Duty and Honor

18

Once in the car, Jack watched his phone’s screen as the red blip that represented Möller’s car — or what he hoped was Möller inside Eunice Miller’s car — left Willow Drive and slowly made its way to Highway 15, where it headed north. Jack let Möller get a mile’s head start, then followed.

Möller headed almost due north, making his way first to 84 before picking up I-91 at Hartford. An hour later they crossed the border into Massachusetts. An hour after that they were into Vermont, following 91 along the Connecticut River, which separated Vermont and New Hampshire. Soon swaths of snow began to appear in the ditches along the highway and in crescents around the bases of pine trees. City-limits signs for distinctly colonial-sounding towns passed outside the Sonata’s windows — Putney, Walpole, Charleston — and with each passing mile the terrain grew more rural until each side of the highway was hemmed in by thick forest.

“Where the hell is he going?” Effrem asked. “Canada?”

“I don’t know, but I’m thinking about ending this,” Jack replied.

“What’s that mean?”

“Deserted rural road in the middle of the night,” Jack said. “Force him off the road and—”

“And what?” Effrem blurted, clearly alarmed. “Drag him into the forest and tie him to a tree? You’re kidding, right?”

“More or less.”

At five a.m. Jack’s phone trilled. Effrem checked it. “Google news alert?”

Jack felt his heart drop. “I set one for the Waterbury train station and the Metro-North. Read it.”

Effrem scanned the story. “It’s from WTNH. Let’s see… Oh, God, Jack.”

“What?”

“Unidentified woman found in bathroom of an out-of-service Metro-North train. Badly beaten, airlifted to Hartford. Police investigating.”

Jack clenched his hands on the steering wheel. “Bastard.”

Twenty minutes later Effrem said, “He’s slowing down. Getting off the highway. He’s stopped. Turning east.”

Jack pressed down on the accelerator and soon the Sonata’s headlights panned over a sign: EXIT 8 / VT-131 / ASCUTNEY-WINDSOR. “That’s it,” said Effrem.

“Where is he?”

“Half-mile ahead, turning left onto… I don’t see a label. I’ll let you know when.”

Jack took the exit, then turned east. Another couple hundred yards brought them to a north-south intersection.

“Turn left.”

Jack did so. A sign beside the road reading CONNECTICUT RIVER BYWAY was followed shortly after by one reading ASCUTNEY — POPULATION 540.

Now they were paralleling the river, heading north along Ascutney’s main thoroughfare. Where they’d seen little traffic on Highway 91, here there was none. Ahead, what few traffic lights existed all glowed green. At each intersection Jack looked left and right and saw only darkened roads and the occasional lighted window or porch light.

“Slow down,” Effrem said. “He’s only a few hundred yards ahead.”

Jack took his foot off the gas pedal and let the car coast until the speedometer fell below fifteen miles per hour.

“He’s turning left onto… Black Mountain Road. There’s a campground up here; the turn is just after that. Okay, you can pick up speed a bit.”

Jack did so, and soon his headlights flashed over another sign. To the right, STAFFORD CONSTRUCTION; to the left, BLACK MOUNTAIN ROAD. “Effrem, do a search for Stafford Construction.”

“Checking on it. He’s going very slow, Jack. You think he’s lost?”

Jack doubted this. Men like Stephan Möller rarely got lost. Jack flicked off his headlights, turned onto Black Mountain Road, and again dropped his speed. The moon was partially obscured by clouds, and the trees crowding the road left Jack almost blind. He concentrated on the yellow center line and kept going.

They drove in silence for two minutes.

Effrem said, “My data connection is getting spotty. I think he’s turning again. Right this time, about a hundred yards ahead. Looks like a quarry, maybe? What’s he want with a quarry?”

“Hell if I know.”

To their right, the shoulder sloped away into a shallow draw choked with knee-high weeds. At the bottom Jack could make out what looked like a curving road, its dun-colored gravel bright in the moonlight.

“Not this one,” Effrem said. “The turn-in is just ahead.”

“I know.”

Jack stopped the car, then put it into reverse and backed up until only the hood was exposed beyond the ridgeline. They watched the road.

A few moments later, headlights panned over the gravel, and then, as Möller’s white Subaru came into view from the left, the headlights went dark. The car disappeared from view behind the trees.

Jack asked, “Are you on map view or satellite?”

“Map. It’s all my phone’s connection can do to keep up. It looks like the bottom of this draw is the entrance to the quarry.”

“Switch to satellite view and tell me what you see.”

“It’s going to take a minute.”

Jack put the car in drive again, then turned onto the shoulder and down into the draw, carefully picking his way between the scrub bushes. He put the transmission in neutral and shut off the engine, letting momentum carry the car forward. Jack steered right until they were almost brushing the draw’s slope, then braked to a stop and put the car in park. He rolled down both their windows and listened for a few moments. He heard nothing but the croaking of frogs. He asked Effrem, “You still have him?”

“Hold on, the satellite view is resolving… I’m seeing what looks like construction equipment; bulldozers, excavators, trucks… You think he’s meeting someone?”

“Either that or he’s picking up another vehicle.”

“I don’t see anything but heavy equipment down there.”

“That overhead view could be months old,” Jack replied. “Come on, let’s go have a look.”

Jack grabbed his binoculars from his rucksack, opened his door, climbed out, then headed left toward the slope. Effrem followed a few steps behind. When they reached the edge of the gravel road, Jack stopped, knelt down. Across the road was a mound of dirt as tall as a two-story house.

Jack whispered to Effrem, “Step where I step, stop when I stop.” Effrem nodded firmly, but Jack could see the barest glint of fear in his eyes. “You’ll do fine.”

Jack crept toward the edge of the road, then peeked right into the quarry. The entrance road they were standing beside opened into a tiered pit divided into navigable tracts by mounds of gravel and sand. Here and there dirt berms covered in stubby trees were backlit by the night sky.

Jack saw no sign of the Subaru. He checked again through the binoculars — nothing.

Hunched over, he crossed the road to the dirt mound and made his way around its back side, where he again stopped. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned. Effrem mouthed something to Jack, then handed him the phone. Jack took it and studied the screen. In Jack’s ear Effrem whispered, “Stafford Construction. It’s just over that hill. Do you see what I see?”

Jack zoomed in on the image. The compound of Stafford Construction was sandwiched between Black Mountain Road and the Connecticut River on a swath of land about a quarter-mile wide and a mile long. Along the western edge nearest this quarry sat a collection of outbuildings. To the east beside the river, the compound was bisected by a long paved road bordered by what looked like construction trailers and elongated storage containers.

Something was off about the image, Jack realized, trying to pin it down.

From the darkness came the slamming of a car door.

Startled, Effrem looked over his shoulder. “Was that Möller? Is he moving?”

Jack ignored him. He zoomed in on the Stafford compound and began scrolling the image. Then he saw it.

Painted onto the pavement at each end of the compound road was a white X.

Jack knew the symbol: Permanently Closed Runway.

Möller was here for the next leg of his E&E plan, but it didn’t involve a vehicle.

In the distance Jack heard the faint whine of an aircraft engine.

Jack said, “Stay close.”