Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (9 page)

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.”

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

J
ack sprinted back to his car and, five minutes after sending Effrem on his way, was heading down Cardinal Drive. He crossed over the 495 and onto the Georgetown Pike. At the first stoplight he spotted a gas station. He pulled into a parking spot.

He had one shot at this, he knew, and it was fifty-fifty at best. Despite taking a bullet from Jack’s Glock, Möller had been moving at a decent clip through the trees and the man had already proven himself cool in a crisis. Therefore Jack had to assume Möller had tended to his wound, regrouped, and either was lying low in the nature preserve or was already out of the area. The question was, Would the man go back to his hotel or did he have a fallback exfiltration
plan? Things had gone very bad for Möller: There were witnesses and he’d been in a firefight. How would he react?

He dug the fast-food receipts out of his pocket, then used his phone’s Yelp app to map both restaurants. Each was located within a quarter-mile of the other, off Richmond Highway. Next Jack dropped a pin on the app’s screen and searched for nearby motels. There were three within walking distance of the restaurants, a Holiday Inn, a Days Inn, and a Comfort Inn, all similar to the hotel Eric Weber had chosen—mid-priced, nice, but not extravagant. Maybe that meant something, maybe not.

The outcome of Jack’s scheme depended on human nature. Most people looking for a quick meal in a strange city chose restaurants close to their motel. Whether a man like Möller would allow himself such a convenience Jack didn’t know, but it was all he had. He’d already made one mistake by leaving his passport in the Malibu; perhaps he’d make another. A common problem with professionals of any trade is self-assurance, the mother of complacency. It had happened to Jack before—perhaps as recently as the Supermercado. Even John Clark had once—just once, over a few beers—admitted his own occasional tradecraft blunder. The question was, What do you do after the mistake? What would Möller do after his?

Jack pulled out of the gas station and got back on the highway.

—

T
wenty minutes later he reached Richmond Highway, turned south, then took the first exit. He chose the first motel he came to, the Holiday Inn, pulled in, and parked outside the lobby. Inside, using what he hoped was a decent German accent, he gave the name Stephan Möller to the front desk attendant and claimed he was a bit confused. Was he staying here? The answer was no. Jack moved on to the second motel, the Days Inn, and got the same results. At the third motel, he got lucky.

“Yes, sir, you sure are,” the young Hispanic man said. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, please,” Jack said, rubbing his eyes. “It has been a long day. I have been lost much of the time, and now I realize I have left my key in my room.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have a driver’s license or passport?”

Jack handed over Möller’s passport. As the attendant studied it, Jack said with a sheepish chuckle, “About the beard, please do not ask. My wife is only now forgiving me.”

Jack held his breath. Sans beard, Jack’s appearance was close to that of Möller’s. Whether it was close enough now depended on the attendant’s observation skills.

The attendant laughed. “I hear you. Just a moment,
please. I’ll be right back.” The man disappeared through a door behind the desk.

Two minutes,
Jack thought, half imagining the attendant already on the phone with the police. Any more than that and he’d leave.

The attendant reappeared. He handed back Möller’s passport along with a new key card. “Here you go. Let me know if you need directions or a map.”

“Thank you very much.”