Tom Clancy Duty and Honor Read Free Page B

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.”
    —
    J ack 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.

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
    M uggers 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