The Escape (John Puller, #3)(146)

“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.





CHAPTER





72



SUSAN 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.