No Man's Land

by David Baldacci

  Unlike a revolver, which could only fire once the cylinder with a bullet in it lined up with the hammer, a semi would fire if there was only one bullet in the mag or thirteen. You couldn’t play Russian roulette with a mag pistol, not unless you wanted no chance to live.

  And Rogers wanted no chance for the person to live.

  He was fifty miles away now and still didn’t know why he had not simply killed the child.

  There had been something in his head that had held him back. He thought he knew all there was to know about what went on up there.

  Obviously he’d been wrong about that.

  As he fled east with the spoils of victory, Paul Rogers wondered what else he’d been wrong about.

  Chapter

  8

  PULLER PASSED THROUGH Richmond, where Lynda Demirjian was spending her last days in hospice, and continued on south and east. He was in his Army-issued black Malibu, which he liked because it had no bells and whistles, just an engine, four wheels, and something to steer it with.

  He drove fast down Interstate 64 and arrived in Hampton in time to check into a motel and grab a few hours’ sleep.

  He was up with the dawn. He grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel from the breakfast room in the motel lobby, climbed into his Malibu, and drove on to Fort Monroe.

  The installation had been decommissioned in 2011. Part of it had recently been designated a national monument by President Obama. It had been named after the fifth president, James Monroe. Surprisingly, the fort had remained in Union hands during the entire American Civil War and was the launch pad for General Grant’s successful assaults on Petersburg and the Confederate capital in Richmond that had essentially ended the war. Former Confederate general Robert E. Lee had been quartered here when he was still with the United States Army. And Confederate president Jefferson Davis had been imprisoned at Fort Monroe following the war. A memorial park there bearing his name had subsequently been created in the 1950s.

  Puller thought it must have been one of the few times a prisoner was honored with his very own park.

  The fort, at the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, had guarded the navigational channel between Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay since the early 1600s. The seven-sided fort was the largest stone fort ever constructed in the United States. It had officially opened and been named Fort Monroe in 1819. The fort was built to prevent any foreign enemy from landing there, marching up the coast to Washington, and burning the city down, as the British had done during the War of 1812.

  Fort Wool was across the channel and had been erected so that crossing fields of fire across the water could be deployed. That meant that ships trying to get through here could not hug one side of the channel in order to escape a pounding from the shore guns.

  It was all a moot point now. Fort Monroe had never been fired upon in nearly two hundred years, and had never fallen into enemy hands. And it never would unless the completely impossible happened and a foreign enemy managed it.

  Or, thought Puller, if America had another civil war.

  With the current political climate, he thought that a more likely scenario than the North Koreans coming ashore onto Virginia soil.

  With the post closing, the Commonwealth of Virginia had been given back much of the land the fort occupied. Most of the residential property had been sold or leased, though the commercial real estate side had been slower to come around.

  Puller drove down the causeway leading to the fort’s entrance, passing red, rusting ships in the water with names like Sassy Sarah. He found a parking space near the massive Chamberlin Hotel, which was now a retirement community, and proceeded on foot. He had snagged the camera he used at crime scenes from his duffel and hung it around his neck.

  The sun had risen and the salt air filled his lungs as his long gait ate up ground. He passed homes on the waterfront. The largest residence of all had been reserved for the four-stars who had lived at Fort Monroe. Next to it were slightly smaller homes where three- and two-star generals had dwelled.

  The street was quiet, tree-lined, and filled on both sides with large (at least for military quarters) two-story brick homes with porches that ran the full length of their fronts.

  He found the one he was looking for, on a corner. It had a large backyard and the grass was neatly cut. The house looked well maintained, but didn’t look occupied.

  Puller walked around the perimeter of the property until he reached the rear yard. He came to a spot pretty much in the center of the yard and thought back to that day.

  He’d been outside playing. A ball and a glove.

  His brother had been somewhere else, probably at the library reading a book.

  His father was, as usual, gone.

  So he’d been playing catch with himself. He had spent a lot of time by himself. His brother was intellectually advanced far beyond his age. He liked to think, not throw balls.

  He turned and looked at the window in the middle of the rear of the house. That was his parents’ bathroom.

  That was where the face was. His mother’s.

  He squinted because he was facing east and the sun was coming up.

  In the crevice of his eyes he could see her smiling at him. The towel wrapped around her head. The contented look on her face.

  But was she content?

  Where had she gone that night? When she believed her husband would not be home?

  The answer hit him like a Ka-Bar in the gut. Another man?

  He took pictures of everything he was looking at.

  He heard the voice as soon as he snapped the last frame.

  “Hello?”

  Puller turned to see a man staring at him from the corner of the yard. He didn’t like it that someone could get that close to him and he not be aware of it.

  The man was about five-ten. He looked to be in his late seventies and his upper torso was thickened, but he was still in decent shape. His hair was white and thinning on top, his mustache more salt-and-pepper. He was dressed in khakis, loafers, and an Army green windbreaker.

  Puller walked over to him and the face came more into focus. And then it clicked.

  “Mr. Demirjian?”

  Stan Demirjian came forward, but he didn’t have the same level of recognition on his features.

  Then it hit him. “My God. Are you one of the Puller boys?”

  “John.”

  The men shook hands.

  Demirjian said, “You look like your daddy. But you’re even taller.”

  “You still look combat ready.”

  The man laughed. “As if.” Then he stopped laughing and his features became somber. “I guess they told you.”

  “It’s why I’m here.”

  “I can understand that. I drove over this morning just to have a look around at the old place. Never thought they’d shutter Fort Monroe. Not with all the history and everything. Captain John Smith discovered the place. Point Comfort. First slaves came through here, you know, traded for damn supplies Dutch skippers needed.”

  “But even DoD needs to get with the times and save money,” Puller pointed out.

  “Yes, they do. We lived here on post housing. Took about a year to get.”

  “Right.”

  Demirjian took on a wistful expression, as though he were peering deeply into the past. “Monroe was where the big dogs lived. One- and two-stars didn’t even have entourages like at other installations. Walked the streets by themselves. A hundred full colonels here when most posts were lucky to have a dozen.”

  “It was special in that way.”

  “But your daddy didn’t need no entourage. Man was a damn load to handle all by himself.”

  “I wouldn’t dispute that.”

  The two men stared uncomfortably at each other.

  Demirjian blurted out, “Look, I just want you to know right off that I don’t agree with Lynda. But she was insistent. And she’s…”

  “I know about her medical condition and I’m very sorry. I only have re
ally good memories of her from our time here. She’s a fine lady. And I hold nothing against her.”

  “That’s real nice of you to say, John. Lynda’s been a wonderful wife and mother and grandmother. But she just wouldn’t let this go.”

  “When did it start?”

  “About three months ago. Out of the blue. We’d just moved her into a facility to help her…needs.”

  “And she just started talking about my mother and father?”

  “You have to understand, John…” He paused. “Heard you were in the Army too.”

  “CWO, 701st MP Group out of Quantico.”

  “That’s an elite group,” said Demirjian. “You get nominated for that group, not selected.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The older man waved off this form of address. “I never got the sir when I was in uniform because I wasn’t an officer. And I sure don’t deserve it now, Chief Puller.”

  “You were a top-notch SFC. Dad always said so. And as you know, he was a tough man to please. And call me John.”

  Demirjian looked around. “I remember coming over and barbecuing in this backyard. You and your brother running around playing Army soldiers. It was in your blood.”

  “You were a good friend to Dad. And to us.”

  “I would have run through a wall for your father, John. Hell, I did run through a wall for him. A wall of ground fire, mortar rounds, even napalm dropped by our fly guys. Happened about five times a day in ’Nam. And your daddy was right there beside me every time. And he was already a lieutenant colonel at that point. He didn’t have to be running with the grunts like that.” He rubbed his chin and continued. “When he got his second star they made him commander of the 101st. Best leader the Screaming Eagles ever had in my humble opinion. Then he got his corps command when they pinned on the third star.”

  “Helluva career,” said Puller. He felt a bit awkward, unsure where this trip through his father’s past was supposed to lead.

  Demirjian looked down at his shoes for a few moments. “I have no idea what set off the notion in Lynda’s head about all this. She was moved to the hospice part of the facility a month ago. That’s when she told me she wanted to let the authorities know about this. That about gave me a heart attack. I begged her to just drop it. Thirty years ago? Who would remember anything? And your father and the way he is? Not able to really defend himself?”

  “So you know about that?”

  Demirjian stared over at Puller, his features crumbling. “I visited him up where he is now.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Puller.

  “This was about a year ago. He wasn’t himself anymore. But he remembered me. He remembered some of the old days.”

  “He did back then. Not so much anymore.”

  Demirjian shook his head. “I’m one tough son of a bitch and I left that place bawling my eyes out. To see your daddy like that…”

  Puller didn’t say anything. He let Demirjian regain his composure, rub at his moistened eyes, and then continue.

  “But Lynda wouldn’t let it go. If I didn’t help her she’d just get someone else to do it. That’s what she said. Well, I figured that it would be better coming from my hand, so to speak.” He glanced up at Puller. “Did they show you the letter?”

  “They did.”

  “Well, I softened the tone a lot. I’m sure it still shocked the hell out of you, but her words, well, they were far harsher than what I wrote in that letter. Part of me felt like I was betraying my wife for doing that.”

  “It would be an awkward situation for anyone, Mr. Demirjian, and especially so for you. I wouldn’t want to be in that spot.”

  “I don’t want you to believe for one second that I agree with my wife on this, because I don’t. But she’s dying, John, and this was so important to her. I didn’t want to open a can of worms for your daddy. He’s the last man on earth I’d ever want to hurt. But like I said, if I didn’t do it, Lynda would have found someone else.”

  “I understand.” Puller paused and considered carefully his next words. “Do you think it would be possible for me to talk to her?”

  “I thought you might ask that.”

  “I don’t want to do it if it will upset her. I mean that.”

  “I don’t think much could upset her now. And she’s one tough woman. I wore the uniform, but she raised seven kids on an enlisted man’s pay, largely on her own because I was always gone. And we moved fourteen times while the kids were growing up. I wonder which one of us is the real tough one?”

  “So I can speak to her?”

  “Way I see it, she’s started all this. Now it has to be seen through. And he’s your daddy. You have some rights in the matter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll make the arrangements. You can come over later this morning. It takes her a while to get going these days. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you in a bit.”

  Puller did so.

  As the men walked back to their cars Demirjian said, “Could you give your daddy my best next time you see him?”

  “I sure will.”

  “He doesn’t know about this, does he?”

  “No. I’m not sure he’s in a position right now to understand it anyway.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best.”

  “Maybe it is,” agreed Puller.

  “And I’m sure any investigation they do will clear your daddy absolutely and completely.”

  As Puller climbed back into his car, he wasn’t nearly as certain of that as the old soldier was.

  Chapter

  9

  WHEN PULLER RETURNED to his motel room he called his brother. Robert Puller answered on the second ring.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re investigating this,” Robert said immediately.

  “Good morning to you too, big brother.”

  “It’s the afternoon here. Where are you?”

  “In Virginia.”

  “Right. Where in Virginia? Fort Monroe, perhaps?”

  “You got a satellite tracking me?”

  “No, but I can have one deployed. Or I can follow the chip in your phone. Or you can save me the paperwork and the cost of the sat time and tell me yourself.”

  “I just spoke to Stan Demirjian.”

  “Oh, you just happened to run into him,” said Robert sarcastically.

  “Actually, I did. I came down to look at our old quarters and there he was.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I’m going to talk to his wife later today. She’s in hospice.”

  “And what exactly do you expect to gain from doing that?”

  “Some answers, maybe.”

  “CID will have your ass if they know you’re inserting yourself into this matter.”

  “They never ordered me off the case. And besides, I’m not here