Jeffery Deaver - Edge

I placed the FedEx box into the safe behind my desk-nothing fancy, no eye scans, just a clicking combination lock-and rose. I tugged on a dark suit jacket over my white shirt, which was what I usually wore in the office, even when working weekends. I stepped out of my office, turning left toward my boss’s, and walked along the lengthy corridor’s gray carpet, striped with sunlight, falling pale through the mirrored, bullet-resistant windows. My mind was no longer on real estate values in Maryland or delivery service packages or unwanted reminders from the past, but focused exclusively on the reappearance of Henry Loving-the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and murdered my mentor and close friend, Abe Fallow, in a gulley beside a North Carolina cotton field, as I’d listened to his cries through his still-connected phone.

Seven minutes of screams until the merciful gunshot, delivered not mercifully at all, but as a simple matter of professional efficiency.

I WAS SITTING in one of our director’s scuffed chairs next to a man who clearly knew me, since he’d nodded with some familiarity when I entered. I couldn’t, however, place him beyond his being a federal prosecutor. About my age-forty-and short, a bit doughy, with hair in need of a trim. A fox’s eyes.

Aaron Ellis noticed my glance. “You remember Jason Westerfield, U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

I didn’t fake it and try to respond. I just shook his hand.

“Freddy was briefing me.”

“Agent Fredericks?” Westerfield asked.

“That’s right. He said we have a principal in Fairfax and a lifter who needs information in the next few days.”

Westerfield’s voice was high and irritatingly playful. “You betcha. That’s what we hear. We don’t know much at this point, other than that the lifter got a clear go-ahead order. Somebody needs information from the subject by late Monday or all hell breaks loose. No idea what the fuck hell is, though. Pardonnez moi.”

While I was dressed like a prosecutor, ready for court, Westerfield was in weekend clothes. Not office weekend clothes but camping weekend clothes: chinos, a plaid shirt and a windbreaker. Unusual for the District, where Saturday and Sunday office hours were not rare. It told me he might be a cowboy. I noted too he was also sitting forward on the edge of his chair and clutching files with blunt fingers. Not nervously-he didn’t seem the sort who could be nervous-but with excitement. A hot metabolism burned within.

Another voice, female, from behind us: “I’m sorry I’m late.”

A woman about thirty joined us. A particular type of nod and I knew she was Westerfield’s assistant. A tight hairstyle that ended at her shoulders, blond. New or dry-cleaned blue jeans, a white sweater under a tan sports coat and a necklace of impressive creamy pearls. Her earrings were pearls too and accompanied on the lobes by equally arresting diamonds. Her dark-framed glasses were, despite her youth, trifocals, I could see by the way her head bobbed slowly as she took in the office and me. A shepherd has to know his principals’ buying habits-it’s very helpful in understanding them-and instinctively I noted Chanel, Coach and Cartier. A rich girl and probably near the top of her class at Yale or Harvard Law.

Westerfield said, “This is Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Teasley.”

She shook my hand and acknowledged Ellis.

“I’m just explaining the Kessler situation to them.” Then to us: “Chris’ll be working with us on it.”

“Let’s hear the details,” I said, aware that Teasley was scenting the air, floral and subdued. She opened her attaché case with loud hardware snaps and handed her boss a file. As he skimmed it I noted a sketch on Ellis’s wall. His corner office wasn’t large but it was decorated with a number of pictures, some posters from mall galleries, some personal photos and art executed by his children. I stared at a watercolor drawing of a building on a hillside, not badly rendered.

I had nothing on my office walls except lists of phone numbers.

“Here’s the sit.” Westerfield turned to Ellis and me. “I heard from the Bureau’s Charleston, West Virginia, field office this morning. Make a long story short, the state police were running a meth sting out in the boonies and they stumbled on some prints on a pay phone, turned out to be Henry Loving’s. For some reason the homicide and surveillance warrants weren’t cancelled after he died. Well, supposedly died, looks like.

“They call our people and we take over, find out Loving flew into Charleston a week ago under some fake name and ID. Nobody knows from where. Finally, they tracked him down to a motel in Winfield this morning. But he’d already checked out-a couple of hours ago, around eight-thirty. Clerk doesn’t know where he was going.”

At a nod from her boss, Teasley continued, “The surveillance warrants are technically still active, so the agents checked out emails at the hotel. One received and one sent: the go-ahead order and Loving’s acknowledgment.”

Ellis asked, “What would he be doing in West Virginia?”

I knew Loving better than anybody in the room. I said, “He usually worked with a partner; he might be picking somebody up there. Weapons too. He wouldn’t fly with them. In any case, he’ll avoid the D.C.-area airports. A lot of people up here still remember what he looks like after… after what happened a few years ago.” I asked, “Internet address of the sender?”

“Routed through proxies. Untraceable.”

“Any phone calls to or from his room in the motel?”

“Mais non.”

The French was irritating. Had Westerfield just gotten back from a package vacation or was he boning up to prosecute an Algerian terrorist?

“What does the order say exactly, Jason?” I asked patiently.

At a nod from him, Chris Teasley did the honors. “Like you were saying, it was solely a go-ahead. So they’d have had prior conversations where they laid out the details.”

“Go on, please,” I said to her.

The woman read, “ ‘Loving-Re: Kessler. It’s a go. Need details, per our discussion, by Monday midnight, or unacceptable consequences, as explained. Once you get information, subject must be eliminated.’ End of quote. It gave an address in Fairfax.”

Unacceptable consequences… all hell breaking loose.

“No audio?”

“No.”

I was disappointed. Voice analysis can tell a lot about the caller: gender, most of the time, national and regional roots, illnesses, even reasonable morphological deductions can be made about the shape of the nose, mouth and throat. But at least we had a confirmed spelling of the principal’s name, which was a plus.

“Kessler’s a cop in the District. Ryan Kessler, detective,” Westerfield explained.

“Loving’s response?”

“‘Confirmed.’ That was it.”

“The primary wants the ‘details’”-Westerfield did air quotes-“by late Monday. Details…”

I asked to see the printout. Noted a slight hesitation on Teasley’s part, then she passed it over when Westerfield gave no reaction. I read through the brief passage. “Grammar, spelling and punctuation are good. Proper use of ‘per.’” Teasley frowned at this observation. I didn’t explain that “as per,” what most people say, is redundant; she wasn’t my protégée. I continued, “And matching commas around the appositive, after ‘details,’ which you hardly ever see.”

Everyone stared at me now. I’d studied linguistics a long time ago. A little philology too, the study of languages from analyzing texts. Mostly for the fun of it, but the subject came in useful sometimes.

Ellis toyed his neck sideways. He’d wrestled in college but didn’t do many sports nowadays that I knew of. He was just still built like an iron triangle. He asked, “He left at eight-thirty this morning. He probably has weapons so he’s not going to fly… and he doesn’t want to risk being seen at an airport here, like you were saying, Corte. He’s still about four hours away.”