No Man's Land

by David Baldacci

  Chapter

  66

  PULLER CLOSED THE curtains in the motel room in Hampton and turned back to Rogers, who was lying on the bed, still immobilized.

  Knox was sitting in a chair next to the bed, gun in hand. Puller had filled her in on what his brother had told him.

  Rogers eyed them. “What is it?”

  Puller told him about Josh Quentin.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “And we should just accept that as gospel?” retorted Knox, gripping her pistol.

  His gaze drifted to the gun. “Aim for the head or the heart. Otherwise it won’t stop me.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Knox, shaking her head. “This is like sci-fi.”

  Puller sat down in another chair and faced Rogers. “Okay, we need to have a come-to-Jesus meeting. Where have you been all these years?”

  “Wandered around. Did some really bad shit but didn’t get caught. Then I was in prison for the last ten for manslaughter. Then I got paroled.”

  “So you’re in violation of that parole.”

  “I’m in violation of a lot of things.”

  “Have you killed anyone else since you left prison, other than those guys who attacked you at the bar?”

  “What do you care?”

  “I’m trying to understand you, Paul. So I can decide whether to help you or throw you in a cage forever.”

  Rogers looked away. “Two people in an alley who tried to rob me after I left prison. Then a gun dealer in West Virginia I stole an M11 pistol from. I wouldn’t have killed him, but he was going to shoot me.”

  Knox and Puller exchanged glances. Puller said, “Why would you need a gun?”

  “I wanted to return the favor for something Jericho did to me.”

  Puller said, “A gun dealer? West Virginia? I heard that on the news.”

  “That’s right.”

  Knox said, “But his kid was with him. And he wasn’t harmed.”

  Rogers said nothing.

  Puller said, “Why didn’t you kill the boy too? He was a witness.”

  “I…I just didn’t.”

  “So you can control your…impulses?”

  “I did then.”

  “Do you know where they were taking you?”

  “Probably to dump me in the ocean like Josh Quentin. Jericho had finished her tests and I’d told her what I knew about Ballard.”

  Puller tensed. “You told us you’d tossed an imposter out the window but there was another man on the beach later. That must be the real Ballard.”

  “I think the real Ballard is dead.”

  “So why would they pretend that he’s still alive?” asked Knox.

  Puller was quiet for a few moments before saying, “My brother told us that Ballard personally controlled all the patents for the technology that Jericho was selling off to private interests.” He looked at a quizzical Rogers. “That’s what was going on in the upstairs room at the bar. Quentin passed the secrets to Myers and she slipped them to some French businessman. Stuff was worth a fortune.”

  Knox said, “So let’s say Ballard really is dead. I wonder where the ownership of those patents goes?”

  Puller said, “His will would tell us that. But I don’t think they were going to Jericho. So if he is dead they might use the decoy old guys to keep up the impression that Ballard is alive. Maybe they performed plastic surgery to make them look like Ballard. I guess when you have that much at stake, you’d do pretty much anything.”

  “But when people visited wouldn’t they know the person wasn’t Ballard when he started talking?”

  “Not if they said he had Alzheimer’s or dementia or something like that. Then nobody would expect him to…to be able to be who he was.”

  Knox looked at him and seemed to understand that Puller could easily have been talking about his father.

  Knox looked over at Rogers. “This guy has already admitted to killing one of the decoys plus others. We don’t know that he didn’t kill Quentin. I think we need to go to the co—”

  Knox didn’t finish her sentence, because Rogers had leapt up, stripped Knox of her gun, spun her around, and held the weapon to her head.

  Puller swung his pistol around, but Rogers said, “Put it down or she’s dead.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Paul.”

  “Just call me Rogers. Neither one is my real name, so who cares?”

  “You can’t go it alone,” said Puller.

  “Put the gun down, Puller. I won’t ask again. And I don’t care if I die. But I think your partner here does.”

  Puller slowly lowered his gun.

  Rogers immediately let go of Knox and handed her gun back to her. He sat down on the bed and rubbed the back of his head while they both gazed down at him.

  He glanced up at them. “The nerve block wore off before we even got here.”

  “So why didn’t you kill us when you had the chance?” said Puller.

  “And why give me my gun back?” added Knox.

  “I didn’t kill Quentin.”

  He got up and went into the bathroom, where they could hear him being violently sick.

  Puller looked at Knox. “I believe him.”

  “So do I.”

  “He seems to be falling apart.”

  Rogers staggered out of the bathroom a few minutes later and fell on to the bed.

  “You going to be okay?” asked Puller.

  “No, I’m not, but I’m still going to get Jericho.”

  “Quentin is dead. Maybe Myers is too. Jericho might be tying up loose ends.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s not dead. And there’s another gal too, Suzanne Davis.”

  “The one who saved your life back at the bar?” said Puller.

  “Jericho apparently adopted her. She was at Ballard’s. She knows what’s going on too. She sort of babysits the old guys.”

  Puller glanced at Knox. “If we can get to either of them, Myers or Davis, we could use them to nail Jericho.”

  “That’s a long shot, since we don’t know where they are, or whether they’ll cooperate.”

  “It’s the only shot we have.” Puller looked at Rogers. “How have you controlled the impulse to kill over the years, Rogers?”

  Rogers took a chest full of air and let it go. “At first I thought it was something that I worked through when I was in isolation in prison. But Jericho took a brain scan during her testing. She said my brain had rewired itself both in and around the implant. So maybe that was it. I don’t know. I’m not a scientist. I’m just the guinea pig.”

  “So maybe who you used to be is coming back?” suggested Puller.

  Rogers gaped at him. It was clear he had never considered this possibility.

  “I’m not sure I even remember who I was,” he said quietly.

  “But why all these painful attacks?” asked Knox.

  Rogers rubbed his legs. “They installed an endoskeleton made of composites. Made me the strongest person on earth.”

  “So what’s happening to it?” asked Knox.

  “After thirty years it appears to be dissolving. Or maybe my body’s finally rejecting it, I don’t know.”

  “Is there any way to reverse it?” asked Puller.

  “Not so anyone’s told me.”

  Puller and Knox exchanged a glance. Puller shook his head.

  Knox said, “Okay, then we need to get to Davis and/or Myers. I have to believe that if they’re alive they’re at Ballard’s.”

  Rogers said, “I got into the place before. I can do it again.”

  “But this time we’ll be with you,” said Puller.

  Chapter

  67

  YOU SCALED THAT wall with no rope?”

  Puller, Knox, and Rogers were flat on their bellies on the beach looking up at the Ballard compound. They had on black ski masks pulled down over their faces.

  Behind them the ocean surf beat on relentlessly, covering any noises they might have made.

  Rogers
held up his hand and flexed his fingers. “This is all I need.”

  Puller carried a loop of rope over one shoulder.

  Their plan was fairly straightforward. Rogers would scale the wall and then use the rope to get Puller and Knox to the top of it.

  They had watched the sentries making their rounds. The guards had changed it up from the last time Rogers had been here, but there were still gaps in the system.

  “They’re going to be on higher alert,” said Knox. “They know you got away and that you’re with us.”

  “And we’re not going to kill any of them unless we have to,” Puller said to Rogers.

  The man shrugged. “If they try to kill me, I will kill them. You got a problem with that, stay on the beach.”

  Puller stared at him for a long moment. “Actually, that’s the same rule I have.”

  They had chosen the far left corner of the wall to make their ascent. Rogers had given his shoes and socks to Puller, who’d put them in his small knapsack.

  Puller and Knox watched as Rogers, the rope looped around his shoulder, scaled the wall like he was walking down the street. He reached the top, scanned all around, and then lifted himself onto the top of the wall and lay flat.

  Knox looked at Puller. “Okay, now I’ve seen everything.”

  “You might see even more in just a few minutes.”

  Rogers let the rope down, wound the other end around his waist, and gripped the edge of the capstone as he served as the anchor point for the other two.

  Knox went first, and within ten seconds she was lying next to Rogers.

  Puller joined them in about the same amount of time.

  They peered into the courtyard, saw that their way was clear, and used the same process to descend into the courtyard. They raced to a far corner of one of the outbuildings and took stock of their situation.

  They shrank farther back as an armed guard came into view and met up with another on rounds. The men briefly spoke before moving on separately.

  Rogers pointed to an upstairs window on the main house. “That’s Davis’s room.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Knox.

  “I brought her here after she went on a bender at the Grunt. Ballard’s room is at the top. He’s got most of the floor. Or whoever it is up there. I don’t know where Myers might be.”

  “And they know you killed the ‘fake’ Ballard?” whispered Puller.

  Rogers nodded. “I told Jericho.”

  Puller nodded and pulled from his knapsack two metal objects roughly the size of his hand. “Ready?”

  They both nodded.

  “Go.”

  Knox and Rogers crept around the interior of the courtyard, closely following the track of the guards making their rounds. When they got near the front entrance they stopped.

  Knox looked at her watch, counted down, and then gave a thumbs-up to Rogers.

  A second later the quiet was broken by glass being shattered, followed by twin explosions. Smoke started pouring out of the upstairs windows of the main house.

  Screams were heard, an alarm went off, and Knox and Rogers shrank back into the shadows as the guards ran pell-mell toward the main house.

  An SUV pulled up to the main gate and the driver leapt out and rushed over to the main house, leaving the vehicle running.

  A minute later four guards rushed outside. Suzanne Davis, in a bathrobe, Helen Myers, fully dressed, and an old man in a wheelchair were with them.

  They headed straight for the SUV.

  And ran right into Rogers and Knox.

  And Puller on the backside.

  Rogers took one of the guards and threw him so hard against another that they both hit the wall and slumped down unconscious.

  Knox had her gun aimed at the head of a third guard. “Put it down,” she said.

  He dropped the gun and Rogers walloped him on the head, sending him unconscious to the cobblestones.

  Puller knocked out the fourth guard.

  Knox pushed Davis and Myers into the rear seat. Rogers lifted the now agitated old man from the wheelchair and into the front seat.

  Puller took the wheel of the SUV and drove it straight out of the gates, which opened automatically from a sensor on the inside.

  Myers looked at each of them. “What the hell is going on?”

  Rogers pulled off his ski mask.

  “You!” she said, obviously stunned.

  “Me,” he said simply.

  “And your friends?”

  “Here to rescue you,” said Rogers.

  Puller and Knox took off their masks.

  Myers smiled. “Thank God for rescuers.”

  Rogers glanced at Davis.

  “I wasn’t aware I needed rescuing,” she said bluntly.

  Puller drove to where he had parked their car and the group transferred to that vehicle.

  Once they were on the road again, Rogers asked Myers, “What happened after I got knocked out?”

  “Men came in and took me out. I don’t know what happened to Josh.”

  “We do,” said Puller. “He’s dead.”

  “What?” said Myers.

  “Washed up on the beach with his head bashed in.”

  Rogers eyed Davis again. “How do you feel about that?”

  “Probably the same as you do. Nothing.”

  Knox looked at the old man, who was unfocused, his head tilting to one side. “I’m thinking plastic surgery on the face and other stuff to make him look like Ballard.”

  Puller glanced in the rearview at Myers and then Davis. “Work with us and maybe you get a deal.”