Duty and Honor

7

The Nissan headed east, away from Springfield and up 495, then took the South Van Dorn exit south. At Franconia the Nissan turned again and once more headed east. Is he dry-cleaning, looking for tails? Jack wondered. Another ten minutes of driving brought Jack to the Rose Hill area, where the Nissan turned into a residential area. Finally, on Climbhill Road, the Nissan slowed and pulled into the driveway of a rambler with sage-green paint, white shutters, and a line of squared-off yew bushes bracketing the front steps. A lone porch light burned beside the door. Across the street, instead of houses, there was a park with playground equipment.

As Jack drove past the house he glanced out the side window and saw the Nissan disappearing into a detached garage. Jack continued to the end of the block, then pulled to the curb and shut off his lights.

The man’s destination was confusing. Rose Hill was a well-established lower-to-middle-class neighborhood of single-family homes, parks, and elementary schools. How did Eric Weber, the man who’d butchered Mark Macloon on the side of a highway and then tried to do the same to him in a grocery store parking lot, cross paths with the man behind the wheel of the Nissan? Hell, not just cross paths. Conspire to murder.

Make a decision, Jack. He couldn’t sit here for long and risk a visit from the police. Any cop who regularly patrolled the neighborhood would immediately pick out his Chrysler as an anomaly. He had the plate number and the house address; with his Enquestor access, those were enough to get a name. But he wanted more.

He checked his watch. Five minutes. It was worth the risk, he decided. He dug into his duffel, grabbed the items he needed, then made sure the car’s dome light was off and climbed out.

Keeping a slow but purposeful pace that he hoped gave off an “I belong” vibe, Jack walked back down the block. As he drew even with the house, he turned left off the sidewalk and followed a line of overgrown shrubs down the side of the house and into the backyard. To his left sat a gray, dilapidated shed, the kind you buy as a kit at a home-improvement warehouse. To his right were the rear of the house and a raised wooden deck abutting a door. A window to the right of the deck was lit. Kitchen, Jack guessed. Directly across the lawn from him stood the garage; there was a side door, its upper half mullioned glass. Sitting beside the garage’s wall was a redwood picnic table.

Jack returned his attention to the lighted window. There was no movement. Don’t think. Just walk. Jack stood up and trotted across the lawn, eyes alternating between the lighted window and the deck’s sliding doors. When he reached the garage he crouched down and put on his gloves. He tried the door. It was locked, but the knob looked ancient and on its last legs.

Jack pulled out his multi-tool, levered open the flathead screwdriver, and slipped it into the keyhole up to the haft. Simultaneously he slowly turned the tool and the knob in opposite directions. With a clunk, the knob gave way, spinning freely in its socket. Jack eased open the door and slipped inside.

He clicked on his red penlight and scanned the interior. It was what Jack expected: exposed wood walls, cardboard boxes stacked on makeshift rafter shelves, a tool-laden pegboard and cramped workbench tucked against the wall, its drawers almost touching the bumper of the Nissan, whose engine ticked as it cooled in the night air.

Jack checked his watch. Almost two of his five minutes had passed. Two more for a search, and a minute to get back to his car. Jack made his way to the passenger side, opened the door, then leaned in and switched off the dome light. He popped the glove compartment and sorted through the contents: owner’s manual, insurance card, car registration. The man’s name was Peter Hahn. Huh. Another German surname, Jack thought. He photographed the insurance card and registration, then returned everything to the glove compartment. He opened the center console. Inside, along with a few packs of chewing gum, an Altoids tin full of quarters, and a bottle of new-car-smell air freshener, was a Nokia cell phone.

“That’ll do,” Jack whispered. Clearly Mr. Hahn was not a technophile who needed his phone nearby at all times. Jack’s dad was the same way.

From his pocket Jack pulled a small canvas case and unzipped it. He sorted through the contents until he found the micro USB adapter, which he slid into the phone’s charging port. Into the adapter itself he plugged his thumb-size DRS — data recovery stick — a commercial and less versatile version of the tailor-made models Gavin Biery produced for The Campus’s personnel. This version would skim only the most basic info from the phone — contacts, text messages, call and browser history — but no DNS (domain name system) data that could tell him more about the sites the owner visited and people he e-mailed.

Jack powered up the phone. A light on the DRS started blinking green. When the light flashed red Jack disconnected and returned the phone to the console. Finally he planted a GPS tracker, a commercial model about the size of a deck of playing cards, Velcroing it around a cable cluster beneath the passenger-side dashboard.

He gave the car a quick once-over, making sure everything was where and how he’d found it, then eased shut the door and left the garage.

From his left side a flashlight beam blinded him.

Cop. He resisted the instinct to reach for his gun.

“If you move, I will shoot you,” a voice said from the darkness. Jack detected a faint accent, perhaps German. Was this Peter Hahn? Jack had checked left; the man must have posted himself at the corner of the garage wall and waited. Crafty.

Jack took a gamble: “Hey, man, I was just looking for a little cash. I’ll put it back, okay. It was just some quarters.”

“Turn around,” Hahn ordered. His voice was even, without the slightest trace of anxiety. This wasn’t the first time the German had held someone at gunpoint.

“C’mon, just lemme go. I won’t come back, I swear.”

“I said turn around. Slowly. Hands out to the side.”

Dammit. Rusty, Jack. You’ve gotten rusty.

Slowly Jack turned around. He squinted against the glare of the flashlight and lowered his head slightly so the brim of his cap would shade his face. He could see nothing of Hahn behind the beam of his flashlight.

Hahn muttered, “You little assholes, why don’t you just stop…”

Jack felt a tinge of relief. Definitely not a cop.

“… wait,” Hahn said. “Take off your hat. Let me see your face.”

You’re done, Jack. He took off his cap.

“Look at me,” Hahn ordered.

Squinting, Jack turned his face into the light and lifted his chin.

There were a few seconds of silence before Hahn said, “You know, it would make my life much easier if I shot you right here.” If Hahn was surprised to find Jack standing in his backyard, the man betrayed none of it in his voice.

“You didn’t kill me the other night when you had the chance,” Jack replied. “Why do it now?”

Hahn didn’t reply.

Jack pushed on: “Killing me wouldn’t solve your problems. They’d only get worse. I assume you know who I am.” Even in this context the phrase tasted sour in Jack’s mouth, but he was arguing for his life.

“Yes, I know who you are. Still, it might solve my biggest problem,” Hahn replied.

Good. Still talking, Jack thought.

“Which is what? Dealing with whoever ordered you to clean out Weber’s hotel room?”

“You followed me.”

“You and your friend tried to kill me. I want to know why.”

Again Hahn was silent for a moment. “He’s not my friend.”

Jack said, “Mr. Hahn, can you take the light out of my eyes?”

“Lift up your jacket with your left hand and slowly turn around.” Jack complied and Hahn said, “Remove the gun and place it on the ground in front of you.” Jack did so and Hahn ordered him to back up and sit down at the picnic table.

Hahn stepped forward, his gun never wavering, and picked up Jack’s Glock, stuffed it into his belt, then lowered the flashlight beam to Jack’s chest.

“I have questions,” Hahn said.

“That makes two of us.”

“Why do they want you dead?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I don’t even know who they are. Why did you leave the parking lot? Why didn’t you finish me?”

Jack’s eyes adjusted so he could now see Hahn’s silhouette. In the side glow of the flashlight he made out a snub-nosed revolver in Hahn’s right hand.

“I’m not sure,” Hahn replied. “I’m not that kind of man, not anymore. I never was, I don’t think. What they were asking… it made no sense. It’s just murder.”

“Were you there when Weber killed that kid on the side of the freeway?”

Hahn exhaled heavily. He lowered the revolver to his side.

“I tried to tell him he had the wrong person.” Hahn sounded weary, resigned. “He didn’t listen. Such a waste.”

“Who ordered it?”

“That I won’t answer. As it is, I don’t know if I’ve done enough to save her. I hope so.” Before Jack could ask the logical question, Hahn added, “They’d never made the threat plain, you know? But I know him. He just might do it.”

“I might be able to help.”

“No.”

Jack realized Hahn hadn’t asked the obvious question: Why was the son of the President of the United States here in his backyard, rather than the Secret Service or FBI? If Madonna showed up to repossess your car, you’d want to know why her of all people. Jack suspected Hahn just didn’t care. Whatever mess he’d gotten into had pushed him to his limit.

“I can make some calls,” Jack said, immediately recognizing the absurdity of the statement. He couldn’t begin to explain any of this.

Hahn chuckled. “Calls. You can make some calls. How nice of you. No, what’s going to happen next is…” Hahn hesitated, as though searching for the right word. “Necessary.”

Jack felt his chest tighten. He kept his eyes on Hahn’s gun hand, waiting. He had little chance of reaching Hahn in time, but he’d be damned if he was going to be killed sitting at a picnic table. Nor was he going to allow Hahn to take him anywhere. Secondary locations were graveyards.

What Hahn said next surprised Jack: “Loyalty is an odd thing, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes. Tell me what’s going on. I’ll do what I can.”

“Not possible. I can’t tell you. But I can point you in the right direction.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll have to do the rest. I assume you have means of following me? Never mind. Of course you do. It will happen soon, in the next day or two, so be ready.”

Jack was back at the Oronoco thirty minutes later.

He’d tried to push Hahn for further explanation, for anything, but the man had simply laid Jack’s Glock on the ground, then turned and walked back into his house. Jack had been so stunned he sat in the darkness for nearly a minute, mind spinning, before returning to his car.

Now he grabbed a beer, sat down in front of his laptop, and plugged the DRS stick into the USB port. He waited until the program started downloading Hahn’s cell-phone dump, then logged in to the Enquestor portal and typed in Hahn’s information. The results came back in ten seconds. Jack scanned them.

Peter Hahn, sixty-three years old, naturalized citizen, emigrated from Germany sixteen years earlier. Retired from Xerox as a “facilities maintenance manager” three years ago. Widowed, one grown child, a daughter. Solid credit rating, mortgage to the Climbhill house paid off, almost no unsecured debt, no legal judgments past or pending. And so on.

With higher-level access to The Campus’s system, Jack could have cross-checked both Hahn and Weber against Hendley’s raw and processed intelligence databases, but that wasn’t an option. Something told him the search would have turned up nothing substantial, anyway.

Peter Hahn was an average guy. No red flags. Aside from every word that had come out of the man’s mouth tonight, of course. And aside from the fact that he’d handled Jack like a man who’d seen his fair share of hairy situations.

Jack’s laptop beeped, signaling that the DRS had finished downloading. Jack double-clicked the text document. The data dump was a block of plain, unformatted text. Already knowing what he was looking for, Jack was able to quickly separate the data into text messages, phone usage, and Web history.

Peter Hahn didn’t use his phone for text messaging or Web browsing, and the call history was brief: pizza places, theaters, the public library, a man named “Larry, Bowling Night,” and someone named “BB.” Jack tapped on each of these in turn. The first person, Larry Neil, also lived in Rose Hill, a few blocks from Hahn. The next name, BB, came back with a German address and phone number:

Germany again. That thread was thickening. Had he pissed off someone in Germany? Nothing came to mind.

“It will happen soon, so be ready,” Hahn had said.

What will happen?

And who is “her”?