CHAPTER
8
JOHN PULLER KNEW that flying was out, because ticket purchases by credit card could be traced, and he figured a number of computerized eyeballs would be pointed his way. Trains were out of the question for the same reason, not that there were any convenient ones anyway that would take him where he needed to go in a timely manner. A bus might have worked, but he would need wheels locally, and getting a rental left an electronic trail as well. That limited his options to a car—his. Well, his military-issued sedan. But he would pay for the fuel.
His destination in Kansas would take about twenty hours if he stopped along the way, which he intended to do to see if anyone was following him. The suit and stars might have wanted to make him their hunting dog for any number of reasons, ferreting out an escapee instead of a quail. But Puller didn’t want to be stupid about it, or put himself at unnecessary risk.
He packed up his duffel and his cat and left at midnight. This was not unusual for him. He often headed out at odd hours, mainly because soldiers didn’t tend to commit major crimes on a strict timetable. Most of them, in fact, were done at night, often after too many beers and too many insults. Turning the other cheek had been strictly left out of all Army manuals.
The important point was that any persons tailing him now would have to show themselves by their headlights. He saw none over the first two miles on meandering roads and quickly made his way to the interstate and started his trip due west. He stopped to eat twice, first breakfast at a Cracker Barrel in Kentucky and then dinner at a packed roadside grill named The Grease Bowl somewhere in Missouri.
He was not in uniform and didn’t plan to be while he was on leave. He had his ID and official credentials, to be sure. He had his weapons, because if he didn’t have his weapons then he must be dead and someone had forgotten to tell him. And he had some investigative tools that had made their way into his duffel, along with some fresh clothes and other travel essentials. What he didn’t have was a good idea of what he hoped to accomplish by going to the scene of his brother’s escape.
Escaped prisoners from an Army installation could certainly be within the purview of the CID regardless of which branch they’d been in. Technically, his brother was no longer a member of the military. Along with his conviction had come a dishonorable discharge—standard procedure. Bad guys didn’t get to wear the uniform anymore.
Yet because Robert Puller had been convicted of national security crimes, responsibility for his case fell largely to the special agents of Army Counterintelligence and the FBI. However, Puller had worked on parallel investigations with both agencies and considered them highly capable. Good for them, perhaps bad for his brother. But he had to stop thinking that way. What was bad for his brother was good for him and the rest of the country.
Easy to think, harder to execute, because the brothers had been inordinately close all their lives, due to their father’s all-consuming military career and a largely absent mother. John Puller had looked to his older brother for advice on all important decisions in his life, from asking a girl out to what position to play on the high school football team, from much-needed help on a physics exam in his junior year of college to the most appropriate way to approach their father about his decision not to go to West Point and become an officer. It was Bobby’s advice, all of it good and on point and well-intentioned, that had helped make Puller what he was today, for better or worse. And now that mentor was suddenly his enemy?
The first time he had visited Bobby at the DB it had seemed as though an enormous mistake had been committed, but that it would be corrected in the near future. The two brothers, both tall and well built, though John was the taller and stronger of the two, had sat across from each other in the visitors’ room and Puller had talked and Bobby had listened. And then Bobby had talked and Puller had listened. Then as the visits had continued over more than two years, and his brother’s status in prison had gelled to a permanency that seemed unshakable, Puller increasingly could think of nothing to say. It was as though the man he was facing had his brother’s face but that was all. The person he’d known all his life could not be in there. He could not be in this place convicted of treason. Yet there he was.
When they had last parted company, Puller had shaken his brother’s hand, but had felt no connection to him at all. It was an impersonator, he had thought at the time. It had to be.
This simply could not be his brother.
It was true that Bobby had helped his little brother, via phone, prevent a disaster of enormous proportions during his investigation into the murder of a military family in West Virginia. For that, his brother became the only prisoner at the DB ever to receive a commendation for service to his country. And when their aunt had been found murdered in Florida his brother had offered him both commiseration and counsel. That had thawed their relationship somewhat, but nothing could overcome the fact that one of them lived behind bars.
Used to live behind bars, Puller reminded himself, as he crossed the border into Kansas at around ten p.m. the night after leaving Virginia. It was dark and his options were limited. He didn’t want to stay where he usually did when visiting his brother at the DB. That would be too easy for others to find out and follow him from there.
He kept driving and about ten minutes later stopped at a motel that looked like it had been built in the fifties and then forgotten about. The small office proved this observation correct, even down to the rotary dial telephone, thick phone book, and bulky metal cash register. There was not a computer screen in sight. The woman behind the counter looked like she had been here from day one and had forgotten to change her clothes and hairstyle during that time. He paid for two nights in cash and took the old-fashioned bulky room key from her aged, shaky hand.
A few minutes later he was in his room with his cat, AWOL, huddled on a thin mattress with damp sheets because the wall air conditioner was basically a humidifier casting wisps of wet air into the room’s atmosphere where they eventually fell back to earth, or at least to the sheets. Puller stretched out on the bed, damp linens and all, and checked his emails. There was one from his CO reiterating to Puller that this case was off-limits. He didn’t answer. What would be the point?
Then he did the only thing he could after driving nearly halfway across the country—he fell asleep. He had been able to rest in the middle of both combat and murder investigations. But tonight his slumber was continually interrupted by thoughts of what he was going to do tomorrow.
By the time he woke the next morning he still wasn’t sure. He fed and watered AWOL and then let her out. Then he got into his car and drove to a diner down the street from the motel. It was from the fifties too, but its food was timeless: pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy, and hot tea. He ate his fill and then went back to his car and sat in the driver’s seat staring moodily out the window. Wherever he had been deployed, or for whatever purpose, to fight or to investigate, Puller had always been able to devise a plan, a strategy to get the job done. But none of those times had involved searching for an escaped prisoner who happened to be his brother. In many respects he felt paralyzed.
And then a partial answer walked right in front of him. It shouldn’t have been surprising, and it wasn’t. It was one reason he was sitting where he was. The coffee shop across the street was one frequented by personnel at the DB. He knew this from previous visits. He had met or seen many of them during his time here. They weren’t on a first-name basis, of course, but with his size Puller was hard to miss and harder still not to remember.
He waited patiently as uniform after uniform went into the shop and came out with coffee and bags of food. Uniforms he didn’t want. Too many rules and regulations weighed them down like a gangster’s concrete booties. Twenty minutes later his patience was rewarded. The woman had parked at the curb and climbed out of her car. She was in her late forties, maybe early fifties, tallish, stout, with blonde hair that was not her natural color, and wearing black slacks and a red sweater with black flats. He eyed the lanyard and ID around her neck and the USDB parking permit on the front bumper of her car. He had seen her at the prison a few times before.
A civilian, she was in admin at the prison. He couldn’t remember her name, but he figured she was a good place to start. They had talked once or twice, and he thought if he remembered her, she’d remember him.
He got out of the car and crossed the street, entering the shop at about the time she was placing her order. He got in behind her and asked for a large black coffee. When she heard his voice she turned and looked up at him.
“Puller?” she said. “Puller, right? CID?”
He looked at her with his blankest expression. “Yes ma’am, that’s right. Do we know each other?”
“I work at DB. I’m in admin.”
“Oh, that’s right. Ms.?”
“Chelsea Burke. You came by my office once with a question about your…” Her voice trailed off just as Puller knew it would.
He nodded, his blank expression turning to grim. “Right. It’s why I’m here, Ms. Burke.”
“Please, just call me Chelsea.”
“Thanks, I’m John. Look, now that we’ve run into each other, you have a minute?”
She got her coffee and paid her money and Puller did the same. She looked uncertain, but he guided her to a small table near the front of the shop overlooking the street. They sat and Puller took a sip of his coffee while she simply cradled hers and stared anxiously at him.
“It was a shock,” Puller began. “When I heard the news. Happened at night, so I doubt you were even there.”
“I wasn’t,” she conceded.
“People have already been by to see me,” Puller said. “All very hush-hush, but I’m CID. I can see through all that. You probably can too.”
“Is CID involved in this?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that directly, sorry.”
“Oh, of course not. I didn’t mean to—”
He quickly waved off her apology. “No problem, Chelsea, but I like to hit the ground running, and it might have been fortunate I bumped into you.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re not military.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Uniforms tend to circle the wagons in events like these. CID’s only concern is getting to the truth.” This was perfectly true, although he had made the statement to cause her to believe that CID—in the form of his presence—was investigating the matter.
“Absolutely,” she said, wide-eyed. He was gratified to see that as she took a sip of her coffee she sat back in her chair and looked more relaxed and engaged.
“I’m sure you can understand that things look very peculiar here. Main power goes, purportedly because of the storm. And then the backup generator dies? You must see that is extremely unlikely to have happened just by accident.”
She was nodding before he finished. “That’s the scuttlebutt, John. It’s like a billion to one. Now, I’ll grant you it was one helluva storm. But the storm could not have had an impact on the generator. It runs off natural gas lines buried underground.”
He sat forward and smiled. “I like how you picked that right up.” He paused. “But you probably see that the generator would not have kicked in and then died if the power hadn’t gone off first.”
She considered this and her eyes widened in realization. “So you think the main power was tampered with too?”
“Right now, I have no firm answers. But it’s certainly possible.”
“DB is going nuts right now trying to figure out what really happened.” She suddenly looked at him nervously. “And your brother and all. I’m sure you’re as worried as anyone.”
“It’s not easy seeing a family member in prison. But my job is to investigate serious military crimes. And duty trumps family in this circumstance, obviously.”
She cradled her cup of coffee and said, “I knew about his commendation. For helping you. I saw the paperwork go through.”
“A lot of lives would have been lost without him.”
“Seems weird, doesn’t it?” began Chelsea.
“What’s that?”
“A man is convicted of treason and then helps his country and gets a commendation but is still in prison. And then he escapes from prison. Just seems off.”
“I’m sure agents have been in to interview you and the rest of the staff.”
“They haven’t gotten to us yet, but I’m sure they will. I know they were at DB all day yesterday, and I’m sure they’ll be there for a while longer.”
“I wonder if my brother had any recent visitors?” said Puller. He wasn’t looking directly at Chelsea when he threw this out, but in his peripheral vision he was observing her reaction.
“That’s not my department. The log would show that, of course. DB keeps meticulous records of who comes and goes. Well, you know that, as many times as you’ve come to see him.”
“Yes, they do. And I’m sure they’ve already looked at the visitors’ log.” He now looked at her expectantly.
She grew pink under his scrutiny. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Aren’t things computerized at DB?”
“Absolutely.”
“So there would be digital files of visitors?”
“Yes, there are.”
He sat forward and tried to choose his next words with particular care.
“Chelsea, something doesn’t smell right to me on this. Now, I’m telling you this on the QT, okay?” She nodded quickly and he continued. “I was approached recently by a couple of generals and someone from NSC—”
“The NSC? National Security Council? Oh my God!”
“Yeah, pretty high-up stuff. Anyway, they approached me with a lot of questions, none of which I had answers for. But I think they want me to get answers. And to do that I need information.” Puller went back over in his head what he had just said and came away confident that he had told her no outright falsehood. Not that that would help him much if the hammer came down. However, he did feel guilty for asking the woman to help him. But her next words made him forget this concern.
“I don’t see how I can help, John. I don’t really have access to much.”
He sat back. “Know anyone who might and who might be willing to talk to me?”
“There’s one of the guards. He’s actually been talking to me about applying to CID. Maybe it could be a scratch each other’s back sort of thing.”
“Maybe it could. What’s his name?”
“Aubrey Davis, PFC. Nice guy. Young, single. He likes his beer but I hear he’s also serious about getting ahead in his career.”
Puller slid his card out and handed it to her. “Tell him to give me a call on my cell, okay?”
She took the card and nodded. “I will. But I can’t guarantee he’ll help you.”
“No one can guarantee that. Most leads fizzle out. I just try to keep plowing through the ones I have and hope they lead to new ones. Thanks again.”
He left her there and returned to his car. Okay, it would take some time for that angle to work out, he knew, if it ever did. If he were really unlucky, this PFC Aubrey Davis might report the inquiry and up the line it would go at top military speed, resulting in Puller’s getting a call from his CO or probably someone even higher up the chain. If he were calamitously unlucky it would not be a phone call, but a truckload of MPs to haul him in to hear the charges read against him for disobeying an order. But in the meantime he had other things to check out. Namely, how the DB had lost both sources of power on the very same night, letting a highly valued prisoner simply walk out.
And leaving a dead man, who was not supposed to be there, behind.
It was impossible the way he had stated it. So in some way he had to have stated it wrong.
And the only way to get it right was to start digging.
With a very big shovel. Without anyone knowing.
A tall order, he knew.
But this was family, which meant he didn’t really have a choice.