Chapter 94 Chapter 94

The trail Puller chose for running was remote and secluded.He's willing to come out here and run, let himself sweat, let himself think, and the former obviously helps the latter.And he didn't like having other people dangling around at moments like this. He put earbuds in his ears, turned on his iPod, and started running.After running eight kilometers, he jogged back to the place where he parked. But he stopped. All he saw was six people.One leaned against the hood of his Malibu.The other four are responsible for the surrounding security tasks.A sixth person stood by the rear door of the Malibu.Two black off-road vehicles were parked in front of and behind the Malibu, sandwiching it in the middle.

Puller walked over to them.He took out the earbuds and held the iPod in his right hand. "Hey, Joe, how are you doing?" Joe Mason leaves Malibu. "Puller, I haven't heard from you for a while. I think my order is very clear. You are to report directly to me." "Oh, the general will not accept the orders of the foreign emperor, and in some cases it has to be so." "Is that right?" "A lot of the time, yes." "Oh, but no one ever said that to me. It's always a good thing to rely on reliable sources on the front lines. That's why I'm here."

Puller moved closer to Mason.He noticed that the four guards around him were all moving closer.They were all armed, and they were the same gang that cornered him in the underground parking lot that night after his meeting with General Carson. "So you're here to hear my report?" "indeed so." "Okay, that's easy. The main things to note are the following three things. I always felt that something was wrong after Dickie was killed, so I did some research. What I learned is that you and Bill Schwarz Strauss knew each other. You grew up together in NJ, I've looked it up. You also joined the Marines together. Strauss tried to lie to me and say he never served. But he knows what is Discharged, what is a discharge from the military. And he sent his son to the military, thinking that being a soldier would help 'cure' his son's sexuality. Unless he himself was in the military, it is impossible for a man to think of doing that .”

"Well, I know him, I've been in the army with him. There's a lot of people who've been in the Marines." "He didn't stay in the military as long as his son would later. Dicky was discharged due to the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. His father was ordered to discharge due to petty theft and drug dealing, which the Marine Corps could not Keep putting up with guys like that. Funny thing is, you also left the Marines at the same time. Oh, and unlike Strauss, there's nothing blemish on your record, otherwise you wouldn't be in the FBI, and later Went to the Department of Homeland Security. But I think you and Strauss have been in touch. After Randy Cole told Dickie about the fort, Ditch went there himself. Ditch told these things to His father. Bill called you and he reckoned that with your connections, you could get some good in the fort. Good means a lot of money. As long as you can get money, you don't care what it brings such turmoil and pain."

"Is that so?" "Yes, Joe, that's right. You sneaked up to Drake, and you went into the fort and saw what Randy Cole was talking about. Except, unlike him, you could tell right away that the barrels contained What. So many nuclear fuel piles out there, completely forgotten. How much are they worth? Billions?" "how could I know?" "The report on the fort you showed me is not fake, at least it is an official document produced by the military to deceive people. This material is exactly what you want. The last thing you want is someone to inquire about the fort thing. So when I asked about that, you brought out this report, and we stopped looking at the fort as a possible terrorist target."

"Go on." "Second, you have to make a nuclear bomb. Strauss asked Trivell to participate in some things in the mechanical part, but he didn't tell him what he was going to do. He just passed your requirements on specifications and dimensions to Terry. Well. But Trewell and Petrina were very curious, and the biggest mistake they made was contacting their neighbor, Colonel Matt Reynolds. He's DIA and he's about to retire. ...he did a test of a soil sample. I reckon the sample was taken somewhere in the Drake area. I don't think Reynolds knew about the large amount of plutonium fuel stored there, he probably thought someone was doing it with drugs or something If he does start an investigation, your plan may be aborted. So, six people have to die, including two children. Which of you guys did it, Joe?" Puller Look around Joe's accomplices and point to one of them.

"It's him?" He pointed to the second one. "Or this scum? I guess you don't go out there and do it yourself. The boss doesn't have to get his fingers dirty. You just sit there and watch the video. Shotguns are used on parents, children are killed with bare hands. What's going on What? Can't bear to shoot at the children?" Mason said nothing. "Then on Monday night, your men saw Larry Wellman on duty. He was a rookie. Your men got close to him. Maybe when he went on patrol to the back of the house, so that No one will see. Your men show their papers. Federal agents all-powerful. Wellman couldn't be happier to see them, no suspicions raised, no questions asked. He takes your men in On the scene, they hung him up. You left the torn pieces of registered mail there, and you drove away in Larry's car."

"How could we have left the mail on site?" "It's not an actual remnant of that email. You know there's an email, maybe Wellman told Dickie, maybe Matt Reynolds told you guys under torture. The email wasn't in that room , we couldn't find it later. You know we can't find the mail, but you want us to follow this trail, because you know it's a dead end and will waste a lot of our time. You would kill a The police, just to put the false clue of the mail at the scene of the crime." "It was fun," Mason said. "Then you made up a so-called Dari call to plant on a completely fictional turbaned Arab. You should never have Drake attract attention, but in order to murder Colonel Reynolds, you had to put your hands on You sent your subordinates there. You knew people from CID would definitely show up, so you immediately had your subordinates pretend to be terrorists and communicate in Dari, and then let them communicate again. You also provided me with information about Plausible clues about gas pipelines and nuclear power plants. You told me it was going to happen in three days, when in fact you set the time for the fort to blow up in two days. Death threats to Roger Trent It was Strauss. He was trying to pave the way for what might happen to Trent in the future. Strauss saw the big bang as a financial plan to get rid of Trent and clear his own money from the company. A good chance for evidence. So Trent and the boxes were put in the fort, and after the blast there was nothing left but fallout. One would think that Trent fled somewhere to get out of money, Or that those who threatened him with death eventually caught him and made him disappear. The whole plan you two came up with is really beautiful."

"I haven't heard what these things have to do with me," Mason said. Puller held out a third finger. "That's why I stopped reporting to you and started investigating you. I've only ever told you about Dickie Strauss being my informant. Even more telling is , you're the only one besides me and Dickie who knows we met at the fire station that night. Dickie's death wasn't a random phenomenon. Your sniper was already there. He's done his job, It was time to leave. You were the only one who could plan and coordinate it all. There would be no one else."

"That's quite the opposite of what I think," Mason argued. "We're all just sticking with each other." "You killed Dickie because you feared he would change his mind. He went to the house and found Larry Wellman hanging there. He saw the dead bodies of the Reynolds family. He also knew that Trewell He and Pitna were dead. He was scared. I figured you wouldn't tell him what your real plan was, but when people started dying one by one, he realized he was on a path of no return. He probably saw that cooperating with the authorities was the best way out. But you couldn't stand that, so you ordered your men to smash his head."

"Call it what you want. There's no proof." Puller looked around at the others. "You got lucky, Joe. You blew up the fort, you got the nuclear fuel. Roger Trent is dead, and the company's financial records are gone. What else are you doing here? Your plan has worked. " Mason didn't speak, just stared at Puller closely. Puller took another step toward him. "Perhaps the story about the Islamic 'caller' isn't too far off the mark actually, even though you made it up. You were presumably hired by enemies of our state to detonate large amounts of fissile material in West Virginia. I'm guessing you put Those barrels were left there to make them part of the explosives. The guys who did business with you must have been unhappy because it turned out so far from the plan. That's why you came here, looking for I take revenge so maybe you can save your life from those hijab guys. How much are they going to pay you for attacking your own country? Just give me a ballpark." Mason cleared his throat. "You're not telling the truth, Puller. I'm a patriot, and I didn't do this against my country. I know what I did, but I didn't build nukes for the money." "Nonsense," Puller snapped. "You're one of those 9/11 nuts." Mason's temper flared up. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Puller." "Then explain to me, Mason, how a former Marine can become a traitor to the country." Mason's speech rate became very fast. "After all these years at the Department of Homeland Security, I've learned a little about nuclear weapons, and I've met a lot of people who I might need in case I make a bomb. If you have nuclear fuel in your hands, everything else is Not so hard to fix. The government will never admit that it dumped a lot of nuclear fuel in that place. I should have sold that stuff and no one would have noticed what was going on. One of the big mistakes I made was through the Ster Rouse had that idiot Trewell make the reflector and some other parts, which made me shoot myself in the foot." "What you just said won't change anything. You're still a traitor. You left drums of uranium and plutonium in the fort on purpose. Five or six states would be seriously radioactive if they exploded." "Those barrels are empty. I didn't leave them there. You're right, they're worth billions." "You're lying," Puller said. "I saw the drums. The tops of the drums haven't been opened in decades." Mason smiled smugly. "We cut the bottom of the barrel, Puller. We re-soldered the bottom of the barrel after taking out the nuclear fuel, and before that we filled it with dirt. You see, I considered all possible scenarios. I approached for you The same is true of the preparations made by the bomb, you triggered the countdown accelerator I installed." "It's still a nuke. Your actions are still nuking your own country, you bastard." Mason snapped, "I know what I'm doing, understand? We're using the minimum amount of plutonium, just trying to cause a small explosion and a little bit of radioactive contamination, and it's backcountry. Drake County, West Virginia comes up Radioactive radiation? So what, it's already a dead city." "Over six thousand people live there, Joe." "Many more people die in traffic accidents every year than that. And a hundred thousand people die every year from hospital mistreatment. From the perspective of Drake County, the casualties from the bomb will be very small." "But you're still trying to sell nuclear fuel to our enemies. They're not going to blow up some uninhabited place with it, Joe. They're going to blow up New York. They're going to blow up Washington." "That's true. Well, I'm about to move out of the country, and I'm getting a bit bored with the country. But you're messing with me. I'm still able to sell those things, but Drake's bombing didn't work out, and I It's just a matter of convincing buyers with my good tongue. That's why I'm here, and I'm going to make you pay a little." "Are you really so desperate for money? Selling nuclear fuel to terrorists? You scum," Puller said. "I've served this country for over thirty years. And in the next round of budget cuts they're going to cut me. I don't owe this country a dime." Puller held up a fourth finger. Mason said, "You just said there were only three points." "I'm not telling the truth. We arrested Strauss in South America. Of course, he escaped from Drake before the fort exploded. He didn't want to wait for the mushroom cloud to rise, although he didn't consider taking Painful wife. He's never in a losing business, oh, did I mention he's sold you and all of you?" Mason couldn't help shouting, "That's impossible. Bill—" "Oh, you were on the phone with him yesterday and today. I was in that room when you called. The FBI recorded everything you said." "You're lying to me." "Otherwise how would I know the details just mentioned? I am a competent criminal investigator, but Strauss did tell us a lot of things, and this is the only way I can know them." Mason just stared at him, speechless. Puller said: "That is to say, you are guarding a large pile of nuclear fuel, but you will never sell it. After all, you don't need a lot of money in prison. Maybe you will be sentenced to give you an injection. Both outcomes are something I would love to see." Puller looked around and found that all Mason's subordinates showed nervous expressions at the moment.This is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing.Fortunately, nervousness will weaken their combat effectiveness. The bad thing is that guys who are heavily armed but nervous can do unpredictable things. Anyway, it's six against one.Puller could feel the confidence that their numbers gave them. He turned to Mason and said, "Are you ready to surrender to me, Joe?" "I'll let you see what I've got ready, Puller, and I'm going to let you know now."