The Escape Read online

  Puller said, “Can you ask for stat service? Otherwise, it could take weeks. Even with an expedited reply we’re looking at one to four days.”

  “I can. But there’s a backlog these days.”

  “Not as bad as when Afghanistan and Iraq were going full-bore,” pointed out Knox.

  “No, and thank God for that,” said the ME.

  “Can I see the flip side?” asked Puller, indicating the dead man.

  He helped the ME turn the body over. Puller again started at the top and worked his way to the bottom. And once more he leaned in closer, this time when he reached the calves. The traces were barely visible, but they were also three in number and uniformly spaced.

  “Did you see these?” he asked.

  The ME leaned in and then used a handheld light with attached magnifier. He pointed to one faint line. “I thought that one might be from his sock line. But I didn’t see the other two,” he added in a distressed tone. “Although his legs are particularly hairy. You must have great eyesight.” Puller straightened. “I saw them because I was looking for them. Based on what I saw on the forearms.” He helped the ME roll the body back to its original position.

  “What do you mean?” Knox asked.

  Puller didn’t answer her. He glanced at the ME. “Will you let us know as soon as you have an ID on this guy? He looks military, but he might not be. Particularly if he doesn’t show up in the databases.”

  The ME nodded.

  Puller leaned down and more closely studied the dead man’s features. “He actually looks Eastern European. Jawline, nose, cheeks, forehead.” He lifted up one of the hands. “Calluses, heavy one on the right index finger’s top pad.”

  Knox bent closer and looked at the finger. “From friction with a trigger?”

  Puller nodded. “Maybe. Can I see the teeth?”

  The ME used a tool to open the mouth and lever back the lips. Puller peered inside the mouth. “Guy’s never been to a dentist. Bad teeth but no metal.”

  He nodded to the ME, who let the mouth close.

  “Can you run an isotope toxicology on the hair? With that you can tell where he’s from, or at least where he’s been recently, right?”

  The ME said, “That’s right. Hydrogen and oxygen isotopes transferred to hair from food and water taken in by the person as well as from the air they breathe. His hair is pretty short so it won’t give me a broad spectrum to work with. Head hair grows at a rate of about one to one point five centimeters a month. With hair as short as his any answer will be locked in to where he was recently.”

  “I think that might be good enough.”

  “Understand that while the U.S. has a pretty good isotope map on water and air differentials, other countries may not. If he’s from some obscure third world nation we might not get a hit.”

  “We’ll never know until we try. As soon as you can get it done would be appreciated.”

  “Roger that, Chief Puller.”

  “And, Doc?” said Puller. The ME looked at him. “Keep what we just discussed on the QT for now, okay?”

  The ME’s brow wrinkled. “But I have reports to make and—”

  “Just for now, QT, okay? For a lot of reasons. One of the major ones being I don’t see how any of this happened without some help on the inside. So that means we might have someone playing against us who we think is on our side.”

  The ME gaped at him and then closed his mouth. He nodded curtly. “Right.”

  Puller walked down the corridor so fast Knox had to hustle to keep up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To look at surveillance camera footage.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Why, you got a date or something?”

  “But we’ve already looked at the feed from inside the prison.”

  “But we haven’t looked at the feed from outside the prison.”

  “Hold it right there,” said Puller, and Knox clicked the key to freeze the frame.

  They were sitting in a cubicle at the DB reviewing the surveillance camera footage from the entrance to the prison.

  Puller ran his gaze over the trucks that had just rammed the front gates of the prison.

  “Now do it in slow motion.”

  She did so and Puller started to count, jotting down numbers in his notebook. He had her back up the video and repeat the process twice. When he’d finished, he said, “Okay, let’s see the exit.”

  She brought this footage up and then hit the computer keys to make it move forward slowly. She watched as Puller started to count again. He had her repeat the video as he had done before. And he wrote down more numbers. When he was done she stopped the feed and sat back, looking at him expectantly.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Fort Leavenworth dialed up an entire company of MPs to take control of DB. They came in six heavy trucks. Four platoons, totaling one hundred and thirty-two men, and the leadership component, a captain and his first sergeant.”

  “Okay?”

  “The six drivers stayed with the vehicles, but I counted one hundred and thirty-three men in riot gear getting off those trucks. Plus the captain and the first sergeant.”

  “So one hundred and thirty-five men in total.”

  “When there should have been only one hundred and thirty-four.”

  “So one extra?”

  “And I counted one hundred and thirty-five men coming out of the prison in riot gear. They climbed into those trucks and drove off.”

  “So the numbers tally? But we still have the extra guy.”

  “But what if the dead man was one of the platoon members going in?”

  She shot him an astonished look. “What?”

  “The strap marks on the body? The ones on his arms I think were from hard-shell forearm and elbow protectors. And the parallel marks on the calves were from the straps on the shin guards.”

  “But, Puller, that’s riot gear.”

  He nodded. “The same gear we just saw on the video feed. That means our dead guy might have been part of the reinforcements sent from Fort Leavenworth.”

  “But obviously he didn’t come back out.”

  Puller observed, “But we have the same number of soldiers coming out as went in. What does that tell you?”

  Knox thought about this for a few moments, then her eyes widened. “Shit, your brother took his place?”

  Puller nodded. “He could have broken that guy’s neck, dressed as him, and escaped that way, as part of the MP reinforcements. It was dark, chaotic. They wouldn’t do an ID check on a guy in full riot gear. So he climbs back on one of the trucks, which returns to the fort. Four platoons of soldiers climb off, go their separate ways, and he just scoots off the base.”

  She looked at him, obviously impressed. “Puller, that is some damn fine deducing. I never would have picked up on the number of MPs going in and out.” Puller looked thoughtful. “But it would be difficult to do all that in the dark. Remember, no lights in the prison. My brother would have to kill a guy who was armed and probably armored without anyone seeing or hearing anything. Then he had to get all that gear off the body and then put it on, all in the dark. Lots of potential holes in that theory.”

  “There was also lots of noise to cover up anything they were doing. The dead guy no doubt had a flashlight in his gear pack. If the cell door was closed, or his team saw him clearing that cell, there would have been no need for anyone else to go in. I think you figured out how it all went down.”

  Puller didn’t respond to this.

  Knox, who had been tensed, relaxed. “Look, I know this must be really hard for you.”

  “Why, because he’s my brother?”

  “No, because he’s your sister. Of course because he’s your brother!”

  “You’re wrong. He’s not my brother. Right now, he’s just an escaped prisoner who may or may not have been involved in the murder of an unidentified person.”

  “Well, I think you just answered one really big question.
How he got out.”

  “Yeah. And created about a dozen more.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  PULLER WAS DRIVING and Knox sat beside him staring moodily out the window.

  “How did you think of the manner in which the neck was broken?” she asked, turning to him. “A horizontal break? You showed the ME how it could be done.”

  “The snap-crackle-pop. At least that’s what we call it. It’s a technique they teach in the Rangers and the Marine Corps. It’s used to quickly kill, typically perimeter security of a target you’re trying to take. Hand and forearm cups the top of the head. Other hand and forearm rests at the base of the neck. You apply the requisite foot-pounds of force in separate directions, the neck snaps right in two. Clean and quick and silent.”

  “But they don’t teach that in the Air Force?”

  “I don’t know what they teach in the Air Force other than to tell their people not to jump out of a perfectly good plane. They leave that to us grunts toting rifles and eighty-pound rucks.”

  “Okay, but did you by chance teach your brother the maneuver?”

  Now Puller glanced at her. “Are you interrogating me?”

  “No, just asking a simple question.”

  “I don’t remember. That’s my simple answer.”

  She glanced once more out the window. “Looks like a storm is rolling in,” she observed.

  “Then maybe we’ll have another blackout and another prison escape,” retorted Puller.

  She shot him a glance. “Don’t even joke about something like that.”

  “We need to ID that guy.”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t want to wait however long it’s going to take the guys in Dover to do it. And since I don’t think he’s an American, they probably won’t find anything anyway.”

  “And the ME said he didn’t get a hit in the military database off the prints or facial recognition. So it’s doubtful he’s military.”

  “At least not our military. Which leads to another question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Four platoons.”

  “Right, but now we think your brother might have taken the dead guy’s place. After killing him,” she tacked on, perhaps just to see Puller’s reaction.

  He ignored this. “How did the dead guy get into Fort Leavenworth? And how did he manage to join a company of soldiers going to quell a possible crisis at DB?”

  “Well, he must’ve gotten onto the base somehow. And it was chaotic. If he was dressed in riot gear I doubt anyone took the time to do roll call.”

  “Which means this all was planned out, Knox. The transformers blowing. The backup gas generator breaking down. The sounds of explosion and gunfire. The Army manual is clear on that. You call in reinforcements. Whoever planned this, they knew how the Army would react and they had a guy at Leavenworth ready to join in.”

  “But why, Puller? What was he going to accomplish?”

  “Helping my brother to escape, maybe?”

  “But the guy ended up dead.”

  Puller said, “Maybe the plan changed. Maybe someone else other than my brother killed him.”

  “How was he planning on getting your brother out? There’s no evidence that he had a second set of riot gear with him. Your brother probably took his gear. In fact, that’s the only way he could have gotten out. So, the guy had to die. And they were about the same size.” She looked at Puller. “Your brother’s about six-three? About two hundred pounds or so?”

  “Around that.”

  “So was the dead guy.”

  “But why go in on a mission like that if you know it’s suicidal?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know it was suicidal,” replied Knox.

  “Well, if he didn’t then he had to believe he was going in there for some reason that had the possibility of him getting out alive. And we have to find out who came and took those transformers.” He eyed her pointedly when he said this. “That’s what started this whole chain of events. The transformers blowing.”

  “Puller, I don’t know who did that. I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I did some reading online. INSCOM conducts operations for military commanders.”

  “No big secret.”

  “But you’re also tasked to do the same for ‘national decision makers.’ That term is both suggestive and fluid. Could include folks like the president, the secretary of state, Speaker of the House.”

  “I’m not here on behalf of any of them, I can assure you.”

  “And the head of NSA also runs the U.S. Cyber Command.”

  “I was aware of that.”

  “Interesting.”

  She shrugged. “There’s a lot of overlap. Some claim they’re mirror images of each other. Although NSA operates under Title 50 while Cyber Command checks in under Title 10 authority.”

  “Is that an important distinction?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. There’s talk that the entities will have different leaders in the future. Fact is they’re now both full-time jobs. But they’ll always be operationally related.”

  “And they’re both based at Fort Meade.”

  “Yes.”

  “Kissing cousins, then.”

  “Not a term I’d use,” she said, sounding slightly offended.

  “Somebody came and got the transformers, Knox. And the guy they took them from said they outranked him. But that’s all he would say. That tells me he was told to say no more. Even to the official investigators.”

  “Which tells you what?”

  “That there are multiple investigations—both official and unofficial—going on here along with multiple agendas. It’s hard enough to solve a crime without all that baggage. And that baggage is definitely coming from spook central. I can feel it in my official Army jockey shorts.”

  “Well, what exactly do you want me to do about it?”

  “We’re a team. Or at least that’s what you led me to believe. So based on that the answer to your question should be pretty obvious.”

  “You want me to find out if anybody on the intelligence side had anything to do with the transformers’ disappearance?”

  He forced a smile. “I’ll make you into an investigator yet, Knox.”

  Ignoring his sarcasm, she said, “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of. Speaking of spooks, any ideas on Daughtrey?”

  “If my brother killed the man back in the prison, he could have killed Daughtrey.”

  “Why?”

  “They both worked at STRATCOM.”

  “So you think that’s at the center of this?”

  “I have no idea. You know more about that world than I do. And it’s a big one. A lot bigger than most people realize.”

  “Did you know that Cyber Command technically comes under STRATCOM’s leadership?”

  He looked at her questioningly. “But how does that work with NSA?”

  “It’s all very incestuous, Puller. NSA operates from under hundreds of intelligence platforms. You never know where the tentacles are going