Дэвид Балдаччи - The Escape

“So–” Puller began, but Knox beat him to it.

“So why did both counsel remember the case so well?” she asked.

“Landry in particular seemed to think that everything was too neat and clean. There was no question that your brother knew his way around technology. And yet they discovered all this evidence on his personal devices without a lot of effort.”

“So he thought it was planted. If so, did he raise that as a defense?”

Knox said, “He would have, except your brother testified that his personal devices could not be hacked by anyone. That anything found on there would have to come from him.”

Puller slapped his palm against the tabletop, causing both women to jump. “The idiot. He was proud over practical. He didn’t want to admit that someone had beaten him. He was the same way growing up. You might kick his butt once in something, but it would be the only time.”

Knox said, “A guilty man would never have done that. He would grab at every defense he could get.”

“Another reason Landry remembered the case so well. In point of fact, he’d never had an accused purposely torpedo a potential defense like that. Never. And yet your brother did without blinking an eye, apparently.”

“Maybe he never really believed he was going to be convicted,” said Knox.

“Well, he was wrong.”

“But there was an appeal, right?” said Knox.

“Whenever the penalty is the dismissal from the ranks of an officer, the Court of Criminal Appeals – in this case the one for the Air Force – automatically conducts one. Robert Puller’s case was reviewed and the lower judgment was upheld. No further action was taken on his behalf. Any other appeal would take some work to initiate, which he never did.”

Puller fingered his coffee cup. “So he protested his innocence strongly. He never told me that. I wonder why?”

Knox shrugged. “There could be lots of reasons.”

“I can’t believe my brother would ever sell secrets.”

“But he would be in a position to transmit secrets to the enemy. And if he did he might not have done it for money despite the gambling piece,” pointed out Knox.

“What, he’s like that Snowden guy and wants to transform what he thinks is a bad system by outing it to the world from a safe distance away?”

“Well, he obviously didn’t do it like Snowden,” said Kirk. “The court found he did it for the money.”

Puller put down his cup. “But we can’t lose sight of the fact that someone may have been sent to DB to kill my brother. Since then an Air Force general at STRATCOM has been murdered and Knox here had to shoot an Army captain who might have been involved in the attempt on my brother’s life. If he was guilty and safely in prison, why all the attention now?”

Kirk nearly choked on her coffee. She stared over at Knox. “You did what?”

“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.”