She laughed, but it died halfway out of her throat and she quickly turned somber. “Because your honesty and, well, this damn nobleness about you, shamed me. I just felt ashamed having to string you along. It was humbling, frankly. When I thought I was well past that emotion. Along with a lot of others,” she added, her voice growing very soft.
“So where does that leave us?” asked Puller quietly after a lengthy pause.
“With me asking for a second chance, or what is it now, a third chance with you? And even if you give me one I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me this time.”
He glanced down at her hip. “That scar is real enough and the wound underneath. You were limping when you walked in here and I saw you wince when you sat down.” He glanced at the other room. “When you fell to the floor to avoid getting shot, I guess you landed right on that hip. Probably hurts like a bitch.”
“Yes, it does,” admitted Knox. “More than a bitch, actually. I’d kill for a Percocet right now.”
“So is the 902d Intelligence Group at Leavenworth under the NSA’s thumb?”
“The NSA is pretty much everywhere, Puller. And the 902d is no exception.”
He nodded. “I appreciate how hard that must have been for you to say.”
“Training is training,” she replied. “But I still have a bit of free will left and I mean to exercise it.”
“Okay. It’s a start.”
Puller’s phone rang. It was Shireen Kirk.
“Hello, Shireen. Can I call you back in a few minutes? I’m a little tied up.”
She said, “No, you can’t call me back. Where are you?”
“Leavenworth.”
“So am I.”
“Excuse me?”
“I just landed and I’m in a cab heading out to find you.”
“What the hell are you doing in Kansas?”
“I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. Can we meet somewhere?”
Puller glanced at Knox, who was watching him closely.
“Yeah, there’s a diner.” He gave her the address. “I’ve got an agent from INSCOM with me. I’d like her to get read in too.”
“I’d rather just talk to you, Puller.”
“It’s going to have to be the both of us, Shireen. I trust her and you can too.”
“I’ll be there in thirty,” Kirk said gruffly and clicked off.
“Who was that?”
“Shireen Kirk. My JAG contact.”
“Where did she come in from?”
“D.C.”
“Why come all the way out here?”
“She wanted to do a face-to-face. It must be important.”
“I appreciate your wanting me to sit in. But if it makes her uncomfortable, I can bow out.”
“No, Knox. We’re a team now. We stick together.”
“You’re sure?”
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
30
THEY DROVE SEPARATELY back into Leavenworth and met at the same diner they’d eaten at before. Puller held the door for Knox, who was walking stiffly thanks to her banged-up hip.
“Did you get the Percocet?” he asked.
“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “But I downed four Advil. Just waiting for the suckers to kick in.”
Puller spotted Kirk at a back booth and they headed over.
Kirk was dressed in slacks and a jacket, both of which were ruffled and wrinkled. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, her curly hair was in disarray, she smelled of cigarette smoke, and there was an empty coffee cup in front of her.
Puller introduced the two women. Kirk gave Knox an appraising look and then nodded curtly.
“I don’t know you, Knox, but if Puller vouches for you, then okay.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Don’t thank me, I’m not doing it for you.” She turned to Puller. “I left last night. I had to fly to Chicago, where my connection was canceled. I slept in the airport and spent today trying to get on another flight, till I snagged a seat on a puddle jumper. I could have driven the whole way faster. Friggin’ useless airlines.”
“A phone call would have been a lot faster.”
“I’m hungry, you guys want to order? Because I do.”
They ordered their food and after some chitchat Kirk hunched forward and spoke in a low voice. “You know how a court-martial works, I take it?”
Puller said, “Fortunately, I’ve never experienced one, but, yes, I know how it works. They’re Article 1 legislative courts, meaning Congress controls them.”
Kirk nodded. “The convening authority is the commanding officer. He creates the court-martial and selects the panel members.”
“And that’s the rub,” said Puller. “The CO creates the court and picks the jurors.”
“There are strict guidelines concerning unlawful command influence. Rule 104 of the court-martial process is very explicit. The CO is banned from punishing or influencing members in any way. The system has survived all attacks for over two centuries.”
“That still doesn’t mean it’s fair. But who wants to rock that boat?”
Kirk spread her hands. “I’m not saying it’s an ideal system, but it’s the one we have. And it works for the most part.”
“I don’t think it worked for my brother.”
Kirk sipped her coffee and shot glances around the diner, while Puller stared moodily off and Knox glanced back and forth between the two.
Their food came a few minutes later and they waited for the waitress to leave before resuming the conversation.
“I’m going to eat and talk,” said Kirk. “Pardon the open mouth full of food.” After liberally salting everything on her plate while Knox looked on in disapproval, Kirk said, “There are no hung juries like in civilian courts. You need a three-quarters agreement among the panel for a sentence of ten years or more, and the panel, not the judge, also decides the sentence.”
“But I understand that unanimity by the panel is required for the death penalty,” said Puller.
“Not always. If he was convicted under Article 106 of spying, then the penalty decision is taken away from the panel. Spying carries a mandatory death sentence. There are no exceptions if the conditions are met. The judge will simply announce the sentence.”
Puller sat back. “I wasn’t aware of that. What are the conditions?”
“Pretty simple and straightforward. The genesis of the language actually dates back to colonial times, although it’s been modified from time to time over the years. It has to be during a time of war, which we certainly were when he was arrested.”
“But Congress never officially declared war on Afghanistan or Iraq,” Puller pointed out.
“You’d make a good lawyer, Puller. And the defense argued that point. But while technically what you say is true, practically, we were at war. And your brother was accused of aiding our enemies. When dealing with something like that, the defense is going to lose more often than it wins. And that’s what happened when your brother’s lawyer argued that point. He lost.”
“Okay, go on,” said Puller.
“The accused has to be acting as a spy in a place within the jurisdiction and control of the armed forces or any other place engaged in work in aid of that war. There are other elements: acting clandestinely, attempting to collect certain information with intent to convey to the enemy, etcetera, etcetera.”
“But was he charged under Article 106?” asked Knox. She quickly added, “But I guess he couldn’t have been. He was convicted but he wasn’t sentenced to death.”
Kirk said, “It seems Article 106 was originally on the table, but then it was taken off. He was instead convicted under Article 106a of espionage. It’s sort of splitting hairs, because it carries many of the underlying requirements of spying although there is no requirement that it be during time of war. It also carries a capital penalty when the crime involves certain elements like nuclear weaponry, satellites, and communications intelligence.??
?
“All things my brother was involved in,” said Puller slowly.
“Right, but as opposed to a conviction of spying, the death penalty is not mandatory. It’s also subject to whatever other punishment the court-martial wants to direct. And as you said, that’s when all panel members must vote unanimously to impose death. That’s a big difference from an automatic capital sentence.”
“And they didn’t have unanimity?” said Puller.
“No. Otherwise he’d be on death row or actually dead. Instead he was given life.”
“So there must have been some extenuating circumstances,” said Knox.
“I suppose there were, yes, but the whole picture was a little fuzzy from a trial perspective.”
“Surely you didn’t get that from just a paper trail, Shireen?” asked Knox.
Kirk swung her gaze to Knox. “My first name isn’t Shireen, it’s actually Cambrai. But it might as well be ‘Scorched Earth.’ I dug up the prosecutor and the defense counsel and spoke with both of them. They were surprisingly candid. Surprisingly.”
She let the word hang out there.
“And why do you think they were so cooperative?” asked Puller.
“Well, it’s hard to say,” began Kirk cautiously. “They both remembered the case well, though I’m sure they’ve both handled dozens since. You know there was a PTA but your brother rejected it.”
“What’s a PTA?” asked Knox.
“Pretrial agreement. The accused can provide a guilty plea in exchange for a more lenient sentence. He apparently wanted no part of that. He consistently proclaimed his innocence in the strongest possible terms.”
“Who was the convening authority?” asked Puller.
“The CO at STRATCOM, Major General Martin Able.”
“I know Puller was convicted of espionage, but what were the specific charges?” asked Knox.
“As Puller told me earlier the trial record was sealed. And for good reason, because it was full of classified information. MRE 505 is very detailed on that point.”
Knox said, “MRE? Not meals, ready to eat, surely?”
“Try Military Rules of Evidence,” suggested Kirk.
“But you wouldn’t come all this way unless you had unsealed it,” commented Puller.
“As I told you before, that would take a court order. Which there was no way I could get, certainly not in the time since I talked to you last.”
“But?” prompted Puller.
“But, as I said, the counsels were cooperative. The defense counsel, Todd Landry, especially so. He told me in confidence about the charges.”
“Didn’t he ask why you wanted to know?” Knox asked.
“Of course. I made noises about Robert Puller’s escape from DB, which they both knew about. It’s all over the military pipelines.”
“And they just assumed you were part of some group investigating it?” said Knox.
“If they made that assumption, I did nothing to suggest they were incorrect in that assumption,” Kirk said smoothly.
“So what were the charges?” Puller said.
“It’s fairly well known that NSA has deals in place with major technology companies and cellular phone carriers to allow them backdoor access into those platforms. Well, apparently Robert Puller had devised a back door into STRATCOM’s intelligence platform, which, by the way, is tied to pretty much all the other intelligence pipelines, including NSA, CIA, and Army Intel. And that he was in the process of selling off the access codes to that back door to enemies of this country. It would have been catastrophic.”
“Selling secrets? That’s bullshit!” exclaimed Puller. “He didn’t care about money. Why would he do that?”
“Apparently the motive was online gambling debts. In the millions.”
“Online gambling?” exclaimed a stunned Puller. “My brother was not a gambler.”
“Well, it seems they found evidence to the contrary on his personal computers and his cell phone. He played under a variety of fictitious names.”
“My brother is a super-smart geek. He would know gambling is based on luck, not skill. He’s too intelligent to bet.”
“I asked that very question.”
“And?” said Knox.
“And the prosecutor, Doug Fletcher, informed me that it seems that your brother had devised an elaborate gambling algorithm that was initially extremely successful.”
“Initially?” said Puller.
“Before it became unsuccessful. That’s where the millions in losses come in. He just kept playing, trying to bet his way out of a hole. Lots of gamblers do that. It’s a bona fide addiction. And playing online just opens up that addiction to millions of potential abusers.”
“And they had evidence of all this?” said Knox.
“Yes. Apparently clear-cut.”
“So—” Puller began, but Knox beat him to it.
“So why did both counsel remember the case so well?” she asked.
“Landry in particular seemed to think that everything was too neat and clean. There was no question that your brother knew his way around technology. And yet they discovered all this evidence on his personal devices without a lot of effort.”
“So he thought it was planted. If so, did he raise that as a defense?”
Knox said, “He would have, except your brother testified that his personal devices could not be hacked by anyone. That anything found on there would have to come from him.”
Puller slapped his palm against the tabletop, causing both women to jump. “The idiot. He was proud over practical. He didn’t want to admit that someone had beaten him. He was the same way growing up. You might kick his butt once in something, but it would be the only time.”
Knox said, “A guilty man would never have done that. He would grab at every defense he could get.”
“Another reason Landry remembered the case so well. In point of fact, he’d never had an accused purposely torpedo a potential defense like that. Never. And yet your brother did without blinking an eye, apparently.”
“Maybe he never really believed he was going to be convicted,” said Knox.
“Well, he was wrong.”
“But there was an appeal, right?” said Knox.
“Whenever the penalty is the dismissal from the ranks of an officer, the Court of Criminal Appeals—in this case the one for the Air Force—automatically conducts one. Robert Puller’s case was reviewed and the lower judgment was upheld. No further action was taken on his behalf. Any other appeal would take some work to initiate, which he never did.”
Puller fingered his coffee cup. “So he protested his innocence strongly. He never told me that. I wonder why?”
Knox shrugged. “There could be lots of reasons.”
“I can’t believe my brother would ever sell secrets.”
“But he would be in a position to transmit secrets to the enemy. And if he did he might not have done it for money despite the gambling piece,” pointed out Knox.
“What, he’s like that Snowden guy and wants to transform what he thinks is a bad system by outing it to the world from a safe distance away?”
“Well, he obviously didn’t do it like Snowden,” said Kirk. “The court found he did it for the money.” Puller put down his cup. “But we can’t lose sight of the fact that someone may have been sent to DB to kill my brother. Since then an Air Force general at STRATCOM has been murdered and Knox here had to shoot an Army captain who might have been involved in the attempt on my brother’s life. If he was guilty and safely in prison, why all the attention now?”
Kirk nearly choked on her coffee. She stared over at Knox. “You did what?”