Jeffery Deaver - Edge

Northern Virginia could never decide whether it was a suburb of New York or a part of the Confederacy.

I checked the time. It was a little after 1:30 p.m. We’d been on the road for less than two hours. I’d decided not to go directly to the safe house but to stop at a way station-a nearby motel-to confuse the trail and switch cars. I often moved my principals in stages. We’d stay there for three or four hours, then continue to the safe house. My organization had a list of about a dozen hotels or motels in the area that were secure and out of the way; the one I had in mind was perhaps the best.

Checking traffic, I hit SPEED DIAL.

“DuBois.”

I asked her, “Who are we at the Hillside?”

We have different covers for the various halfway houses we use. Even if I’m sure I know, I always ask.

There came the clatter of a keyboard, the jingle of her charm bracelet. The young woman said, “You’re Frank Roberts, sales director of Artesian Computer Design. You were there eight months ago for two days with Pietr Smolitz and his friend.” The last word was delivered frostily; duBois had formed an indelible opinion about the whistle-blower’s condescending mistress, who’d accompanied him. “Roberts, that is, you , was making sales calls in Tysons and Reston, along with your associate from Moscow. The bullet hole in the wall got repaired before they knew about it.”

“That, I remember.” We hadn’t been attacked. The crazy Russian had a hidden gun that had emerged after significant consumption of equally clandestine vodka. The discharge of the silenced weapon was accidental but the Taser hit to his back, compliments of me, had not been.

I told duBois, “I’m checking in now. I’ll call in twenty.”

“In twenty. Okay.”

In a few miles I slowed, signaled and turned into the long drive of the Hillside Inn. The white colonial buildings, stuccoed and gabled, squatted in the middle of five acres of attractive landscaping: geometric lawns, trimmed trees, English gardens, roses still in abundant bloom. Though I doubted she was in the mood to appreciate it, I hoped Joanne would enjoy a brief glance at the grounds, given her interest in gardening. Despite Maree’s sarcasm earlier, I am a bit of a tour guide, in that it works to my advantage to keep my principals occupied and content.

The Hillside Inn was indeed situated on an incline, though more at the bottom than the side, and was backed by naked farmland. There was an anemic forest to the right but a lifter or hitter would have a tough time approaching from a distance without being seen.

I headed up the drive, then cut right and through the parking lot to the back of the motel, avoiding the large windows in the lobby. I parked and told everyone to stay inside. I walked through an archway between two wings of rooms at the back and headed for the office. There were twenty-two cars in the lot. I have a scanner with a direct uplink to a national DMV database but to scan that many cars would take some time and look suspicious. Besides, in all my years of this business, I’d never known a lifter or hitter to park at a halfway or safe house in a vehicle with tags that would give him away.

I fished in my wallet from among the ten credit cards in various personal and company names and found the Artesian MasterCard, issued in the name of Frank Roberts. Artesian is a real company-well, it’s incorporated, that is-and has an impressive Web site. Had we ever decided actually to go into computer software design, we had a lengthy list of potential customers who’d emailed us. My organization has a number of cover companies like this, and research specialists like duBois have fun writing up a briefing sheet on each of them, incorporating all sorts of information like bios of chief executives, exotic locations for sales conferences and even ad campaigns. Shepherds spend hours memorizing the data so we can have credible, if brief, conversations on the subjects of computer design, aircraft hydraulics, deli meat and cheese and a number of other products and services-I’ve been told my recitation of these cover stories is unsexy, if not boring, and discourages further inquiry. Which is, of course, the point.

I checked in, noted nothing out of the ordinary with the desk clerk and a bellboy, then returned to the SUV, seeing nothing that aroused suspicion in the parking lot either.

I opened the driver’s side door and announced, “Bring your things with you.”

“I thought we weren’t staying here,” Maree said.

“For a little while. We’re switching vehicles.”

“You think that’s necessary?” Ryan asked.

“Just a precaution.” If there’s a mantra in the personal security field, that’s it.

“There a hot tub?” Maree asked. “Preferably with a cute masseur named Raoul?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to stay inside,” I repeated.

Maree’s look silently reiterated her comment about my attitude as a tour guide.

I ushered them quickly into the two-bedroom suite, tactically the best in the Hillside Inn for defense since there was no sniper vantage point outside. Joanne looked around blankly. Her sister seemed genuinely disappointed at the small, sparse place. Maybe she thought the federal government should put some stimulus money into her accommodations. Like a SWAT officer Ryan opened doors to bathrooms and closets. Then he went to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain to look outside at a blank wall about thirty feet away-the side of the banquet hall. There was something defiant about this gesture, as if he half expected to see Loving on the other side of the glass.

He seemed disappointed to find gray cinder block rather than a target he could gun down. Still, he said, “Good choice. Defensible.”

I nodded.

“Oooh, can I have that room?” Maree asked, pointing to the larger. I shrugged. The rooms were just for showers and a nap, if they wanted. I wasn’t going to be using one. The others agreed and the young woman stepped toward it.

I said, “The phones in there don’t work.”

Her step slowed. I’d had a feeling that she’d wanted to have a longer, and private, conversation with her friend Andrew. But she gave an exaggerated pout and said, “Then you’ll have to arrange for my masseur, Mr. Tour Guide.” She winked and vanished.

With a tired glance after his sister-in-law, Ryan lifted his cold phone. “My boss?”

“Sure. Just nothing about the location.”

A nod. He took his backpack and stepped into the other bedroom, dialing. He swung the door closed with his foot.

Leaving me in the living room of the suite with somber Joanne. She clicked the TV on, flipped through the channels. There was nothing about the assault on her home, only a report about the false alarm of a shooting at George Mason University.

“How did they keep it out of the news?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I told her.

Though I did: Aaron Ellis, my boss. He had never been a shepherd, like me. His background was administration in federal security agencies and he was experienced at congressional liaisons, budgetary infighting… and media relations. When Abe Fallow died, six years ago, there was some talk of me taking over the organization; I was Abe’s protégé. But it would have meant less time in the field and I didn’t want that. So the powers that be shopped around and found Ellis, who’d been doing some good work at Langley.

He didn’t completely get the subtleties of what shepherds did but when it came to gutting a news story that might work to our disadvantage, he was the man for the job. Though he couldn’t completely eradicate accounts of an assault in a quiet suburban neighborhood he could delay the report and turn it into something like a break-in gone bad.