Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (13 page)

The second chore he gave Effrem was to pack his bags and be ready to move within five minutes of Jack’s call. If he got a ping on Möller’s credit card they’d have to scramble to catch up.

—

W
hen Jack got home he switched on the TV and surfed the local channels. When he reached WJLA, the Washington-area ABC affiliate, a news ticker crawling at the bottom of the screen read “. . . the man’s name has not been
released pending notification of family . . .” Jack waited, watching for the story to reappear. “A Rose Hill man was found dead at a local nature preserve. The police, who were called to the scene this morning by a hiker, have said only that the circumstances are suspicious. The man’s name has not . . .”

They’d found Hahn. Jack hoped it wouldn’t take them long to notify Belinda. It was going to be gut-wrenching for her, but better than waiting and wondering why her father wasn’t answering his phone or returning e-mails.

Unbidden, an image popped into his head: Hahn falling back against the bridge railing, sliding down onto his butt, then staring up as Möller lifted the pistol to his eye . . .

Should he have anonymously tipped off the police? Hahn had sat dead overnight in the rain before being found. It was irrational, Jack knew, but the thought of it set his belly churning.

Now the waiting began. Waiting for Stephan Möller to pop his head up.

Waiting for the knock on his door that would answer the question of whether a witness had spotted him at the preserve.

—

A
t four-fifteen Jack’s phone chimed. It was a text from Effrem:

The police were here.

Jack felt his heart thud against his chest wall. He forced himself to slow down and think. Could they still be there, looking over Effrem’s shoulder? he wondered. Effrem was a decent guy, of that Jack was certain, but having the police show up on your doorstep asking hard questions about a murder could rattle anyone into submission. Or was this ingrained overcautiousness flavored with strains of paranoia?

Jack texted back:
And?

Effrem answered:
They had an anonymous tip that my vehicle had been seen in the preserve.

Jack had to step carefully.
Go on.

Anonymous tip,
came Effrem’s reply.
No one else there. What’s that sound like to you?

It sounded like Möller was trying to slow down his pursuers. This was actually good news. If Möller had already left the country, he wouldn’t have bothered with the ruse.

Effrem added,
I told them I drove past the preserve but turned around when I realized I was lost. They seemed okay with it.

Glad to hear it,
Jack wrote.
Want to grab a cup of coffee?

—

J
ack gave Effrem a twenty-minute head start, then left the condo, headed west on Wythe Street, and spent ten minutes driving around the area, watching for signs of surveillance before heading to Washington Street, where he turned left.
Out his driver’s-side window he scanned the Starbucks parking lot for Effrem’s SUV. It was there, hood pointed toward the street. Jack kept going, looking for a phone booth, a rare beast these days, it seemed. He spotted one on a corner outside a liquor store and pulled to the curb. He dropped some change into the slot and dialed Effrem’s phone.

“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” Jack said when he answered.

“What? Huh?”

“Think it through.”

“Oh . . . I see. I’m alone, Jack. They talked to me for about ten minutes, then left. You’re a source, Jack—well, more than that, but you get the point. I don’t betray sources.”

“Wait two minutes, then go back to your hotel.”

Jack hung up and made his way back to the Starbucks. Right on time, Effrem’s SUV pulled out of the parking lot onto Washington and headed north. Jack hung back, let a couple cars get between them, then followed Effrem back to the Embassy Suites. As far as Jack could tell, neither of them was being followed.

Ten minutes later he was knocking on Effrem’s door. Effrem answered, let Jack in, and shut the door behind him. “Was that all really necessary?” Effrem asked.

“Yes,” replied Jack. “Don’t take it personally. You’re sure you weren’t seen leaving the preserve?”

“There was no one. When I got to Cardinal, I turned left
and headed straight to 495. I didn’t see another car until I got on it.”

“Did the cops mention Hahn’s body?”

“No, but I asked. It seemed the natural thing to do. I’d seen it on the news and had been near a preserve recently, and now they were questioning me.”

Jack asked, “How did they react?”

“They didn’t. Aren’t cops the same everywhere? Stone-faced. I showed them my professional website, made up some story I was working on about McLean’s rapid de-gentrification, showed them some notes, then asked if I could interview someone about the death. They told me to call the Public Information Office, then left. They seemed annoyed.”

Effrem had handled himself well. He was quick on his feet and not easily shaken. Jack asked, “Is that true, about McLean’s de-gentrification?”

“I have no idea. Is that even a word?”

“Smartass.”

—

J
ack hadn’t taken two steps back into his condo when his cell phone chimed again, this time with an Enquestor alert. Möller’s credit card had been used to buy thirteen dollars’ worth of gas and five dollars’s worth of “grocery items” at a Mike’s Mini Mart in West Haven, Connecticut. As Möller hadn’t
immediately
boarded an airplane, it now seemed
unlikely he had a second passport, but perhaps he’d stashed a second vehicle.

“West Haven?” Jack murmured. “What the hell’s in West Haven?”

Nothing. But due north through Vermont it was only five or so hours from the Canadian border.
Possible,
Jack thought. Vermont shared about ninety miles of border with Canada, much of it rugged and isolated.

Jack checked the route from Alexandria to New Haven on his phone’s map application: three hundred fifty miles; a six-hour drive. Too long. He got on his laptop and went to a travel website, selected Washington Dulles as the departure point, and chose Hartford as the destination. No. The earliest flight was tomorrow morning. He repeated the search, this time with New York JFK as the destination.

There was one flight remaining today, a JetBlue shuttle leaving in three
hours.

NEW YORK CITY

B
y ten-fifteen they were leaving the airport in their rental car, a Hyundai Sonata, and getting on the Van Wyck Expressway into Queens. With Effrem navigating from his cell phone screen, Jack took them across the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and picked up Interstate 91, which they would take north.

Thirty minutes outside New Haven, Jack got another Enquestor alert. “Read it,” he told Effrem.

“Uh . . . something about a motel in Hartford, the Best Western. A room charge, I think.”

“How long ago?”

“Sixty minutes. Where is Hartford?”

“About forty-five minutes north of New Haven. And that much closer to the Canadian border.”

“Why stop in Hartford?” asked Effrem. “Why not find a rest stop and pull in for a nap? Why advertise your location?”

“Maybe he thinks he’s free and clear. I left his credit card as I’d found it. If he’d been suspicious he wouldn’t have used it at all.”

“I guess. What do you want to do?”

Jack thought about it. If Möller had stopped for the night, they had plenty of time to set up on the hotel before morning; if, on the other hand, Möller paid for a room and then just kept heading north, they’d already lost him. They’d never catch up.

“Let’s do the legwork,” Jack replied.

—

S
hortly before midnight they pulled into Mike’s Mini Mart, which was on Saw Mill Road not far from 95. Jack was relieved to see the interior lights on and a glowing neon sign that read
OPEN 24/7
. He pulled into a spot in front of the propane tank cage and shut off the engine. A couple teenage boys sat on the curb before the store’s doors, drinking slushies and balancing their skateboards on their laps.

“They should be in bed,” Effrem said. “Isn’t this a school night?”

“Go have a chat with them. I’ll go inside.”

Jack opened his door and Effrem went to do the same.
Jack turned back. “I was kidding. Stay in the car or you might end up wearing a slushy.”

Jack opened the Sonata’s rear door, grabbed his jacket, and put it on. He pushed through the doors and walked straight to the counter. A teenage boy with a wispy light brown mustache and acne on his chin stood at the register. Jack’s odds had just improved.

“Evening,” Jack said.

“Hey.”

“Wondering if you can help me.” Jack pulled his private investigator’s badge out, showed it to the kid, returned it to his blazer pocket. “What’s your name?”

If the kid was going to balk at Jack’s credentials, it would happen now.

“Uh, Nate.”

“How long have you been here, Nate?”

“Eight months, I guess.”

“Tonight,” Jack replied.

“Oh. Since four.”

“I’m looking for a guy. He bought gas here at five thirty-five.” From his pocket Jack took the photocopy he’d made of Stephan Möller’s passport folder. “Does he look familiar?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Jack put a little steel in his voice. “He was here, you were here. He came in and bought snacks. Do you recognize him?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Jack gestured at the trio of tiny black-and-white video monitors sitting on the counter beside the register. “Do those work?”

“Yeah, but just the pumps. The one in here is busted.”

“Show me,” Jack replied. Without waiting to be invited, he walked behind the counter. The kid hesitated a bit now, so Jack nudged him. “It was about five-thirty. Which pump did he use?”

“Uh, okay, just a sec.” Nate knelt before a DVD-like box on the shelf beneath the monitors and rewound the footage until the counter read
1725
.

“You’re doing good. Think back. Which pump?”

“Three. No, two. That monitor on the left.”

“Okay, hit fast-forward,” Jack replied. “Easy, not too fast . . .”

When the counter clicked over to
1731
a dark blue or black sedan pulled up to the pump. The driver’s-side door opened. Out climbed Stephan Möller.

“Hey, that’s him,” Nate blurted, apparently warming to the task. “It’s him, right? That beard.”

“Yep, that’s him. You’ve got a good eye. What’d he buy? Don’t think, just say the first thing that pops into your head.”

“Chocolate milk, tuna sandwich, bag of Fritos.”

“Can you enlarge that pump picture? I need the license plate.”

“I can zoom in, but it’s not optical, y’know. Just digital. It’ll get all pixelated. It might be better on the office TV, though.”

“Where?”

“Straight down that hall on the left.”

“Thanks.”

Jack followed Nate’s directions and pushed through a swinging door bearing the scrawled words “Employees Only” in red permanent marker. At the front of the store a warning
bing-bong
chime sounded. Jack glanced over his shoulder to see Nate giving him a thumbs-up.
Most exciting day of the kid’s life,
Jack thought.

He was in a storeroom. On the left-hand wall was a steel shelving unit holding rolls of toilet paper, bottles of floor cleaner, and cases of soda and water. In the corner on a small card table sat an eighteen-inch flat-screen television. Nate had already transferred the security camera image to it.

“Zooming in,” Nate called enthusiastically.

“Ten-four,” Jack replied.

Slowly the image enlarged, panning and tightening on Möller’s license plate as it expanded.

“Hold,” Jack called. The image froze.

Nate was right. The image was growing badly pixelated, but it would have to do. Emblazoned across the bottom of the plate were the words
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
, which made it a Washington, D.C., plate, but the camera
angle was such that Jack could make out only the first two letters: EB. The four characters to the right of the D.C. flag icon were blurred.

Jack returned to the front of the store. Nate asked, “Get it?”

“Got it. I owe you, Nate. See you later.”

Jack was halfway to the door when Nate called, “Hey, he took a map or something, too, if that’s important.”

“What map?” asked Jack.

“From the rack beside the chips. Behind you.”

Jack turned. The rack was waist high, with vertical slots for twenty to thirty travel brochures, maps, bus and train schedules, and restaurant coupons. “Nate, did you see which one he took?”

“No. Sorry, man.”

“Just one, or a bunch?”

Nate screwed up his face, thinking. “Not a bunch. One, maybe two.”