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things that went on here, well, they were not exactly pretty. Or maybe even legal.
He moved down the main corridor and saw that the place had been gutted and rebuilt. Old wooden doors with a top half of frosted glass engraved with department names had been replaced with sleek automated sliding glass doors accessed by key card ports.
He couldn’t get into any of these rooms without a key card. And if he tried, he was certain an alarm would sound. But the glass had one weakness: He could see inside the rooms. In one space he saw workstations with computers and sophisticated freestanding equipment.
In another room was a metal framework that looked familiar to Rogers. It could be mounted on the exterior of something.
Or someone.
In another was a helmet with built-in goggles.
In yet another was a machine gun mounted on a metal platform with a seating area behind it. Next to the gun was a helmet with a surround that would cover the eyes and wires and cables coming out of the top of the helmet and leading to a control box attached to the wall.
Behind another glass door were enormous TV screens with grids and blocks of data running across them. They were evidently measuring some system that was currently running. Though the people didn’t work around the clock here, the computer systems did.
Another space was set up as a chemical lab with burners and test tubes and liquids running through pristine tubes. Set on work areas around the room were several iterations of what Rogers recognized as mass spectrometers along with some pieces of equipment that looked brand-new and that he didn’t recognize.
He came away with a firm conclusion.
They’re still at it here.
He looked down at his hands and then slid his sleeve up to look at the scars there. His whole body was a scar.
On the outside.
And on the inside. Maybe more on the inside.
I’m actually all scar tissue on the inside.
He left the second floor and went to the first, keeping well away from windows and doorways. There was a reception area near the front doors.
He had expected that.
And something else he expected was there.
Atalanta Group.
That was the name of the business that was housed here.
At first Rogers’s brain automatically saw the name as Atlanta, but then he recognized that wasn’t right.
Atalanta Group.
He had never heard of it.
But old companies faded and new ones took their place. And he had been gone from this world for a long time.
He checked his watch. He’d been in here a half hour.
He went back to the roof and peered over the edge. The guards were making their patrols. He waited until they had once more converged at the front before climbing back down the building after fixing the lock on the access door to hide any sign that he had breached it. He scaled the fence, landed on the other side, and made his way quickly back to his van.
He drove back to the motel and got there in twenty minutes. He went to his room, sat on the bed, and pulled out his phone. He put in the word “Atalanta.” It did not take long to get hits.
Atalanta was a mythological female warrior of Greek descent, the only woman on board Jason’s Argo and the lady who had killed the fearsome Calydonian Boar. She was the only female regularly listed among the greatest mythological warriors.
When he looked up “Atalanta Group at Fort Monroe, Virginia,” he got exactly nothing. There was an Atalanta Group, but it had to do with specialty food and it was nowhere near Fort Monroe.
Rogers sat back and thought about this.
Secretive. Perhaps to a paranoid degree.
Atalanta, a great female warrior? The only one who ran with the male dogs?
He dropped his phone, lay back on the bed, and closed his eyes.
His lifetime of bad luck might have just turned to pure gold.
It was about damn time, he thought.
Claire Jericho was apparently up to her old tricks.
Chapter
23
PULLER HAD JUST walked into the lobby of the hotel where they were both staying. Knox was standing there, holding two cups of coffee from Starbucks. She handed one to him.
“Just like you like it.”
He took a sip. “Thanks.”
“Okay, Rooney pretty much said your dad was innocent. So now what?”
“Goal hasn’t changed. We need to keep digging until we get to the truth.”
“Okay, but sometimes the truth does not set you free, Puller.”
She had followed him outside and over to his car.
He took out his keys and jingled them in his hand. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t told you before,” she replied. “Despite what some people say, it’s not always best to know versus not know.”
He put his elbows on the Malibu’s roof and scowled at her. “So if it was your mother, you’d rather not know what happened to her? Whether she’s dead or not?”
Knox looked away from him but said, “If it were me I would want to know. All I’m saying is, you want the truth, you better be prepared to handle it.”
“Trust me, Knox. I’m prepared. I’ve had thirty years to get ready.”
He unlocked the car door and climbed in. She did the same.
She looked at him. “So where to?”
“Rooney said he wasn’t expecting my mother that night, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t planning to go there. Something might have prevented her from getting there.”
“Like what?”
“Like someone.”
“You think someone snatched her? On an active military installation? With lots of people around? How could they possibly pull that off?”
“You’d be amazed at what I’ve seen people pull off.”
A short time later they were back at Fort Monroe and parked in front of Puller’s old home.
Knox peered up at the house. “Have you been in there yet?”
“No. Working up to it.”
“Looks like a nice place.”
“My dad was a one-star. It was nice. Nicer than anything I’ve been in since.”
“Where did you and your brother go after your mother disappeared?”
“We lived with my aunt, my dad’s sister, for a while in Florida. We visited her a lot when my mother was around. They really got along.”
“Is your aunt still alive?”
“No, she was murdered.”
“Good God, Puller. How? Why?”
“It’s complicated. But suffice it to say I found out who did it and they were appropriately punished.”
“Your aunt, your brother, and now your mother. Any other family members lurking out there for you to avenge?”
“I hope not.”
“So after you stopped living with your aunt, where did you and Bobby go?”
“We moved with my father when he was reassigned. He was still our parent even if he wasn’t around much. His staff helped to raise us. Dad always made sure we were taken care of. Nice ladies, housekeepers, people to help with homework and getting us places for sports and other stuff. Then Bobby went off to the Air Force Academy, and two years later I went to college.”
They fell silent and both stared up at the house.
“So don’t you think you should go in?” she asked.
