Jack shrugged. “I wish I had.”
The cop took this in, then nodded slowly. “Well, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He was dead on scene. Just parts. Did you know him?”
“I don’t know. Who was he?”
“We’re trying to figure that out.”
“What’d he look like?”
“You mean before?” the cop said with a grim smile.
“Yeah, before.”
“Tall, thin, white, mid-thirties.”
Jack shook his head. “Don’t think so. He didn’t have any ID? Nobody’s come forward?”
“Nope. So, tell me: What’s it like? The Oval Office, I mean.”
The question caught Jack off guard. Perhaps as planned. “Like you see in the pictures. I’m not there much anymore. Dinner once a week, parties here and there.”
“You don’t like being First Son?”
“It’s okay,” Jack replied. “I prefer my privacy. Luckily, I don’t go to bars, don’t forget to put on underwear, then get out of cabs in front of the paparazzi…”
The cop let out a belly laugh. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be a good look for you. Your mom as nice as she seems on TV?”
“Every bit of it,” Jack replied with a smile.
“So, tell me the truth. What were you really doing there? If it’s nothing too bad I can try to keep it under wraps.”
“I already told you. You think I’m lying?”
“I’ve been a cop for twelve years. I think everyone’s lying. Except for my dog. He never lies.”
Jack smiled. “Dogs are good like that. What’s your name?”
“Doug Butler.” He stuck out his hand.
Jack shook it. The motion set off a flash of pain in his shoulder blade.
Butler saw the wince: “You okay there?”
Jack nodded. “Weighted pull-ups. I’m starting to think I should give them up.”
“What, you’re into that CrossFit stuff?”
“No, just fighting the ticking clock. Listen, Officer Butler, I know it’s odd, me coming here. Even if I couldn’t have done anything for the guy, I should have called it in. I don’t know how to explain it.” This was the unvarnished truth.
“Nah, I get it. It’s a form of survivor’s guilt. You might not have actually seen it, but, in essence, you saw a guy die last night. That’s a hard thing.”
Jack resisted asking if there were any other witnesses. Cops had many different kinds of radar, including one for people who were too curious — or too helpful.
Butler said, “You know I’m going to need a statement, Jack.”
“I understand. Will it end up in the media? If so, I should probably let my dad’s press guy know.”
“Not likely. Just between us, the truck driver said the guy just stepped out of nowhere. Didn’t even look up. Probably never knew what happened. It’s not a bad way to go, all things considered.” Jack detected no facetiousness in the statement. Consciously or subconsciously, Butler had given a lot of thought to how people died. A cop thing.
“No idea who he was?”
“My guess is he was homeless, maybe high. It happens. Why he was walking around in the rain… who the hell knows.”
“Why are you out here? Investigating, I mean.”
“Standard practice for an unexplained death. We have to tick the boxes, make sure we don’t miss anything. Plus, we’re about five miles from the White House.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing, forget it.”
Butler pulled a business card from his wallet. “Write your number on that.” Jack did so, then Butler handed him a second card along with his driver’s license. “I’ll call you this afternoon for that statement. Over the phone should be good enough.”
Jack was pulling into the Oronoco’s garage when his mind again looped back to the word flyer. He pulled into his parking spot, climbed out, then stood, hands in pockets, thinking.
“What is it?” he muttered.
It had been blank.
The flyer on his windshield had been a blank piece of copier paper.
3
Muggers are opportunistic criminals, Jack knew. Their planning is limited. Their ambushes usually consist of blindsiding their victims. They don’t use delay-attention tools. Another thing: Who passes out flyers in a rainstorm? Thinking back, Jack didn’t recall seeing flyers on any of the other cars’ windshields.
Was he overthinking this?
No. The knife.
He got up from the couch, walked into the kitchen, and opened the dishwasher. Using a dish towel, he pulled the still-hot knife from the utensil rack and laid it on the counter. He studied it, from the tip of the blade to the end of the haft, but found no markings save a lone six-digit number beside the thumb stud.
Jack pulled out his phone, took several pictures of the knife, uploaded them to his Dropbox account, then sat down at the dining table with his laptop. In his browser he went to tineye.com, loaded the images, and hit the search icon. The results appeared instantly on his screen.
The knife was made by Eickhorn Solingen, a model called Secutor. Jack Googled the company. It was based in Solingen, Germany, with plenty of online retailers. Jack clicked on several of them and found a price: $175.
What was a crackhead doing with an expensive knife? At the first sign of withdrawal a real junkie would have sold it for a couple rocks. Jack zoomed in on the knife. Along the blade’s swedge was the word Secutor; beneath it a four-digit number. Near the thumb stud was Eickhorn Solingen’s logo, what looked like an upright squirrel holding a sword.
“Same knife, different markings,” Jack said to himself.
Jack picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found what he was looking for. He tapped dial.
“Shiloh River Gun Club,” the voice on the other end said.
“Is this Adam?”
“Yep. Who’s this?”
“Jack Ryan.”
“Hey, Jack. Haven’t seen you around for a while. You need to come in, put some rounds downrange.”
“I know. Listen, I need a favor. A buddy of mine is looking at buying a knife on eBay, an Eickhorn Solingen—”
“Nice blade.”
“—but the markings look odd. Can you take a look?”
Adam Flores was the co-owner of Shiloh River Gun Club, a private shooting club John Clark and Ding Chavez introduced him to. Outside of a military base, Shiloh River had one of the most realistic combat ranges on the eastern seaboard. He and Adam, a militaria aficionado, had become passing friends. If it went boom or was sharp, Adam knew about it.
This was normally a question Gavin Biery, The Campus’s director of information technology, would field, but that avenue wasn’t open to Jack. Gavin had stuck his neck out for Jack countless times when he was an employee, and he’d probably do it now, but Jack wasn’t going to put him in that position.
“Sure,” said Adam. “E-mail the pics and I’ll have a look around.”
“Thanks.”
Jack disconnected. From the pocket of his anorak he pulled the hotel key card he’d found at the scene. Emblazoned on the card’s blue front was a large red 6. Motel 6, Jack realized. But which one? He turned the card over, looking for markings. He found several, all number sequences. In turn, he typed each one into Google alongside the search term “Motel 6.” The third sequence—1403, the franchise identifier, apparently — found a match belonging to a motel in Springfield, about eight miles west of Alexandria.
This, too, made no sense. While Motel 6 wasn’t exactly a five-star hotel line, it was branded, mid-priced, with what Jack thought was a decent reputation. Assuming this card belonged to his attacker, it wasn’t the kind of dive motel a junkie would choose, or could afford. And why Springfield? Why not one of the half-dozen motels within walking distance of the Supermercado?