what was going on in the upstairs room at the bar. Quentin passed the secrets to

Myers and she slipped them to some French businessman. Stuff was worth a

fortune.” Knox said, “So let’s say Ballard really is dead. I wonder where the

ownership of those patents goes?” Puller said, “His will would tell us that. But

I don’t think they were going to Jericho. So if he is dead they might use the

decoy old guys to keep up the impression that Ballard is alive. Maybe they

performed plastic surgery to make them look like Ballard. I guess when you have

that much at stake, you’d do pretty much anything.” “But when people visited

wouldn’t they know the person wasn’t Ballard when he started talking?” “Not if

they said he had Alzheimer’s or dementia or something like that. Then nobody

would expect him to…to be able to be who he was.” Knox looked at him and seemed

to understand that Puller could easily have been talking about his father.

 

Knox looked over at Rogers. “This guy has already admitted to killing one of the

decoys plus others. We don’t know that he didn’t kill Quentin. I think we need

to go to the co—” Knox didn’t finish her sentence, because Rogers had leapt up,

stripped Knox of her gun, spun her around, and held the weapon to her head.

 

Puller swung his pistol around, but Rogers said, “Put it down or she’s dead.”

“You don’t have to do this, Paul.” “Just call me Rogers. Neither one is my real

name, so who cares?” “You can’t go it alone,” said Puller. “Put the gun down,

Puller. I won’t ask again. And I don’t care if I die. But I think your partner

here does.” Puller slowly lowered his gun.

 

Rogers immediately let go of Knox and handed her gun back to her. He sat down on