Free The Escape by David Baldacci Page B

many of the projects your brother was connected with are still being implemented or are in operation right now. He has intimate and detailed knowledge of some of this country’s most important security programs that in turn deal with some of the most critical challenges we have.”
    Puller considered all of this and said, “So he would be very valuable to enemies of this country.”
    “Without question,” said Rinehart.
    Puller looked at each man and said, “So maybe he didn’t break out.”
    Schindler looked confused, an expression he shared with his two colleagues. “I don’t quite get what you’re saying, Puller. He did break out. He’s gone.”
    “I’m not saying he’s not gone from DB.”
    “Then what are you saying?” asked Schindler as he tapped his index finger impatiently against the table.
    “That the whole thing at DB was staged, and instead of him breaking out, he might have been kidnapped by enemies of this country.”

Chapter
    10
    Q UARTERS.
    Even now Robert Puller couldn’t refer to it as a room, or an apartment, or a flat. It was quarters . Military vernacular was drilled into the minds of those in uniform like fingers marking letters in wet concrete that dried to permanency.
    His “quarters” was a motel room on the outskirts of Kansas City, Kansas. He had left Leavenworth behind for no other reason than—
    I could.
    It was a right-angle drive, hands twelve and three on the clock, meaning straight south and then straight east on I-70, the two perfectly equal legs of a right triangle, only awaiting the hypotenuse to complete it, which he might, taking an alternate but no less straight and direct route back to Leavenworth, if necessary. He had always framed things that way, with a reference to math or science or an adjunct of either one, placing them into a perspective that amused some, bewildered others, but was off-putting to most, he had found.
    And which bothered him not at all.
    There was a bed, a chair, a table, a bureau, and a TV on the bureau with lots of mostly useless channels. The bathroom was barely an afterthought, essentially a niche in the wall with a shower stall so claustrophobic it felt more like a straitjacket than a proper bathing area.
    Again, after a prison cell, it bothered him not at all.
    His duffel was on the floor and his laptop on the desk. He had purchased a disposable phone along the way, along with a mobile hotspot, set it all up, programmed in some interesting features, and was grinding his way through the military database he’d hacked into back at Starbucks.
    It was a special database to which only authorized personnel should have been granted access. Computer security was only as good as the programmer. The one who had firewalled this database had been good—but not great.
    Puller had also purchased a small wireless printer and some three-hole paper and three-ring and spiral notebooks along with pens. While his entire professional life had been mostly spent in the digital world, where the language of ones and zeroes dominated, he appreciated the importance of paper, pen, and deliberative thought that working with such old-school items seemed to inspire. And he thought better in cursive. The joined-up writing seemed to spur connective thinking.
    He printed his papers, put them in the three-ring, exited the database, and took up his pen and spiral notebooks. He worked methodically for some hours. He didn’t stop to drink or eat or use the bathroom. He was oblivious to whatever else was going on in the world, or at least in Kansas. He was no longer, at least in his mind, the most wanted man in America. He was an analyst, a seer, a prognosticator going over his reams of data, moving their pieces, twisting them, testing them, discounting some, fleshing out others, slowly transforming disjointed intelligence into something that made sense.
    After six hours of relentless concentration and the light of day having given over to dark, forcing him to take a moment