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.”