Page 117 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

The van shot through the air, cleared the ditch, and slammed down on the shoulder of a snow-covered road paralleling the rear of the gravel pit. The Sprinter slid and for a moment Obaid thought for sure he’d gone too fast, that he was about to sail off the other side of Perimeter Road and smack into the trees.

But Obaid managed to get the van under control. He stopped, did a three-point turn, and sped east into the gloom and the storm, once again firmly convinced that God was on his side.

Using an app on his burner phone, he quickly found Striker Avenue and took a left on it, glad to see he was the only vehicle that had passed this way since the snow began. The woods were thick on both sides and continued all the way to where Striker hit a T at Structures Road. He pulled the van into a turnout on the other side of the intersection and shut the vehicle off. Snow tapped against the windshield.

Obaid took the suppressed pistol from the console, put his hood back up, turned the red headlamp back on, and got out. Over the storm’s sound and fury, he heard the roar of a big jet not far off and he could not control his excitement. He hadnot anticipated the storm, but everything else was going exactly as he’d envisioned! He turned his back to the wind, eager to complete his plan.

Then he went around the back of the Sprinter, opened the rear double doors, lifted his gun, and shot twice.

CHAPTER 99

U.S. ROUTE 50 INVirginia was a mess an hour after dark that evening. It was snowing as hard as it had been raining earlier in the day. The roads were freezing up, and more than an inch of snow had fallen when Sampson took the turn onto Tanner Lane.

We’d gotten through to Carolyn Mayfield at Mercedes, and at our request, she’d run the data from the Sprinter van for the past two weeks, looking for repeat visits to any addresses or areas. What immediately caught our attention was a number of visits to a gravel pit south of Dulles International Airport.

We pulled up to the security gate, and the guard looked surprised when he opened the window. “Pit is closed,” he said in a Middle Eastern accent.

Sampson showed his badge. “You see a gray Mercedes Sprinter van come in here recently?”

I watched the guard closely. He glanced down and to the leftbefore returning his gaze to John. “No. Everyone is gone two hours ago.”

I looked forward past the gate and saw snowed-over tracks. The snow had started only an hour before.

“We want to take a look for ourselves,” I said.

The guard looked nervous now. “Is impossible. Must have permission or you have warrant. Come back tomorrow.”

I leaned over in my seat, showed him my FBI credentials, and said, “This is a federal investigation. Now lift the gate or we will have you arrested for obstruction.”

The guard stared at us for a second before the gate rose. Sampson put the Grand Cherokee in gear, and we drove through.

“Follow those tracks,” I said.

I looked over my shoulder and back through the rear window with the wiper blade clearing the snow. The gate lowered. The guard came out of the shack and looked after us as we rounded a curve in the road.

“I can barely see the tracks. Snow’s piling up,” Sampson said.

“Then go faster,” I said.

Sampson put the SUV in four-wheel drive and sped up. With the wind and the new snow, it was difficult to stay on the tire tracks as they curved around the gravel pit. We lost them at one point and had to backtrack; we found them going down into the pit itself toward a line of dump trucks and bulldozers.

There was less wind down in the bottom and we were able to stay with the tracks beyond the northwest corner of the pit, where we found a gaping hole in the perimeter fence of Dulles International Airport and tire tracks going through it.

“Call Ned,” Sampson said, driving slowly through the hole in the fence. “Get flights shut down. He’s in there!”

I dug out my phone. “No bars!”

John slammed on the brakes. “And no way across.”

I looked forward and saw a ditch; on the other side of it was a road with tracks heading west. “He got across!”

“Had to have jumped it,” he said, slamming the Jeep in reverse. “Try my radio!”

We went skidding back toward the fence. I got Sampson’s walkie-talkie.

John said, “Hold on,” and hit the gas hard. We shot ahead.

We did not have enough speed to clear the ditch fully. The front wheels hit the far side of the ditch, smashing the bumper and headlights and jerking us hard against our seat belts, but the forward momentum carried us up and onto the snow-covered road.

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