anyway.”
“How’d you get all those guys into the country?” asked Robie.
“How else? Right over the little old Canadian border. It was easy.” He eyed Decker. “They found the bunker, didn’t they?”
Decker nodded.
“Was the stuff as potent as Daniels told me it was?”
“Apparently so. You do realize that ‘stuff’ would have killed millions of people.”
Purdy shook his head dismissively. “No, Daniels told me it would remain localized. It was heavy enough to where it couldn’t remain airborne in a concentrated pattern to be distributed by wind currents over large distances. It would max out at about a hundred miles in all directions.”
“Still really bad.”
“Bullshit. You want to know something?”
“What?”
“That’s why the Air Force put the kibosh on the program, Daniels told me. Because it couldn’t kill enough people. There’s your goody-good U.S. of A. The shit they do, you wouldn’t believe. And you think I’m a bad guy?”
“I don’t think, I know you are,” replied Decker.
“Yeah, well, distributing the stuff here was certainly enough to put the stop on the fracking industry.”
“And that’s what you were really being paid for,” said Decker.
“An amount of money that was truly beyond belief.”
“Even if it stayed local, it would have killed a lot of people,” Decker pointed out.
“Every plan has collateral damage. The Pentagon builds that into every scenario. What’s the civilian death count going to be? How many kiddies will bite the bullet? Price of doing the business of war. There’s nothing innocent about that. We’re just like everybody else.”
“No, we’re not. And I didn’t realize you were at war with your own country,” commented Robie.
Purdy eyed him. “I was just a grunt. All I ever would be. But I had brains and ambition. Which led me to this point. The risks I took. All the work. For nothing.” In his anger, he tightened his grip on Jamison, causing her to cry out in pain.
“Ticking time bomb?” said Decker. “You mentioned that to a guy in the bar. That’s how we got on to you. Only back then we thought you were a good guy.”
Purdy grimaced. “I had just found out all the stuff and hadn’t decided what to do about it yet. And I was drunk at the time. Finding out that you’re sitting on a possible Armageddon will cause you to drink. I regretted it the moment I said it, but I didn’t even remember who I said it to.”
Decker said, “With your smarts you could have gone to Silicon Valley and made a lot more than Uncle Sam was paying you.”
“They couldn’t pay me what these guys were, not if I busted my ass for a million years. I could have made the Forbes list. I’m not kidding.”
“And who was paying you?” asked Robie.
“People that even if you knew who they were you couldn’t touch.”
“Why’s that?”
Purdy grinned. “Because they’re valuable and trusted allies of ours, that’s why. We’d never expose them for what they really are. Don’t you read the newspapers? We’re suckers. We know they’re bad but we do nothing. And you want to know why? Oil! It makes me sick.”
“So did the collateral damage calculation include your mother?” queried Decker.
Purdy’s expression turned grim. “That was your fault, not mine. You went there to question her, my partners got nervous, and they took care of that end. I wasn’t happy about it, but I had no choice. Just so you know, I was going to buy her a nice place, take care of her. But what did she have really to live for? You saw her place. It was shitsville in the middle of nowhere. Wherever she is, I think she’s better off.”
Both Jamison and Decker flinched at this cruel comment.
Robie said, “And who gave you the right to make that decision for her?”
“I gave myself the right!” Purdy snapped.
“Can you answer a question?” said Decker.
“What?”
“Did you kill Irene Cramer, Hal Parker, and Pamela Ames?”
Purdy looked genuinely confused. “I know Hal. I hunted with him. I didn’t know he was dead.”
“Well, we’re not sure he is. But he is missing. And the others?”
“I’ve never heard of—what were the names again?”
“Irene Cramer and Pamela Ames.”
He shook his head. “I had nothing to do with whatever happened to them.”
“Okay, so where does that leave us?” said Decker.
“With the three of you dead and me not. I couldn’t believe you dropped your weapons. That was a mistake.”
Decker glanced at Jamison. But she wasn’t looking at Decker. She seemed to be looking past him, when she suddenly slumped downward as though unconscious, causing