Edge (17 page)

I COLLECTED GARCIA'S
car, to which Billy had given a clean bill of surveillance health, and I piloted it back onto the highway. I made several bizarre but legal route changes and, when I was convinced nobody was following me, returned to the highway and drove toward the Hillside Inn.

At a little after 7:00 p.m. I arrived at the motel and parked behind it once more, in about the same spot as when I'd left, several spaces down from the Yukon.

I looked to the north and saw in the haze the distant hints of housing developments. I was probably looking at two or three thousand people . . . such a tiny sliver of the population in the county, and a smaller portion yet of the region. I couldn't help but think, as I often did on a job, that the lifter was out there somewhere. But where?

How close?

Thirty miles away, lost in the same speculation about where the principals and I were?

Or was he very close, a mile or less, with knowledge of our whereabouts and a clear strategy for killing the shepherds and kidnapping Ryan Kessler?

I returned to the room, calling Ahmad on the phone to announce my arrival. We don't use secret
knocks, though it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. He let me in and I got a cup of black coffee from the kitchenette. The smell of room-service food—onions and garlic mostly—permeated the air. Two plates, one clean, one picked over, sat on a tray near the sink.

“We're going to be leaving soon, for the safe house.”

Everyone was looking at me in anticipation and I realized that I'd left under mysterious circumstances. But keeping with need-to-know, I didn't explain about where I'd been, just told them they should pack up anything they'd unpacked when we arrived.

While Maree and Joanne were doing this, I pulled Ryan aside. He'd had more liquor, I could tell, but he didn't seem any more inebriated than when I'd left. “We've found out something about the Graham case. He dropped the charges.”

“He did what?” The cop was surprised. “That doesn't make sense. Are you sure?”

I told him I was.

He continued, “When I first interviewed Graham he was furious about the forgery. . . . Man has a temper, I'll tell you. How was he going to pay for his kid's tuition? The boy'd have to drop out. All his dreams for his son were ruined. He was practically bullying me to nail the perp. And now this?”

“When did you talk to him last?”

“Probably Tuesday.”

“So something significant happened between then and yesterday.”

“That's when he dropped the charges?”

“Right.”

Ryan said, “I was in meetings all day. That accounting crap.” He thought for a moment. “So it's looking like that could be the relevant case.”

“That's what I'm thinking. Something you found during the investigation could be a key to whoever's targeted him.”

He sighed and said defensively, “It's tough to get information about people like that, the DoD, I mean. They don't talk to us little guys.”

I had an idea he wouldn't like what I was about to tell him next—a significant fact about his other investigation that he hadn't uncovered. “And the Ponzi scheme?”

“Yeah?”

“Clarence Brown is a fake name. He's really Ali Pamuk.” I explained what Claire duBois had found, then added that she was continuing to look into his background. But if Ryan was upset that a federal government sleuth had uncovered more information than he'd been able to find, he didn't show it. He was mostly confused by the turn the case had taken, it seemed.

“Legal name change?”

“We don't know yet. Now, is there anything that suggests you've uncovered facts in the investigation that somebody would want to have?”

He lowered his head and looked over my shoulder. I wondered at what. His wife, his sister-in-law, the armed guards? His hidden bottle of Wild Turkey or Maker's Mark? “I'm sorry, Corte. No, I can't think of anything. I'll keep looking. I'll keep thinking.”

I glanced at my watch. I wanted to get everyone up to the safe house. I stepped outside and walked to the front desk, recalling again who I was.

I'm Frank Roberts. My company is Artesian. We do kick-ass computer software designing.

I smiled at the man behind the desk and said, “We're going to be heading off. I'd like to settle up.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Roberts,” the man said. He was fidgeting, acting the way a clerk sometimes does when things weren't going quite by procedure. “Everything okay?”

Meaning, why would you check out after just three or four hours?

“Oh, it's great, as always. We just needed the rooms for a sales meeting. We finished up early and I'm taking the gang to a play downtown.”

“Sure, sure. Tough, you gotta work on Saturday.”

“Well, the company's paying for a night out, so there you go.”

I looked over the bill and noted that someone had ordered a bottle of wine with the food they got from room service. Ryan, of course; no one else seemed to be drinking. I was a little irritated. It was always a pain to get liquor expenses approved. And didn't he have an entire bar in that backpack of his?

I thanked the clerk and I returned to the room.

When Rudy Garcia opened the door I glanced inside and saw Maree, laughing as she spoke to her sister. I frowned as I examined the scene. The women weren't in the common living area; they were in a bedroom to the side and I was watching them in the mirror.

I asked him, “Did you get the Kesslers and Maree into the bedroom when the room service got here?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Was the door open? To the bedroom there?”

He was looking back. “Well, I don't know. I made sure they were out of sight.”

I was grimacing. “From the reflection too?”

The agent studied the mirror. “I . . . oh, shit.”

“Did the bellboy act odd?”

“He was pretty nervous, now that you ask.”

I closed the door behind me and pointed Ahmad to the back windows and Garcia to the front. Without a word, they drew their side arms and moved fast into defensive positions. I swept the lights out throughout the room.

I called to Joanne and Maree, “Bedroom lights out. Now.”

A pause and then that room went dark too.

“What's going on?” Joanne asked, alarmed, stepping into the doorway.

“I think Loving's found us and's on his way.”

Or more likely, I reflected, he was already here.

MY MIND HAD
done something that occasionally happens when I'm playing certain types of games against a skilled opponent.

Via instinct, I understand exactly what their strategies are. This usually occurs in games with what's called perfect information, like chess or tic-tac-toe. Perfect information means that all of a player's past moves—his strategies—are accessible to his opponent. Both see every move made from the beginning of the game. (Unlike the Prisoners' Dilemma, say, which is a game of
imperfect
information, since Prisoner One doesn't know what Prisoner Two's choice will be.)

For some reason, at times, all the past moves the opponent has made coalesce in my mind into a clear understanding—for me it's almost a graphic or picture—and I know what his next strategy will be.

Now, the pieces falling into place were the clear view of my principals in the mirror, the manager's uneasiness in the front lobby a few minutes earlier, the bellboy's nervousness.

Though I didn't know all the details, I believed almost to a certainty that Loving had posed as a law enforcement officer and sent faxes or emails to dozens of hotels and motels in the area—maybe
the ones he felt might be good safe houses. He'd included a picture of Ryan Kessler, claiming perhaps that he was a fugitive. Loving would have given a phone number and instructions to call but warned the managers not to take any action on their own in the event the suspect was spotted. The manager would have shown the picture to the wait staff. When the food was delivered to our room, the employee would have gotten a glance in the mirror at Ryan and probably seen the man's damn Colt on his hip.

The manager wasn't fidgety because I was unhappy with the service and checking out early; it was that two women and I were hostages of Ryan Kessler and the men with him—tough, unsmiling and dangerous-looking.

The big question as far as I was concerned was when exactly the manager had called Loving. Ten minutes earlier, we probably would be fine. An hour, Loving was already nearby.

“Clear,” each of my colleagues reported in his own accent.

I called Freddy. He picked up at once. “Corte.”

“We have a situation.”

“You just had one, at the flytrap.”

“Loving's on his way here. The Hillside Inn.” I rattled off the address.

“Okay, hold on. I'm scrambling our people—and Prince William County too.”

“Try them. But I'll bet he's going to call in a fake incident, like he did in Fairfax.”

“Sure. Right.”

“Just concentrate on getting your folks here. Fast.”

I ignored the frantic looks my principals sent me as they threw together their personal items. I did, however, gesture at Ryan Kessler to put his pistol away. With that much liquor he could shoot his wife, or me, or himself. Thank God his weapon was a revolver, which meant the trigger had a heavy pull. I noticed him looking at me with a broad shrug and I realized his meaning: Isn't this what we're supposed to be doing, luring Loving here and then taking him out, like I'd told him earlier?

Bait-and-switch . . .

Reluctantly he slipped the gun back into the holster.

Freddy came back on the line. “Cavalry's on the way. ETA probably twenty or thirty. You going defense? Or rabbiting?”

“I don't know yet. Patch me through one of your public lines to the motel lobby here. And don't mask it. I want the clerk to see Justice Department or the Bureau on caller ID.”

“Yeah, hold. I lose you, call me back. I don't know this technical shit.”

As the people in the room gathered jackets and suitcases, and my colleagues moved efficiently from window to window to door, signaling that they spotted no threat, I waited tensely, listening to clicks on the line.

Finally, ringing.

“Hillside Inn, may I help you?” It was the man I'd spoken to before. I'd just have to hope that he wouldn't recognize my voice.

I said briskly, “Yessir, this is Special Agent Hugh Johnston. We're following up on that report about the suspect at your motel.”

“I was just about to call back about that. They're fixing to leave!”

So I was right.

“A hostage came in—Mr. Roberts,” the clerk continued. “He looked pretty beat up. He's been here before, works for a company and they use our place some. He paid. Tried to act like nothing was going on but it's weird, them checking out after only four or five hours or so.”

“I'm coordinating the rescue efforts,” I told him. “Which agent did you speak to before?”

“Said his name was Special Agent Jonathan Corte, with an
e.
”

My stomach did a little flip at Loving's perverse sense of humor, if that was what it was. Jonathan was his own middle name.

“And,” I asked, “when did you call him exactly?”

“Had to be forty-five minutes ago, just after Benny got a look at the kidnapper when he delivered the food. He's got a gun but I guess you know that. You have to move fast, they'll be leaving any minute.”

“All right. Now listen,” I said seriously. “The MO of this man—you know MO?”

“Modus operandi. The wife and I watch
Criminal Minds.
”

“His MO is that he sometimes leaves somebody behind to stop pursuers. You understand what I'm saying? I want you to try to keep everybody inside their rooms for the next hour or so. I don't want any innocents caught in a cross fire.”

“God . . . Sure. Okay. I'll do what I can. God.”

I disconnected and rubbed my forehead as I debated, considering the timing. Loving had heard
forty-five minutes ago that we were here. He and his partner would have to rendezvous, ditch the car Loving had collected on the embankment near the flytrap. They'd switch wheels, which would take a little time.

But not much.

Rock, paper, scissors . . .

Defense or rabbit?

I thought for a moment. “Okay, we're going. Now, fast.”

“Still clear,” Garcia said, peeking out through a splinter of window.

Ahmad echoed him.

Then Ryan limped closer to me, the skin around his drunken eyes crinkled. “Corte, come on, we can take him. We can do it. There's four of us. Jesus Christ, we're running from one man.”

“Two,” Joanne corrected. “His partner. And he could have more.”

Ryan ignored her and said to me, “You just called for backup. Look, it's perfect. He doesn't know we know about him. He'll walk into a trap. Get him in a cross fire!”

I said, “No. My job is to get you away.”

“I'm tired of running. I'm tired of this crap. Fuck it, Corte. You get Joanne and Maree out of here. Take 'em to that safe house. I'll stay. Him too.” He looked at Ahmad, who wore two weapons.

“We don't do last stands, Ryan. Too many innocents.”

“There're always innocents around, Corte. There're always excuses for not doing what you should.”

“Ryan,” Joanne snapped. “Please! I'm scared.”

I calmly said, “
This
is not the time or place for a firefight. It's not the rational choice to engage.” Implying: The safe house we're headed for is better.

“Honey,” she begged. “Please.”

With the obligatory look of disgust, Ryan grabbed his belongings. “Fuck.”