He glanced back over his shoulder. Nothing except the darkness looked back at him. He was twenty feet from the tree line. From there a five-minute walk through the woods. A car waiting, a fast drive. Before the police could set up their roadblocks. He liked this area. Lots of ground to cover and not nearly enough cops to do it properly.
He stopped, turned back.
Sirens, yes, but something else. Something unexpected.
His left hand slipped to his waistband.
“Another inch with the hand and you can get a good look at your intestines.”
The man’s hand stopped right where it was.
Puller did not step clear of the trees. He had no idea if the other man was alone. He kept his MP trained on the target.
“First, take the rifle by the muzzle and toss it away from you. Second, lie facedown with your hands interlocked behind your head, eyes closed, and your feet spread-eagled.”
The man set the rifle stock-first on the ground, gripped the muzzle, and threw the weapon. It landed six feet away, thudding to the ground and spraying up grass and dirt.
“First part done. Now execute step two,” Puller said.
“How’d you get ahead of me?” asked the man.
Puller didn’t like the question, but he liked even less the tone in which it was asked. Unhurried, earnestly curious, but seemingly unmindful of the consequences of being caught. His gaze swept the field in front of him. Was there a spotter out there? A backup team to ferry the sniper away?
“Lucky triangulation,” he said. “Worked to the logical conclusion and double-timed it there.”
“Never heard you.”
“That’s right. Why take out Dickie?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lapua rounds aren’t that plentiful around here, I would bet.”
“You can walk away from this, Puller. Right now. Maybe you should.”
Puller liked this change in tactics even less. It was like the other man was holding the gun on him. Offering him a free walk.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I’m sure you’ve already considered it. You won’t learn anything more from me. It’s not my job to do your job.”
“Eight people dead now. Must be a good reason.” Puller slid his finger to the trigger guard on the MP5. Once it ventured inside the guard he would fire.
“Must be.”
“You talk, there might be a deal.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You that loyal?”
“If that’s what you want to call it. I let you get to me. My fault. My responsibility.”
“Facedown. Last time I’ll ask.”
Puller lined up his shot. At this range the man was dead. He braced the MP against his right pec. With his left hand he toggled his forward M11 in a thirty-degree arc.
The man dropped to his knees. Then to his stomach. He started to interlock his fingers. But then his hand shot to his waist.
Puller used his M11 to pump one round into each of the man’s arms and then stepped to his left and behind a tree. His muzzle flash had given away his position. He had not gone for a kill shot because he didn’t have to. The man couldn’t have gotten off a clean shot at him. And now with his arms immobilized he wouldn’t be able to even point his gun at Puller. The man had gone for his weapon for perhaps two reasons.
First, he’d wanted Puller to kill him.
Puller had decided not to be so accommodating. He wanted a witness he could interrogate.
Second, he had wanted Puller to fire, revealing his position; hence Puller’s sidestep behind the tree.
He awaited incoming fire from another sector.
It didn’t come.
His glance shot back to the wounded man, who still lay there, blood gushing out from his arms. No arterial spray because Puller hadn’t aimed at that.
He noted a second too late that the man’s hand was under him. The shot rang out.
“Shit,” Puller muttered as he watched man’s torso jerk up and then come back to rest on the ground.
The bullet had come out the man’s back. Dead center. Contact kill shot in reverse. Self-inflicted.
Puller had just lost his potential witness. Whoever these people were, they were dedicated to something. Choosing death over life was not an easily made decision. It seemed the man had intended it all along. As soon as he knew he’d been compromised and was near capture.
Puller had relaxed for just a moment. It was almost a fatal mistake.
He blocked the knife with his gun barrel, but the man leveled a blow at Puller’s arm with his other hand and the impact knocked his MP5 to the dirt. Puller raised his M11, but a side kick from his opponent sent that weapon to the dirt too. The man came at him again, whipping the knife in different directions to confuse Puller. He was six-two, one-ninety, with thick dark hair, a lean tanned face, and the calm gaze of someone accustomed to killing other people.
But then was so Puller.
He pinned the man’s knife arm against his torso, dipped down, and slammed his head into the man’s throat. The blade dropped to the ground. Puller pivoted around, gripped the top of the man’s head with his right hand, and jerked it to the right at the same time he slammed an elbow directly into the left side of the man’s neck.
The man gurgled and blood started to trickle out of his nose and mouth.
“Give it up and you get to live, asshole,” said Puller.
The man continued to struggle. He kicked at Puller’s groin, gouged at his eyes. That was irritating but manageable. Puller wanted this guy alive. But when the man got his hand on Puller’s rear M11 and tried to jerk it free, Puller decided it was better to be alive without a captive he could question rather than dead.
Puller moved fully behind the man, looped one long arm, with the elbow up, around his opponent’s damaged neck, gripped his torso with his other arm, and pulled in separate directions. When he heard the man start to scream, he lifted him off the ground, whipped him around, and slammed him into the nearest tree. He heard the spine snap and he dropped the entire load to the dirt. Breathing hard, he stared down at the mess he’d made of a human body. He looked over at the knife. Serrated blade. Worn handle. Lots of use. His blood was supposed to be all over it. He felt not an ounce of remorse.
“Puller!”
He glanced to his right.
He recognized Cole’s voice.
“Over here. Keep back. Got a dead sniper and his backup and there may be more. I’m okay.”
Ten minutes passed and Cole said, “Can we join you?”
Puller made one last scan of the tree line. “Okay.”
A few minutes later Cole and two of her deputies were within his sightline.
“Puller?”
“To your right.” He stepped out to show his location.
Cole and her deputies scuttled forward to join him around the dead men.
Puller knelt down and eased the sniper over. “Shine your light on his face.”
Cole did so.
The deputy named Lou let out a gasp. He said, “That’s the guy who was pretending to live at Treadwell’s place.”
Puller rose. “I thought it might be.”
“How?” asked Lou.
“He matched the description you gave of him earlier. Now we know he’s as good at sniping as he is at killing up close.”
Lou looked at the other wrecked body. “What the hell did you do to him?”
“I killed him,” Puller said simply. “Before he killed me.”
“That was Dickie Strauss back there,” said Cole.
“I know.”
“What was he doing here?”
“Coming to meet me.”
Cole looked at the wounds on the back of the man’s arms. “Your rounds?”
He nodded. “The guy went for his gun. Thought he was trying to get me to kill him. I didn’t. Then he ate his own round. Should have seen that coming. But a guy wants to kill himself and he has
a gun handy, not a lot you can do about it.”
“Guess not,” said Cole curtly.
Puller looked around and said, “Let’s secure the crime scenes. Call in Lan Monroe and whoever else you need. Then you and I can go talk.”
“What about?”
“Lots of things.”
CHAPTER
76
COLE WAS WAITING for him at her house. Puller had made one stop at his motel room and then driven over. She greeted him at the front door and he followed her down the hall to the kitchen.
“You want a drink?” she asked. “I’m having a beer.”
“I’m good,” he said.
They sat in a back room that overlooked the rear yard. It was hot and humid, and Cole’s wall AC wasn’t much better than the one in his motel room. He thought he could taste the coal in the air, feel his skin turning oily black by just being here.
She sat across from him, her fingers curled around the neck of her Michelob.
“While you were following up some leads,” she began, “I checked out Treadwell’s place of business. The only useful piece of info I got from them is that nothing was missing from their inventory. And they had no idea why he would have tungsten carbide residue in his house. They don’t carry anything like that.”
“So it wasn’t work-related?”
“No.”
“I found the answer to the meth lab.”
“What?”
He told her what he’d discovered at the fire station.
“Damn. The Xanadu club dealing meth?”
“Looks to be,” said Puller. “But doesn’t really get us anywhere. And we’re running out of time.”
“What do you mean?”
He told her about his conversation with Joe Mason. About the pipeline operated by Trent. And the nuclear reactor that was apparently the real target. And finally he told her about Trent’s financial problems.
When he was done, she put her beer down and leaned back in her chair.
“I’m not sure where to begin,” she said. “Jean never told me anything about money problems. And she told you?”
“I think I caught her at a vulnerable moment. And I’m not family. Maybe she just didn’t want you to know. Maybe she was embarrassed that she might be poor again.”
“Are you hungry? I’m suddenly starving.”
“Cole, forget about food. We’ve got less than two—”
She said in a trembling voice, “I need to make sandwiches, Puller. I… I need to do something normal. Or I’m going to lose it. I am. I mean it. I didn’t sign up for something like this. Shit like this is not supposed to happen in places like Drake.”
He said in a soothing tone, “Okay. Okay. How about I help?”
They went to the kitchen and made turkey sandwiches with pickle slices on top and chips as the garnish. They ate standing up at the kitchen sink.
“What are you thinking?” she asked quietly.
Puller took a bite of sandwich and followed it with some chips.
“Shooter knew what he was doing. Rifle was first-class, so was his ammo choice. He picked his position well, executed his shot, and nearly made his escape. I had to hustle to beat him and also bagged some luck in the process. And I’m really good at hunting down shooters in pretty much any environment.” He paused. “And he still almost got away. And his partner was good. Not as good as me, but really good.”
“Modest,” said Cole.
“Realistic,” replied Puller. “Underestimating or overestimating your ability can be fatal. There are guys out there better than me. He just wasn’t one of them.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s assume Dickie, Treadwell, and Molly were in on the meth dealing. I said Dickie struck me as a guy who was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was dealing meth, which he obviously wanted to keep secret, but he had also stumbled onto something else that was far worse.”
“You said he was meeting with you tonight? Any idea what he was going to report?”
“No. Maybe nothing. I was the one who called the meeting.”
She popped the fridge and pulled out two bottles of Deer Park. She handed him one.
“A pipeline and a nuclear reactor,” she said. “And we have two days. That’s nuts, Puller. Nuts.”
“It is what it is.”
“You have to call in the heavy artillery.”
“I’ve tried, Cole. The guys upstairs aren’t budging on this.”
“So they’re just hanging us out to dry?”
They stood there facing each other across a few inches, but it seemed to Puller like miles. He had served his country most of his adult life. And serving your country, in essence, meant serving its citizens. People like the woman staring hopelessly at him right now. He had never felt so conflicted in his life.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cole. I really don’t.”
She said, “Well, there’s one thing I need to do.”
“What’s that?” Puller asked warily.
“I need to tell Bill Strauss he’s lost his son.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I do.”
They rose and left together.
CHAPTER
77
THEY DROVE THERE in Puller’s Malibu. The night air seemed even more stifling than it had been during the day when the temperature had hovered in the nineties with a matching humidity level. The spray of his headlights picked up swarms of mosquitoes just waiting for victims. A deer leapt out from the woods on the left about fifty feet ahead of them. Puller tapped his brakes. A few seconds later what looked like a small mountain lion exploded from the brush, cleared the asphalt in two bounds, and disappeared into the woods on the other side.
Predators, it seemed, were out in force tonight.
“It was hotter than this in the Middle East, but no humidity. This reminds me more of Florida,” said Puller as he piloted his ride along the curvy back roads that seemed to be the only kind Drake had.
“Never been to Florida,” said Cole. “West Virginia is the only place I’ve ever been. This is my home.”
He punched the AC button to max and rubbed a line of sweat off his forehead even as her words stung him.
“Let’s talk it out,” he said.
“This puts me in the mother of all awkward positions, Puller.”
He glanced at her. “I know. You’re an officer of the peace. A public
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