Дэвид Балдаччи - The Escape

Shaking his head clear of these numbing thoughts, Puller decided to do what he did best.

Move forward. Whether it was on the battlefield or during an investigation, if you weren’t moving forward then what good were you? He got back into the car and drove off.

He spent two hours with Captain Lewis and his first sergeant. Neither one had counted the soldiers as they formed the response team. The platoons had simply been called up and deployed to restore order at the DB. Both men seemed genuinely surprised that there was an extra man aboard. Once in the prison the MPs had fanned out to each pod, executing orders previously given.

Puller had asked about pod three, where his brother’s cell had been. Neither man could give a ready answer as to what had gone down in that pod. They had not known about the dead man until long after the fact. None of their men had reported seeing anything out of the ordinary and certainly did not know that Robert Puller might have left the prison in the uniform of an MP decked out in riot gear. In fact, they were astonished at the possibility. Yet when Puller explained how it could have happened, both men conceded that they could not prove that it hadn’t happened.

He examined the area where the staging had been for the response team. It was big, open, and on that stormy night probably totally chaotic. He searched the quarters where Mesic had stayed, but a cleaning team had come in to get it ready for the next occupant, so Puller couldn’t even find a usable fingerprint. He had already determined that the rental car the Croatian had used had been leased out and was currently somewhere in Montana. Another dead end.

Puller next moved on to the DB. He sat in his brother’s cell on the bed where his brother had been reading his book before the power had gone out. He looked around the small room where his brother had spent twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours of his life. Small room, big mind. It was a wonder that one could contain the other. He eyed the door, trying to imagine what his brother was thinking when the lights had been extinguished.

Did he know what was about to happen? Did he prepare for it when the door opened? He had only a few seconds to determine what was going on. How could he have been sure the soldier who came through that door was there to kill him? Maybe he hadn’t been sure. Maybe he saw it as an opportunity to make his escape. Maybe he would have tried to kill whoever had come through that opening that night.

Puller tried to meet with Captain Macri, but she was not on duty. Mike Cardarelli, the officer who was at the command desk, agreed to answer a few questions. There was nothing that was helpful until Puller asked one last query about Cardarelli’s whereabouts on the night Robert Puller had escaped.

Cardarelli said, “I was actually supposed to be on duty that night, but Captain Macri switched places with me.”

Puller came fully alert. “Why was that?”

“She was supposed to be on duty the next night but had a family commitment that had changed. So we switched nights. I guess I should consider myself lucky. Everyone here that night took a professional hit.”

“What was the family commitment?” asked Puller.

“What?” asked Cardarelli.

“Macri’s family commitment that changed? What was it?”

“I…I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t ask.”

“Does Captain Macri have family here?”

“I don’t believe so. I just assumed they were coming in from somewhere else.”

“Does she live on base?”

Cardarelli shook his head. “No. She has an off-base town home.”

“I’ll need that address.”

Cardarelli gave it to Puller. As he rose, Puller said, “Any developments on the device that made the gun and explosion sounds in pod three that night?”

“None that I’ve heard of. It was the damnedest thing.”

“Yeah,” said Puller. “The damnedest thing.”

A few minutes later he hurried back to his car and accessed a military database on his laptop.

Lenora H. Macri’s photo and service record came up along with her personal history. Puller quickly read through it. Nothing struck him. She had a good record, no blemishes. When he flipped to the screens concerning her personal history, though, things became clearer, or more muddled, depending on how you looked at it.

Her parents were dead and she was an only child. So what were the family commitments that had changed?

And Macri had told him that she had not ordered a search of the guards for the noisemaking device. He had thought that peculiar and perhaps a professional gaffe. But by not conducting a search she had actually accomplished something. She had left available hundreds of suspects who could have smuggled such a device into the prison, and there was no way to prove now which of them might have done it. And by doing so, Macri, if she had been the one to bring the device into the prison, was also lost among a sea of potential suspects. And she might have had enough skill and access to override the security system at the prison, resulting in the cell doors opening rather than locking when the power went out.

He started the car and piloted it toward the address the officer had given him. He had strongly cautioned Cardarelli against phoning Macri and discussing anything that they had talked about. The real reason for the admonition was to ensure that Macri not be forewarned and possibly try to make a run for it.

Energized by perhaps finally having a lead in the case, he gunned the engine and made it to the subdivision on the outskirts of Leavenworth in record time. He parked in a spot where he could see her end-unit town home. He killed the engine and waited. There was a car parked in front of her place. He grabbed a pair of binoculars from his duffel and trained them on the car. Sure enough, hanging from the rearview mirror was a parking tag for the DB. This was her ride, a late-model silver Honda Civic.

His plan was to give it some time and see if she came out, and then he would follow her. If she didn’t come out he was going to conduct another interview with the woman with the goal of making her as uncomfortable as possible.

He waited an hour, but Macri did not leave her unit. He was about to get out of the car when another vehicle pulled in and parked next to Macri’s ride.

Puller’s eyes widened when he saw the person get out of the car and head up the steps to Macri’s home.

Veronica Knox was obviously no longer cooling her heels at the cemetery.

PULLER WATCHED AS KNOX rapped on the door and then rang the bell when no one answered. She looked around and Puller saw her hand dip into her jacket. She withdrew something he couldn’t see but assumed it was a lock pick. Her hands moved around the knob for a few seconds and then she opened the door and stepped in.

As soon as the door closed behind her Puller was out of his car and hustling down the street. He passed by the side of Macri’s house and went around to the back. It was a three-level structure with a deck above and a walk-out basement door below. The door was a slider. There were no curtains on it so Puller could see right inside. It was not built out; concrete foundation walls stared back at him along with stacked cardboard boxes.

The lock on the slider was a simple one and Puller was through the opening and over to the bottom of the stairs in a few seconds. He could hear footsteps above him, probably Knox looking around. And where was Macri? Her car was out front. But she had’t answered the door. Was she here or not?

The familiar firecracker pops signifying gunshots caused Puller to pull his M11, crouch down, and pause, listening. There had been two shots, along with other sounds. He had heard the first shot, then a crash of something hitting something, then the second shot, then a scream and finally a thud. Someone had gone down. Was it Knox? Or Macri, if she was even here?