Дэвид Балдаччи - The Escape

“Well, he is a junior,” said Robert. “He’s named after our father.”

“But you’re the older son,” pointed out Knox. “Why aren’t you the junior? ”

“It’s not always the oldest that’s called junior,” pointed out Robert. “And our mother named me,” he added. “Her brother’s name was Robert.”

Knox gave Puller a quick glance but said nothing. Puller didn’t look at her. His gaze was on the target up ahead.

“What I think, Bobby,” said Puller, apparently choosing to ignore the discussion around his nickname, “is that the approach to the cabin on all sides is entirely open. The ground is flat; there is no cover. You wouldn’t have to be an Olympic-caliber shot to pick us off easily enough.”

“But it’s foggy and it’s dark,” pointed out Knox. “That favors us.”

“If I were Reynolds I’d have some sort of perimeter security. We trip that and then we’re sitting ducks. Later-generation NVGs work just fine even in the fog. I bet she has them in there, and we don’t.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here,” retorted Knox. “This is your area of expertise, Puller. Pretend you’re back in Kandahar and trying to clear a house. What would you do?”

He studied the area ahead for a couple of minutes. “Okay, what we can do is split up and approach on three sides.” He pointed up ahead. “This is the east side, which faces the back of the cabin. I think we should approach from the west, north, and south, meaning the front and two sides, because her natural instinct might be to guard her rear flank.”

Robert said, “On the south side the foothills pick up again and the land starts to rise. I doubt she would be expecting someone coming from that direction.”

“Well, then let’s just hit it from that way,” said Knox.

Puller shook his head. “We can’t put all our eggs in one basket. Unless she has a bunch of other shooters in there with her, she can only defend one position at a time.” He pointed at Robert. “You circle around, Bobby, and approach from the south. I’ll go from the west, which faces the front of the cabin, and Knox, you go in from the north.”

“How do we communicate and coordinate?” asked Robert. “My phone still has no bars.”

Puller said, “We’ll be close enough to use a quick flash of phone light to communicate. We’ll each do one flash when we get in position. After that, I’ll flash twice when I’m ready to approach the cabin. Do a sixty-second countdown from that point. And then we attack.”

Knox smiled at him in the dark. “See? You do adapt well to conditions on the ground.”

He ignored this and said, “And it’s confirmed that she is there?”

“Her car is in the driveway. It’s confirmed.”

“Roger that,” said Puller. “Okay, let’s hit it. But keep your head down, move slowly and methodically. And watch for my signal.” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes to get in position. That should be plenty for you, Bobby. You have the farthest to go.”

Robert headed off. Before she left Puller, Knox said in a joking tone, “So do I call you Junior now?”

Puller said curtly, “No one called me Junior except my brother and my father. And my mother. And my father doesn’t call me anything anymore except ‘XO.’”

Knox’s smile faded, and she gave a curt nod and set off.

Puller gazed around one last time. He didn’t like any of this. He had sized up many potential battlegrounds and his instincts had been honed to a fine degree. Everything about this was problematic. Their intelligence about the target was spotty and now the communication chain was broken. They had no idea what awaited them inside the cabin. Knox said it was confirmed that Reynolds was in there, but for Puller there was no real certainty about that.

However, the plan had been set, the forces deployed, the intel was what it was, as was the terrain they were confronting. He checked his M11 and set off, quickly making his way to his designated compass point and then squatting down in the high grass that was situated about fifty feet from the cabin.

He studied the structure in the poor light. One room was illuminated. He was facing the front door. The lighted room was to the left of that. Whether a bedroom or perhaps the kitchen, he didn’t know.

Reynolds’s Lexus was in the small gravel drive to the left of the front door. At least that much was confirmed to him. The cabin was small, rustic, with a front porch that ran about halfway along the front. The door was wood, the siding the same. It was unpainted. What bothered Puller the most about this was it didn’t match what he believed Reynolds to be.

She was a woman who obviously liked fine things and had the money to pursue those likes. So why a crappy cabin in the middle of nowhere? Just as a clandestine meeting place? He didn’t think so. And how could Reynolds have allowed herself to be so easily followed?

Everything about this seemed out of whack, but they were ready to execute. He checked his watch and watched the second hand sweep to the five-minute mark. When it reached it, he pulled his phone and gave a quick flash of the light. A second passed and then he saw a corresponding flash from the right and then the left. They were all in position. He immediately started to count off sixty seconds on his watch. At fifty-eight, he tensed his legs and readied his weapon. At fifty-nine he was starting to move. At sixty he commenced a zigzag trek to the front porch, keeping low and to the side, never exposing himself full on to sightlines from the cabin’s front.

The light in the house never went off. No other lights came on. No shadows moved in front of that light. He could hear no sounds other than the occasional scurry of an animal in the nearby woods, and his own heartbeat.

Then he was on the porch and standing with his back to the left of the front door. It was a simple door lock. Again, that seemed off. He checked up, down, and along the eaves of the roofline. No surveillance cameras. He had encountered no tripwires. If the porch had a pressure plate embedded in it that would trigger an alarm, it must have been a silent one.

He faced the door and kicked right at where the lock met the frame. The door crashed inward and he was through the opening, his M11 making broad, precise sweeps in front of him.

To the left and right he heard glass crashing inward, then footsteps.

An instant later Bobby appeared in the hall to his left.

“Clear my way,” he said to his brother.

They both headed to the right.

They started to run when they heard the shots fired.

“Knox!” called out Puller.

They kicked open doors and cleared rooms until a few seconds later they reached the last room. The door was partially open. And the light was on.

Puller pushed the door open fully and he and his brother filled the doorway, their guns pointed in front of them.

There was glass from the broken window on the floor.

Reynolds was sitting up in her bed, holding her shoulder, and blood was streaming down her left arm.

Knox had her gun pointed at the other woman’s head. She glanced at Puller. “I had the misfortune to fall right into her bedroom,” she explained.

She pointed to the gun on the floor. “She drew down on me and fired, but I’m the better shot, I guess. Even if I’m not an Olympian,” she added, casting Reynolds a snide look. She pointed at the bullet lodged in the wall near the windowsill.

“Never doubted it,” said Puller with a grin.

She eyed Reynolds’s bloody arm. “You want to triage her? I’m no good at that.”

Puller kept his weapon out and walked over to Reynolds.

She looked up at him, pain in her eyes. “She tried to kill me.”

“I’m sure she had a great reason.”