Jeffery Deaver - Edge

“I understand. Thanks, Aaron.”

I hung up and sat back, rubbing my eyes, feeling utterly depleted. What could I salvage from this mess? Even if I avoided jail, it seemed my career as a shepherd was soon to be over. I couldn’t help but think about some of the assignments I’d run, about some of my principals.

About Claire duBois.

About Abe Fallow too.

But then I recalled that, whatever happened in the future, the Kessler job wasn’t finished yet. We still had Loving and the partner to nail. And we still had a case to make against the primary-and I’d make damn sure that it was completely buttoned up, independent of any bogus warrants.

I found the transcript of Aslan Zagaev’s statement, opened it and began to read.

I led a more or less successful life here. Ah, but isn’t success a moving target? I have been having some problems, financial in nature. The economy? Who needs rugs when you can’t afford your mortgage payments? Who goes to eat at my wonderful restaurant when you must buy bulk frozen dinners at Sam’s Club to feed your children? How could I make more money? Did I have any service I could perform? Did I have anything valuable that I could sell? Then it occurred to me. What if I could learn more about the operation behind the deaths of the Pakistanis in the deli six years ago? How valuable would that be? I remembered the woman who was the point control officer behind the operation to kill them: Joanne Kessler. Even if she had retired she would surely have valuable information or lead me to people who did .

I made some phone calls, discreet phone calls to a connection of mine in Damascus. I learned there was indeed an interest in information of this sort. A multimillion-dollar interest. A man there gave me Henry Loving’s name .

When I finished I sat back. He seemed pathetic. More than that, though, he was a fool. Why risk prison, where he’d be spending the rest of his life, for a bit more money? It seemed like a curious motive for somebody who wasn’t destitute and who had a family, whom he will see, from now on, only through bars or bullet-proof windows. I could understand it if he were a true terrorist, or if he were being blackmailed…

A thought occurred to me, resulting in a ping in my gut. I leaned forward fast and reread a portion of the transcript again.

I remembered the woman who was the point control officer behind the operation to kill them: Joanne Kessler .

Oh, no…

I grabbed my com device and called Lyle Ahmad.

“Now,” I said. “I need you now.”

The young clone showed up a moment later, his face impassive, eyes watchful.

“Yessir?”

“Close the door. Where’re the principals?”

He eased the thick oak panel shut and stepped to the desk. “Ryan’s in the back den, reading. Pretending to. He’s been drinking. Joanne’s in the bedroom. Maree’s on her computer. In her room.”

“And Barr?”

“Patrolling the back perimeter.”

I lowered my voice. “We have a situation. About Barr… I think he’s either been turned or he’s a plant.”

The officer’s eyes were still. He was undoubtedly as alarmed as I was but, like me, he was approaching the situation calmly. The way I’d taught him. “All right.”

I explained my thinking. “When I told you and Barr about Joanne’s job with Sickle, I described her as a point control officer.”

“I remember.”

“But that’s unique to our organization; Joanne called herself ‘anchor’ on the hit teams. Zagaev, though, referred to her as ‘point control.’”

Ahmad was nodding. “How did he hear that term?”

“Exactly. The only way was if somebody here had told him.”

“Barr.”

“And,” I added, “Zagaev used Joanne’s name. Sure, he may have been involved with the couple killed at the deli, but how could he have learned her name? Williams and the Sickle people would’ve kept it secret.”

I continued, “So Loving got to somebody inside Justice and learned that Freddy was sending Tony Barr to the safe house.”

“He got to Barr and turned him.”

Another grim possibility had occurred to me. “Or he’s not Barr. He’s an imposter.”

“And the real Barr is dead.”

The unfortunate but logical conclusion.

I said to Ahmad, “Barr-or whoever he is-called Loving and told him we suspected Joanne was the principal and Zagaev might be the primary.”

The lifter would have realized he’d been handed the perfect misdirection. He’d tracked down Zagaev and forced him into agreeing to play the role of primary-probably using his family as an edge. Loving had briefed Zagaev about all aspects of the operation-the helicopter, for instance-and told him to convince us that Joanne was in fact the target. The Chechnyan had made calls implicating himself and then, when we caught up with him, confessed.

Taking the pressure off Loving and the real primary.

“But if it’s true,” the young officer pointed out, “why hasn’t Barr done anything more than give information to Loving? He could’ve told him where the safe house is. He could’ve shot us all in the back.”

This was true. “I don’t know. I’ve got to find out more. But for now, we’ve got to assume we have a hostile on the premises. Get all the principals into the den and stay with them. And call the detention center and get a message to Bill Carter. Tell them I’m not going to pick him and Amanda up yet. I want them back in the slammer until I figure out what’s going on.”

“Yessir.” He headed out the door.

I stared at the transcript.

Point control officer …

How could I verify my theory? In order to get into the safe house Barr had passed fingerprint and facial recognition scans. So either he really was Tony Barr or somebody had gotten into the Justice Department’s security servers-possibly an FBI employee or someone from any law-enforcement-related federal organization. I logged on to the Bureau personnel server, punched in the appropriate pass codes and looked over Barr’s profile. The picture was identical, distinguishing characteristics, age. His prints were there-they were the sample that Geoff would have used to verify his identity. Everything pointed to the fact that the man here in the compound was Tony Barr.

I called up another screen and began searching social networking sites, typing in “Tony Barr” along with relevant demographic information.

The world of Google…

It took no more than three minutes to verify that we indeed had an imposter. The real Barr bore only a faint resemblance to the man in our back-forty at the moment.

So Barr was dead and the imposter was one of Loving’s partners. I tucked away the shock at this confirmation and tried to figure out what his purpose here was or what Loving was really up to. I had no answers.

And to learn this I decided I needed some help.

I debated for a moment and then placed a call.

“This’s Williams,” rasped the voice.

“It’s Corte.”

“I know. Saw the number. I’m watching the dispatches. You got things taken care of.”

Meaning: Why’re you bothering me?

“There’s a possibility they’re not as taken care of as we’d hoped.”

A grunt.

I explained the situation.

Williams took this in silently. “You’re still alive. So what’s your fake agent up to?”

“That’s the question. I need to find out. But I can’t trust anybody in the Bureau. There’s a mole there, and they’re probably monitoring what’s going on at my outfit… Do you have somebody we can use?”

I found it curious he didn’t hesitate. “Matter of fact, I do.” He gave me a phone number. “Call him.”

“Time’s critical,” I said. “How close are they?”