The Escape

by David Baldacci

  “She shot at me first. I defended myself. She’s dead, I’m not.”

  “But what was the reason?”

  “We found out she had financial problems, and lo and behold she sets up an account in the Caymans under another name and someone puts a million bucks in it.”

  “What did she do to earn that?” asked Kirk.

  Puller said, “A device that simulated the sounds of gunshots and an explosion played a primary role in the chaos at DB. My take is she brought them in herself. That’s why she didn’t search any of the guards for it later. That way we could never pin anything on her. And she might have sabotaged the cell door locking software too.”

  Kirk held up a hand. “Okay, but let’s get back to your last question: Why all this attention now?”

  Puller looked at Knox and then glanced back to Kirk. “I’m not sure either one of us can answer that.”

  Kirk nodded. “I agree that it all looks dicey. And that more investigation is needed. But you have to understand that it unduly complicates the situation now that your brother has escaped from DB.”

  “Well, he might not have had much choice. Escape or die. Given those options, I’d have cut and run too.”

  “And the problem with that answer is that the people hunting him won’t care about his reasons.”

  “And another problem is he may have folks after him who aren’t part of the official machine,” retorted Puller.

  Knox said, “After what happened to you, I think he probably does. Kidnapping and then trying to murder you definitely speaks of unofficial involvement.”

  A stunned Kirk now shot Puller a glance. “First she shoots a friggin’ Army captain, and now you’re telling me that you were kidnapped and nearly killed?”

  “That’s pretty much the gist of it. Bunch of guys with guns got the jump on me using a damsel-in-distress act that I fell for. They took me to a place, tied me up, asked me a bunch of questions, none of which I answered, and then they were going to kill me.”

  “Then why aren’t you dead?”

  “I had a guardian angel on site. He did enough to allow me to get my own way out.”

  “And who was this angel?” asked Kirk.

  “I hope to find out one day so I can thank the person.”

  He turned to Knox and his voice dropped even lower. “And you can guarantee to me that you don’t know who any of these folks are, or where they might have come from?”

  Knox said, “If you’re asking me whether it’s any of my people, I can assure you that it’s not. We may deceive, we may slice and dice the truth, we may conceal. But we don’t do crap like this. We do have oversight committees, Puller. And if we tried any of this and it came out, well, everybody could pretty much kiss their asses, pensions, and freedom goodbye. And I’m not sure there’s ever a compelling enough reason to do that. We have enough true enemies without turning on ourselves.”

  He studied her closely for a long moment and then looked away.

  Kirk looked at Knox. “Tell me about this shootout with an Army captain. What was her name?”

  Puller answered. “Lenora Macri. And she must’ve been pretty desperate to take a shot at you, Knox. Do you think she saw you coming in?”

  “I knocked and rang the doorbell before I picked the lock. I wasn’t trying to do it on the sly.”

  “I know you did. I was watching. So for Shireen’s edification, tell us again how it went down.”

  “Step by step,” added Kirk.

  Knox sighed and then gathered her thoughts. “I closed the door behind me and called out her name. There was no answer. I called out again and identified myself, full title and everything. The next thing I know she came around the corner from the living room at me. Her gun was out and pointed at me. My cred pack was in my hand and held out for her to see but I knew it didn’t matter. The look on her face told me all I needed to know. I had maybe a second. She was going to shoot me.”

  “Keep going,” encouraged Puller when Knox paused.

  “I dropped my creds, grabbed the chair, and flung it at her as I went down to the floor. She fired. I felt the round pass over me and hit the wall behind me. The chair had struck her as she fired and threw off her aim. I hit the floor, kicked away, aimed, and fired upward, into her chest. She dropped where she stood. She hit the floor and never moved after that.”

  “That all coincides with what I heard downstairs,” said Puller, looking at Kirk.

  “Well, it also happens to be the truth,” replied Knox resolutely.

  “But attempting to shoot you in cold blood like that,” said Kirk. “It’s an extreme response. How could she know what you were there for? It could just be routine questioning. If she killed you she’s looking at the death penalty. And how was she planning to get away?”

  “She had an alias. Same name she used to set up the account in the Caymans, but we traced it back to her. Under that alias she had purchased a series of one-way tickets with the final stop in Saint Petersburg.”

  “No extradition treaty between Russia and the U.S.,” said Kirk.

  “Right. And I doubt Russia was her final destination. She was just going there to disappear. After that, it’s anyone’s bet. She certainly would have had the financial resources to do it.”

  “What date was the plane ticket for?” asked Puller.

  “Today. She was supposed to be on duty, but called in sick. She was clearly never going back. That’s why I went there.”

  Puller eyed Knox steadily and she returned the gaze. Kirk noticed this staredown and looked back and forth between them, like she was viewing a tennis match.

  “I know what you’re probably going to say,” said Knox at last.

  “Really?” replied Puller. “So why don’t you tell me what I was going to say.”

  “That we’re a team and I should have told you all of this. And you’d be right. And maybe if you hadn’t left me in that graveyard, I would have told you. But you did leave me and I had no idea where you were. And I had to get this done.”

  Puller studied her for a while more but seemed satisfied by this explanation. He said, “I’m surprised with all the evidence you had against her that you didn’t send in a SWAT team. The Army would have.”

  “That may be how the Army does things, but not us. What we really wanted was for her to cooperate with us and lead us back to whoever she was working with. In the grand scheme of things she was small potatoes. We wanted the others. That’s why I went in solo, to talk to her, to make her see reason.”

  “And you almost got blown away for your troubles.”

  “I have to tell you, I didn’t see that coming. There was nothing in her profile that would have led us to believe that she would have reacted with such violence.”

  “Well, profiles can be misleading,” commented Kirk.

  “And now we’ve lost her as a potential witness and information source. And it’s really all on me,” Knox added glumly.

  Puller said, “So she saw you in her home, figured out who you were from you calling out. She knew the game was up since she was probably upstairs packing for her trip to Russia, and she panicked.”

  “Well, I’m just glad her aim was off.”

  “Because of the chair you threw.”

  “I’m still lucky, Puller.”

  “Like the hip.”

  “Like the hip,” she agreed as Kirk looked at her quizzically. Knox saw this and said, “Long story.” She sipped her coffee and looked thoughtful.

  “What?” Puller asked, seeing an ironic look in her eyes.

  “I was just wondering when my luck is going to finally run out.”

  “Don’t we all,” replied Puller.

  “Well, unfortunately for you two, it seems the answer will be sooner rather than later,” noted Kirk.

  CHAPTER

  31

  CAN YOU GIVE me a lift to my hotel, Puller?” asked Kirk as they were leaving the diner.

  She had a small roller bag with her.

  Kno
x looked at Puller. “I’m going to check in and then I’ll give you a call. I’m sure my superiors will have a lot of questions for me after the incident with Macri. And there’s always paperwork to fill out. Doesn’t seem like all that much, though, for taking someone’s life,” she added, looking depressed.

  Puller said, “You took her life because she was trying to take yours.”

  He watched as Knox walked off to her car.

  Kirk said, “Do you trust her? I mean do you really trust her?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, I don’t. That’s why I held a few things back.”

  Puller shot her a glance and said, “My car’s over there.”

  They walked to his sedan and climbed in. Puller said, “Okay, what do you have?”

  “Two facts, one from Todd Landry and one from Doug Fletcher, the prosecuting attorney. Which do you want first?”

  “Prosecuting attorney.”

  “In addition to the computer evidence there were two witnesses who testified against your brother at his court-martial.”

  “Witnesses? Who were they?”

  “People he worked with at STRATCOM.”

  “What did they say?”

  “One testified that he saw your brother meeting in a car with a man who was later identified as being an agent for the Iranian government.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “And the other witness testified that she saw Robert Puller burn something onto a DVD from a secure area at STRATCOM’s satellite facility in Kansas and try to take it with him.”

  “And why did the prosecuting attorney point these things out to you? They sound pretty damning and certainly wouldn’t help Bobby.”

  “At the court-martial they were severely damaging. No, Fletcher pointed them out because of something in both witnesses’ written statements.”

  “What was it?” asked Puller, his gaze steady on Kirk.

  “What they said, what they both said in those statements.” She cleared her throat and recited, “‘It was clear to me at the time that Robert Puller was acting very mysteriously.’”

  Puller kept staring at her. “They both said that?”

  “To the word. What do you think the odds are of that happening naturally?”

  “Slim and none. What did the prosecuting attorney do with that?”

  “The statements were made available to defense counsel, of course, under the discovery rules for court-martials. But it’s not the job of the prosecutor to do his adversary’s job. So he didn’t do anything about it. But two years later it obviously had been sticking in his craw.”

  “And Landry did nothing with it?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t at the court-martial and the prosecuting attorney didn’t elaborate on that point. And who knows if anything would have come of it. The other evidence they had was pretty conclusive. Similarities in witness statements probably wouldn’t have carried the day.”

  “So did Fletcher think the witnesses were lying? That they were told to say that?”

  “He wouldn’t go that far, and neither would I if I were in his shoes and someone asked me. If they were lying it was a little sloppy of them to say the exact same thing. Whoever’s behind this could be a micromanager, but definitely not a lawyer. People do compare witness statements just for that reason.” She paused. “And reading between the lines, Puller, I think that’s why an Article 106 spying case became an Article 106a espionage case. I think defense and prosecutor came to an agreement on that because they both thought something strange was going on. If your brother was put to death, that could never be rectified. If he were alive, albeit in prison, then maybe one day another explanation would come to light. At least that’s what I think happened.”

  “You said ‘whoever’s behind this’? So you believe my brother was set up?”

  “Let me tell you what the defense counsel told me. And let me warn you that it might not be easy for you to hear. And it’s the main reason I flew out here. I wanted to tell you this face-to-face.”

  Puller stiffened slightly. “Okay.”

  “Near the end of the court-martial, Landry wanted your brother to testify on his own behalf. The trial was not going well and Landry thought Robert would be a good witness. He was incredibly intelligent, patriotic, and articulate. Landry thought he would present well to the panel.”

  “Did he testify?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He refused.”

  “Why? What would he have to lose if things were going against him anyway?”

  “He let something slip to Landry, and the ‘let slip’ part is defense counsel’s observation, not mine.”

  “What did my brother say?”

  “That he couldn’t risk it.”

  “Risk it? He was fighting for his life!”

  “He apparently wasn’t worried about himself.”

  “Who then?” demanded Puller.

  “This was the let slip’ part. He said he couldn’t risk it because if he was found innocent his family would suffer.”

  There was a long moment of silence in the car, until Puller said, “My father and I are the only family he has. So he was talking about us? That we would be in danger if he got off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone threatened him. Unless he takes the fall, we get killed?”

  “Landry said your brother changed during the course of the court-martial. Going from confident and indignant to, well, afraid.”

  “And nobody did anything?”

  “What could they do? Your brother never specifically said he had been threatened. Or that someone was going to hurt his family. In fact, when Landry pressed him on it he clammed up, wouldn’t say another word about it and swore him to secrecy. That meant Landry could not share it with the prosecutor or the court.”

  Puller slumped back in his seat. He felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to his skull and then parked an Abrams tank on his chest. He felt as cold as death.

  My brother has been rotting in prison to protect me?

  Kirk said, “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Puller. You knew nothing about it.”

  Puller stared out the window at a young couple walking past holding hands. “Maybe I didn’t want to know,” he said at last. “I could have found out. I’m an investigator. I could have found out. That’s what I do.”

  “Better late than never,” replied Kirk. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I need the names of the witnesses. Do you have them?”

  “Yes. But what will you do with that information?”

  “Find out the truth. That’s what I really do, Shireen. I find out the truth. And maybe this time I can save my brother if I do find it.”

  “Well, you also might find a lot more than you bargained for.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  I APPRECIATE YOUR filling me in on this, Puller,” said Knox.

  They were sitting in the lobby bar of the hotel where Shireen Kirk was staying. Kirk was upstairs in her room getting some sleep. Puller had met Knox here for a drink and then told her all that Kirk had disclosed to him in the car.

  “You needed to know.”

  She sipped on a glass of Prosecco while he nursed a beer.