Sunset came and then faded into night.
Shortly after nine, Jack’s eyes fluttered open. He reached for the Glock beside his leg. He’d heard a double beep. Or had he? From where? He rolled to one side and pressed his ear to the wall in time to hear the door to room 142 click shut.
I’ll be damned.
For a full minute there was only silence — then a voice, male and heavily muffled through the wall. Jack couldn’t make out any words. He crawled into the bathroom, grabbed a glass off the sink, then crawled back. Did this work anywhere outside of the movies? he wondered. He felt idiotic. He pressed the rim against the wall, then his ear to the bottom. The sound was no better. He moved the glass a few inches left, tried again. The voice, though still faint, was clearer.
“… don’t know. Nothing that I can see.” The man sounded agitated, hesitant. “Uh, clothes… toiletries, a suitcase… Yes, okay. I will.”
Something banged against the wall beside Jack’s head. He jerked away, then thought, Closet. It was on the other side of the wall. Collecting Weber’s suitcase? he wondered.
Jack stood up, put on his jacket, grabbed his duffel, then holstered the Glock and slipped out of the room. Which way? Whoever was inside Weber’s room had come in either through the lobby or through the same side entrance Jack had used. Jack flipped a mental coin and chose the latter. Once outside, he headed for his car, scanning the parking spots as he went. In the fifth stall was a white late-model Nissan Altima. As he passed the trunk he ducked into a crouch. He took out his cell phone, snapped a picture of the license plate, then stood up and walked the remaining distance to his car.
Five minutes later a man emerged from the side exit. In the glow of the sconce, Jack caught a glimpse of thinning gray hair and jowls. Jack judged him to be in his mid-fifties. The man was gone, heading toward the Nissan, pulling Weber’s black suitcase behind him.
A minute later the car backed out of the stall, turned, and headed for the lot’s exit. With his headlights off, Jack followed at a distance until the Nissan turned east onto Springfield Boulevard, then sped to the stop sign. He waited until another car had passed, then turned on his headlights and followed.
7
The Nissan headed east, away from Springfield and up 495, then took the South Van Dorn exit south. At Franconia the Nissan turned again and once more headed east. Is he dry-cleaning, looking for tails? Jack wondered. Another ten minutes of driving brought Jack to the Rose Hill area, where the Nissan turned into a residential area. Finally, on Climbhill Road, the Nissan slowed and pulled into the driveway of a rambler with sage-green paint, white shutters, and a line of squared-off yew bushes bracketing the front steps. A lone porch light burned beside the door. Across the street, instead of houses, there was a park with playground equipment.
As Jack drove past the house he glanced out the side window and saw the Nissan disappearing into a detached garage. Jack continued to the end of the block, then pulled to the curb and shut off his lights.
The man’s destination was confusing. Rose Hill was a well-established lower-to-middle-class neighborhood of single-family homes, parks, and elementary schools. How did Eric Weber, the man who’d butchered Mark Macloon on the side of a highway and then tried to do the same to him in a grocery store parking lot, cross paths with the man behind the wheel of the Nissan? Hell, not just cross paths. Conspire to murder.
Make a decision, Jack. He couldn’t sit here for long and risk a visit from the police. Any cop who regularly patrolled the neighborhood would immediately pick out his Chrysler as an anomaly. He had the plate number and the house address; with his Enquestor access, those were enough to get a name. But he wanted more.
He checked his watch. Five minutes. It was worth the risk, he decided. He dug into his duffel, grabbed the items he needed, then made sure the car’s dome light was off and climbed out.
Keeping a slow but purposeful pace that he hoped gave off an “I belong” vibe, Jack walked back down the block. As he drew even with the house, he turned left off the sidewalk and followed a line of overgrown shrubs down the side of the house and into the backyard. To his left sat a gray, dilapidated shed, the kind you buy as a kit at a home-improvement warehouse. To his right were the rear of the house and a raised wooden deck abutting a door. A window to the right of the deck was lit. Kitchen, Jack guessed. Directly across the lawn from him stood the garage; there was a side door, its upper half mullioned glass. Sitting beside the garage’s wall was a redwood picnic table.
Jack returned his attention to the lighted window. There was no movement. Don’t think. Just walk. Jack stood up and trotted across the lawn, eyes alternating between the lighted window and the deck’s sliding doors. When he reached the garage he crouched down and put on his gloves. He tried the door. It was locked, but the knob looked ancient and on its last legs.
Jack pulled out his multi-tool, levered open the flathead screwdriver, and slipped it into the keyhole up to the haft. Simultaneously he slowly turned the tool and the knob in opposite directions. With a clunk, the knob gave way, spinning freely in its socket. Jack eased open the door and slipped inside.
He clicked on his red penlight and scanned the interior. It was what Jack expected: exposed wood walls, cardboard boxes stacked on makeshift rafter shelves, a tool-laden pegboard and cramped workbench tucked against the wall, its drawers almost touching the bumper of the Nissan, whose engine ticked as it cooled in the night air.
Jack checked his watch. Almost two of his five minutes had passed. Two more for a search, and a minute to get back to his car. Jack made his way to the passenger side, opened the door, then leaned in and switched off the dome light. He popped the glove compartment and sorted through the contents: owner’s manual, insurance card, car registration. The man’s name was Peter Hahn. Huh. Another German surname, Jack thought. He photographed the insurance card and registration, then returned everything to the glove compartment. He opened the center console. Inside, along with a few packs of chewing gum, an Altoids tin full of quarters, and a bottle of new-car-smell air freshener, was a Nokia cell phone.
“That’ll do,” Jack whispered. Clearly Mr. Hahn was not a technophile who needed his phone nearby at all times. Jack’s dad was the same way.
From his pocket Jack pulled a small canvas case and unzipped it. He sorted through the contents until he found the micro USB adapter, which he slid into the phone’s charging port. Into the adapter itself he plugged his thumb-size DRS — data recovery stick — a commercial and less versatile version of the tailor-made models Gavin Biery produced for The Campus’s personnel. This version would skim only the most basic info from the phone — contacts, text messages, call and browser history — but no DNS (domain name system) data that could tell him more about the sites the owner visited and people he e-mailed.
Jack powered up the phone. A light on the DRS started blinking green. When the light flashed red Jack disconnected and returned the phone to the console. Finally he planted a GPS tracker, a commercial model about the size of a deck of playing cards, Velcroing it around a cable cluster beneath the passenger-side dashboard.
He gave the car a quick once-over, making sure everything was where and how he’d found it, then eased shut the door and left the garage.