The Escape (4 page)

H
E NEEDED TO
think this through, but also talk things out with someone. And there was really only one person he could do that with. He lifted his phone from his pocket and punched in the number. She answered two rings later.

“I heard,” Julie Carson said immediately. “You want to talk, right?”

“Yeah. I just saw my father, and then I got a weird sort of third degree from a suit from the NSC and a couple of generals, one Army, one Air Force.”

“What was the NSC’s name?”

“James Schindler. I’ve got his card. He’s based in D.C.”

“Who was the Army guy?” she asked.

“Three-star named Aaron Rinehart, big guy, broken nose, hair shaved close to the scalp. He had about as many decorations on his chest as my father. His name is familiar.”

“I’ve certainly heard of him, but don’t know him personally. Tough, no-nonsense, incredibly well connected, and moving up fast for his fourth star. There’s even talk he’ll be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or Chief of Staff of the Army at some point. How about the flyboy?”

“One-star named Daughtrey. He didn’t offer up his first name.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can find out. They’re all in the database somewhere.”

“Thanks, Julie.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You answered your phone when you obviously knew why I was calling. You could have played ostrich and dodged the bullet. You’ve got a new command down in Texas that I’m sure is keeping you busy twenty-four/seven. So thanks.”

“I don’t much care for ostriches. Never saw the point. And I’m getting these folks down here whipped into shape. I’ll call you later.”

He hung up and sat back. He wasn’t thinking about his brother right now and his dilemma. He was thinking about the woman who had been on the other end of that conversation.

When Puller had first met her, Julie Carson was an Army one-star assigned to the Pentagon with designs on at least one and possibly two more stars before her military career was finished. Puller had run into her during a case he was investigating in West Virginia. The two had started out as adversaries and then months later had ended up sharing a bed while Puller was investigating his aunt’s death at her home on the Gulf Coast of Florida. And Carson had almost been killed while trying to help him. Though badly wounded, she’d fully recovered. Puller still had nightmares about it.

She had gotten her second star and with it a new command at an Army base in Texas. They had said their goodbyes over a bottle of wine and take-out Italian. The Army tended to get in the way of any permanent relationships among service members. He knew he might not see her in person again, at least for a while. After Texas the odds were she would be headed to the Pacific Northwest. After that, it was anyone’s guess. He was just glad that she had answered his call. Right now he needed a friend with stars on her shoulders.

Later that day, he had just gotten back to his apartment near Quantico when his phone buzzed. It was Carson.

“I hope you don’t mind if I eat while I talk,” she said. “I had time today to either eat lunch or do a five-mile run.”

“And of course you opted to run.”

“Don’t we all?” she replied as he heard utensils hitting a plate and liquid being poured into a glass.

“You cook a lot down there?” he asked.

“Are you giving me shit?” she said in a mock-reproachful tone.

“No, I’m deadly serious,” he replied, though his tone wasn’t.

“I almost never cook,” she said. “My mother would be so disappointed. Well, she
is
disappointed. She could fill the house with what she did in the kitchen. And the smells were like you wouldn’t believe. I played three sports in high school and I think part of me did it so I could eat my mom’s cooking and not get fat. Maybe that’s why I never even really tried to learn my way around the kitchen. I knew I could never be as good as she was.”

“A little competitive, are we?”

“Show me anyone in uniform who isn’t,” she shot back.

He heard her gulp whatever she was drinking, and then her tone turned serious. “So let’s talk about your brother.”

“I still can’t get my arms around it.”

“John, how do you break out of DB?”

“How much do you know about it?”

“Mostly scuttlebutt, but there was a lot of it. A storm. Backup power failed. Reinforcements were called in. They restored order. Head count was done. And no Robert Puller in attendance. But there was mention of someone else who shouldn’t have been there.”

“Then you know about as much as I do. And the someone else was dead and in my brother’s cell.”

“Holy hell!” she exclaimed.

“Pretty much says it all,” he said evenly.

“I definitely hadn’t heard that. And no sign of him since?”

“Apparently not. Don White, my CO, filled me in today. Then I went to see my father. I figured he might have heard and even with his condition he might be upset.”

“And that’s when you ran into the suit and the generals?”

“They asked me the standard questions: my visits to him, what we discussed. Then, if he contacted me, to contact them. But then it got weird, like I said on the phone.”

“In what way weird?”

“First, although they never came out and said it, I believe they want me to look into the case.”

“How can that be? I’m sure your CO told you not to go near it.”

“He did. And then the Air Force guy wanted to know if I thought my brother was guilty.”

“And what did you say?”

It suddenly occurred to Puller that he had never really talked about his brother with her. And it also seemed apparent that Carson
wanted
to know if Puller thought his brother was guilty.

“I didn’t really answer him, because I’m not really sure what I think about it.”

“Okay,” she said, though her tone made clear she was not satisfied by his reply.

He said, “Did you find out anything about these guys?”

“Rinehart’s assigned to DIA. At a very high level. It’s beyond my ability to find out much more than that. The same really goes for James Schindler at the NSC. He wasn’t in the military. He came up through the civilian side of NSA before moving on to the Security Council.”

“I guess that makes sense. My brother was convicted of national security crimes. That cuts across all branches. And so does DIA. And the NSC has its finger in everything because of the president. What about Daughtrey?”

“Timothy Daughtrey is attached to STRATCOM.”

“Bingo! That was where my brother was working when he was arrested.” He paused. “It’s ironic.”

“What is?”

“Bobby was stationed at a STRATCOM satellite facility near Leavenworth when he was arrested and court-martialed. He didn’t have far to travel to go to DB.”

“And the STRATCOM connection dovetails right into DIA and NSC because spooks all hang around the same playground,” she added.

“I guess so,” said Puller slowly.

“The FBI is of course all over this,” added Carson. “National security issues bring out all the big dogs. I would say your brother is the most wanted man in America right now. I wouldn’t think his chances of evading capture are very good.”

“I’m surprised the FBI hasn’t been by to see me,” said Puller.

“I would imagine if they haven’t been by they are at least keeping an eye on you. But it might be that Rinehart et al. have talked to them and made it clear they’re heading the John Puller piece of this equation.”

“Complicated stuff.”

“Yes, it is. I read up on your brother’s career this afternoon,” she added.

“Did you?” he said sharply.

“Hey, don’t cop an attitude. I like to be prepared. A lot of it was classified beyond even my clearances, and some of the files seemed to have been deleted, because there were gaps. Some of the pages I saw onscreen were heavily redacted, but from what I saw your brother’s career was still pretty damn impressive. I mean, the trajectory was like a rocket. He would have easily gotten his star, and more. I even dug up a white paper he’d written on a next-generation nuclear weaponry design. I could understand about every tenth word, and I don’t consider myself stupid. Some of the math equations in the paper looked like Chinese to me.”

“He was always the smart one in the family. Officer material. I was just the enlisted grunt in the trenches.”

“Did you ever ask him if he did it?” she asked bluntly.

Puller said, “Once.”

“And?”

“And he didn’t answer me.”

“And now he’s escaped. You don’t escape from DB without help. It’s impossible.”

“I know.”

“And so you probably know something else.”

“Yeah, that my brother was guilty. And maybe he killed the guy they found in his cell. So he’s a traitor
and
a murderer.” As he said these words, Puller felt a sharp pain in his chest, his breathing grew shallow, and sweat appeared on his brow. He knew he wasn’t having a heart attack.

But am I having a panic attack?

He had never panicked, not once in his life. Not while bullets were flying and bombs were bursting all around him. He had been scared then, as any sane person would be. But that was not the same as panicked. It was actually the difference between surviving or not.

“John, are you okay?”

“I’m good,” he said curtly, though he really wasn’t.

My brother, a traitor and a murderer? No, I am definitely not good.

“So I guess that answers my question,” she said.

“What question?”

“You thought your brother was innocent, didn’t you?”

“Maybe I did.”

“I can understand that, John. It’s natural.”

“Is it?” he said heatedly. “It doesn’t feel natural. None of this does.”

“So what are you going to do?” asked Carson.

“My CO gave me some leave time.”

“And he also told you to stay away from this sucker.”

“And I’ve got an NSC suit and two generals maybe wanting me to take a whack at it.”

“But they gave you no direct order to do so, not that they were even authorized to give one. And you might have misread their intent. On the other hand, your commanding officer explicitly told you to stand down. So the answer is easy. You stand down.”

“He’s my brother, Julie.”

“And you’re a soldier, John. Orders are orders. You don’t really have a choice.”

“You’re right, I don’t. He’s my brother.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Putting this much pressure on yourself.”

Puller took a long breath and then said again more forcefully, “He’s my brother!”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s your brother. That ship has already sailed, Puller. He’s an escaped prisoner. The best you can hope for is that he’s captured safely and returned to DB promptly.”

“So that’s it, then?”

“What more could it be? Look, I know how you must feel. But your brother made his choices. His career and life are over. Are you telling me you want to put yours in jeopardy? And for what possible reason?”

“Everything you’re saying makes perfect sense.”

“But you’re not buying any of it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” She took a deep breath. “So, again, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did know. That would just put you in an even more awkward position.”

“I’ve been in those with you before.”

“And you almost died, Julie. I’m never going to do that to you again. Never.”

“I showed up in Florida voluntarily. You didn’t ask me to come down there.”

“But I didn’t tell you to go back home either.”

“I survived.”

“Barely.”

“And I don’t want anything to happen to you, John. Even if I am in Texas now. I still care about you.”

Though they were not face-to-face, Puller could imagine the look that Carson was displaying right now. Tender and concerned.

“Not worried about fraternization rules?”

“They don’t apply to us. They apply to officer and enlisted. We’re both officers. I’m a general, and even though you started out in the ranks, you’re a chief warrant officer. And you’re not under my command.”

“So you checked?”

Her voice rose over the phone. “
Yes
, I checked. So you can understand if I feel a little proprietary toward you. You can’t tank your career over this. You just can’t!”

“I can’t sit on the sidelines. I’m sorry.”

“John, please think about the consequences.”

“I’ve done nothing but think about them. But it hasn’t changed my decision.”

He heard her draw a long breath. “Well, then I wish you the very best of luck. And I guess I can’t say I’m surprised. After Florida I understand quite clearly that Puller blood is thicker than even the Army green variety.”

“Thanks for understanding.”

“I didn’t say I understood. Just that I’m not surprised. Take care of yourself, Puller. And consider that a direct order from a two-star.”

“That means a lot, Julie. It really does.”

Puller put down the phone, sat back, and closed his eyes. He had never thought that Julie Carson would be the
one
. She was a general on the rise. He was a chief warrant officer pretty much topped out. He cared for her, but professionally they were like oil and water. But they could and would remain friends. And he would always care about her. Always.

Loyalty mattered to John Puller. Almost as much as family did. And sometimes they were the very same damn thing.

W
I-FI WAS UP
and working. And so was Robert Puller. While the enormous machinery of the United States military, along with the even bigger intelligence octopus that spread outward from the CIA and the NSA, was searching for him, arguably the most wanted man in America was sipping an unleaded grande Americano with raw sugar mixed in and pounding away on his Apple MacBook Pro with fingers as nimble as a teenager’s. And he’d been here doing this for most of the day.

It was a bit tricky, because as most Americans with an Internet connection or cell phone knew these days,
they
were watching. And
they
could come and get you anytime
they
wanted.

But Robert Puller knew his way around computers and every known way to trace, hack, or spy on their users. And his laptop had been expressly programmed and loaded with software and unique protections not available to the public. There were no back doors for the NSA to pixel-creep up on him. There were no back doors period. Except the ones
he
had planted in other databases before he went to prison, and was now exploiting to the fullest. Being at STRATCOM all those years had left him in a unique position to hack everybody. And to do it with
style
, he admitted to himself as he finished off the grande and looked over the other patrons of the Starbucks, where fancied-up java was not merely a beverage but also a way of life. He had already read all the news stories related to his escape. He had been lucky, that was for sure. But it hadn’t been all luck.

The news reports were full of facts. No real details on the hunt, beyond the painfully obvious. Checkpoints, house-to-house searches, watching airports, bus and train stations, asking the public for help, etcetera, etcetera. Pictures of him were all over the Web. If nothing else, they were a stark reminder of how much his appearance had changed overnight. The MPs he had passed earlier at the diner would have had his mug imprinted on their genes. And yet the one guy who’d looked directly at him hadn’t even troubled himself with a second glance.

Also posted all over the Web was his past history. The brilliant academic career where he had topped the lists at every institution he’d attended. The meteoric military career. His far-reaching fingers in all the intelligence pies. The systems he’d developed, the software he’d coded, the farsightedness he’d displayed in arenas of which the public only had a vague awareness. And then the tumble from the high pedestal, the arrest, and the charges aimed at him like a fifty-caliber machine gun set to blow him into little pieces. Then the court-martial. Then the verdict. Finally, the imprisonment for life.

And now the escape.

All of this he read and digested, but it was ultimately meaningless to him.

There
was
one angle to the story that had socked him right in the gut.

His father and his brother had both been mentioned throughout numerous articles. The fighting legend now laid low by dementia. And there was dirt dredged up and regurgitated about the reasons why he had never gotten the fourth star, and why the Medal of Honor had never been draped around his thick neck.

And then there was his brother, the highly decorated combat veteran turned CID agent who was building himself into an Army legend. But underlying the articles were the visits John Puller Jr. had made to the DB. How close they were as brothers. The lawman and the lawbreaker. No, the law-crusher, for he wasn’t a mere criminal—he had committed treason, saved from the death penalty by who knew what in the military tribunal process.

But are they implying that my brother somehow helped me escape?

He didn’t know where John had been yesterday, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t in Leavenworth. That would have to come out in the papers. His brother would have to be fully cleared of any involvement with the escape. He had to be! Still, he knew that even the hint of suspicion could come close to breaking his kid brother, as strong as he seemed. Personal honor meant everything to John Puller Jr.

And what about John Puller Sr.?

Well, despite his affection for the old man, he just hoped that his father was so far out of it now that nothing could penetrate the dense cloud the dementia was solidifying around his once extraordinary mind.

He set all this aside and tapped his computer keys with renewed vitality. It had been part of his life for so long before it had been taken from him. Yet hacking was like riding a bike. He hadn’t forgotten anything. The codes had changed. The security was better. But it wasn’t infallible. Nothing was. There were new hacking techniques invented every day and the good guys simply could not keep up.

He was a natural hacker, because part of his duties had been to hack his own side, to test defenses that he had helped create. If he, their inventor, couldn’t crack them, it was assumed that no one else could either. Sometimes they’d been right, sometimes wrong. And sometimes Puller had held back just a bit, because he never played the short game.

His gaze trailed off the screen and ventured to the street where a Humvee puttered by. Inside were soldiers in their cammie uniforms, their methodical gazes sweeping the area.

So they still think I might be around here? Interesting.

He really didn’t believe this. The Army was simply covering its ass. The DB had just suffered its first setback. A presence on the street was to be expected. He returned his gaze to the screen and kept typing away, creating his version of a symphony, built note by note, measure by measure, and movement by sly movement.

When the contents of the screen dissolved and then reemerged as something entirely new, he closed his laptop and stood. What he had just gained access to was not meant to be read at the neighborhood Starbucks.

And while he had used plain-Jane Wi-Fi that was basically open to anyone, his laptop was firing off scramblers of such strength that any punk with an electronic mitt trolling for credit card numbers and accompanying PINs would be left with something so garbled that it would look like a trillion-piece digital puzzle without a handy picture to go by.

But still, there were protocols. And though he no longer wore the uniform, Puller intended to abide by these rules to the extent he could. It was part of who he was, who he would always be. They said the uniform made the man. Well, actually, it did. But that statement had nothing to do with clothing. It was all inside of you.

Now was the time for exploration and perhaps a drive. For that he needed wheels. He wasn’t going to do a rental. He was going to write a check for a 2004 Chevy Tahoe pickup in the lot of a used-car dealer the next block over. He’d looked at it earlier while taking a break from his hacking.

It took an hour of dickering and filling out the paperwork. Then he climbed into his new ride, started it up—the eight-cylinder power plant sparking gloriously to life—and drove off. He flicked a wave to the salesman, who’d probably cleared enough of a commission to splurge on a nice meal for himself and the missus, photos of whom Puller had been shown during the course of their negotiation, probably to soften him up.

It hadn’t worked. Prison did not soften you up. It made you a piece of rock.

Next mission: obtaining quarters. Where he could read in peace.

And then he could get this thing rolling.

Robert Puller dearly hoped it had been worth the years-long wait.