Jeffery Deaver - Edge

“Go on.”

She sighed. “The armored van you’d ordered left the safe house fifteen minutes ago. It’s headed for the prison now.”

AS THE SKY grew more and more overcast, I pulled into the safe house compound in Great Falls.

I climbed out and stretched, as leaves tumbled past in the fitful wind.

The rustic setting made me feel very much at home-the trees, brush, sloping fields of renegade grass. My early adult life was rooted in classrooms and lecture halls, and my recent professions and personal life have found me in offices and safe houses, but I have always found a way to get outside, sometimes for hours or days at a time.

I glanced enviously at the paths that led to the Potomac or farther into the dense woods, then I turned away, looking down at another text from Billy about the progress of the armored van to the slammer in D.C. I wondered if Jason Westerfield and his associate would be there to greet it. Then I realized: Of course they would.

Climbing the stairs, punching in the code. The door of the safe house eased open.

And I nodded a greeting toward Maree and Joanne, who sat across a wobbly card table from each other, with tea and cookies at hand.

Yes, and armored van was en route-a lengthy, complicated route-but it was empty.

Inscrutable …

There was no way I was going to send the Kesslers to a slammer, especially a medium-security facility in the District. Nothing had changed from earlier, when I’d refused to incarcerate them, and if Westerfield was convinced I was using my principals as bait, that was a problem of his, not mine.

I knew that if the stink got big enough, Aaron Ellis might fire me. But he wouldn’t fire me until the job was concluded. For one thing, he didn’t know where I was and it would take some effort to find out. Nor could he do so without risking that somebody on the outside would learn of the Kesslers’ whereabouts. Which he wouldn’t do.

I was amused to see that the sisters were playing a board game plucked from the shelves in the living room. Backgammon. The game, where you roll dice and move markers in an attempt to remove all yours from the board first, goes back nearly five thousand years. A variation was played in Mesopotamia, and the Romans’ Game of Twelve Lines was virtually the same as the backgammon people play now.

I left the sisters to their competition and greeted Ahmad, who stood at the back door, looking out. He assured me everything had been quiet. I made a call to the spec in West Virginia, who reported that there’d been no hint of surveillance from the outside.

Nor had the deer, badgers or other animals been behaving oddly.

Ahmad was standing in a way I could only describe as anticipatory, shoulders at one angle, hips at another. Eyes were scanning the windows, his job, but also avoiding mine. He said, “I heard you ordered a transport to the Hansen Detention Center.”

“That’s right.”

He was nodding, understandably confused; the people supposedly inside the van were no more than thirty feet away from him.

I asked, “Anybody call you about it?”

“It went out over the wire.”

I told him of my ploy. “You won’t be in trouble. You can plead ignorance.”

The young officer nodded, curious, but I said nothing more. Like Abe Fallow, I’m always aware of my responsibility to teach protégés what I can about our business-there is so much to learn. But this was a situation I decided not to elaborate on, since I hoped he’d never find himself in one like it.

All he said was, “It was a good call, sir. A slammer’d be wrong for this situation.”

“Where’s Ryan?”

“Working in his room. That accounting project of his, I think.”

I realized the downstairs was filled with a new smell, spice, which I took to be from shampoo or perfume.

I was struck by the domesticity, replayed hundreds of times in the safe houses where I’ve stashed my principals, and it’s always jarring to me, the contrast: the homey, even mundane routine that’s the antithesis of the reason these men and women are here.

As it did occasionally, the comforting imagery made me feel somewhat sentimental. Certain memories again arose but I didn’t shoo them away quite so quickly this time. I recalled last Friday night after work, alone in the town house, eating a sandwich for dinner before I went to my gaming club up the street. I’d found the list for the party that Peggy and I had thrown years ago. I’d stared at it, my appetite gone. I’d become aware of the smell of the place, bitter from the cardboard, paper and ink of the many boxed games lining the walls. The town house had seemed unbearably sterile. I thought I should get some incense or do what people did when they were selling their houses, boil cinnamon on the stove.

Or bake cookies. Something domestic.

As if that would ever happen.

The game between the sisters now ended and Joanne returned to her room. Maree gave me a smile and booted up her computer.

I asked, “Who won?”

“Jo did. You can’t beat her. At anything. It’s impossible.”

As a statistician, Joanne would have had a talent for math and that meant a talent for games-certain types, in any event. I knew my skill at numbers, and my analytical mind, helped me play.

In backgammon, which I happen to be good at, I knew the general strategy was to play a “running game,” moving quickly around the board, offensively. If that didn’t work, players had to fall back on a holding action, trying to create an anchor on the opponent’s side. While not as complicated as chess, it’s a sophisticated game. I would have liked to see how Joanne played. But the interest was purely theoretical. In all my years as a shepherd, I’d never played a game with a principal, though on occasion I’d been tempted.

Maree gestured toward her computer. “Tell me what you think?”

“What?” I asked.

“Come ’ere, Mr. Tour Guide. Take a look.”

She motioned me over and typed some commands into her computer. A logo came up, GSI, Global Sofware Innovations . I’d heard of them but couldn’t recall where. After a moment the program loaded. It was apparently a picture editing and archiving program; folders of Maree’s photos appeared.

Maree’s fingers paused, hovering over keys. I thought at first she was unfamiliar with the software, but it turned out the hesitation was due to another reason. With a wistfulness in her eyes, she said, “It’s Amanda’s program. We had a lot of fun installing it together… I feel bad for her. She’s got to be terrified about this whole thing.”

I glanced into the woman’s eyes, focused blankly on the logo. “She’s stronger than a lot of my adult principals. She’ll be fine.” This was not just for reassurance; it was the truth.

Maree exhaled softly. “Jo thinks she’s stronger than I am.” A look up at my face. “As a rule I never agree with my sister but she’s right about that.”

Then she seemed to toss aside the serious thoughts-as I’d been doing all day-and concentrated on the photo software.

She typed quickly and two pictures flashed onto the screen side by side.

“I can’t decide which of these two are the best.” She laughed, looking up, and patted the chair beside her. “It’s okay, I don’t bite.”

I hesitated then sat down. I noted that, unsurprisingly, she was the source of the pleasant spice, not Joanne. And, as I’d observed yesterday, she was wearing makeup, skillfully applied. She had ironed and donned a new outfit-a sheer skirt and silk maroon blouse. This was curious. Not only do principals tend to ignore fashion like this when their lives are in danger but if Maree was as flighty as she seemed and the artist she claimed to be, I would have thought she’d have been inattentive to personal details. Or been more of a jeans-and-sweats woman.