Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (17 page)

Jack did so. A sign beside the road reading C
ONNECTICUT
R
IVER
B
YWAY
was followed shortly after by one reading A
SCUTNEY—
P
OPULATION
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, S
TAFFORD
C
ONSTRUCTION
; to the left, B
LACK
M
OUNTAIN
R
OAD
. “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.”

ASCUTNEY, VERMONT

T
hey continued forward, following the base of the mound until they reached the next track. Here Jack paused, then sprinted left, eyes scanning for the Subaru’s white paint or for movement. Möller would be moving east, Jack guessed, toward the sloped tree line bordering the compound, but where exactly? The cell phone’s satellite image wasn’t fine enough to show footpaths, only roads.

From somewhere ahead Jack heard the scuff of a shoe on gravel, then the trickling of loose sand. Jack froze, crouched. Effrem bumped into him, whispered “Sorry.”

Jack closed his eyes, trying to latch on to the memory of the sound.
Which direction? Left,
he decided, around the mound of sand before them. Jack stood up and kept going until he reached the mound, which he skirted to the right.

The sound of the aircraft engine was increasing now in both pitch and volume. Jack looked up, but his view of the compound was obscured by the mound. Effrem tapped him on the shoulder, then pointed right. The trunk of Möller’s Subaru jutted out from behind the next gravel pile.

Think it through,
Jack commanded himself. Don’t rush. If Möller was aware of their pursuit, this quarry would be the perfect ambush point; the terrain was ideal, as was the timing. When better to tie up loose ends? If Möller was lying in wait, he would be either on forested high ground along the quarry’s east edge or behind them, waiting for them to make their way toward the compound.

It wasn’t lost on Jack what kind of man he was dealing with. Möller was ruthless and cool, that was a given, but Jack had a hunch that Möller and Eric Schrader shared similar backgrounds: German Special Forces. This knowledge didn’t make him feel any better about the task before him.

Doesn’t matter,
he thought. Ambush or not, they had to reach the airstrip, and their time was dwindling. Monitoring GPS beacons and credit cards was one thing; actively tracking an aircraft was beyond Jack’s resources. It was time to grab Möller and figure out the sticky logistics later.

He leaned back and whispered to Effrem, “Keep your eyes on our six until I tell you otherwise. Stay close. We’re going for Möller.”

“What’s our six?”

“Behind us.”

“Got it.”

Jack drew his Glock, raised it to ready-low, stepped out from behind the mound, and headed east. He used what little cover they had the best he could, moving from gravel pile to dirt berm in hopes they would shield the two of them from any watching eyes. If Möller lay behind them, Jack could only hope Effrem’s eyes were faster than the German’s trigger.

Ahead lay the last gravel pile; past it, fifty feet of open ground to the eastern edge of the quarry.

“It’s coming closer,” Effrem whispered.

Jack heard it, too: the plane’s engine, somewhere to the north. Making its final approach. Jack glanced that way but saw nothing moving in the sky. “Eyes on our six,” Jack warned.

Jack reached the mound, circled left, stopped, scanned ahead. Nothing was moving. The trees on the slope were so thick they appeared as a solid mass, only their serrated crowns identifying them as having individual trunks.

Jack spotted an anomaly at the base of the slope, a thumb of dirt disappearing into the trees. It was a trail. And a perfect bottleneck. Moving from the relative light of the quarry into the darkness of the forest they would be temporarily blind. Easy targets.

Stop.
He was, as John Clark would say, spiraling into paralysis by analysis.

“Effrem, directly ahead, you see that trail that leads to the trees?”

“I see it.”

“We’re going for it. Stay directly behind me. If shooting starts, run back, find cover, and stay out of sight. I’ll come for you.”

Jack didn’t wait for an answer, but rather stood up and headed for the trees at a fast walking pace. He kept his eyes scanning the tree line, never settling in one place, letting his peripheral vision do the work; movement was easiest to spot on oblique angles. Something about the cones and rods in your eyes, Jack thought absently.

Jack spotted movement out of the corner of his, but far to the left and above. He glanced that way and saw a single-engine plane skimming over the trees to the north, bleeding altitude as it lined up with the runway. It disappeared behind the roof of the northernmost outbuilding.

Jack started trotting now. Heart pounding. He raised the Glock to shoulder height, making sure he still had a ready lock on his sight picture, then lowered it slightly.

Behind him, Effrem stumbled. “I’m okay, I’m still here,” he said, panting.

“When we get into the trees, step left off the trail and stop.”

“Right. I’m scared.”

“Don’t think. Just move.”

The tree line loomed, and then they were into it, the darkness enveloping them. Jack stopped, crouched, sidestepped right into the foliage. If Möller was hiding somewhere on the trail above, their ploy wouldn’t fool him, but it would give him dispersed and obscured targets.

Effrem whispered, “How long do we wait?”

“We don’t. Stay close.”

Jack stood, pushed off, and charged up the trail. The grade steepened and soon his legs were burning. Branches snagged his clothing. Leaves slapped his face. The trail snaked left, then right in a switchback. Jack bounced off a tree trunk, corrected his course, and kept going. Ahead he saw a roughly oval gap in the trees; through it, the corrugated steel wall of a building.

Five feet before the gap Jack said, “Dodge left,” and again they separated and crouched off the trail. Jack peeked out, saw nothing.

“I don’t hear the engine,” Effrem said.

“Me neither.”

Now doubt slipped into Jack’s mind: If they failed to stop Möller before he reached the plane, what then? Open fire on the plane? What if the pilot was an innocent bystander? And what if that innocent bystander spotted their kidnapping of Möller?

While Jack was ninety-nine percent sure it’d been Möller behind the wheel of Eunice Miller’s Subaru, neither he nor
Effrem had actually laid eyes on the man since Mike’s Mini Mart in West Haven. Moreover, if they’d managed to track Möller this far without alerting him, doing so now would be a mistake.
Damn it!

Don’t spook him, Jack.
Best to let Möller go about his business and hope they could pick him up later.

Effrem said, “Jack, what’re we doing?”

To the east, the plane’s engine began idling up.

“Jack . . .”

“We’re letting him go.”

“What! You said—”

“I changed my mind. How’re your eyes?” Jack said, handing the binoculars across to him. “You’ve got one job: Grab that plane’s tail number before we lose it.”

“And while I’m doing that, you’re doing what?”

“Making sure Möller isn’t getting ready to snap shut the bear trap.”

Before Effrem could protest or ask another question, Jack got up, covered the last few feet to the trail opening, and stepped through. Before them was a line of eight outbuildings arrayed from north to south. Between each, a narrow alley led to the tarmac.

Which way?
The plane had landed north to south, which meant the pilot’s takeoff would be on the reciprocal.

“Follow me.”

At a trot, they moved along the buildings, Jack clearing
each alley before they proceeded across. As they passed the sixth intersection Jack glanced right and saw the plane taxiing north along the runway. It was picking up speed, the engine spooling up for takeoff. Despite being a single-engine prop aircraft, this was no Cessna or Piper Cub, Jack realized. It was bigger in both fuselage and wingspan.