62 pages • 2 hours read
David BaldacciZero Day
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 31-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 31-32 Summary
At the enormous Trent mansion, Cole introduces Puller to Trent. Trent tells Cole that he has had three death threats on his phone saying that his time is coming and justice will be done. He mentions that he has had threats before, and Cole tells him that they have already dealt with those.
Puller asks Trent a few questions about the victims of the other murders, but Trent claims to know nothing about them and demands that Cole focus on the new death threats. He complains that people target him just because they are jealous of his incredible success and that the local community should be thanking him. He says that there are a few successful people, “the haves,” in the world and everyone else, the “have-nots,” want everything handed to them.
When Trent leaves, Puller asks Cole about the previous death threats. She tells him to drop it. At that moment, a woman enters the room. Jean Trent is petite and beautiful, and she addresses Cole as “little sister.” Jean invites Cole and Puller to dinner that night. Roger will be out of town on business.
Chapters 33-34 Summary
Puller and Cole’s next stop is the doctor Walter Kellerman, who is doing the autopsies on the murder victims. He has already done a preliminary examination and determined that the Reynolds teenagers had their necks crushed by a gloved hand, which suggests military training. The autopsies tell them very little more. Puller packages up the evidence, including the bullets from the victims at the meth house, to send to USACIL.
Afterward, Puller goes to the post office with the fragment of the shipping label from the package Howard Reed delivered to the Reynolds house. The woman behind the counter doesn’t want to give him anything. The Postal Service has rules and procedures. Puller says he understands; the Army probably has 10 policies for every one the Postal Service does. The woman responds by writing down the return address from the package. Puller sees it came from a soil analysis lab. He phones the company, but it is after hours.
Back at the motel, Puller takes a shower, and when he is done, he finds a note slipped under his door saying, “I know things you need to know” (155), with an address. He leaves a message for Cole telling her where he is going.
Chapters 35-36 Summary
The address is in the middle of nowhere—a perfect place for an ambush. He approaches carefully on foot. The house looks uninhabited. Cole telephones and tells him she is already in the woods on the opposite side of the house. Puller has extensive experience of IEDs from his time in Iraq, so, sheltering behind a truck in the driveway, he fires his gun into the decking on the front porch. A shotgun blast from inside the house blows out the door. Puller realizes he would have been obliterated if he’d been standing there.
As Cole is joining him, Puller spots a tripwire and tackles her just before the truck detonates. Afterword, Puller is troubled that it took him so long to spot the tripwire. He tells Cole that if he’d made that mistake in Iraq, his entire squad would be dead.
They stop by Cole’s house to clean up. Puller has a mental picture of Cole in the shower but puts it out of his mind. When she comes out, Puller tells Cole about the company that sent the package to Colonel Reynolds. It was a firm that does soil testing, and someone wanted the package badly enough to come back and kill a police officer to get it. Puller suspects the killers might have gotten inside information from the police department that the police didn’t have the package. Puller says he takes the bombing as a good sign—it suggests he is making progress on the case. Cole brushes his arm with her fingers and thanks him for saving her life.
Chapters 37-39 Summary
Puller and Cole head to the Trent mansion for dinner with Cole’s sister, Jean. Cole leaves Puller alone with Jean for a while. Jean asks him whether he is sleeping with Cole yet. She tells him Cole is getting “desperate.” He diverts her from the subject by telling her about the IED at the house. Jean says she wishes Cole had never become a cop. Puller tells her he admires Cole for being a public servant, risking her life to keep other people safe.
Cole returns, and her younger brother Randy arrives for dinner. In conversation, Puller learns that Randy and his father once worked for Trent Exploration finding coal. Randy continually snipes at both his sisters, especially Jean, whom he resents for her marriage to the man he blames for the deaths of their parents.
After the meal, Randy leaves, saying he has “places to go, people to mess with” (178). Cole asks whether that includes his brother-in-law, Roger. Randy dismisses Roger as unimportant without actually answering the question.
On the drive back into town, Cole tells Puller that Randy’s hostility toward Roger Trent is because their parents were killed when a mine blast from one of Trent’s operations dislodged a boulder that crushed their parents’ car five years ago. She remarks that no one ever thought Roger Trent would amount to much, but he worked hard, had good luck, and was cold and arrogant enough to be successful. Meanwhile, she says, mining is destroying the land. Puller says he guesses the mining creates jobs, but Cole tells him that surface mining creates fewer jobs than other methods.
Chapters 31-39 Analysis
Cole’s attempt to dismiss references to previous death threats has the contrary effect of making it appear more important. Coupled with Randy’s remark about “places to go, people to mess with” (178), Randy appears to be engaged in suspicious behavior. In this case, Randy’s implied involvement is a false trail.
Roger Trent is petty and entitled, seeing himself as a victim of jealousy from people who feel entitled to wealth without working for it. Trent’s self-regard is ironic. In fact, Strauss has been the brains behind the operation all along. Trent’s description of the have-nots who do nothing and expect everything handed to them actually describes himself. Strauss made the business a success. Trent reaps the rewards he did not earn.
Jean’s marriage to Trent is a source of family tension. Randy despises Trent, holding him responsible for the deaths of his parents. His death threats against Trent put Cole in a compromised position with regard to her job. Cole dislikes Trent herself, but her job requires her to interact with him on a professional basis. The tension between the siblings will increase the sense of loss over Cole’s death. She will leave behind unresolved feelings and relationships that will never be mended.
The device of the hero leaving a message to tell his partner where he has gone raises tension as it frequently presages that the protagonist is walking into a trap he doesn’t recognize or is not prepared to handle. In this case, however, Cole once again demonstrates her competence and reliability by arriving almost at the same time as Puller.
Puller spots the first trap. However, the shotgun behind the door is a decoy to draw attention away from the second bomb in the truck. He misses the second tripwire until the last moment. The use of IEDs recalls Puller’s experience with improvised explosives in the Middle East. We see the significance of IEDs to Puller in the flashback dream in which his convoy has been destroyed by an explosive device. The repeated emphasis on explosives builds to the climax in which Puller has to defuse a bomb that is essentially a very big IED.
Puller’s dissatisfaction with himself for not spotting the second bomb sooner shows the impact of his hypercritical father. Puller still seeks a superhuman level of perfection that would satisfy his parent. The standard he sets for himself is impossible to meet and much higher than those he sets for others. He says his mistake would have gotten his entire squad killed, but in fact, his embedded skills are good enough to keep him and Cole alive. Like everyone else, Puller deserves a second chance, but he cannot give it to himself.
Highly adrenaline-charged experiences frequently translate to physical attraction. Cole indicates that she is interested in Puller. He has demonstrated himself to be a person who can be relied on in high-stress situations, but that quality would have a limited appeal without his patience, empathy, and innate concern for others. His awareness of her touch and his mental picture of her in the shower indicate that he is tempted by her implied offer, but his sense of professionalism doesn’t allow him to explore that attraction further. His professionalism gives him an excuse to avoid the risk of emotional intimacy at a point when he is not ready to embrace it.
Jean’s description of her sister as “desperate,” even as a joke, is belittling to both Cole and Puller, implying that her single status is due to some shortcoming and that her attraction to Puller is no complement. The “joke” is another indication of friction between the sisters. Cole’s potential involvement with Puller highlights Jean’s unhappy marriage to a vain, petty, and selfish man, making her jealous of her sister. Her deeper feelings of love for her sister emerge when Puller tells her about the bomb and Jean says she wishes Cole had never become a cop. Puller’s remark about Cole putting her life on the line for other people foreshadows her death when she risks her life to stand by him while he defuses the bomb under the dome. An alternate explanation for Jean’s remark about wishing Cole had never become a cop is that Jean is involved somehow in the murders and sees her sister’s job as a potential threat. At this early stage of a murder mystery, and author typically tries to create a puzzle in which the reader sees potential guilt in every character.
During the dinner, Randy further develops his role as an agent of chaos, provoking Jean and compromising Cole by implying that he is engaged in “messing with” people—presumably Jean’s husband. In fact, Randy is not doing anything he shouldn’t. He is merely lashing out at the people close to him, provoking his sisters to express his anger at the world. Like Puller, Randy lacks the ability to deal with his emotions in a healthy way, but he lacks Puller’s self-discipline.
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