The Escape

by David Baldacci

  on Robert Puller.

  “Point two: Like your brother, I don’t believe you’re guilty. But you were convicted and sentenced, which means, in the eyes of the military, you are guilty.”

  Robert still remained silent.

  “So we get to point three: The real traitors are still out there. And we have to catch them. And I plan on using you as bait to do it. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you,” she added. “That’s the quid pro quo for me not turning you in right now.”

  Robert looked at his brother.

  Puller said, “Have you really thought this through, Knox? There’s a lot more that can go wrong with it than right.”

  She looked at him incredulously. “Are you really going to lecture me on the pros and cons of risk-taking after the crap you pulled with him?”

  Puller shook his head. “I had to do that out of necessity. You have a choice. And you need to make the right one. Meaning the right one for you. I made my bed. Don’t be concerned about what’s going to happen to me.”

  “You could both just turn me in,” said Robert. “In fact, from your perspective that would be the best plan. You’ll get a promotion, a medal, and a pay bump.”

  “I’m not really into promotions, medals, and money,” Knox retorted. She looked at Puller. “I’m more into getting my job done. How about you? Or would you rather turn your brother in so they can pin another ribbon on your manly chest?”

  “What do you think, Knox?” asked Puller.

  “So to be clear, do I take that as a yes?” she replied.

  “Just tell us the plan.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I want to confront Reynolds.”

  “We’ve confronted her before,” countered Puller.

  “Right. But now you guys just left a litter of wreckage across D.C. I’m betting that the cops are going to find somebody alive in either the Benz or the SUV.”

  “So?” asked Puller.

  “So Reynolds won’t know whether they did or not. She won’t know whether one of her goons has fingered her. We can go in with that leverage and squeeze her until she breaks.”

  “I’m not sure that will work,” noted Puller. “She’s a tough nut to crack.”

  “There’s something else,” said Robert. They both looked at him.

  “What?” asked Knox.

  “When I interrogated her I asked her who she was working with.”

  “What did she say?” demanded Knox.

  “That she was working with the Russians. I have it on my phone recorder.”

  “I believe you. But what’s the point?” said Knox.

  “When she said it, her micro-expression betrayed her. I was watching her reflection in a mirror I set up.”

  “How did it betray her?” asked Puller.

  “Her eyebrows were drawn upward, causing short lines across the forehead.”

  “Characteristic of someone lying,” said Knox.

  “She also touched her nose.”

  “The nose?” said Knox. “Haven’t heard of that one.”

  Puller said, “When you lie a rush of adrenaline to the capillaries in the nose causes it to itch. So people who are lying tend to involuntarily scratch it.”

  Robert nodded. “Right. But I checked her c.v. Reynolds worked on interrogation teams in the Middle East extracting intelligence out of people, hardened people who did not want to give it up. She taught interrogation tactics as well.”

  Puller said, “So she would know the micro-expression and that nose scratching when answering a question would signal a lie.”

  Robert said, “Correct. And she knew I had training in reading faces as well. Many of us did at STRATCOM. And she must have seen the mirror I was using. But she screwed up, I just didn’t see it until later.”

  “How?” asked Knox.

  “Though I knew she was lying to me throughout, this was the only time she exhibited those indicators. She truly has impressive self-control.”

  Puller said, “So when she answered, ‘Russia’?”

  “She was actually telling the truth,” finished Knox.

  “That’s what I think, yes. She was playing it too cute, actually. Often people who think they are more intelligent than anyone else do that. It would have been better if she had done the nose touching and micro-expressions throughout, to confuse me.”

  “So if the Russians are involved in this, it must be big,” said Puller. “Whatever it is.”

  Knox added, “In fact it seems over the last several years that Moscow has been able to read our collective minds. They seemed to be always a step ahead of us. In a million different ways.”

  “Well, if they had Tim Daughtrey as a mole at STRATCOM allowing them a back door into our secure communications that’s quite understandable,” said Robert.

  “I think Reynolds has been spying on us for a long time,” said Knox. “Maybe ever since her days on the START verification team. She could have been turned to their side during that time.”

  “Where exactly do you want to do this?” asked Puller. “Her house is being watched. Donovan Carter told us that. So that’s out. If you want Bobby to tag along, we can’t confront her at DTRA, for obvious reasons. So that’s out.”

  Knox held up her phone. “I’ve been having Reynolds followed.”

  “Since when?” asked Puller.

  “Since she got the upper hand on us at her house,” said Knox.

  “And where is she right now? Did she leave the restaurant and go home?”

  “No.” Knox stared at her phone screen. “She has another house. A cabin, actually, a ninety-minute ride west of here in Virginia.”

  “And she’s on her way there?”

  “She’s almost there right now.”

  “A cabin?” asked Robert. “She must have a purpose for it.”

  “She may use it as a safe rendezvous spot,” noted Knox. “And she might be meeting with whoever she’s partnering with on this. If so, I’d love to nail them all.”

  Puller rose. “Then let’s get going.”

  Knox rose too and put a hand on his arm. “But let’s get one thing straight. I’m running this op, not you, certainly not your brother. You will follow my lead at all times. Are we clear on that? Whatever it is, you will follow my lead.”

  The Puller brothers glanced at each other. Robert nodded and then so did Puller.

  Knox eyed them both for another long moment, seemed satisfied, turned, and led them out of the room.

  John Puller muttered to his brother, “Why do I always end up running smack into the hard-ass women?”

  “Heard that,” called out Knox.

  CHAPTER

  62

  PULLER DROVE WHILE Robert sat next to him. Knox was in the back giving directions while glancing at her phone screen from time to time. It was now quite late and they had left D.C. and the suburbs of northern Virginia behind. They could just make out the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains up ahead. Puller turned off the highway and the car continued to roll along on surface roads that grew increasingly rougher and narrower.

  “How much farther?” asked Puller.

  “Looks to be about ten minutes. I’ll tell you when we get close enough to ditch the car. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

  “Where are your folks who are tailing her?” asked Puller.

  “Stationed to the north and west of the cabin but a hundred yards back, forming a perimeter.”

  “How many are there, in case we need some backup?”

  “Two teams of three. Loaded.”

  “Well, let’s hope we won’t need them,” said Robert.

  About six minutes later she had Puller stop the car and they pulled over to the side of the road.

  Knox’s fingers flew over her phone’s keys but the text didn’t go. She stared at the loading bar on the screen. It seemed stalled halfway through the operation.

  “Reception is shitty around here,” she complained. She punched in a number on the phone. It didn’t go through.
>
  “I’ve got no bars,” said Puller, glancing at his phone.

  “I don’t either,” said Knox. “Okay, we’ll just have to wing this. But there are three of us and only one of her.”

  Puller gripped her arm. “This mission is too important to just wing it. We need reliable communication up here or else we could be divided and taken out one by one.”

  “We’ll stick together as long as we can. Then we can figure out a way to communicate.”

  “I don’t like this, Knox.”

  “Are you telling me whenever you were in combat the conditions were perfect?”

  “Of course not, combat is never perfect.”

  “Then what did you do, soldier?”

  “He adapted,” answered Robert. “And so will we. Let’s go.”

  They climbed out of the car, their guns drawn. There were no homes on this road, which edged higher into a crevice between two of the foothills where the land flattened out. A fog had started to spread.

  “The ground conditions aren’t great,” said Puller to Knox.

  Robert said, “And keep in mind that, as Reynolds clearly pointed out to you both, she has guns and is really good at using them.”

  “Especially long-range sniping,” said Knox grimly. “Olympic-caliber.”

  “Well, then we can’t give her the chance to deploy that particular skill,” said Puller.

  Knox led the way up the road, staring at her phone screen as she did so. Puller noted this and drew next to her.

  “Memorize where we’re going, Knox, and then turn the damn phone off. It’s like a spotter beacon right into your chest.”

  She nodded, did a quick but focused study of the screen, and clicked her phone off.

  They moved up the road and then Knox led them to the right, over a stretch of ground that was uneven, rocky, and slippery. However, all three were surefooted and made their way across it without trouble.

  They had progressed another five hundred yards when Knox held up her hand and stopped. The two men drew next to her. She pointed up ahead. In the distance about another hundred yards to the east they could make out a dim light.

  “That has to be the cabin up there,” she said, pointing at the light. “It’s the only structure around here.”

  Puller gazed around on all compass points before returning to the light.

  His brother looked at him and said, “What do you think, Junior?”

  “Junior?” said Knox staring at Puller. “That’s your brother’s name for you?”

  “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