The Escape (23 page)

T
HEY HAD MADE
an eight o’clock appointment to meet with Todd Landry, Robert Puller’s former defense counsel. He was at his downtown office in Charlotte, only a short walk from the Ritz.

A secretary led them back to a small conference room in the rear of the office space. As they walked along, Puller took in the blond wood and tasteful artwork and felt his feet sink into the thick carpet. He noted the elaborate layout of cubicles where people looked as busy as bees in a honeycomb as they toiled away on whatever legal conundrum they were confronting.

Landry greeted them at the door of the conference room. He was about five-eight, thin, with a ring of grayish hair encircling the crown of his head. He wore a dark double-breasted suit and a paisley tie fronting a light blue patterned shirt. Puller also noted the gold monogrammed links on the French cuffs.

A man careful about his appearance.

Landry had retained his military bearing in the ramrod-straight posture, firm handshake, and take-charge demeanor.

“Have a seat. I’m sure you want to get down to it. Coffee, water?”

“No, thanks,” said Puller, and Knox shook her head.

They all sat as Landry unbuttoned his suit coat and waited.

“I suppose you know why we’re here,” began Puller.

“Robert Puller. Can’t believe he got out of DB. I thought he was innocent, you know. Can’t say that about most of my clients. I guess I was wrong about him.”

“Maybe you weren’t,” said Puller. “We’ve uncovered enough to make us concerned that an innocent man was indeed sent to prison.”

“Then why escape?”

“We really can’t get into that, but we can tell you that there are extenuating circumstances.”

“Okay, I know I’m not in the military anymore and my need-to-know is pretty nonexistent, but you had some questions nonetheless?”

“We’ve met with Doug Fletcher already,” said Knox.

Landry nodded. “Good guy, good lawyer. He’s teaching at JAG now in Charlottesville.”

“Right. And you spoke with Shireen Kirk?” said Puller.

Landry smiled. “I hated going up against her. She kicked my ass more times than I care to admit. I hope she never moves to Charlotte and goes into private practice.”

“We appreciated your being so frank with her.”

Landry nodded in understanding. “Look, it was a strange case all around. None of it made sense. I know the evidence showed online gambling as the motive, and he had the means and opportunity, but I never bought that. That all can be fabricated quite easily. If Robert hadn’t been so egotistical about someone hacking his computer the verdict might have been different. Maybe not, but at least we would have had a fighting chance.”

“We understand there was a letter from Robert’s father,” said Knox, drawing a quick glance from Puller.

Landry eyed Puller. “From
your
father too. I know who you are.”

“Yes.”

“Your brother said you were the best investigator the DoD had. Really proud of you.”

“It was mutual,” said Puller.

Landry nodded. “The letter carried great weight. And I believe it’s the only reason the charge got changed from spying to espionage. Life versus death.”

“Did my brother see the letter?” asked Puller.

Landry hesitated. “No.”

“Why not?” Puller demanded.

“Because his—your father didn’t want him to. Those were the conditions under which the letter could be viewed by the judge to lower the charges.”

“So my father didn’t want my brother to know of his involvement?”

“I suppose not. I thought it was unusual, of course. But I was powerless to do anything about it. I was a soldier then, Agent Puller. I did what I was told. So did Doug Fletcher.”

Puller sat back, digesting this and shaking his head.

“And Robert Puller talked about threats to his family?” prompted Knox.

Landry eyed Puller. “Did you know about that?”

“I was deployed overseas at the time. Combat zone. Didn’t make it back stateside until after my brother had been convicted and sent to DB.”

“He talked about you a lot with me. Not in connection with the case. Just talked. He was very worried that you would think badly of him. Not because he’d done anything wrong. He believed himself innocent all the way through. But just because, well, it had brought dishonor onto the family.”

“I visited him at DB. Quite often.”

“I’m sure those visits meant a lot to him.”

Knox interjected, “But did he provide you with any more details about the threats?”

“He told me that a letter had been slipped under his pillow in his cell.”

“So someone at the prison must have put it there,” said Knox.

“One would think so. He showed it to me. It was all block print, so anyone could have done it. That’s why the letter would have been dubious to use as evidence. The prosecution could have argued he did it himself. But I never got a chance to try because Robert refused to allow me to do so. That’s what convinced me that the letter was legitimate. Someone was using the threat of violence against his family to influence how he was defending himself at the trial. He wouldn’t testify. He wouldn’t really let me do my job from that moment forward. The conviction was a foregone conclusion. The panel only took an hour of deliberation before returning the guilty verdict.”

“I see,” said Puller.

“It’s curious, though. I mean, with what happened yesterday in D.C.,” said Landry.

Both Knox and Puller looked at him strangely.

“What happened in D.C.?” asked Knox.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you would have heard. An old colleague of mine from D.C. called me last night. He’d seen it on the news. There was a brief article about it in
USA Today
this morning, but I don’t think it’s gotten much media traction yet. Since it was connected to your brother’s case, I just thought the timing was odd.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Puller.

“Niles Robinson, you know who he is?”

“He worked with my brother and testified against him at the trial. We spoke with him recently.”

“Well, that was a good thing, then.”

“Why?” asked Knox.

“Only that it would be impossible to speak with him now. He was shot dead at Union Station last night.”

Puller and Knox exchanged a quick glance. Puller said, “Niles Robinson? You’re sure it was the same man connected to my brother’s case?”

“Absolutely. They had a photo of him in the article. It was clearly him. I recognized him immediately from when he was on the witness stand. I spent a long time cross-examining him on his story, but I really couldn’t make any headway. For what it’s worth, he seemed genuinely sorry to be testifying against Robert.”

“I’m sure he was,” said Puller tightly.

Knox said, “Did they get the shooter?”

“Not according to what I read. My friend said the news story in D.C. placed Robinson at a phone bank at the train station. Odd, since, I mean, who uses a pay phone these days? I’m surprised they still have them.”

“I wonder if he was there to take a train somewhere?” asked Puller.

Knox shot him a curious glance.

“Don’t know,” said Landry. “I guess if they find a ticket on him that will answer that question.”

“Anything else that you can add?” asked Knox.

“Only to reiterate that I always believed Robert was innocent. But the evidence just didn’t cut our way. There were the photos provided by Robinson, his corroborating testimony, the computer files showing the online gambling and the debts, the financial paper trail. And then there was the DVD and the other coworker’s testimony. What was her name again?”

“Susan Reynolds,” supplied Puller.

“Right. She was a rock on the witness stand. But unlike Robinson, she, um—”

“Didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that she was helping to send my brother to prison for the rest of his life?”

Landry pointed at him. “Exactly. In fact, she seemed rather happy about it.” Landry shook his head. “Not a pleasant woman. Tough, ruthless even. Definitely not someone I would choose to hang out with. I investigated her, of course, to see if I could find any ammo to hit her with on the stand. But there was nothing there.”

“Well, maybe we’ll be more fortunate,” said Puller. He rose and extended his hand. “Thank you for your time.”

“No, thank
you
. And I hope the truth finally comes out,” said Landry. “And if your brother is innocent he shouldn’t have to spend one more minute in prison.”

They said their goodbyes as Knox looked worriedly at Puller.

A few minutes later they were walking back to the hotel.

Knox said, “Robinson dead. That’s a stunner.”

“Maybe not so much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why would he go to the train station and be on a pay phone?”

Knox thought for a moment. “He was communicating with someone and they didn’t want to be seen together or have their cell phones tracked?”

“So who was he talking to when someone killed him?”

“Could be a lot of possibilities.”

“Maybe not as many as you think. He could communicate with the people who paid for his son’s treatment any number of ways. The pay phone, on the other hand, would be the perfect way for someone who couldn’t afford to be seen with Robinson to communicate with him without the risk that the conversation could be tracked.”

“Wait a minute, are you saying—”

“That it was my brother on the other end of that call.”

“But why would he talk to Robinson?”

“Robinson felt guilty about what he did. You heard Landry. I’m sure my brother noted that when Robinson testified. Maybe he thought that Robinson would be receptive to the truth finally coming out, if only to alleviate his guilt.”

“Do you think he might have figured out Robinson’s motive?”

“The sick child? Maybe. I saw the photo in Robinson’s office. My brother could have too, because I’m sure it would have been in Robinson’s office back in KC. You have to understand that my brother misses nothing. He sees it all. Never forgets anything. Now we need to find out everything about Robinson’s death.”

“So who killed him? Your brother? Maybe Robinson wouldn’t cooperate.”

“If that were my brother’s plan he wouldn’t have picked a place like Union Station. Too many people around. And he’s not a cold-blooded killer. He could kill someone in self-defense, like at DB, but not over distance when he was in no personal danger. I think Robinson was followed, and when the follower saw what was going on he took the guy out.”

“And your brother?”

“I have no way of knowing what Robinson told him. If he did tell him something that might have led Bobby on to something else.”

“What about Susan Reynolds? You think he’s going to visit her?”

“Maybe, if he hasn’t already.”

“Don’t you think we would have heard if he had?”

“Not necessarily. If Reynolds is on someone else’s payroll then she might not want her official superiors to know because it would direct attention onto her. She might have only told her coconspirators. Or maybe she did tell people and no one bothered to tell us. Or she called Robinson and told him. I guess that’s all possible.”

As they were walking along, Puller’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and his demeanor changed.

“Bad news?” asked Knox, who was watching him closely.

“Doug Fletcher was as good as his word.”

“What?”

“He just sent me the copy of the letter my dad filed with the court during Bobby’s court-martial.”

Knox put a hand on Puller’s arm. “Look, you go up to your room, finish packing up, read your letter, take all the time you need. I’ll check out and be down in the lobby waiting.”

Puller looked across at her. “I appreciate that.” He hesitated. “And I’m sorry that I was shitty to you this morning.”

“Forget it. I’m not a morning person myself. And I can be an asshole too.”

“You said you weren’t close to your dad, but do you ever see him?”

“That would be kind of hard, because he’s dead.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“He drank too much, withered away, fell into depression, ended up all alone, and ate a round from a Glock without bothering to leave behind a note.”

“Damn, that must have been tough.”

“Not as much as you might think. We’d been estranged a long time by then.”

“Still, he was your father.”

“Actually, in my mind at least, he had lost that title. It’s not supposed to be simply granted, Puller, because a sperm happened to hit an egg. You have to earn it. He chose not to. And he suffered the consequences. It’s incredibly sad, but it wasn’t my choice, it was his.”

“I admire the fact you can be so…analytical about it.”

“That only happens after you spend about ten years of your life crying about it. Once the emotions are gone, analytics are all you have left.”

But as she said this Knox turned away from him and stared directly in front of her.

They had reached the hotel by now and she pushed him toward the entrance. “Go do what you have to do. I’m going to run next door to the pharmacy and pick up some things I need. Meet you in the lobby.”

Puller looked at her for a moment and then walked into the hotel.

Knox looked frantically around for a few moments and then spotted the narrow alleyway behind the hotel. She slid into it, turned away from the street, and began to cry.

R
OBERT PULLER SAT
in a seedy motel room next to a strip mall on Route 1 in south Alexandria staring at the beaten-down strip of carpet but not really seeing it.

Last night he had watched Niles Robinson’s brains being splattered on the wall at Union Station. He had worked with Robinson for several years at STRATCOM, first in Nebraska and then in Kansas. He had considered Robinson a friend. He had watched the man on the witness stand testifying against him. He had seen that his friend was mired in conflict over what he was doing.

While Puller had been sitting in the courtroom that day when Robinson was on the stand, his mind had visited Robinson’s office, going over everything in it. In the odd way his brain worked, once Puller saw something it always stayed with him, safely ensconced in a little corner of his gray matter.

In his mental meandering he had stopped at the photograph of Ian Robinson when he had been sick, head shaven and tubes running all over his frail body. Puller and Niles had talked often about the boy, his condition and dire prognosis. It had been heartbreaking, truly. And while he couldn’t agree with what Niles had done, he could understand why he had done it.

But now, while Ian would grow up, he would do so without his father.

And Puller was blaming himself for that. Robinson had been followed. Puller should have anticipated that possibility. Yet he had never envisioned that they would have killed the man in such a public place.

But he could do nothing for Robinson now. And what Robinson had told him was tantalizing. Some didn’t like the fact that Puller was being groomed for great things in the intelligence field. But could it be just that? Maybe Robinson didn’t know the whole story.

Ruining my career and putting me in prison just because you didn’t like me or were jealous? No, there had to be something else. And what did he mean by he “had tried to make it right”? How?

Puller lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling now instead of the threadbare carpet. He couldn’t make heads or tails of what Robinson had meant, so he moved on.

Puller had headed east because of a change in command at STRATCOM. Daughtrey was moved up and brought on. And then he was murdered. With the reassignment, other changes had taken place in the pecking order of command. Chiefly, Martin Able had gotten his fourth star and become head of the NSA. It was a plum assignment.

Yet maybe not so much now. The NSA was embroiled in controversy after the Snowden revelations. The former NSA operative had accused the agency of conduct that was unprecedented and that had cast a shadow over the whole intelligence community of the United States.

Puller had not been directly involved with the NSA during his time at STRATCOM, though the agencies worked closely together. But the revelations that had come out over the past year or so had not been related to a drastic sea change in how the NSA did its job. The recently publicized and now denounced tactics and surveillance had long been in place.

Many people would not have wanted those revelations to come out, but come out they still had. And that’s where Puller had made his miscalculation. He had suspected his old boss, Martin Able. That was why he had headed east. But this could have nothing to do with the issues at the NSA, and by extension, STRATCOM. He was sitting in a cell at the DB and had been for over two years. All during that time no one had bothered with him. No one.

And then recently a man had come into the prison with the task of killing him. There had to be a reason. And if he could just figure out that reason, he could by extrapolation figure out everything else.

So that brought him back to those people Robinson had mentioned, who did not want to see Puller move ahead and eventually land the top spot. That couldn’t have included Martin Able. He had been well on his way to heading the NSA. And he had clearly wanted Puller to succeed; his mentoring had shown that.

Now, Susan Reynolds had obviously been no fan of Puller’s and had conspired to do him in for money and perhaps a professional grudge. But she couldn’t be the leading force behind this. She didn’t have the position or brains.

At this point Puller’s thoughts turned elsewhere. To the gap that existed between Daughtrey, the one-star, and Able, the now four-star. When he had left STRATCOM, it had opened up the top spot there. A quick Google search had told Puller that an admiral had taken over Able’s job at STRATCOM. He had not been promoted internally, but had come in from another command. Below him at the leadership level was a three-star who was deputy commander, a chief of staff who was a two-star, and a command sergeant major who was the senior enlisted leader.

It didn’t stop there. There were also the HQ and component commanders, which was composed of a hodgepodge of three-stars, two-stars, and one-stars, rear admirals, colonels, majors, captains, and also civilians. It was a bewildering array of possible suspects, each of them doing the professional dance, hoping to move up in rank and power before the music stopped.

Puller opened his laptop and went online. He studied the professional bios of each of these people, running his eye down the list again and again hoping that something would pop.

He had one critical time point.

The decision to kill me at DB. What happened to trigger that? It would have taken planning, say a couple of months to manage all the necessary details. The trigger for it could have come anytime before that, I just don’t know how long before it. But I have another critical point that might lead me in the right direction.

He hacked a secure database to search for Susan Reynolds’s internal and nonpublic c.v.

She had had many assignments over a government career spanning more than twenty-five years. Her academic background was spectacular and she held advanced degrees, despite being a young mother. She had worked herself up to a managerial position, though he doubted she had the horsepower or connections to get to the SES level before she retired, but she might. She had had stints overseas and had been in war zones. She had even served on interrogation teams in the field and was an expert on techniques to get information from people who did not want to provide it. Well, he could certainly see her tightening the thumbscrews on someone. And perhaps her affinity for weapons had helped her there. He went back further in her record. She had had stints in Eastern Europe and South Korea, among others. And, as she had mentioned when he was in her home, many years ago she had been part of a START verification team for nuclear arms reduction with the Soviet Union.

She had joined the WMD Center four months ago. Puller could have thought of five far more likely professional homes to which she could have been assigned.

So why WMD?

He looked up the leadership for the center. It wasn’t a military person. The current head was Donovan Carter, a civilian and an SES, or member of the elite senior executive service, which roughly paralleled the rank of general or admiral in the armed forces. And Puller knew that Carter also headed up the far larger DTRA, which held a very prominent position in keeping America safe from WMDs.

Puller knew Carter professionally. They had never worked directly together, but they had met on several occasions.

Carter had come on board at the center and DTRA at roughly the same time that Susan Reynolds had been assigned there. So they were at Fort Belvoir together. DTRA employed a lot of people, and Fort Belvoir was vast, and Reynolds was only a small component of this enterprise.

There’s another critical time component. They set me up and got rid of me at STRATCOM right before my next promotion.

He was slated to go from a major to lieutenant colonel. From there his trajectory was predictable in rank: colonel, one-star, two-star, and on up. What was unpredictable was the timing. There were standards for how long between promotions, including minimum time in a particular grade, training requirements for duty performance. And there were additional hurdles to jump for special promotions. This was meritocracy at its finest. And Puller had always been a fast riser, marked for the stars on his shoulders almost as soon as he had left the Air Force Academy at the top of his class, the second-ranked classmate far behind.

And then a possibility hit him.

As a lieutenant colonel at STRATCOM he was to be transferred to Bolling AFB in Washington, D.C., and assigned to the Joint Forces Central Command’s Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, or ISR, a component of STRATCOM.

Puller knew that all these acronyms would drive most civilians mad. But for most of his adult life it had been all he had known, becoming a language he could navigate as easily as he could recite the alphabet or know the order of medals and ribbons on the front of a uniform.

At ISR he would have been under the tutelage of a two-star. He also would have had a direct pipeline into the intelligence infrastructure of the United States by virtue of the NSA being only a short drive north into Maryland at Fort Meade.

Could it be possible?

He went back to take a look at Donovan Carter’s c.v. It didn’t take him long to find it. Two years ago to the week, Carter had been assigned to ISR.

Then he checked Susan Reynolds’s work history.

And then it all came together like embers finally igniting and producing a flame.

She had been assigned, along with Carter, to ISR. Now Carter was at the WMD Center and so was Reynolds.

So had they set him up so he wouldn’t get the promotion and be moved to Bolling, where he would have been working with Donovan Carter? If so, why? And who had taken his slot at Bolling?

Something crept out of a storage place in his brain and marched out in front of his eyes. He checked his laptop just to confirm that he was right. There was no room for mistakes now.

When he saw it come up on the screen the jigsaw pieces started to fit together even more precisely. Carter, Reynolds, and this person.

Puller’s slot at Bolling had been taken by a man who then held the rank of colonel. He had since been promoted to brigadier general. A few days ago his career and life had ended in Kansas.

His name was Timothy Daughtrey.