The Escape (40 page)

P
ULLER WALKED INTO
the clothes shop around closing time. The young woman behind the counter looked up.

“Can I help you? I’m just about to lock the door.”

“I called before and asked to see you? John Puller?” He flashed his badge. “You’re Audrey Reynolds?”

“Oh, right,” said the woman, frowning. “Yes, I’m Audrey. Give me a sec.”

She walked over to the front door and hung the closed sign in the window and then locked it. She glanced up at Puller.

“I’m not really sure what I can tell you.”

“Nothing too complicated. I’ve spoken with your brother. Now I’d like to talk to you.” He looked around the shop. To him the items all looked designed for very young women who wanted to look borderline slutty. “How’s business?”

“Fine,” she said. “Look, do we really have to do this?”

“It
is
important,” he replied.

She wasn’t as tall as her mother and her body was thicker, sturdier. She must take after her father, he thought. Her shoulder-length brown hair rode loosely on her shoulders. Her face was pretty, but she looked tired. She must be, he concluded, after a long day on her feet performing the retail dance.

Audrey sighed. “Okay. Let’s at least sit down. I have a little office in the back room.”

They walked in there and sat at a small oval table.

“You want some coffee?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

She rose, poured herself a cup of coffee from a pot on the counter, and sat down across from him.

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Have you seen your mother recently?”

Audrey took a sip of her coffee and said, “About a week ago. We had dinner.”

“What’d you talk about?”

“Stuff. Personal stuff. Business stuff. She helps me with this place. We meet from time to time to go over the status of things.”

“So she has the financial resources to do that?”

“Look, I’m sure you’ve checked her out. You know she got an insurance payout when my father was killed. She invested really well. She’s not super rich but she doesn’t have to worry about money. And she’s very generous with me.”

“It’s a nice shop.”

“Thanks. I’ve always wanted my own business. And I’m really into fashion design. My mom cares about my dreams.”

“I understand that she traveled overseas a lot when you were young?”

“That’s right. She helped dismantle nukes. Really good work, right?”

“Yes. Very important. So what do you remember about your father’s death?”

She looked puzzled at the change in the direction of the questioning. “Why are you asking about that? It was a long time ago.”

“Just getting as much background info as I can. It can be a drudge, but it’s part of the process.”

She nodded and cradled her coffee cup. “Not that much, really. I’d broken my leg. I remember being in a lot of pain. It was really hot. He went out, and then the next thing I knew the house was swarming with cops and FBI agents. My mother got home the next day and took care of everything. Like she always does.”

“Have you spoken to her since you last saw her?”

“A couple of times.”

“What did she say?”

Audrey blanched. “Look, it was personal.”

“Okay, has she ever mentioned to you a man named Ivo Mesic or Anton Bok?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen this man?” He handed her a photo of Bok.

She gazed down at it while Puller watched her closely, looking for any sign of recognition. She handed the photo back. “No, I’ve never seen this guy. He doesn’t look, I mean he doesn’t look American. And those names aren’t American.”

“He’s Russian.”

“And you’re saying my mother knows this guy?”

“She worked with him when they were verifying the reduction of nuclear warheads.”

“So you mean when she was doing her
job
?” she said snidely.

“We know that your mother has a cabin in Rappahannock County, Virginia.”

She looked genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know about that.”

“Do you know of any other properties that she has?”

“She has a condo at Wintergreen, the ski resort near Charlottesville.”

“You have the address?”

She gave it to him and Puller wrote this down. “Okay. Anyplace else other than the home in Springfield?”

“Not that I know of.”

“She ever mention to you any plans to leave the country?”

Audrey stood. “Look, what the hell is going on?”

Puller closed his notebook and stood. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that your mother is a suspected spy.”

“That’s bullshit! What proof do you have?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“Because there
is
no proof.”

“No child wants to believe something like this about a parent. But we are investigating her. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“I don’t believe you!”

Puller looked down at Audrey’s cell phone lying on the table. “Why don’t you try to call her now?”

“Why?”

“Just to check in. Say hello.”

“Why, so you can like track the call?” she said accusingly.

“I don’t have any equipment with me to trace the call. And you have to stay on the phone for a while to do it. Just say hello and tell her you’d like to see her sometime soon. That isn’t a problem, is it, Audrey?”

“It’s no problem,” she said angrily. “But I don’t feel like calling her, okay?”

“Audrey, this is a very serious matter. I don’t want to believe that you’re involved in this in any way. I just think you’re caught in the middle of something that you shouldn’t be. I want to help you get through this. So just call your mother. This is not about you. It’s about her.”

Keeping her eyes on Puller briefly, she slowly picked up her phone and punched in a number.

“Speakerphone, if you don’t mind,” said Puller.

She hit the button and put the phone down on the table. Puller could hear the phone ringing and then it went to voice mail. Reynolds’s voice came on. Puller hit the end button and said, “If you do hear from her, please give me a call.” He handed her one of his cards, which she reluctantly took.

“My mother has done nothing wrong!”

“Then she has nothing to worry about, does she?” said Puller.

Tears had started to spill down Audrey’s cheeks. “You’re a real shit, you know that! You think you can just walk in here and dump all this crap on me?” She looked ready to throw her coffee at him.

“Just call me, Audrey. When you talk to her.”

Puller turned and left the shop, got into his car, and drove back to the safe house.

S
USAN REYNOLDS TURNED
off the tracker device that was connected to the bug she had put on John Puller’s vehicle while it was parked in front of her daughter’s shop. She had followed the electronic signal to its destination.

Or almost to the end.

She had turned off two streets before Puller, but she had watched the dot on the tracker reach its destination. She drove off and reached the motel where she was staying under an alias. She had changed her appearance and was using cash for her room. She sent off a secure email with the street address of the safe house.

Several hours went by before her phone buzzed. She picked it up. It was Anton Bok.

“I’ve reconnoitered the area,” he said. “It’s definitely a safe house. Five exterior security. My heat imager recorded five inside. Probably John Puller, Knox, and Robert Puller plus two interior security.”

“That makes
nine
security counting John Puller and Knox,” she said.

“Formidable, but not impossible,” said Bok calmly. “However, we can leave it. Live to fight another day.”

She shook her head and smiled. “Anton, our fighting days are over. But we’ve had a good run. Over twenty years. The Pentagon obviously didn’t work, but just about everything else did. It’s a record to be proud of. We served our leaders very well. We were the best operatives they’ve ever had. The idiots never suspected me all those years. Not until now.”

“My country is proud, Susan. Very proud of me. And you. And they will welcome us with open arms.”

“But there is unfinished business,” she said.

“Unfinished,” he agreed. “Robert Puller.”

“I’ve grown to detest his brother almost as much.”

“Then two birds with one stone,” said Bok.

“Three counting Knox. I’m not forgetting her. Private wings standing by?”

“At a moment’s notice. We can be in Russia by tomorrow. We have a medal to give you.”

“I would much prefer an evening with you.”

“We will have many of those. There is a very nice dacha near Saint Petersburg that will be ours. It has a garden.”

“I like gardens. But the recon?”

“The house is at the end of a cul-de-sac. The front door faces straight onto the road. The houses on either side of it are empty. The exterior patrols are staggered. There is a garage so the cars are loaded and unloaded inside.”

“And my shooting spot?”

“There is a wonderful site for you. A knoll rises to the west at the very end of the street in the opposite direction of the safe house. They have demolished the house that once stood there, so the sightline is unobstructed. Twelve hundred meters approximately, with a nice angled bullet flight down to the target.”

“I’ve done longer in my sleep.”

“As I know. You must be quick about it, though. Getting you out will be the hardest part.”

“I don’t intend on lingering. It’s not like I’ll have to shoot them one by one.”

“I will be there personally to retrieve you.”

“And then off to Russia?”

“And then off to our new life of peace.”

At three o’clock in the morning Susan Reynolds set up her sniper’s nest on the knoll after Anton Bok had confirmed that it was clear. From her carrying case she slid out her favorite weapon. It was a Barrett M82, designated in the U.S. military as the M107. This was a specially configured M107, a special-application scoped rifle, which could fire a unique round.

Using this weapon a member of the United States Army had shot and killed an adversary in 2008 from over two thousand meters. The current world record for a combat kill over distance was held by a Brit. He’d killed an Afghan from nearly twenty-five hundred meters away.

Reynolds’s shot would be from a much lesser distance, but it still required an enormous degree of skill. And she had the best technology to aid her, including a laser rangefinder, the best long-range optics, a portable meteorological device, and state-of-the-art ballistic-prediction software.

But really she only required her scope and her gun. It literally would be like hitting the broad side of a barn. She had an auto loader to feed ammo to the M107. She pulled out one of the rounds and examined it. The fifty-caliber cartridge had a green tip with a gray ring around it. It was known in the field as a “combined effects” cartridge.

She replaced the round, set up her rifle, lay down behind it, and settled in. The detachable muzzle brake was at the end of the barrel. That diminished the recoil kick. Her rear grip had a monopod socket. The bipod feet were spiked for better traction in the ground.

She powered up her scope and sighted through it. She performed a sweep with the gun, taking in points to the left and right of the target before she swung it back straight and true and focused on the safe house.

The last patrol had passed by minutes before. It was dark inside the house. They must be asleep by now. She could see no silhouettes moving through the structure. Well, they would never know what had hit them.

She exhaled a long breath, got her heartbeat within the acceptable range and her physiological status to cold zero. But really she knew she could hardly miss at this range and with this particular target. Not with the ammo she was chambering.

She fired once and the round flew dead on before colliding with the side of the house. The cartridge was an HEIAP, which stood for high explosive incendiary/armor-piercing ordnance. The fifty-caliber round had a thirty-caliber tungsten penetrator built into it. It could blast through tank armor, brick walls, and concrete blocks. Wood siding and drywall thus did not pose much of a challenge.

The Comp A explosive embedded in the cartridge detonated on impact, taking out the entire front of the house. The natural gas supply in the house ignited on top of it, taking the roof off and catching both empty houses on either side of it on fire.

Reynolds fired again and took out the security van in front of the house. All four wheels lifted off the ground as the van disintegrated. She fired again at the house and another explosion rocked the night. Another wall of the house fell inward. The interior was completely on fire. Another explosion hit the structure, collapsing the brick chimney.

Reynolds waited patiently to see if anyone came running out of the house. If so, they would eat a fifty-cal round directly. It would pass right through them and explode on the other side.

She fired three more times, taking out all the other security vehicles. One landed directly in the middle of the road, blocking access. Flames and smoke covered the ground and pushed upward, filling the night sky like a wildfire run amok.

Since Reynolds could no longer see her targets, she decided she was done for the night. Anyone in the house would be dead. It was a nonsurvivable attack. Now there was only a car ride to the jet and her new life in Russia could get started.

She was just about to get up from behind her weapon when the round slammed into her left shoulder.

At first she was in such shock that she didn’t realize she had been shot. The bullet had gone right through her and struck the dirt. Her collarbone was shattered and her rotator cuff destroyed. She was bleeding, but the bullet had struck her with such force that her wound was mostly cauterized and the blood loss was minimal.

Nauseous from the shock of being shot, Reynolds struggled to her feet, holding her useless arm. She looked frantically around to see from where the shot had come. But all she saw was darkness. Leaving her weapon behind, she started to stumble down the path that would carry her to the car where Bok was waiting. Behind her she heard someone coming. She tried to run in the opposite direction, but the person was moving far more swiftly than she could manage.

Reynolds looked back and stumbled over a bush and fell to the ground screaming in pain.

She turned over and looked up.

John Puller stared down at her, his sniper rifle over his shoulder and his pistol pointed at her.

When she saw who it was, she screamed, “I’ve been shot!”

“I know. I was the one who shot you.”

“You bastard. You miserable bastard!”

He ignored this and spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Send a stretcher. Top of the knoll. Got a GSW. Non-life-threatening. No need to rush.”

“I will kill you. I swear to God.” She tried to kick at him, but missed. She fell back moaning and clutching her arm.

He knelt down beside her. “There’s one key difference between the Olympics and combat, Susan. You might have overlooked it.” He paused. “In the Olympics, no one is shooting back at you.”