“Who’s footing the bill?”
“I am. Through credit cards.”
Jack decided to twist the knife a bit, see if he could rattle Effrem. “You’re practically Belgian Fourth Estate royalty. No gratuitous allowance? No trust fund?”
“Not until I’m thirty. By then, I expect to have my Pulitzer,” Effrem said with a grin. “Jack, when I graduated from university my mother gave me a box of red pencils and a card that said ‘Edit in good health.’ So the answer to your question is no. No allowance. Just three nearly maxed-out credit cards and a box of red pencils.”
Jack laughed. He couldn’t help liking Effrem. Clearly Marie Likkel and Jack’s parents had gone to the same parenting school — the University of Stand on Your Own Two Feet. For Jack that had meant joining The Campus; for Effrem Likkel, chasing down a story most journalists wait a lifetime to find. The guy had balls, no doubt about it.
Jack had to wonder if his getting involved in all this would help or hurt the Belgian. At least three people were dead so far and Jack had come damned close to being the fourth. If he included the casualties from the Lyon attacks the tally skyrocketed. The players involved seemed snatched from a grab bag: a missing and possibly traitorous French soldier, a German Special Forces operator posing as a crackhead, a widowed and lonely man from Rose Hill, and a terrorist group who, despite striking the second-deadliest blow on French soil in history, had disappeared from the world terrorism stage. Then there’s me, Jack thought. He was the outlier. Why?
“What about you, Jack?” asked Effrem. “Aren’t you supposed to have bodyguards or something? Oh, wait, is there a helicopter on the roof as we speak?”
Jack laughed again. “If there is, it’s not for me.”
Effrem finished his coffee, tossed the empty cup into the garbage can beside the dresser. “So what now? Do we keep going together, or separately?”
Jack considered this for a few seconds. “I hope I don’t live to regret this, but I vote for the former.”
Effrem nodded. “Seconded.”
Jack left Effrem with two chores: One, inspect his rental SUV for any trace of the second round Möller had fired. It was beyond a long shot and would almost certainly turn out to be worthless, but Stephan Möller had in front of witnesses committed murder and attempted murder on a government nature preserve. Jack had an unspent, custom-made bullet from the murder weapon, and if one of Möller’s frangibles had embedded itself in Effrem’s SUV they also had a spent round for comparison. The chances of Stephan Möller seeing the inside of any courtroom were virtually nonexistent, but it was an avenue Jack wasn’t going to ignore.
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.
When 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.
At 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?
Jack 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.”