The Escape (41 page)

W
ITH THEIR GUNS
out, Knox and Robert approached the car parked off a back road. The security forces guarding them had fanned out looking for Anton Bok, but Knox and Robert had stayed together and broken off in this direction while the others had headed to other areas. Knox reached the car first and peered inside.

It was empty.

“Look out!” yelled Robert. “On your six.”

Knox leapt over the hood a split second before machine-gun fire raked the front of the car, blowing out the front tire and destroying the headlight on that side.

As Knox hit the ground hard on the other side of the car her gun popped out of her hand.

Robert fired at the gunman, but Bok had already taken cover behind a tree. He stepped out and unloaded again, spraying shots at the spot from where Robert had fired. Bark and leaves were blown off trees.

But that was all, because Robert was no longer there.

Bok took up cover once more and then moved to a new spot.

Knox slid on her belly and snagged her gun. She did a turkey peek over the car and fired a handful of shots in Bok’s direction.

None of the rounds found their target because Bok was on the move again. He circled around, intending to come at Knox from her exposed flank.

She deduced this and fast-crawled to the rear of the car.

Bok stepped clear of the trees a moment later and raked the car with fire. The tires on that side deflated and one of the rounds struck the fuel tank. Gas started to splash onto the road.

Bok took a moment to reload his weapon.

Robert called out, “Move, Knox! The gas!”

She looked back at him, then at the gas, then over at where Bok had been.

She turned to run as Robert stepped out into the clearing at the same time that Bok did.

Both men fired at the same time.

Bok had reloaded with incendiary rounds. When his round hit the gas tank the Ford sedan exploded.

A small but still lethal chunk of the car came swirling at Robert. He tried to duck, but the metal caught him in the arm, slicing it open and knocking the gun out of his hand. Staggered, he grabbed his bloody limb and looked around desperately for Knox.

“Knox!”

There was no answer.

He looked across the way as the smoke started to lift. Through the flames eating at the car he saw Bok standing there, his gun pointed directly at him.

“Susan’s been shot. She’s in custody,” Robert called out.

Bok said nothing to this. He walked forward. He fired a round at Robert’s feet. And then another. Robert backed away holding his arm.

Bok walked forward. “Then I have nothing left to live for, do I?”

“That’s your choice,” said Robert.

“I have no idea how someone like you could be so, how do you say, fortunate,” said Bok. “Susan was far more talented. Far more dedicated. She cared far more than you ever would.”

“For the
Russians
.”

“I made her see the light. That was my job.”

“And
her
job was not to turn traitor. On that I’d say she failed spectacularly. And, by the way, we totally kicked her ass.”

“Your country has had its day. It’s time for new world leaders. The Stars and Stripes are done. She could see that clearly, even if the likes of you could not.”

“And you think Russia will fill that void?” said Robert incredulously. “You’ve got a shirtless leader, an economy totally based on fossil fuels, and a military that can’t even control its own nukes. Not a recipe for domination. More likely a rapid decline.”

Bok stopped a few feet from Robert and then looked to the side. “Tell her that,” he said, indicating something with his gun barrel.

Robert looked where he was pointing.

Knox lay in the grass under the trees, the side of her head bleeding. Her breathing was ragged, her chest heaving.

Robert’s lip trembled. “You’re never going to make it out of here alive, Bok.”

Bok said nothing.

Robert said, “You can kill me too. But you just blew up your only way out of here.”

“As I said, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. Not with Susan gone. We were in love, you know.”

“I seriously doubt people as twisted as the two of you could possibly love anything.”

Bok raised his gun and pointed it at Robert’s head. “This is for Susan.”

From the corner of his eye Robert saw Knox slowly sit up, her gun in her hand. She fired. A shot hit Bok smack in the middle of the head. He dropped where he stood.

Robert looked back over his shoulder. Knox’s shot had sailed wide of its mark. The other shot had not.

John Puller was just lowering his sniper rifle. At this close range it was a devastating weapon against flesh, bone, and brains.

“And that was for my brother,” he said to the dead man.

Behind him came an EMT squad with medical equipment and a gurney. They raced past where Bok lay and over to Knox. Puller hustled over to his brother and examined his bloody arm.

“How bad?” he asked.

“Not bad. I’ll make it. Take care of Knox. She’s not good.”

Puller called one of the EMTs over. The man sat Robert down and started to treat his wound.

Puller sprinted over to where Knox lay back in the grass and knelt down next to her. Two EMTs had already started to triage her.

She looked up at Puller and said, “Did I get him? Did I get Bok?”

“You nailed the prick. He’s dead.”

She smiled weakly and touched her head. “Hurts like a bitch. Worse than my hip.”

“I know. These guys here are going to take care of that.”

“Am I going to make it?”

“There is no doubt that you will.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“I’ve never really lied to you, Knox.”

She reached out and gripped his hand. “Your brother okay?”

“Good to go. Focus on yourself.”

“Hurts like shit.”

Puller stared over at one of the EMTs. “Can you do something about that? Like right now?”

The EMT said, “Trying, sir. It’s…”

Puller turned back to Knox. “We’ll get your mother to come up and stay with you while you recover.”

“You don’t want to stay with me?” she mumbled.

“I meant all of us. I’d like to meet her.”

“I think…I think you’d like her.”

“If she’s anything like you, I’m sure I will.”

“We got her, Puller. This time we got her.”

“Yes, we got her. We got them both.”

“Hurts like hell, John.”

He gripped her hand more tightly. “You’re going to be fine, Veronica.”

“You’re a good man, John Puller. A damn good man.”

Knox slowly closed her eyes.

P
ULLER OPENED THE
door, closed it behind him, and sat down at the small table across from her. He dropped the file folder he was carrying on the table.

Susan Reynolds was in an orange prison jumpsuit and her hands and feet were in shackles. Her left arm and shoulder were encased in a cast. She stared impassively across the width of the wood at him.

“How are the accommodations, Susan?” he asked.

“Lovely. Haven’t been this comfortable in years.”

He glanced at the cast. “The docs have instructions to go easy on the painkillers. They don’t want you to get addicted.”

“I was sure I had you to thank for that.”

“Sorry about Anton. He unfortunately lost his head back at the safe house.”

Reynolds simply stared at him.

He opened the folder. “Since I can barely stand to breathe the same air as you, let’s get down to it.” He slid a document across to her.

She didn’t even look at it. “What is it?” she asked in an indifferent tone.

“A confession. A detailed confession not only to what you’ve done recently but to what you did to frame my brother. All you have to do is sign it.”

“And all you have to do is slide it in a shredder after you leave, because I’m signing nothing.”

He leaned back in his chair. “You sign the confession the death penalty goes off the table.”

“Lethal injection? Bring it on. You murdered Anton. What do I care about living one second longer?”

“I didn’t murder him. I shot him before he murdered others.”

“Your version of the truth. I’ll stick with mine. So your leverage is less than zero, Puller. Kill me. Get it over with. And your brother can go back to rotting in jail. Even with all that’s happened now, there is no evidence to overturn his conviction. I’ll think about that when they put the needle in my arm. And I’m sure it will bring a smile to my lips as I say goodbye to this miserable world.”

“Even though you set him up, framed him? He’s innocent. You know that.”

She looked bored now. “How many surveillance devices in here, I wonder? Three? Ten?” She said in a raised voice, “For the record, Robert Puller is guilty as sin. He stole classified information. He met with a known Iranian spy. He was working with me to bring down the U.S. government. He is scum. I will testify to this in exchange for a deal that will allow me to live peacefully and quietly in a minimum-security prison
with
the possibility of parole in five years.”

She turned back to Puller and smiled tauntingly. “One always has to have a backup plan.” She paused, studying him. “You ever wonder where that text came from telling you not to trust Knox?”

Now Puller remained silent, waiting.

“I sent it.”

“Why, if you believed she was working with you?”

“Because I didn’t really believe it. I don’t trust anyone. No one. Except Anton. And I’m very much into divide and conquer. If you two killed each other off, so much the better.”

“What was it like to plan your husband’s murder?”

She said derisively, “I was in Russia thousands of miles away.”

“Yeah, Russia, your adopted country. But I wonder where your boyfriend Anton was?”

“Well, we’ll never know, since you murdered him.”

“Your son knew you did it. He told me so. He called me after your arrest. Thanked me for bringing him closure.”

“Poor Danny was always a little slow on the uptake. And he spent too much time in fantasyland. And he was way too much of a daddy’s boy. He has no balls of his own.”

“He’s an FBI attorney with a very impressive conviction record.”

“Do you think I really care?”

“My point is you didn’t fool him.”

“And my answer would be exactly the same. I don’t give a crap.”

“Did you orchestrate my kidnapping in Kansas?”

She nodded. “Whether you told us what you knew or said you would stand down, we would have killed you. We were just toying with you. It’s the style that counts. Anton and I have a lot of that. Other people would have just shot you.”

“Well, your ‘style’ gave my brother the opportunity to save my life.”

She shifted in her seat and used her chin to rub at a spot near her injured shoulder. “I
would
like to know how you pulled it off,” she said. “How did you figure we were going to hit the safe house?”

“Dan told me you were tight with your daughter. So I went to see Audrey. I knew she’d call you after I phoned to set up the appointment. You would have tailed me back to the safe house.”

“But I blew it up. Incendiary rounds.”

“But we weren’t in the house.”

“I saw you go inside. And you didn’t come back out. Anton was watching the back. He would have seen you.”

“That safe house has been in the system a long time and consequently has been retrofitted. There’s an escape hatch in the back bedroom that leads to a tunnel that in turn leads to a house four doors down. All the houses around there are empty, so it was easy to do. You hit the right house, but at the wrong time, because there was no one in it. The exterior security took the same path. We didn’t want to have anyone in harm’s way when you opened fire with your
Olympian
sniper skills.”

“And your shooting me?”

“I figured that knoll would provide the best firing line for you. So I waited about a hundred yards away facing that point. When I saw your muzzle flash I waited for you to finish firing and pulled the trigger.”

“You’re not as good a shot as you think. At a hundred yards I would have nailed my target ten times out of ten.” She indicated her casted arm and shoulder. “You only managed to wound me.”

“I’ve killed people from farther away than your shot that night, Susan. And they
were
shooting back at me. But I didn’t kill you because I didn’t
want
to kill you. I just wanted to injure you. And I did, incapacitating you at the same time.”

She scoffed. “I don’t believe that.”

“I’m a soldier. I do this for a living.”

She barked, “Why the hell would you want to keep me alive? You had no problem killing poor Anton.”

“I didn’t need
poor
Anton alive. But I needed you alive.”

“Why?”

He glanced down at the piece of paper still resting between them. “Because I need you to sign this.” He slipped a pen from his pocket and held it up. “I even took care to shoot you in your left arm, so you could sign it with your other hand. You’re a righty.”

“I have no incentive to sign anything. Certainly nothing that would help Robert Puller. He can rot in prison.”

There was a TV bolted to one corner of the ceiling. Puller picked up a remote from the table and turned on the TV.

As the picture came on, Reynolds sat up straight.

“What the hell is this?”

Puller turned to look at the screen where Audrey Reynolds was sitting in a jail cell, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, sobbing and looking like she couldn’t believe what had happened.

“She’s been arrested and is awaiting arraignment,” said Puller.

“Why?” snapped a stunned Reynolds. “What possible reason could—”

“As a coconspirator in a terrorist plot against the United States,” interrupted Puller.

“She had nothing to do with any of this!”

He looked at her disdainfully. “Come on, Susan. You really expect us to believe that the daughter you were so tight with knew nothing? Even a newbie prosecutor could get a conviction on that. She phoned you right after I called her to set up a face-to-face.”

“She called me, yes, but she didn’t—”

Puller slammed his fist down on the table so hard that a part of the wood cracked. “Shut the hell up! And listen!”

Reynolds froze.

Puller leaned forward. “Here is how it’s going to play out,
Susan
. Unless you sign this confession and provide whatever corroborating testimony is required to see that my brother is fully exonerated, you will be tried, convicted, and put to death.” He pointed behind him at the screen. “At the same time your daughter will be tried, convicted, and sent to prison for the rest of her life
without
the possibility of parole. Not because of anything she did. Because of you. You are right on the edge of destroying your daughter’s life, Susan.”

“She knew nothing about any of this! I will testify to that.”

“Do you think the higher-ups care about that?” he said. “And she screwed up big-time.”

“You mean the phone call? That was nothing.”

“We
listened
to the calls. Right,
calls
. Because she spoke to you again
after
I left the shop. After I told her you were suspected of being a spy. She not only enabled you to follow me right to the safe house, but it was clear on the phone call that she knew you were involved in something criminal. And your financing her dream business? A jury would easily believe that it was in payment for her helping you to spy on this country. And maybe even to launder funds. Terrorist funds. Because the Pentagon plan was not an act of war, it was an act of terrorism. And that makes everyone associated with it, American citizen or not, a terrorist. And that means many relevant legal rights go right out the window.”

Reynolds’s jaw tightened and she looked like she might be sick.

Puller continued, “She might not have known exactly what you and Bok were doing, but that’s clearly enough to get her as an accessory to a terrorist act. Her life is over, Susan. Unless you do the right thing by your little girl.”

“I…I can’t…”

Puller slapped the table once more with the palm of his hand. “Let me just give it to you straight, Reynolds. I came in here principally to get my brother exonerated. But I also came in here to give you one last shot at saving Audrey. I believe she’s innocent. And innocent people shouldn’t go to prison. Like my brother! But this is a national security case and they are out for blood. You almost wrecked the military leadership of this country! So they are going after anyone within spitting distance of this thing. And that includes your daughter. The government lawyers are right outside that door waiting for your answer. If you don’t sign this confession right now this deal goes away forever. And your little girl gets to spend the next sixty years of her life in a max federal prison. And it will be your fault and only yours. And you can take
that
thought to the death chamber with you.”

Puller placed the pen on top of the confession and sat back watching her.

Reynolds stared at him for a moment longer before her gaze went back to her daughter on the screen.

“So you’re going to coerce me, threaten me into a confession?” she said dully.

“No, I’m encouraging you as best I can to tell the truth. The facts that you will provide to corroborate the statements in the confession will leave no doubt as to your guilt. And if your testimony leads to other spies or traitors being caught, so much the better.”

“And you think the Russians won’t try to kill me if I do cooperate?” she shot back.

“Solitary confinement in a federal prison, Susan. We’re the best friends you have right now. That’s the only place they won’t be able to get to you.”

Slowly, very slowly, her right hand reached out and took up the pen. After she signed the document she looked at him. “You really are a heartless prick.”

“That must be why we get along so well,” he said back. “Because so are you.”

He scooped up the paper and pen, rose, and walked out the door without once looking back.