The Escape

by David Baldacci

  “Any recent departures?” asked Knox.

  McCutcheon again turned to the screen. A few clicks later he said, “One from Croatia left the day of the incident at DB. He’s the only recent one.”

  “Croatia?” said Puller.

  “The country’s a member of NATO, and since last year, it’s also part of the EU. And Croatia sent troops to Afghanistan. They’re our ally in a troublesome region. So one of the bennies they get for that is to come here and learn from the best. Their military is underfunded and their equipment and personnel are not in the best shape. So we’re helping them.”

  “And the Croatian’s name?”

  “Ivo Mesic.”

  “How long was he here?”

  “A month.”

  “You know him by sight?”

  McCutcheon nodded. “I’ve met him a few times. Had a beer with him. Seemed like a real nice guy.”

  Puller took a photo from his pocket and showed it to the sergeant major. “And this is not him?” It was a photo of the dead man back at Fort Leavenworth’s morgue.

  “No, that’s definitely not him.”

  “He’d presumably be in the database at the fort,” said Knox. “Which means we would’ve gotten a ping if the dead guy had been in it.”

  McCutcheon nodded. “Absolutely. Full background check conducted and everything. Foreign military personnel are given access credentials. They’re not at the level of a CAC,” he said, referring to the military’s Common Access Card, “but they’re issued for people who have a regular recurring requirement to access the post. As Mesic did.”

  “So he could come in the Hancock or Sherman gates and not the main gate?” said Puller.

  “That’s right. DoD ID lane.”

  “And do we know that Mesic made it back to Croatia?” asked Knox.

  “I don’t know the answer to that, but I can find out.” He pointed at the photo. “But that is definitely not him.” He spun his computer around so they could see the screen. There was a picture of a man on it.

  “That’s Ivo Mesic.”

  Puller read down the file information and nodded.

  Knox said, “Definitely not our guy. And the file says he’s in his fifties.”

  “He held the rank of colonel in the Croatian army,” said McCutcheon.

  “Was his departure date scheduled well in advance?” asked Knox.

  McCutcheon looked at his computer screen. “They all are, but now that you ask, he left a few days early. File says he received orders to return.”

  “What day was that?”

  “The day he left.”

  “So right before the incident at DB?” said Puller.

  “That’s right, Chief.”

  Puller and Knox exchanged a significant glance.

  “How did he leave?” asked Puller.

  “Come again?”

  “Was he driven off to the airport or did he have his own ride?”

  “Oh, he had a rental.”

  Knox said, “Presumably we can check and see if it was turned back in.”

  “But the dead guy isn’t Mesic,” said McCutcheon. “So what’s the point of pursuing him?”

  Puller eyed him. “When you clear a house in Kabul looking for the enemy, how many rooms do you check?”

  “All of them, of course, Chief Puller,” answered McCutcheon immediately.

  “Same principle in my line of work, Sergeant Major,” said Puller.

  CHAPTER

  25

  PULLER AND KNOX were standing at the entrance to the Sherman Gate into Fort Leavenworth. They had already been to the Hancock Gate and had struck out. Mesic had not left that way. However, the two guards stationed at the Sherman Gate well remembered the Croatian officer.

  The first guard said, “He wasn’t looking too happy. When I asked him what was the matter he said he was sorry to be going. He liked it here.”

  “Why did he talk to you at all?” asked Puller. “He had an access cred. He could have flashed it and driven on.”

  “He could have,” said the second guard. “But we’d seen him around the base. Even played some pool with him at one of the local bars. He was a nice guy. So he stopped his car and talked for a bit. There wasn’t anyone behind him. Light traffic that time of the day.”

  Knox said, “What exactly was the time?”

  The first guard’s brow furrowed. “I’d say around twenty hundred hours. Most people who were leaving the post were already gone. Everybody else had finished chow time and were probably back in quarters. He said he had a flight to catch out of KC. He’d be back in Croatia after a few stops in between. At least that’s what he said.”

  “No nonstops between KC and Zagreb,” said the other guard, grinning. “He was an okay dude, never had a problem with him,” he added.

  “Anything out of the ordinary strike you when he was leaving?” asked Puller.

  “What do you mean?” asked the first guard.

  “Something odd,” added Knox.

  “No, nothing odd. I mean, he pulled his usual.”

  “What was his usual?” asked Puller.

  “He forgot something,” said the first guard. “He was always forgetting stuff.”

  “And what did he do when he forgot stuff?” asked Knox.

  “He’d come hightailing it back here,” said the second guard who cracked a smile.

  “And he forgot something that night?” asked Puller.

  “His passport of all things,” said the first guard. “He looked like he was going to throw up. He’s not getting out of the country without his passport, right?”

  “And you let him back in?” said Knox.

  “Sure. He had his access pass.”

  “How far had he gone before he turned around and came back?” asked Puller.

  The first guard looked down the road a bit. “Probably around the curve.” He paused and stroked his chin with his fingers. “I mean, he was out of sight. I don’t remember seeing him until he came tearing back in here. Said he’d forgotten his passport. Had left it in his quarters. He went back in to get it.”

  Puller looked down the road where it curved. Any car turning the curve would be out of sight of the post’s entrance.

  “You didn’t search his car, either in or out?” asked Puller.

  “No. Vehicles without creds get searched at the Grant Gate at Metro and Seventh. Not here. The main gate is where they do the searches. Most people with CACs don’t use the main gate.”

  “And when he came back out the second time that was the last you saw of him?”

  “Yep,” said the first guard, and his mate nodded in agreement.

  “Thanks,” said Puller, and he started walking off down the road toward the curve.

  The guards looked at Knox curiously. “So what is all this about?” asked the second guard.

  “When we figure it out you definitely won’t be the ones we tell,” she said, and hurried after Puller.

  She caught up to him about a hundred feet later and their long legs ate up the distance between them and the curve.

  “So what do you think, Puller?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer until he’d reached the curve and cleared it. Then he turned and looked back.

  “Completely out of the sightline of the guard shack. And it would have been fairly dark.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning our guy could have been waiting there and when Misec comes out the first time the guy climbs into the trunk and Misec drives him onto the base. He gets out and lays low with his riot gear until the call comes from DB. Then he joins the four platoons, rides over there, and ends up dead in my brother’s cell.”

  “Where exactly would he lay low on an Army base and not be noticed? Particularly if he were wearing riot gear.”

  “Probably had the gear in a duffel. This base has thousands of soldiers. To a certain extent they look alike, particularly in uniform. And there are plenty of places here to hide. And I’m sure that Mesic had scoped one out
for him and probably drove him right to it. Maybe one of the base churches. That time of night it might have been empty.”

  Knox looked unconvinced. “This is all quite a leap of logic. We don’t even know if this Mesic guy is involved.”

  “He left early? Orders from home? What could be that important in Croatia to call him back early? And coincidentally on the day the storm was forecast and all hell broke loose at DB?”

  “And if the guy did infiltrate the response team, why? What was his motive for going into DB?”

  “I’ve been giving that some thought.”

  “And?” asked Knox.

  “And it seems to me his mission was to kill my brother.”

  “Whoa, where the hell did that come from? And you said mission?”

  “That’s right. This was all carefully planned with a lot of moving pieces. This guy didn’t just walk into this. He was sent here to kill my brother.”

  “But he ended up dead.”

  “Because my brother killed him first.”

  “I don’t see where you’re getting all this.”

  Puller said, “Before the power went out my brother was sitting in his cell reading a book. I read his body language. It wasn’t hard. For him this was a night like any other night he’s spent here. He wasn’t tense. He wasn’t anticipating anything more than falling asleep once he’d finished reading.”

  “And then the power went out,” said Knox slowly.

  “And all hell breaks loose. Sounds of gunfire and a bomb going off, when neither thing actually happened.”

  “And your brother?”

  “He’s smart beyond smart. I think he figured out what was coming and was ready when the guy burst into his cell to kill him.”

  “Snap-crackle-pop,” said Knox. “So you did teach him that move.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “But if what you say is true, your brother still willingly escaped from DB. He took the guy’s clothes, climbed onto a truck, rode it back to Leavenworth, and then walked away.”

  “Look at it from his point of view. He’s just killed a guy. He doesn’t know the man isn’t an MP. But he somehow knows the guy was trying to kill him. But who’s going to believe that? He stays at DB and they find the dead guy, my brother is probably looking at a guaranteed death penalty. And while they haven’t executed anyone there since the 1960s, I think they’d make an exception for something like that.”

  “But they’d know the dead guy wasn’t an MP,” Knox pointed out.

  “Who cares? He’s still dead. And maybe you don’t know this, but there were some in the military community who thought my brother should have been put to death for treason after his court-martial. I heard plenty of scuttlebutt afterward. This would give them the perfect opportunity to push for it again.”

  Knox considered all this and finally said, “I admit, I can’t find an obvious flaw in your logic, but there’s still a ton that doesn’t make sense to me. And how does this tie in with Daughtrey’s death?”

  “It may not.”

  “And why would a Croatian military man be involved in sneaking an assassin onto a U.S. base?”

  “I wish Mesic were around so I could ask him. If he’s even still alive.”

  “You don’t think he made it back to Croatia?”

  “Oh, I don’t think he was ever headed to Croatia. Now let’s take a ride. I have something I want to show you, Knox.”

  “Is it important?”

  “Very.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  PULLER WAS SITTING on the hood of his car in the parking lot of the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery. To the immediate east was the Missouri River, and on the other side of the river was the state of Missouri. A bit north of here the river began its long bend, shaped much like a bell curve. Inside this curve were Sherman Airfield and Chief Joseph Loop.

  Knox stood next to the car looking curiously at Puller.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked, gazing around at the white tombstones under which lay over thirty thousand dead.

  “Lincoln established this cemetery back in 1862, when the Union was losing the Civil War. It was the first of twelve national cemeteries he set up.”

  “Okay, and the reason for this history lesson?”

  Puller slid off the hood and his feet hit the ground. “He knew it was going to be a long and deadly conflict. But losers don’t establish national cemeteries. A president presiding over a fractured country doesn’t set up a national anything unless he truly believes he’s going to win the war and the country will be reunited.”

  “Lincoln was nothing if not confident, I guess,” said Knox, who still looked perplexed by Puller’s words.

  “People who lack confidence rarely win anything,” he noted.

  He strode into the cemetery and she followed. He walked the rows of tombstones before stopping and pointing at one.

  “Read the inscription,” he said.

  Knox glanced down. “Thomas W. Custer. Two Medals of Honor. Captain 7th Ohio Cavalry.”

  Puller said, “He was the first of four double Medal of Honor winners in the Civil War, and one of only nineteen in American history. Both of his medals came from charging enemy positions and capturing Confederate regimental flags. With the second one he took a shot right to the face, but grabbed the regimental colors and rode them back to his line with blood all over him.”

  She looked up at Puller. “Wait a minute. Custer? Was he—”

  Puller knelt on his haunches in front of the tombstone. “He was George Armstrong Custer’s younger brother. He died at age thirty-one with his big brother and a battalion of men from the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn. Also killed was their younger brother, Boston Custer. From a tactical perspective George Custer blew it. He knowingly split his force and refused additional soldiers and firepower. He went up against an opposing force that dwarfed his in number of men and guns, and also held the better ground. But his brother Tom won a pair of Medals of Honor. He was a good soldier. Maybe a great soldier. He’d been in innumerable battles and he could see what his brother could see. And more.”

  Knox’s brow furrowed as she thought about this. “But he still went into battle with his brother…even though he knew they would…lose,” she said haltingly.

  “Even though he might’ve known they were going to be massacred,” amended Puller.

  “So family trumps brains?” said Knox.

  “Family just is,” replied Puller.

  “Are you saying you’re Tom and Robert Puller is George? You’re following your older brother blindly to disaster?” Her voice rose as she spoke.

  He glanced up at her but said nothing in response to her statement.

  She looked at him sternly. “And your objectivity? Your role as investigator searching only for the truth, regardless of where it takes