The Escape (8 page)

P
ULLER SAT IN
the room and stared at the feed from the surveillance cameras’ capture of the events on the night his brother disappeared from the DB. The various loops had been compiled so that he could see essentially an all-inclusive feed. He had wanted the room darkened so his focus would be on the screen in front of him. The total feed wasn’t long, perhaps two hours or so to record all that happened, and that counted the duplication from the different cameras. If he had been watching the feed from a single camera, the events would have taken less than thirty minutes total. It was remarkable that so much of significance could have taken place in such a short time.

Puller looked through the feed initially to orient himself to the spatial parameters. Corridors, rooms, doorways. When the power went out on the feed, he leaned in closer to the screen and used his controller to take it in frame by frame.

Blackout. Not much to see.

Then the lights came back on, flickered, and then went back off. The cameras had built-in lighting, so he could make out the silhouettes of figures running, the bouncing beams of flashlights. There was audio too, which he isolated. He listened to each individual voice. He doubted that his brother would have spoken, but he couldn’t discount the possibility. The frames ran through, and not one time did he spot his brother. One problem was that the camera recording in his brother’s pod was placed far away from his cell door. Puller had seen figures running up and down that hall, but none were recognizable. Perhaps the frames could be enhanced or better lighted, but that would probably take time.

Then came the sound of shots that sounded like the real thing. The next sound was so loud that Puller jerked a bit—an explosion going off in the DB? After that came the reinforcements from Fort Leavenworth. They swept down corridors and took charge of the prisoners out of their cells. At least from what he could see.

He sat back and drank down the rest of the bottle of water. This was going nowhere fast. He had transformers that had blown from a lightning strike during a storm that no one could have relied on to knock out the prison’s primary power source. Then, according to Al Jordan, “people” had come around and taken the remains of the transformers. He had a generator that had gotten gummed up and two E-4s who were probably going to get shit-canned or at least receive severe professional consequences for letting it happen.

He had gunshots and an explosion or at least the sounds thereof that no one could as yet explain. He had no opportunity, no motive, no leads, and no suspects. He had nothing at all. And yet his brother was out there somewhere doing who knew what, maybe with enemies of this country. Because there was no way his brother had busted out of the DB without help, from inside, outside, or, more likely, both.

He hit some more keys and brought up an image that was crystal clear. This had been taken before the power had gone out. He sat up straighter as he looked at his brother.

Robert Puller was sitting on the bolted-to-the-floor bunk in his cell. The walls were cinderblock, the floor smooth concrete. There was one window. There was a commode and a sink next to it, both built into the wall. There was a metal table and chair, again affixed to the wall. Robert Puller had on his orange prison jumper and sneakers with no laces. Laces could be transformed into rope, which could be used as either a weapon or a way to kill oneself. His brother was reading a book. His back was against the wall, his long legs stuck straight out in front of him. When the sounds of the storm were heard, Robert Puller glanced up from his book but then went back to the pages. And then the power went out and the cell went black. Then the generator kicked on and the lights came back, on and so did the surveillance camera in Robert’s room.

Robert Puller was still on his cot but no longer reading the book. His feet were on the floor and he was staring at the door. In just a short time the generator would fail and the blackness would return.

Before that happened, Puller froze his brother’s image, leaned closer to the screen, and peered deeply into Robert’s features, trying to decipher the thoughts going through that staggeringly complicated mind.

Talk to me, bro. Show me something. What are you thinking? Are you waiting for something to happen? Are you expecting something to happen? Or not?

Puller observed, and not for the first time, how much he resembled his older brother. Both were tall. Both had the same nose, and both shared their father’s angular jaw. The eyes were deep-set, giving each man a brooding look regardless of what they might actually be contemplating. But then again all three Puller men tended to be brooders.

His mind went back to when they were children. Bobby, because of his brains, had been the leader of the military brats on whatever base they had been living with their father. His brother had been the most sensitive, honorable person Puller knew, so sensitive, in fact, that the old man had taken to busting his balls about this perceived “weakness.” In fact, he had done it so often that Puller had memorized his father’s spiel.

“You can’t command men in battle if they
like
you, Bob,” his father had said. “They have to have equal parts fear and respect. And I would say fear is even more important than respect. Respect only gets you so far. Fear can get you through every damn obstacle devised by the enemy. Men will follow you to hell if they fear you. Because failing you will scare them more than any other thing they will ever face on the battlefield. You remember that, son. You remember that if you remember nothing else I’ve ever told you.”

Bobby had never gotten over this “weakness.” Which was probably why he opted for the Air Force instead of the Army. And staked out his career with technology rather than guns and cojones the size of Nebraska.

When Puller had found out from Captain Macri that the prison computer system had been hacked, he had initially thought that his brother, who knew his way around computers better than just about anyone, might somehow have done it. But then they never let his brother near a computer at the DB. And he’d been sitting in his cell and seemed genuinely surprised when the power went out. So if not his brother, who?

Puller was thinking all of this when the door opened and in walked a woman about his age. She was tall, slender, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, dressed in a black pantsuit with a white blouse, the collar flipped up in a way that even Puller, who knew nothing of women’s fashions, thought looked sort of chic. She had shoulder-length auburn hair, a freckled face, and a flint-sharp nose. She looked like she had been an athlete in college, and carried herself in a confident manner.

“Agent Puller?”

Momentarily thrown by this unusual greeting, he rose and said, “I’m Chief Warrant Officer John Puller, with the 701st CID out of Quantico.”

She put out a hand. “Veronica Knox.” He shook her hand and she held up her creds, which dangled on a lanyard. “INSCOM,” she said, referring to the United States Army’s Intelligence and Security Command.

“Where are you based out of?” he asked.

“I’m a floater going to the trouble spots. That’s why I’m here.”

“Okay. And your rank?”

“Why?”

“It’s just sort of standard to know.”

“Captain.”

“Okay, ma’am.” Puller’s antennae were tingling.

“CID is already here investigating.”

“I know they are,” he said.

“You’re not part of that team.”

“I know that too, ma’am.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘ma’am.’”

“All right.”

“And the escapee is your older brother,” she pointed out.

“I’m afraid it’s three strikes and you’re out, Captain Knox.”

She ignored this comment, sat down, and looked at the frozen image of Robert Puller on the screen. She flicked a finger at it.

“The man of the hour. Find any clues?”

“Not yet.”

“I know you have authorization to be here. We got that order. But why
are
you here?”

“Same reason you are. Trying to figure out what happened.”

“CID has enough free assets to double up on this?”

“No, we’re pretty much stretched thin like every other Army element.”

“So?” she said expectantly.

“So what?”

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

Puller said, “I’ve been ordered to investigate. I’m a soldier, so I follow orders.”

“So am I. And I’ve been assigned to work with you.”

“By who?” Puller said sharply.

“You just need to know that I have been. If you want to find out the source, feel free.”

“And you can’t just tell me why?”

“I don’t know you. So I don’t know if I can trust you. Not yet.”

“You’re not in uniform.”

“Neither are you.”

“I will be. At some point.”

“Maybe I will be too.” She glanced at the screen again. “You sure nothing caught your eye?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s hope we can get beyond that.”

The way she said this made Puller stare at her strangely. “I’ve looked into the transformers at the substation and the generator.”

She shook her head dismissively. “Lightning overload, and microorganisms, and a pair of dumbass E-4s who’re going to get sliced and diced by their CO.”

“Exactly the way I saw it,” he replied, again watching her closely. “So we’re a team?”

She shrugged. “Only because the Army says so. I usually work alone.”

“At CID we work in groups.”

“Different strokes,” she retorted.

“What’s your take on the sound-making device? Shots and explosion?”

She looked at the screen. “Maybe your brother had it.”

“Where would he get something like that? And there’s his cell right there. You see anything like that in there? Because I don’t.”

She shot back, “I’m sure you know him better than I do. Maybe better than anyone, which might be the reason you’re here.”

Puller eyed the door. “You gone over the visitors’ log yet?”

“Next on my bucket list.”

“Shall we?”

She held the door open for him. “After you.”

A
S THEY WALKED
down the hall, Puller said, “You talk to Al Jordan, guy who replaced the transformers?”

“I did,” Knox replied.

“And?”

“And what?”

“Did he mention anything that got your antennae up?”

“Like what?” she said.

“Like the people who came and took the blown-up transformers away?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Did you ask to see the transformers?”

“No,” she said.

“Okay.”

She stopped walking, and he did too after a few paces. He turned to face her.

“What are you driving at, Puller?”

“Just asking questions and hoping to get some answers that make some sense.”

“What about the transformers?”

“Everybody thinks the storm blew them up.”

“And you don’t think that was the case?” she asked.

“I don’t think anything. I just follow the evidence. But a pretty simple examination of the transformers’ debris would have shown whether there was a bomb involved.”

“A bomb?” she said skeptically.

“A bomb,” he repeated. “Can’t blow something up without a few essential elements. The explosive, the detonator, a timer or a remote switch.”

“That I know. But your theory is someone blew up the transformers and sabotaged the backup generator in order to break your brother out of prison?” She paused, frowning. “You didn’t tell me you were a conspiracy freak.”

“And you think a storm just rolled along, blew out the main power, the backup coincidentally failed, and my brother walked out on his own, taking advantage of an opportunity that had occurred in just a few seconds while a company of MPs from Leavenworth was charging in? And for some reason the sounds of gunfire and an explosion just happened to coincide with it all going down? And an unidentified dead body left behind?” He cocked his head and looked at her more closely. “And I can tell from the expression on your face that you’ve already thought of this, which means everything that came before between you and me was an act on your part.”

She registered surprise. “Really? Based on an expression?”

He said, “I interrogate people for a living. Reading faces is part of that. People can lie with words, but their faces, and in particular their eyes, give them away. They always do. And yours just did. So what exactly is going on here?”

She tapped her heel against the floor, her arms folded across her chest. “This is a delicate situation,” she said. “Very delicate.”

He drew closer. “I can see that. But feel free to elaborate on the point.”

“I just know my marching orders were to tread lightly. And to work with you. And that’s what I intend to do.”

“Nothing more to add?” he asked.

“Not right now. Shall we go see to the visitors’ log?”

The visitors’ records at the DB were housed electronically. Puller and Knox were given access to them at a computer terminal in a cubicle adjacent to the visitors’ room. Puller had decided to go back at least six months and maybe longer if nothing stood out. They sat next to each other, knees occasionally touching because of their long legs and the cubicle’s small space.

After a while Knox said, “You were a pretty regular visitor to see your brother.”

“You have siblings?”

“No.”

“Well then, maybe it’s hard for you to understand.”

“Okay, but I don’t see anyone else who came to visit him, Puller. Again, other than you, that is.”

“Neither do I.”

“So now what? The log shows no calls came in to him, other than from you.”

Puller studied the screen. “But this really doesn’t tell us the whole story.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning computers only regurgitate what someone puts into them.”

He rose.

She looked up at him and said, “Now where?”

“To do some real investigative work.”

“Such as?”

“Such as talking to people.”

It took the better part of the rest of the day and they had to speak to numerous people and look at paper records and then talk to supervisory officers and then go back to people originally interviewed. When they were done it was nine p.m.

“You hungry?” said Puller.

She nodded. “Breakfast was a long time ago.”

“You know Leavenworth?”

“Not that well.”

“Well, I do. Come on.”

They drove in his car to a diner on the main street where everything on the menu was fried in grease that was probably as old as the building, which said “1953” on the wall over the entrance. They both ordered their meals. Puller had a beer, while Knox sipped on an iced tea heavy on the ice.

“What we’re about to eat will mean five extra miles on my morning run,” she said, giving a fake grimace.

“You’ve got some room to spare,” he noted. He took a sip of his cold beer. “Crew or basketball in college?”

“Both.”

“Impressive. Multiple sports in college, tough thing to pull off these days.”

“Well, it was over fifteen years ago and it was a small college. And crew was a club sport at Amherst.”

“Amherst. Great school.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And what brought you to the Army?”

“My mother.”

“She was in the Army?” asked Puller.

“No, my father was. He maxed out as a full colonel. Finished up at Fort Hood.”

“Okay, I’m not getting the reference to your mom, then.”

“She said anything my father could do I could sure as hell do better. They’re divorced,” she added, perhaps unnecessarily.

“I take it you don’t get along with your father?”

“You take it right.” She drank her iced tea through a straw and then fiddled with the paper the straw had been wrapped in. “I looked you up, of course.
Your
father is John Puller Sr.
Fighting
John Puller.”

“That’s what they call him.”

“A true legend.”

“They call him that too.”

“I hear he’s in a VA hospital.”

“He is.”

“Is he doing okay?”

Puller glanced away and then looked directly at her. “He’s doing. We all get old, right?”

“If we live that long.” She eyed the scar that ran along the side of his neck to the point where it dipped down his back. “Fallujah?” she asked, indicating the mark.

“Mosul. My Fallujah souvenir is on my ankle.”

“I did a tour over there too. Nothing on the front lines.” She added firmly, “Nothing to do with me. Everything to do with the Army.”

“I’ve heard that before,” said Puller. “No mark against you if they wouldn’t let you fight at the front.”

“Still a mark, Puller.”

“But things are changing. And fast.”

“Things
had
to change. Twenty-first century. No way around it.”

He raised his bottle of Coors in salute. “Agreed. Some of the toughest soldiers I ever served with were women.”

They remained silent until their meals came, and they didn’t speak as they ate them. When the plates were cleared Puller came back around to why they were really here.

“Did you see what I saw in the interviews and paper trail?” he asked.

“Tell me what you saw and I’ll answer you.”

“Let’s say the visitors’ log is accurate and I’m the only one who visited my brother during the last six months.”

“Okay.”

“If he didn’t talk to anyone else on the outside, then we need to look inward.”

“Someone at DB?”

Puller nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time a prisoner has been aided by someone on the other side of the cell door.”

“I’m pretty sure it would be the first time at DB.”

“And the computer system was hacked, ensuring the doors opened when the power blew. Now that definitely smacks of an inside hand.”

This was the other option Puller had been considering when Macri had told him about the suspected hacking.

“That makes sense,” agreed Knox.

“We need to talk to every guard who was on duty that night.”

“That’s a lot of guards.”

He sat back looking and feeling put off. “You got something else to do with your time?”

“No. So what would we be looking for?”

“An off answer, a look, a hesitation. And we need to comb through their histories, see if anything pops.”

“That could take a long time.”

Puller slapped the table with the palm of his hand. “I don’t care how long it takes, Knox. All I care about is setting this situation right.”

“And what exactly does that mean to you? Setting the situation right? Capturing your brother and returning him to prison safely?”

“What else would I mean?” he said slowly.

She studied him. “I wonder. But if this was an inside job, it might involve more than just a guard. And that for me is far-fetched.”

“It’s not far-fetched if it turns out to be true. Maybe the picture is a lot bigger than we think it is.”

“And maybe it isn’t.”

“Have you been briefed on my brother?”

“STRATCOM.”

Puller nodded. “And you know what that entails. That could be the motive right there. Our enemies snatch him for his brains, use what he knows against us.”

“So now you’ve moved on to spies?” she said skeptically. “A mole at DB?”

“Do you have another explanation?” he said tersely.

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t.”

“We still have no idea who the dead guy is or what he was doing there. I’ve made arrangements to see his body in the morning.”

“That is a puzzler,” she admitted. “I mean, how do you get into a prison and get yourself killed and no one sees or hears anything?”

“It might be easier than you think,” Puller said.

Knox looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead he said, “And who ordered you to babysit me?”

“I wasn’t ordered to babysit you!” she said sharply.

Puller ignored this. “Was it Schindler…Daughtrey…or Rinehart?”

Her face twitched at the last name.

“So, Lieutenant General Rinehart. Three stars do tend to capture a captain’s attention. Especially if you want to move up and beat your old man’s rank. Might be a nice shortcut career-wise.”

She looked away. “Puller, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re really off on this whole thing.”

He laid down some cash for his part of the meal. “I’m sure Rinehart will reimburse you for your dinner tonight. You were still on duty, after all.” He rose. “Hang in there.”

“Where are you going?”

“To bed.”

She didn’t say anything right away, just held her gaze on him. Finally Knox said, “Why don’t I believe that?”

They went their separate ways. Puller had not even asked where Knox was staying. He doubted it was at the same motel. There weren’t that many guests there; he probably would have seen her. He pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine, got out, and looked around. There were two other cars parked in the lot, neither of which had been here when he’d left in the morning. They were clunkers, both with out-of-state license plates. That didn’t bother him—his was an out-of-state plate too. This was probably a motel where folks traveling east or west, north or south would pull in for a night’s sleep before heading on. Being in the middle of the country, Kansas, he knew, got a lot of such traffic.

He jogged up the steps to his room on the second floor and walked along the exterior passage to his door.

The next moment he had pulled his M11 and curled his finger around the trigger guard.

His door was open, not by much but enough. He distinctly remembered locking it that morning after leaving the light on for his cat.

And this motel did not provide daily maid service. You’d never see the maid, because she only showed up when you checked out, if then.

He slid to the side of the door and eyed the gap. Not wide enough to see anything. He nudged it open farther with his foot. He had both hands on his weapon and the next moment was inside the room, in a crouch, his M11 making defensive arcs in the air as he looked for a target to fire on.

He didn’t find one. But he saw two things.

First, AWOL was curled up in a ball on the bed. Her slow breathing and languid toss of her tail showed him his pet was just fine.

The same could not be said of the person next to her on the bed.

Puller eyed the bathroom door and cleared that and the shallow closet before coming back over to the bed and looking down.

Air Force brigadier general Tim Daughtrey was quite dead.