The Escape

by David Baldacci

  “And some men followed you in Charlotte and you shot one of them too,” said Schindler. “That’s astonishing.”

  “It could have easily been me making that shot,” said Puller. “Knox was just faster.”

  Knox said, “But I didn’t kill him. He wasn’t there when we circled back. He might have been wearing armor. Someone might have helped him get away. I don’t know which one.”

  Rinehart cleared his throat. “But who could these people be? Are they all tied to Robert Puller in some way?”

  Knox said, “Well, we are investigating his escape. I can’t think of another reason why they would be coming after us.”

  Donovan Carter spoke for the first time. “But surely you have enemies, Agent Knox. We’ve all read your professional history since we knew you’d be here tonight. You’ve accomplished extraordinary things on behalf of your country. That comes with a price.”

  “But there’s no disputing the fact that Lenora Macri tried to kill me. And that she was going to flee to Russia and then from there to who knows where. She aided the hit man coming into DB.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” exclaimed Rinehart. “What hit man at DB?”

  Puller gave Knox a quick glance. He had been surprised that she had said that, since he had left it out of his report. But he received a barely perceptible nod of assent from her to speak.

  He took a few minutes to explain about the extra man in the MP company responding to the situation at the DB, and how Robert Puller had possibly taken his place to escape. Puller added, “Forensic analysis has confirmed that he was recently in Ukraine. Maybe he lived there. And his going to DB to kill my brother is really the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Well, not really, he could have gone there to help your brother escape,” suggested Carter.

  “Then why kill him?”

  “They had a falling-out? It was an accident?”

  “His neck was broken, using a specific technique. I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “Then a disagreement of some sort?” opined Carter.

  “I’m not convinced of that,” said Puller. “And when you’ve planned such an elaborate escape from a max prison, it’s not like you have a lot of time to stand around talking and arguing about details. You just execute the plan. But I don’t see how the plan works if the two of them tried to get out. The guy didn’t have an extra set of riot gear on him. And I don’t see how my brother could have walked out with a second set of gear and nobody noticed.”

  Rinehart looked at Puller thoughtfully but said nothing. Carter and Schindler looked unconvinced.

  “And what about Daughtrey?” said Knox. “Who murdered him?”

  “Again, possibly Robert Puller,” said Carter. “It happened in Kansas where your brother escaped from.”

  “Why would he target Daughtrey? I don’t think he even knew him.”

  Carter said, “Timothy Daughtrey was the man who took your brother’s slot at ISR at Bolling Air Force Base. Robert Puller was being promoted to lieutenant colonel and would have been assigned to ISR. Instead he went to DB for life. I worked with Daughtrey at ISR. I would have worked with your brother if he hadn’t gone to prison.”

  “So you’re saying he targeted Daughtrey because the man took a slot that he couldn’t fill because he was in prison?” said Knox skeptically.

  “It could be more than that,” said Carter. “There could have been more between them. They were contemporaries, competitors in the military pecking order. I’m not saying it happened. I’m just saying it was a possibility. And the fact is, while Daughtrey was a rank ahead of your brother, Robert Puller had more gas in the tank. We’d had our eye on him for a long time. He would have passed Daughtrey at some point. Whether between the one- and two-star or the two- and three-star stage, it was only a matter of time. Daughtrey was going to hit the professional ceiling. He was quite talented, but not as exceptional as your brother.”

  “But of course that all changed when Puller went to prison,” said Schindler.

  “Maybe unfairly went to prison,” said Knox. “And it seems likely now that he was innocent.”

  “I don’t see that,” said Rinehart. “Not yet. You’ve offered no proof of that, not a sliver. And what you have offered can be explained away. For example, if Macri was involved in helping your brother to escape, he might have promised her something in return.”

  “He had nothing,” said Knox.

  “That we know of,” countered Rinehart. “A smart guy like him might have had assets hidden in the electronic ether. He bribes her and gets away. You discover Macri was paid off, you don’t know by whom, and you have a deadly encounter with her. Now she’ll never be able to tell us who she was working with.”

  “And the guys in the alley?” persisted Knox.

  Rinehart shrugged. “If Robert Puller was a traitor and was selling secrets to our enemy, then those forces would still be out there. They have every incentive for the truth not to come out. And the fact that the dead man at DB has been identified as Ukrainian bolsters this theory. He might have been working for his country, or the Russians, or someone else, which in turn could be who Puller was selling secrets to.”

  “So you think he’s guilty?” said Puller.

  Rinehart bristled. “He was proven guilty at a court-martial. He escaped from prison. Until you or someone can refute or explain that, then yes, I think he’s guilty.”

  “And Niles Robinson?” said Knox.

  “He testified against Puller,” said Carter. “And there’s something else, something you may not be aware of.”

  Knox and Puller looked at him expectantly.

  “As you may know, Susan Reynolds works at the WMD Center. She also testified at Puller’s court-martial. She personally informed me that Robert Puller broke into her home, threatened her, and injected her with some poison to try to make her confess to some lie about falsely accusing him. But she was able to thwart him and reach a weapon. But he escaped before she could capture him.” He paused and added, “Or shoot him.”

  Puller simply stared at the man for a few moments. “My brother was in Susan Reynolds’s home?”

  He nodded. “And she showed us the injection mark. And her blood was tested. Luckily, there was no sign of poison. He must have been bluffing.”

  Rinehart added, “Which means he’s on the East Coast. Or at least he was.”

  Puller continued to stare at Carter. “When did you find out about this?’

  “Just today.”

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  “The appropriate parties. Those looking for Puller, yes.”

  “Which includes me.”

  “Which is why I’m telling you now.”

  Puller said, “She told you he was trying to make her confess to lies?”

  “Yes. Maybe he was recording her somehow and wanted to use that as some sort of bargaining chip. But if she did say anything incriminating it was because he threatened her and she was fearful for her life.”

  Puller started to say something but Knox beat him to it. “What exactly did she say to him?” she asked.

  “Between pleading for her life, she said whatever she thought he wanted to hear. He was a convicted traitor who had killed a man to get out of prison. I can’t imagine how frightened she was. We’ve given her protection at her home in case he comes back.”

  Puller looked at Rinehart and Schindler. “Did you two know about this?”

  “Donovan informed us right before you arrived,” said Schindler. “It does not paint a picture of an innocent man.”

  “If it’s true,” said Puller.

  Carter scoffed. “Why would she make something like that up? It would just bring her into this mess when she wasn’t involved at all. She would have no incentive to lie.”

  “Incentives are in the eye of the beholder, at least that’s been my experience,” said Puller.

  “And my experience, Mr. Puller, is to see things as they present themselves. And as opposed to your
brother’s actions, Ms. Reynolds is by far the more reliable witness. She is a valuable employee and has faithfully served this country for many years.”

  “I’m just pointing out that we don’t have all the facts yet.”

  “Your bias in favor of your brother is natural.” Carter looked first at Rinehart and then at Schindler. “Which makes it very difficult for me to understand why you are even involved in this investigation.”

  “He’s involved, Donovan, because we asked him to be involved,” replied Rinehart stiffly.

  Schindler added, “With the knowledge he has of his brother we felt, along with his training as an investigator, that he held a good chance of tracking him down. Maybe the best chance.”

  “Well, that hasn’t happened, has it?” countered Carter.

  “I haven’t even been on the case for a full week,” said Puller, who suddenly realized it felt more like a year.

  “And there are other forces pursuing Robert Puller,” added Rinehart. “We don’t have all of our eggs in one basket.”

  “Well, I will presume you know what you’re doing,” said Carter, as their meal was served.

  They ate mostly in silence, with only an occasional question and reply. After their coffees and a port for Rinehart had come, Puller glanced at Knox before saying to the three men, “We learned that my brother received a threatening letter during his court-martial. A letter that said if he didn’t basically lie down and let himself be convicted that my father and I would come to harm.”

  He quickly looked at Rinehart, Schindler, and Carter to see their reactions. He was disappointed because none of them seemed remotely surprised.

  “We’re aware of that, Puller,” said Rinehart.

  “I was told it was not disclosed to anyone.”

  Schindler said, “Don’t believe for a minute that we are relying on you solely to further this investigation. As General Rinehart said, our eggs are not in one basket.”

  Rinehart said, “We’re employing scorched earth here, Puller. We talked to both defense counsel and the prosecutor in the case. And to the judge. We learned about the letter from Doug Fletcher, among other things.”

  “I interviewed him, but he didn’t mention talking to you.”

  “That is because my people told him not to disclose the interview. And even though he’s no longer in the military, he knows how to obey an order from a three-star.”

  “And why was it important to keep this from me?”

  “It wasn’t necessarily done to keep it from you. I wasn’t aware you were going to even speak with him. It was done, in a blanket way, to keep this matter in as tight a group of need-to-know as possible.”

  “And what did you think about the existence of the letter?”

  “Robert Puller could have easily written it himself. That’s why it wasn’t introduced into evidence.”

  “That’s not exactly right. It wasn’t introduced into evidence because my brother wouldn’t let it be. I’m assuming Fletcher told your people that?”

  “So what? Even if it had been introduced, there was no way to validate its authenticity.”

  “But that’s the point. My brother would have known that. So why would he even bother to make it up? It couldn’t help him at all.”

  Schindler said, “You don’t know that for certain. Maybe he had a change of heart after he wrote it, and decided not to use it. Maybe he thought it might carry some weight on appeal. I don’t know because I’m not a lawyer. Your brother is by all accounts a genius. Sometimes geniuses do irrational things. Sometimes they are delusional. Perhaps he felt guilty about what he’d done and wrote the letter and invented the story to make up for it somehow, at least in his mind.”

  “My brother is not some sort of crazy genius. He had no delusions. He’s as pragmatic as I am.”

  Carter said, “But you weren’t around him all the time back then, were you, Puller? You were off serving your country. People change.”

  “Not like that. Not my brother.”

  Carter finished his coffee, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and turned to Rinehart. “I think we’ve exhausted the possibilities of this meeting.”

  Rinehart nodded and took a last sip of his port.

  Before the men could stand, Puller said to Carter, “And why have you been brought into the tight circle of need-to-know?”

  “Puller, Mr. Carter is the director of DTRA, for God’s sake,” Rinehart said sternly. “He oversees a three-billion-dollar budget with personnel deployed in over a dozen countries. His specific security clearances are at the very highest level.”

  “I have no doubt they are. I was just inquiring as to why he’s involved in this particular matter.”

  Before Rinehart could respond, Carter held up his hand. “I’ll field this one, Aaron, if you don’t mind.” He turned to Puller. “As I said, before I was in charge of DTRA, I worked where your brother was headed before he went to prison. There one of my colleagues was the unfortunate General Tim Daughtrey when he was still a colonel. I never worked with your brother back then, but I had met him. I saw as much potential in him as I’d ever seen in anyone. I didn’t consider myself a mentor to him, because frankly I didn’t think myself smart enough. And Robert Puller had plenty of mentors since everyone was racing to attach themselves to his coat-tails. I didn’t want to believe that he was guilty, but I have to accept facts too. Now, my immediate interest in this? As you know, your brother was at the heart of many programs, which in turn are at the very core of what this country does in both the intelligence collection and nuclear defense fields. In addition to my duties at DTRA, my main objective at the center is to locate WMDs and prevent them from falling into the hands of our enemies. The work that your brother did at STRATCOM has a direct connection to what I try to do at the center. If he’s escaped and people that he was selling secrets to are active once more, then I need to know what is going on. This country has many enemies and many issues confronting it, everything from cyber warfare to corporate espionage. But there is no more paramount concern than rogue WMDs being used against us. A crew of cyber warriors can attack the grid, knock out data servers, and hack into millions of credit card accounts. But a single WMD of sufficient magnitude can wipe out a city and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Credit cards can be replaced. People can’t. So which do you think is more problematic from a security perspective?”

  “Thanks for answering my question, sir,” said Puller.

  Carter rose, gave a slight bow followed by a tight smile. “You’re quite welcome.”

  CHAPTER

  48

  RINEHART AND SCHINDLER left in a car driven by a man in uniform. Puller was heading out too when Knox gripped his arm, holding him back.

  “Just give it a minute, Puller.”

  Shortly after that Donovan Carter approached them in the lobby.

  “Have time for a nightcap?” he asked, looking at one and then the other.

  Puller glanced at Knox, who said, “Sounds like an offer we can’t refuse, sir.”

  They walked to the bar on the second floor. There were only a few people left there and they took a table in the back. Carter ordered a whiskey soda, Knox a glass of Prosecco, and Puller a Heineken. When the drinks arrived, Carter extracted a pill from a silver case and swallowed it along with some of his whiskey.

  “Painkiller,” he explained.

  “Should you be mixing that with alcohol?” asked Knox.

  “Probably not, but I’ve been doing it for years with no adverse results. And the whiskey makes it go down a little bit better.”

  “Painkillers?” said Puller.

  Carter pointed to the damaged side of his face. “In case you failed to notice, I’ve suffered injuries of unfortunately a permanent nature.”

  “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Knox.

  “Afghanistan in 2001.”

  “Were you in the military?” asked Puller.

  “I was there serving my country before the uniform
s even showed up. I was captured and tortured. What you see on my face is just the visible marks. There are lots of others under my clothes. The Taliban are quite adept at inflicting pain. And scars.”

  “Were you gathering intelligence?” asked Knox.

  He nodded. “Intel on the ground was vital before we invaded. Afghanistan is a tough nut to crack. Many nations have tried it. The Brits. The Russians. It’s fairly simple to win the war over there turning rubble to dust, as they say. However, it’s absolutely impossible to win over the country after the tanks stop rolling, as we found to our chagrin.”

  “How did you get away?” asked Puller.

  “I would like to say that I was rescued, but I wasn’t. I got away on my own. Not sure how. I was out of my mind with pain. But maybe I was so desperate that I just pushed the agony out of my head. I killed the three Taliban guarding me. If I had had time, I would have tortured them before I slit their throats. It seemed fitting. But I didn’t have the option. I dragged myself about three hundred miles across landscape that resembled the moon until I reached safety. Two years of physical therapy allowed me to function physically, walk and talk and use my arms. But the scars are permanent. The pain is permanent. So I take pills and I drink whiskey, but neither to excess. And I serve my country, and I do it well. After my ordeal in Afghanistan people considered me a hero, rightly or not. At least I had the wounds to show for it. And it certainly helped my career path, which was like a rocket launch after that. I jumped back and forth