Duty and Honor

8

Hahn’s version of soon was the following afternoon.

Jack was again killing time, having spent the morning trying to piece together what he had and watching the rain clouds gather through his balcony window. By noon a steady drizzle had begun to fall.

Jack continued to wrestle with the course he’d chosen. The attempt on his life had to have something to do with The Campus. Nothing else made sense. If so, Gerry Hendley deserved to be in the loop. Especially if he wasn’t the only one who’d been targeted. Ysabel was safe, but what about everyone else?

He grabbed his phone and speed-dialed John Clark’s direct line. Clark answered on the second ring: “Hey, Jack, what’s cooking?”

Clark’s tone was untroubled. In the field, the man was impossible to read, a poker opponent’s worst nightmare, but around the office as Hendley’s director of operations he wore his feelings plainly enough. If someone was going after anybody at The Campus, Jack would have heard it in his voice.

“Just checking in. Making sure everyone’s alive and kicking.”

“All is well.” If this weren’t true, Clark wouldn’t have said so outright, but he would have gotten his point across. Besides, if someone had come after Dom or Chavez or anyone else, Jack would’ve heard about it already. Though he was in exile, he was still part of the Hendley family. Clark asked, “What’ve you been up to?”

The question was a natural one, but Jack couldn’t help but feel the absurdity of it. What’ve I been up to? Busy not getting murdered. Instead, he said, “Not much. Going to the gym, watching Real Housewives—you know, the usual.”

Clark chuckled. “I record all mine on the DVR. Keeps me up all night. So, you’re coming back into the fold soon, right? You talk to Gerry yet?”

“No. Still thinking about it.”

“What’s there to think about?”

Jack didn’t answer. Clark said, “Ding was asking about you. Maybe let’s grab a beer next week, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll call you.”

Jack disconnected. The conversation seemed to confirm what he suspected: This was about him specifically, not about The Campus as a whole.

Shortly after three his cell phone beeped. He checked the screen: Tracking. The accelerometer in the GPS unit had detected movement. Peter Hahn’s car was pulling out of the garage — presumably with Hahn inside. The possibility that Jack was being lured—invited was a better word — into a trap had crossed his mind. Either Hahn was trying to lead Jack in the right direction or he was hoping to finish the job Weber had started, but he hadn’t wanted to do it in his own backyard.

It didn’t matter. This was his only lead.

He grabbed his rucksack and headed for the door.

Hahn was moving slowly, heading north and west away from Rose Hill.

After pulling out of the parking garage, Jack pulled to the curb, stuck his cell phone in the dashboard mount, and synced it to the Chrysler’s onboard navigation system. On the bright, bigger screen the pulsing blue pop was easy to see.

Hahn’s car reached Highway 495, where it paused momentarily before merging and heading due west. Unless Hahn exited soon, the highway would turn north up toward Annandale and Dunn Loring and Tysons Corner. Even with Hahn moving as slowly as he was, Jack couldn’t catch up. For now, he’d have to settle for parallel.

He made his way to George Washington Memorial Parkway, and headed north. Traffic was light but wouldn’t stay that way for long once rush hour started. His car’s wipers intermittently squeaked and bumped across the windshield, keeping pace with the light rain. Jack kept one eye on the road and one eye on Hahn’s blip, which was still headed north and approaching Annandale. In his mind’s eye Jack ran through his options, should Hahn turn west. Once past Arlington Cemetery he could jump on the Custis Parkway and, he hoped, make up the eight-mile gap before Hahn got too far ahead.

For the next ten minutes they both continued north, Hahn still on the 495, Jack following the GW Parkway along the Potomac River, each angling toward the other. Eventually the two highways would intersect before crossing the river and turning into the Capital Beltway.

Jack’s last chance to make a quick jaunt west, the Georgetown Pike, came and went, and still Hahn’s blip moved steadily north. Jack picked up speed until he was going eighty miles per hour, hoping against hope a passing cop didn’t spot him. Hahn’s route would take him straight across the Potomac, while Jack had to follow the loop, costing him almost four miles.

Jack was halfway there, passing the midpoint of Langley Oaks Park, when the blip slowed and took the Georgetown Pike loop off-ramp, where it paused.

“What’s over there?” Jack muttered to himself.

To the west lay one of the more expensive residential areas in McLean, where houses ran well into the millions. Jack used his right hand to pan and zoom the car’s nav screen. To the west of the 495 was an open expanse. A nature preserve, it looked like. Secluded — and on a day like this, probably empty. The location made sense — for an isolated meeting place or for a trap. Or for whatever Peter Hahn was taking him to see.

“Come on,” Jack told the blip. “Do something.”

Jack was now passing Parkview Hills and approaching the Georgetown Pike/495 interchange. Hahn’s car was less than a mile ahead and stopped.

The blip turned west onto the pike.

Jack sped up and reached the exit turnoff forty seconds later. Here, west of the 495, the pike was known as Cardinal Drive. On Jack’s nav screen Hahn’s car was a half-mile ahead and slowing at Swinks Mill Road. It turned right into what looked like an elongated, winding parking lot.

Jack took his foot off the gas pedal and coasted until he reached Swinks Mill. He stopped just short of the preserve entrance and eased ahead until he could see through the trees.

Though the temperature was in the low sixties, the rain and wind made for miserable hiking weather, and it was still too early in the season for the die-hard mushroom collectors to be out.

He saw no cars before the road curved and disappeared around a bend.

This was a damned terrible idea, Jack thought. Tactically, there were many reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this, the biggest of which was exfiltration. Once inside this parking lot he would be boxed with a lone narrow road for an escape route. And he had no backup. On the other hand, if he took the time to find another entrance and Hahn left his car, Jack would never find him.

No choice. Nothing’s perfect; either you adapt or you fail.

He scanned the lot for surveillance cameras but saw none.

He turned in and drove to the lot’s rear section, a cul-de-sac roughly a hundred yards long. At the far end Hahn’s Nissan was pulling onto a single-lane dirt access road. Jack grabbed his binoculars from the rucksack and zoomed in. A wooden sign with yellow letters read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Lying on the ground beside the sign’s post was a pile of chain. After a few moments the car’s taillights disappeared through the trees.

“Shit.” He saw no other cars in the lot. Who was Hahn meeting? And where? This access road didn’t appear on the car’s navigation screen. Out his side window was a small roofed kiosk. On its wall, behind plexiglass, were what looked like a collection of enlarged historical photos. The box that should have contained maps was empty.

He rolled down both windows a couple inches and pulled ahead, scanning the trees on either side until he reached the entrance access road.

Jack’s inner warning voice was talking to him: Leave. Call Hendley.

Not yet. His gut was also talking to him: something about Hahn, about his demeanor, that told Jack the man could be trusted. No, trusted was the wrong word, but twice Hahn had passed up a chance to kill Jack. Whoever was pulling the man’s strings, he’d chosen a different path. What that was Jack didn’t know. And he was about to find out which of his two voices was right.

Jack drew his Glock and tucked it under his thigh.

He eased the nose of the Chrysler between the posts and drove on.