CHAPTER
7
WI-FI WAS UP and working. And so was Robert Puller. While the enormous machinery of the United States military, along with the even bigger intelligence octopus that spread outward from the CIA and the NSA, was searching for him, arguably the most wanted man in America was sipping an unleaded grande Americano with raw sugar mixed in and pounding away on his Apple MacBook Pro with fingers as nimble as a teenager’s. And he’d been here doing this for most of the day.
It was a bit tricky, because as most Americans with an Internet connection or cell phone knew these days, they were watching. And they could come and get you anytime they wanted.
But Robert Puller knew his way around computers and every known way to trace, hack, or spy on their users. And his laptop had been expressly programmed and loaded with software and unique protections not available to the public. There were no back doors for the NSA to pixel-creep up on him. There were no back doors period. Except the ones he had planted in other databases before he went to prison, and was now exploiting to the fullest. Being at STRATCOM all those years had left him in a unique position to hack everybody. And to do it with style, he admitted to himself as he finished off the grande and looked over the other patrons of the Starbucks, where fancied-up java was not merely a beverage but also a way of life. He had already read all the news stories related to his escape. He had been lucky, that was for sure. But it hadn’t been all luck.
The news reports were full of facts. No real details on the hunt, beyond the painfully obvious. Checkpoints, house-to-house searches, watching airports, bus and train stations, asking the public for help, etcetera, etcetera. Pictures of him were all over the Web. If nothing else, they were a stark reminder of how much his appearance had changed overnight. The MPs he had passed earlier at the diner would have had his mug imprinted on their genes. And yet the one guy who’d looked directly at him hadn’t even troubled himself with a second glance.
Also posted all over the Web was his past history. The brilliant academic career where he had topped the lists at every institution he’d attended. The meteoric military career. His far-reaching fingers in all the intelligence pies. The systems he’d developed, the software he’d coded, the farsightedness he’d displayed in arenas of which the public only had a vague awareness. And then the tumble from the high pedestal, the arrest, and the charges aimed at him like a fifty-caliber machine gun set to blow him into little pieces. Then the court-martial. Then the verdict. Finally, the imprisonment for life.
And now the escape.
All of this he read and digested, but it was ultimately meaningless to him.
There was one angle to the story that had socked him right in the gut.
His father and his brother had both been mentioned throughout numerous articles. The fighting legend now laid low by dementia. And there was dirt dredged up and regurgitated about the reasons why he had never gotten the fourth star, and why the Medal of Honor had never been draped around his thick neck.
And then there was his brother, the highly decorated combat veteran turned CID agent who was building himself into an Army legend. But underlying the articles were the visits John Puller Jr. had made to the DB. How close they were as brothers. The lawman and the lawbreaker. No, the law-crusher, for he wasn’t a mere criminal—he had committed treason, saved from the death penalty by who knew what in the military tribunal process.
But are they implying that my brother somehow helped me escape?
He didn’t know where John had been yesterday, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t in Leavenworth. That would have to come out in the papers. His brother would have to be fully cleared of any involvement with the escape. He had to be! Still, he knew that even the hint of suspicion could come close to breaking his kid brother, as strong as he seemed. Personal honor meant everything to John Puller Jr.
And what about John Puller Sr.?
Well, despite his affection for the old man, he just hoped that his father was so far out of it now that nothing could penetrate the dense cloud the dementia was solidifying around his once extraordinary mind.
He set all this aside and tapped his computer keys with renewed vitality. It had been part of his life for so long before it had been taken from him. Yet hacking was like riding a bike. He hadn’t forgotten anything. The codes had changed. The security was better. But it wasn’t infallible. Nothing was. There were new hacking techniques invented every day and the good guys simply could not keep up.
He was a natural hacker, because part of his duties had been to hack his own side, to test defenses that he had helped create. If he, their inventor, couldn’t crack them, it was assumed that no one else could either. Sometimes they’d been right, sometimes wrong. And sometimes Puller had held back just a bit, because he never played the short game.
His gaze trailed off the screen and ventured to the street where a Humvee puttered by. Inside were soldiers in their cammie uniforms, their methodical gazes sweeping the area.
So they still think I might be around here? Interesting.
He really didn’t believe this. The Army was simply covering its ass. The DB had just suffered its first setback. A presence on the street was to be expected. He returned his gaze to the screen and kept typing away, creating his version of a symphony, built note by note, measure by measure, and movement by sly movement.
When the contents of the screen dissolved and then reemerged as something entirely new, he closed his laptop and stood. What he had just gained access to was not meant to be read at the neighborhood Starbucks.
And while he had used plain-Jane Wi-Fi that was basically open to anyone, his laptop was firing off scramblers of such strength that any punk with an electronic mitt trolling for credit card numbers and accompanying PINs would be left with something so garbled that it would look like a trillion-piece digital puzzle without a handy picture to go by.
But still, there were protocols. And though he no longer wore the uniform, Puller intended to abide by these rules to the extent he could. It was part of who he was, who he would always be. They said the uniform made the man. Well, actually, it did. But that statement had nothing to do with clothing. It was all inside of you.
Now was the time for exploration and perhaps a drive. For that he needed wheels. He wasn’t going to do a rental. He was going to write a check for a 2004 Chevy Tahoe pickup in the lot of a used-car dealer the next block over. He’d looked at it earlier while taking a break from his hacking.
It took an hour of dickering and filling out the paperwork. Then he climbed into his new ride, started it up—the eight-cylinder power plant sparking gloriously to life—and drove off. He flicked a wave to the salesman, who’d probably cleared enough of a commission to splurge on a nice meal for himself and the missus, photos of whom Puller had been shown during the course of their negotiation, probably to soften him up.
It hadn’t worked. Prison did not soften you up. It made you a piece of rock.
Next mission: obtaining quarters. Where he could read in peace.
And then he could get this thing rolling.
Robert Puller dearly hoped it had been worth the years-long wait.