He zoomed in on the car. It was a Chevy Malibu. On the upper right side of the windshield was a Hertz sticker. Jack panned down and focused on the Maryland license plate. He memorized the number.
Jack lowered the binoculars and looked left through the trees, waiting for a glimpse of Trench Coat. He had two options: intercept the man and snatch him up or try to gather more information and track him. The former was impractical for a number of reasons, the biggest of which was what to do with the man. Chain him up in the condo’s pantry and torture him? No, if he wanted to get to the heart of what was happening and find a way to make it stop, he needed to know who was giving the orders.
Still, the idea of watching a murderer get in his car and drive away rankled Jack’s conscience. Whatever Hahn’s reasons, it seemed he’d come to this meeting knowing it would probably cost him his life. Moreover, he’d spared Jack’s life twice. While Jack felt no particular affection for Hahn, the least he could do was make that sacrifice count.
From Jack’s right he heard the crunch of tires on gravel. He looked that way and saw a red compact SUV pull into the clearing and turn into one of the stalls opposite the Malibu. After a few moments the SUV’s taillights went dark and exhaust stopped flowing from the muffler pipe. The driver’s-side door opened.
Jack scanned left, looking for Trench Coat. He was a hundred feet from the parking lot.
Jack felt a shiver of panic. What happened next depended on Trench Coat’s attitude toward witnesses. Would it be worth a second murder to get away from the scene cleanly?
The SUV’s driver got out, walked around the rear of the vehicle, stopped. He looked left and right, then walked across the lot toward Trench Coat’s Malibu. When he reached the rear bumper he pulled out a cell phone and snapped a picture of the license plate, then walked to the driver’s-side window and peered inside.
“What’re you doing?” Jack muttered to himself. Who was this? A cop, a thief? The man struck Jack as neither. He was in his mid-twenties, with shaggy blond hair and a prominent chin, and he moved tentatively, without the confidence of a cop.
This wasn’t going to end well.
The man straightened up and started back toward his SUV.
The Malibu’s headlights flashed once, accompanied by a muted beep and the clunk of the door locks disengaging.
Jack looked left, felt his heart lurch into his throat. Trench Coat was entering the parking lot, umbrella still covering half his face. His pistol was up and pointed at the SUV’s driver. The muzzle flashed; the report was no louder than that of a wet towel being snapped. The SUV’s driver crumpled to the ground.
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?