Duty and Honor

9

The road wound its way north, generally following the course of a creek Jack could hear gurgling through his driver’s-side window. Occasionally through the trees he glimpsed the Nissan’s red taillights or the white of its trunk. Hahn was moving slowly, less than twenty miles an hour. The trees continued to thicken and soon the road veered slightly right, east, away from the river, and the grade steepened.

Ahead, Hahn’s brake lights flashed, then went out. Hahn had stopped with his passenger-side tires on the dirt shoulder. Beyond the car the access road curved right, following the contour of the Potomac’s banks, Jack guessed.

Jack coasted to a stop, then put the car in reverse and backed down the road until he could barely see Hahn’s car through the trees.

Hahn got out of his car. He opened a green-and-white golf umbrella. Without so much as a glance in Jack’s direction he walked across the road, down into the ditch, and disappeared from view.

Jack gave him a thirty-second head start, then climbed out, pulled the brim of his cap lower over his eyes, and followed. The rain had picked up slightly and the drops pattered the loam alongside the road.

When he drew even with the spot where Hahn had left the road, Jack saw there was a narrow trail heading north and west as it skirted the base of a rocky hill. If there was high ground to be had, Jack was going to take it. And if someone was lying in wait for him, chances were good that was where they would be.

Jack continued down the road another fifty feet until he found a natural break in the trees, then hopped down into the ditch and started up the slope. The leaves were slick underfoot, but by using roots and exposed rock Jack was able to slowly pick his way upward, stopping occasionally to scan the terrain.

Another few minutes of hiking brought him to a shallow cliff face. He picked his way up to a ledge where the rocks formed a natural stairway, then began climbing.

Jack paused. Where is Hahn? The trail he’d taken had to be somewhere to his left and below. He kept climbing until the stairs broadened into a rock shelf covered in scrub trees. He crept ahead until he was a few feet from the far edge, then crouched and peeked over. Below him lay a ravine bisected by the creek. To his left, at the mouth of the ravine, a waterfall plunged into a churning catch basin before emptying into a lagoon, itself spanned by a flagstone ford. Traversing the waterfall was a wooden footbridge.

Jack sensed movement to the left. He lay down on his belly and aimed the binoculars in that direction. It was Peter Hahn’s green-and-white umbrella, emerging from the trail. Hahn reached the bridge and started across. At the halfway point, he stopped. He placed his hand on the railing and leaned forward for a better view of the waterfall. Rain dribbled from the edge of his umbrella.

Five minutes passed.

A lone figure wearing a khaki trench coat and carrying a black umbrella mounted the bridge from the opposite side of the ravine and walked toward Hahn. Jack zoomed in, but at this angle he could see nothing above the man’s chest. His gait and build told Jack the man was younger than Hahn.

Hahn saw Trench Coat and turned toward him. He extended his hand in greeting. Trench Coat motioned to do the same. His hand came out of his coat pocket holding a palm-size semiautomatic pistol.

“What the—” Jack muttered. He drew his Glock, but too late.

The pistol’s muzzle flashed orange. In the rush of the waterfall the shot was silent. Hahn took a step backward as though someone had punched him in the belly. Trench Coat fired again. Hahn’s right leg buckled and he fell sideways, back against the handrail, then slid down onto his butt. His umbrella slipped from his hand, bounced off the footbridge’s wooden treads, and rolled away. Trench Coat lifted the pistol and shot Hahn in the right eye. He shoved the gun into his jacket pocket, turned, and walked away. From the first shot to the coup de grâce, less than five seconds had elapsed.

Jack’s natural instinct was to run to Hahn, but he quashed it. The German was dead, without a doubt. Next, run down Hahn’s killer. This, too, he resisted. Had Hahn brought him here to witness this or to find the next link in the chain? Or both? Whatever the answer, it lay with the man walking back across the bridge.

Jack raised the binoculars and tracked him. Trench Coat’s pace was unhurried, as if he were out for a casual nature walk. At the foot of the bridge he turned right onto a trail and Jack lost sight of him behind the trees.

Jack stood up and crouch-walked to the far edge of the rock shelf, then lay down again and started scanning with the binoculars. According to his car’s nav screen, this preserve’s border was marked by the creek below, which meant Trench Coat had parked somewhere within the preserve, farther down the access road, or somewhere in the residential areas to the west; this seemed less likely, he judged, given the exclusivity of this area of McLean. A nonnative vehicle in a well-to-do and tight-knit neighborhood would quickly attract attention.

How much time did he give Trench Coat? Jack wondered. Ninety seconds, he decided. He started counting and focused the binoculars on the lagoon’s flagstone pads.

When Jack’s count reached forty, Trench Coat emerged from the screen of trees and stepped onto the bank of the lagoon. He started across the ford. Jack zoomed in. Still the man’s face was blocked by the umbrella.

Jack backed away from the edge, turned around, and retraced his path, moving as fast and as quietly as possible. When he reached the ditch bordering the road, he stopped and looked left to where he guessed Trench Coat would emerge. Clear. He sprinted across it and into the trees beyond.

He needed to get ahead of Hahn’s killer.

After fifty feet, he veered left toward the access road, slowing his pace as he drew closer. When he could see the road’s berm through the trees, he stopped and crouched. He raised the binoculars and panned back along the road.

Where are you…?

There.

Trench Coat was coming down the road, still strolling without a care in the world. Jack had a lead, but not much of one. He recalled his rough mental map of the preserve: Eventually this access road would have to curve south before reaching Highway 495 and heading back toward Cardinal Drive.

He stood up, backed through the trees until he lost sight of the road, then turned and started moving again, keeping the road on his left. Jack adjusted course to the south, ran for another sixty seconds, then again veered left until the road came back into view.

Ahead through the trees he glimpsed a flash of metallic-blue car paint. He crouched beside a stump and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. It was the hood of a midsize sedan. He’d found a second parking lot, this one smaller than the first, a horseshoe-shaped clearing with enough spaces for ten to fifteen cars. All but one of them was empty. The access road entered on the left and exited on the right.

He zoomed in on the car. It was a Chevy Malibu. On the upper right side of the windshield was a Hertz sticker. Jack panned down and focused on the Maryland license plate. He memorized the number.

Jack lowered the binoculars and looked left through the trees, waiting for a glimpse of Trench Coat. He had two options: intercept the man and snatch him up or try to gather more information and track him. The former was impractical for a number of reasons, the biggest of which was what to do with the man. Chain him up in the condo’s pantry and torture him? No, if he wanted to get to the heart of what was happening and find a way to make it stop, he needed to know who was giving the orders.

Still, the idea of watching a murderer get in his car and drive away rankled Jack’s conscience. Whatever Hahn’s reasons, it seemed he’d come to this meeting knowing it would probably cost him his life. Moreover, he’d spared Jack’s life twice. While Jack felt no particular affection for Hahn, the least he could do was make that sacrifice count.

From Jack’s right he heard the crunch of tires on gravel. He looked that way and saw a red compact SUV pull into the clearing and turn into one of the stalls opposite the Malibu. After a few moments the SUV’s taillights went dark and exhaust stopped flowing from the muffler pipe. The driver’s-side door opened.

Jack scanned left, looking for Trench Coat. He was a hundred feet from the parking lot.

Jack felt a shiver of panic. What happened next depended on Trench Coat’s attitude toward witnesses. Would it be worth a second murder to get away from the scene cleanly?

The SUV’s driver got out, walked around the rear of the vehicle, stopped. He looked left and right, then walked across the lot toward Trench Coat’s Malibu. When he reached the rear bumper he pulled out a cell phone and snapped a picture of the license plate, then walked to the driver’s-side window and peered inside.

“What’re you doing?” Jack muttered to himself. Who was this? A cop, a thief? The man struck Jack as neither. He was in his mid-twenties, with shaggy blond hair and a prominent chin, and he moved tentatively, without the confidence of a cop.

This wasn’t going to end well.

The man straightened up and started back toward his SUV.

The Malibu’s headlights flashed once, accompanied by a muted beep and the clunk of the door locks disengaging.

Jack looked left, felt his heart lurch into his throat. Trench Coat was entering the parking lot, umbrella still covering half his face. His pistol was up and pointed at the SUV’s driver. The muzzle flashed; the report was no louder than that of a wet towel being snapped. The SUV’s driver crumpled to the ground.

Damn it! Jack thought. Whoever this new person was, bystander or player, he couldn’t let Trench Coat kill him.

Jack drew his Glock, stood up, sprinted into the parking lot, and took aim on the man. “Freeze!” he shouted.

Trench Coat stopped walking, but his gun never wavered from the fallen SUV driver. Slowly Trench Coat turned his head toward Jack.

“Put the gun down!” Jack called.

For a long three seconds the man didn’t respond. Jack could see only his chin and mouth below the rim of the umbrella.

Trench Coat said, “This man is still alive.” Jack detected no accent. “If you want him to stay that way, you’ll lose the gun.”

Trench Coat had already killed one man today and had just gunned down a second. If Jack dropped his weapon he’d be the third, either to silence another witness or because Trench Coat recognized him for who he was — the target they’d missed twice already.

Jack flicked his eyes toward the SUV. He could see the driver’s feet poking out from behind the rear tire; one of them moved, scraping the dirt as though the man was trying to crawl away.

“No chance,” Jack replied.

The man stared at Jack for a few seconds, then called to the SUV’s driver, “You, there! Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you,” came the faint reply. Now Jack caught the trace of an accent — vaguely European, perhaps German.

“Crawl toward me. Do it now or I’ll shoot you again.”

Jack said, “Stay there!” Then, to Trench Coat: “Give it up.”

“You’re not the police, are you?” the man replied. He sounded mildly surprised. Trench Coat was unflappable, Jack realized. He’d done this before, more than a few times.

“No, but I’m a decent shot,” Jack replied. “Put down your gun. Last chance.”

Trench Coat didn’t bite. “Let me leave and we all live through this. Back up and I’ll get in my car and drive away. You can help this man before he bleeds to death.”

In reply, Jack stalked forward three paces until he was standing at the Malibu’s bumper. Slowly he crouched down until only his shoulders and head were exposed.

“No.”

“I’m taking his car. You have my word I will not kill him.”

Bullshit.

With his eyes flicking between Jack and the SUV, the man paced forward, gun still trained on the fallen driver.

“I’ll keep my word,” Trench Coat said. “I just want to leave.”

Jack shouted, “Not another step—”

In one fluid motion Trench Coat ducked and spun, his pistol swinging around. Jack saw the muzzle flash. He felt something pluck at the collar of his jacket beside his ear. He ducked behind the Malibu’s engine block, then peeked around the bumper. Fast bastard, Jack thought.

Trench Coat was sprinting toward the SUV, gun coming back around toward the driver. The muzzle flashed. Jack tracked him with the Glock, leading him a bit, then fired. The bullet punched into the wet earth between Trench Coat and the SUV’s rear bumper.

“Next one’s in your chest,” Jack shouted. This wasn’t true; he needed the man alive, but shooting to wound went against all his training.

Trench Coat kept going. Jack fired again. This time the round struck Trench Coat’s right calf; he stumbled sideways but regained his balance and disappeared behind the SUV. Jack sprinted forward, gun raised, looking for Trench Coat’s silhouette inside the SUV.

“Get out of the car,” Jack shouted. “Out of the car!”

Ten feet from the SUV he slowed his pace, scanning for movement. He ducked, looked beneath the SUV, but saw nothing but the inert form of the driver.

In the distance he heard the muffled snapping of branches. Jack reached the SUV’s bumper and stopped to peek around the edge. Across the road, Trench Coat was fleeing through the trees. Jack raised his Glock, but it was too late. He had no shot.

To his right came a groan. The driver was alive.

“Can you hear me?” Jack asked him.

“Yes… who are you?”

“Stay still, don’t move. Hold on. I need to be sure he’s not doubling back.”

Jack watched the trees for another sixty seconds, then stood up, sidestepped to the man, and crouched beside him. He was lying on his belly, face turned toward Jack and in the dirt. The hair above his left ear was matted with blood, some of it running down his cheek. The rain diluted it pink.

“My head hurts,” he told Jack.

“I’ll bet. Can you see the trees across the road?”

“Yes.”

“Watch them,” Jack replied. “He’s out there. Tell me if anything moves.”

He holstered the Glock and leaned over the man. His blue eyes, wide with fear, were rotated toward Jack. Using his fingertips, Jack probed through the bloody hair until his index finger found a groove in the man’s scalp about an eighth of an inch deep and two inches long. The man winced. “Am I shot?”

“Grazed,” Jack replied, still probing. Trench Coat had fired twice. Was there another wound?

“There’s so much blood,” the man said.

“It’s a scalp wound, they’re like that. What’s your name?”

“Effrem.”

Jack had a long list of other questions, but they would have to wait.

“We need to get out of here, Effrem,” Jack said. “Can you move?”

“I think so.”

Jack helped Effrem to a sitting position, his back against the tire, then walked around and opened the rear hatch. Inside the cargo area was a yellow hard-sided roller suitcase. Jack unzipped it and rummaged around until he found some white tube socks. He tied three of them together, end to end, then returned to Effrem.

“Hold this against your head,” Jack told him. “Like that.”

Jack guided his hand, pressing one of the sock’s knots into the wound. He circled the loose ends around Effrem’s skull and cinched the makeshift bandage with a square knot.

“My head really hurts,” Effrem repeated.

“You’re going to be okay. Lift up your shirt.”

“What?”

Jack was already doing it, jerking Effrem’s shirt and jacket up toward his shoulders. Effrem caught on and helped with his free hand. “Anything?” he asked. Jack could hear the fear in his voice now. The shock was starting to wear off a bit, replaced by the realization of what had just happened.

Jack turned him around, scanned his back. He saw no wounds.

Effrem asked, “What about my legs?”

“If he’d hit an artery, we’d know about it. Trust me. Can you drive? We need to get out of here.”

“Okay, I think so. Are you the police?”

“Yell if you see him coming back,” Jack replied.

He walked back to the Malibu, paused to pick up the Glock’s two spent shell casings, then opened the driver’s-side door. He pressed the trunk release, then walked around and searched it. Empty. He returned to the car and did a rapid search — glove compartment, center console, under the seats… On the floor of the passenger seat were two balled-up fast-food bags, one Arby’s and one McDonald’s. In each of these was a cash receipt, which he pocketed. Tucked behind the driver’s-side floor mat next to the gas pedal he found a burgundy-colored passport bearing Germany’s coat-of-arms eagle and the words Europäische Union, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and Reisepass. The name inside the passport was Stephan Möller. The identification picture showed an early-forties man with short black hair and a thick, hipsterish beard. Jack doubted this was Trench Coat’s real name, but it was a start, another thread he could hopefully unravel.

He returned to Effrem, who had managed to climb to his feet and was leaning against the SUV on shaky legs. Jack dropped to his knees beside the rear tire and began probing the dirt.

“What are you looking for?” asked Effrem.

“My bullet.” The other one was gone, either in Möller’s leg or lost in the trees on the other side of the road.

It took two minutes, but Jack finally found the bullet’s impact point. He got out his multi-tool, pried the bullet free, and dropped it into his pocket. He stood and faced Effrem.

“Give me your wallet.”

“What?”

“Your wallet. And your passport and cell phone.”

Frowning, Effrem dug into his back pocket and handed Jack a Belgian passport and a slim brown leather wallet containing a few credit cards, an EU driver’s license, and one from Belgium: Effrem Likkel.

“Are you robbing me?” Effrem asked, handing over his cell phone.

Despite it all, Jack couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, I’m not robbing you. Where are you staying, what hotel?”

“Uh, the Embassy Suites in Old Town.”

“Room?”

“Four twelve.”

“Go straight there,” Jack said, handing back Effrem’s wallet and passport. “Wait for me.”

On Effrem’s cell phone Jack navigated to the address book, found the phone’s number, then typed it into his own cell phone.

“Why should I trust you?” asked Effrem, taking the phone back.

“Because you’re still alive.”

“Good point. What’re you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. Can you tell me anything about that guy? His name, where he’s staying?”

“No. I was just following him.”

Jack wanted to ask the obvious question — Why? — but instead said, “Can you get to your room without going through the lobby?”

“Yes.”

“Do that. Get on the 495, find a gas station bathroom, clean yourself up, and then get into your room and stay there. Don’t answer the door until you hear my voice.”