what exactly was going on there?”
She shook her head. “Mack either didn’t know or, more likely, did know but wouldn’t tell me. Mack always took the oath of confidentiality very seriously.”
“So you’re telling me that some government project resulted in the deaths of four innocent women?”