Tom Clancy Duty and Honor by Grant Blackwood Page B

acting as a handler. For whom, I don’t know. Maybe for this Möller fellow. He sounds like a big question mark for both of us. By the way, do you know where he is?”
    “No, but with any luck we will soon. I’m tracking his credit card. I’ve got his passport, so he may be desperate for options. Back to Eric Schrader: What can you tell me about him?”
    “German national, age forty-one, former Feldwebel —first sergeant, I think you would call him—with the Heer .”
    Jack could guess the rest. “He belonged to Kommando Spezialkräfte—Special Forces Command.”
    “Yes. KSK. How did you know?”
    Jack told him about the Eickhorn Solingen knife he’d taken from Schrader—or, more accurately, after Schradersmashed his head into a chunk of concrete and dropped the knife.
    Effrem whistled softly. “Have you considered, Jack, that you may be part cat?”
    “Cats land on their feet. So far I haven’t been that graceful. Just lucky. What else do you have?”
    “Two apartments Schrader had visited in the past few months, one in Zurich and one in Munich. The former seemed like a . . . temporary arrangement, I think, but the one in Munich might be his home base.”
    “Munich,” Jack repeated. “That’s where Hahn’s daughter lives.”
    “No kidding.”
    “What makes you think Zurich was temporary?” asked Jack.
    “I tracked him there after his first meeting with Allemand in Lyon. The place was luxurious, and in a well-to-do neighborhood. Schrader’s place in Munich is a far cry from that. Unless he is slumming, the Zurich apartment belongs to someone else.”
    “Was Schrader in Munich when he left to come here?” Effrem nodded and Jack said, “At some point I’ll want to see a detailed timeline of all this.”
    “I have one. Great minds think alike.”
    “And I’ll want to know how you got from Allemand going missing in Ivory Coast to him and Schrader meeting in Lyon.”
    “Of course. We can meet again after you’ve had a look at Hahn’s e-mails.”
    Still quid pro quo . While Jack didn’t blame Effrem for it, he hoped the parrying wouldn’t last much longer. The sooner they put their respective puzzle pieces together on a table, the better.
    However, Jack wasn’t confident he could make full use of Hahn’s data. Even the simplest of e-mails was an alphanumeric stew that made Jack’s brain hurt. He could parse only a fraction of the available information, and his go-to expert, Gavin Biery, wasn’t an option. He’d have to come up with something else.
    A thought occurred to Jack. “You said you’re working the story freelance. Have you got anyone looking at this?”
    “An editor, you mean? No one’s seen any of it—with the exception of you now. This is my story. I’m going to deliver it whole.”
    “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 yourquestion 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