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CHAPTER
34
PULLER AND KNOX were parked outside of Susan Reynolds’s home in Springfield, Virginia.
Knox checked her watch. “She got off work about thirty-five minutes ago. She might’ve stopped along the way. Fort Belvoir isn’t that far from here.”
Pulled nodded but said nothing, keeping his gaze swiveling between Reynolds’s two-story home in a newer, very upscale neighborhood of Springfield and the entrance to the subdivision.
“What’s her position at Fort Belvoir?” Puller asked.
“She works in the Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
“Don’t they work closely with DTRA?” said Puller, referring to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
“There’s a partnership there, yes,” replied Knox. “In fact the center is located at DTRA’s headquarters and a lot of DTRA’S mission supports the center’s work.”
“And their mission is to wipe out WMDs?”
“At least the bad guys’ WMDs.”
“Anything jump out in her personnel file?” he asked.
“No. She joined another STRATCOM component at Bolling Air Force Base about the time of your brother’s court-martial. And from there she went to the center. But there must be something if she lied about your brother’s actions.”
“Well, we’re about to find out because there she is.”
A late-model Lexus four-door pulled into the driveway of Reynolds’s house. A tall, fit, good-looking woman in her early fifties with a thick mane of bleached-blonde hair climbed out of the sedan carrying a briefcase and a plastic bag full of groceries.
Puller knew from her file that she had two grown children who no longer lived with her.
She walked up to the front steps, and by the time she got there Puller and Knox had caught up to her.
“What is this about?” she asked when they flashed their creds.
“Robert Puller,” Puller said bluntly and then watched Reynolds closely for any type of reaction. However, she simply stared up at him. In her younger days she must’ve been truly a beauty, thought Puller. She still had head-turning looks and her tall, lean figure was impressive. The woman clearly stayed in shape.
“I heard that he had escaped from the DB. Are you worried that he might come after me because I testified against him?”
Puller gave her another appraising look and his opinion of the woman changed. She was not going to simply crack and confess. She must have anticipated someone might show up on her doorstep after his brother had gotten out of the DB. And she was prepared.
“Can we go inside and discuss this?” said Puller.
“All right.” Reynolds glanced at Knox. “INSCOM? So you’re at Fort Belvoir too.”
“Yes, but I don’t work from there. And I hardly have any engagement with the center or DTRA.”
Reynolds nodded. “Well, it’s not like I would ever see you anyway. The place is massive.”
She unlocked the front door. The house was alarmed and she blocked their view of the control panel while she keyed in the disarming code.
“I need to put the groceries away in the fridge. Can you give me a couple minutes?”
“I can do better than that,” said Puller. “I can help you while my partner goes over her notes.” He inclined his head at Knox and then nodded toward the living room.
She took up a seat there and hauled out her notepad while Puller followed Reynolds down a short hallway to the large kitchen.
“CID?” she said. “I suppose you’re investigating the escape. But Puller was Air Force.”
“DB is an Army prison.”
“I saw you had the same last name.”
“Lots of Pullers around,” said Puller, quite truthfully.
He slowly emptied the bag of groceries and handed them to her one by one, taking his time.
“So, you like the work at the center?” he asked.
“It’s challenging. And what goal could be more important? Getting WMDs out of the hands of terrorists.”
“Or stop them from getting WMDs in the first place.”
“Even better.”
“So how well did you know Robert Puller?”
“Not well. I mean we worked together at the facility in Kansas City when that was open. They’ve consolidated everything back at Offutt now.”
“What did you think of him?”
“He was incredibly smart and diligent. Everyone knew he was going to end up running the place some day. Made it all the more unbelievable that he did what he did.”
“Gambling debts online.”
Reynolds put the last of the groceries away and closed the fridge door. “That’s what came out in the trial. I guess if you get addicted to something it can end up ruining you. It did him. All very sad. He was a tough one to replace.”
“You testified that you saw him copy something onto a DVD.”
“That’s right, I did.”
“Which is prohibited at STRATCOM?”
“Absolutely.”
“How did they check for that?”
“Well, they make it hard to do things like that. Like at DTRA, our computers were deactivated for flash drive usage, so you can’t steal data that way. But you can use a DVD, as Robert did. They had to allow that for us to do our jobs. The best security is to vet your employees and make sure they’re not working for the other side, because you can’t totally eliminate the risk of someone stealing sensitive data. Look at Snowden. There are random searches and they have scanners, but if you’re badged you don’t run through the scanners. I suspect they have other security measures they don’t share with us, just in case we do have a traitor in the ranks.”
“So he probably knew that as well and couldn’t take the chance of just slipping a DVD into his pocket and hoping he gets out. How did he get the device out the day you saw him?”
“He pulled the fire alarm. The facility was evacuated. As you can imagine, there wasn’t an opportunity to search people. And I would suppose that any stealth measures they had in place were trumped by the possibility of a fire.”
“But you reported what you saw?”
“Immediately. By the time security arrived the fire alarm had been pulled. They caught up to him outside. They found the DVD in his pocket.”
“Was he placed under arrest then?”
“Yes. Then he was released on his personal recognizance. But then it was reported that he had previously been spotted meeting with someone who turned out to be a spy for the Iranian government. It was then that Puller was put in the stockade until his court-martial began.”
“What was the time lapse there?”
“I’m not sure. Not that long. Maybe a week.”
“Surprising they didn’t jail him for good after they found the DVD in his pocket.”
“I thought so too. But maybe he talked them into it. He could be very convincing.”
“But you said you didn’t know him that well.”
“I didn’t. But I heard him make numerous presentations at STRATCOM. He was articulate, a powerful speaker, and had a comeback for everything they threw at him. Probably because he was smarter than everyone else in the room.”
Puller had been jotting notes down. He clicked his pen a couple of times while he thought about her last statement. Did he detect a note of jealousy there?
