Jeffery Deaver - Edge

“‘He in effect used the witnesses as bait to capture or kill Loving. This is supported by the fact that the witnesses were convicted felons and, accordingly, Agent Corte would feel more at liberty to imperil them.’”

He concluded, “‘It was only through good fortune that the witnesses were not lost and the trial proceeded on schedule.’”

“Good fortune,” I repeated softly. Something I absolutely do not believe in.

“Well?”

The penitentiary in Providence was more dangerous than the worst parts of the city itself and that was saying something. My protégé at the time had learned that Henry Loving had done business with at least two people inside the slammer. As for the principals, yes, they were felons. But we shepherds never make moral judgments about the people we protect. The only quality in a principal that matters is a beating heart. Our job is to keep it that way.

But if I hadn’t justified myself to my boss, I sure wasn’t going to do so to Westerfield and his young assistant.

“It’s the same thing here, Corte. The motel in Providence, the Hillside Inn. The safe house there, the safe house here. From what we can reconstruct, back at the Hillside, after Loving showed up and was in pursuit, you could have escaped right away but you paused in the back of the motel. You engaged him, with the Kesslers in the vehicle with you.”

People who explain are weak, Corte. A shepherd can’t be weak. He can be wrong but he can’t be weak .

Abe’s words, of course. I realized that Westerfield must be upset; he hadn’t lapsed into French once during this conversation. I sped around a slow-moving Prius.

“So what happened is the trap in Rhode Island didn’t work out after all, and your fox shows up still alive yesterday. So you set out to nail him all over again, using the Kesslers. And now, I understand from Aaron there’s a terrorist component.”

“A… what?”

“Ali Pamuk, aka Clarence Brown.”

“We haven’t found any terrorist connections. His father’s Turkish, and he’s contributed money to a mosque here in Virginia. He’s also played with his identity. That’s all we know at this point. We’re investigating.”

“But it’s possible that a terror cell wants to kidnap Kessler and find out what he knows and who else might be involved in his investigation.”

“Like I said, Jason, we don’t know.”

“Look, Corte, I appreciate you’ve saved the Kesslers from two tight situations. You’re talented… and you were lucky. We can’t risk that the third time Loving’ll have more luck than you do.”

Luck …

“Kessler may be the only key to a serious terror threat. We can’t afford to have him jeopardized, like you’ve been doing. I have the attorney general’s okay. I want the Kesslers and the woman’s sister in a slammer now. The Hansen facility, we were talking about earlier. I’ve already contacted them.”

I pictured him looking at Teasley with an expression that said, See, that’s how it’s done.

“I want to talk to my boss.”

“This is coming from the attorney general.”

Everybody’s boss.

I found I was driving ten over the limit. I eased up on the gas.

Westerfield continued, speaking reasonably, “If this was some bullshit embezzlement or organized crime thing, I wouldn’t care so much. But now there’s a terror component, we can’t fool around. We need to make sure we do everything we can to identify a threat. We also don’t need any blowback.”

Even spending so much time inside the Beltway I could never quite get used to the lexicon.

“I want them in Hansen as soon as possible. You want to keep after Loving, be my guest. You want to keep tracking down the primary, fine. You just aren’t going to use my witness for cheese in your mousetrap.”

His witness… The famous hero cop.

Westerfield continued, “I’m ordering an armored van now.”

“No.”

“I’ll just call Aaron and find out where they are.”

“He doesn’t know.”

“What?”

“I haven’t told him.”

Need-to-know …

“Well, that’s…” Westerfield had trouble processing this, though I wasn’t sure why. I doubted people in his organization shared everything with one another.

“I hope this isn’t going to become a fight, Corte. Mon Dieu … that would not be good.”

Ah, the French. At last.

Finally I said, “Here’s what I’ll agree to do. I’ll call Aaron. If he confirms that the AG’s ordered them into a slammer”-I let that linger-“I’ll arrange for one of our armored transports to get them to the Hansen facility. But I’ll tell you… a District cop? Inside? Ryan’s not going to be happy at all. I don’t know how cooperative he’ll be after we move them.”

“You let me worry about that, Corte. This has to happen immediately. I can rely on you?”

Meaning he was going to call Aaron Ellis in about ten minutes to make sure I was doing what I’d said.

“Yes.”

“Thanks. It’s really for the best-for us, for them, for the country.”

I didn’t know if those words were directed toward me, toward Teasley or an invisible audience.

After I disconnected, I gave it a few minutes and, without bothering to call Aaron Ellis for the confirmation, dialed Billy to ask about an armored van.

HOTELS ARE GOOD meeting places in our line of work. They never close and even if you aren’t registered there, nobody pays much attention if you sit quietly in the lobby in a business suit and pretend to look over your computer, like you’re waiting for a meeting.

Which was what I was doing now.

At 11:10 a.m. Claire duBois arrived at the Tysons Hyatt. She was wearing a black pantsuit but a different black one from yesterday. The pattern, I noticed. A thin burgundy sweater underneath. As she sat down I smelled jasmine. Her eyes were red. I supposed she hadn’t gotten much sleep. Her face was troubled and for a moment I thought we had a security situation on our hands. But she simply said in a ragged whisper, “I heard Billy’s signed out a secure transport for a run to a slammer in D.C. He was secret about it. I mean, I sensed he was. Inscrutable. I’m not sure exactly what that means but it seemed to apply. When I walked toward him he headed the other way.”

That was duBois’s very long way of asking a very simple question.

“First.” I gestured across the lobby, picked up my laptop and we walked to the Starbucks stand. It wasn’t my favorite coffee. But it had caffeine and that I did need. We got two cups and Claire duBois went for some food. A vegetable wrap. We returned to where we’d been sitting. I explained about Westerfield’s call, though not the Rhode Island part or the inquiry. I supposed that duBois knew about the matter, which was there for public consumption, provided you were up for a little insidious digging, as Chris Teasley had done. It wasn’t the sort of thing to bring up with your protégé and fellow workers unnecessarily.

When I told her the U.S. attorney had demanded the Kesslers and Maree go into a slammer, duBois blinked as if I’d said the District were seceding. “But he can’t do that. You’re in charge of the principals.”

I told her, “But he’s in charge of the sanctity of the nation. And of his career.” I chose not to work the word “self-righteous” into my comments. I also chose to tell her nothing more. “In any case, that’s not our priority at the moment. We need to find who’s hired Loving. Tell me what you’ve got so far.”

“I’m still checking on the email you sent, following up on the tracker situation, the police department.”

Since I’d given her the assignment only a half hour ago I wasn’t surprised or troubled there were no results yet.