Edge (37 page)

However, nobody outside the highest levels of government security knows it exists. No news story would have reported about it. There was no way Joanne could even have heard of IAD, let alone know that it could identify the man in the pictures with Allende . . . unless she had some clandestine connection with high-level national security operations.

It had raised my suspicions. My encrypted message to duBois after Joanne had found the picture on her sister's computer had been not only to have ORC analyze the photos but to see if anybody had made an IAD request about Allende and his associate in the past twelve hours. And, if so, could that request somehow be linked to Joanne Kessler?

DuBois had earlier, of course, run the basic profile of the woman—learning about her scholastic and professional histories, as well as things like her car accident. But if Joanne knew about IAD, that suggested to me the public information could be a cover and that her real job history and profile would be in classified archives and records.

So you do your homework, do you? . . . What'd you find out about me?

No wonder she'd asked the question.

DuBois reported that, yes, this morning somebody with a high clearance had submitted an IAD request to identify two people in a photograph that had been uploaded from an unknown location. The analysis was pending.

Regarding Joanne Kessler's real résumé, well, that had taken some true finesse to find. Aaron
Ellis had helped, duBois explained in her email, and he'd pulled in some markers from Langley and Fort Meade.

Ryan blurted, “But your job . . . I went to see you. We had lunch. A half dozen times. We went to Air and Space, we went to the National Gallery. I walked you back to the office. The Highways Analysis Bureau. On Twenty-second Street. I was there!”

“Honey . . .” The endearment seemed to jar. “It . . . it was a cover.”

He asked, “You were with the CIA? Something like that?”

“Like that.”

Maree was getting worked up now. Nothing flighty or youthful about the woman any longer. “You're still not giving us any details, Jo.”

Stoic now, as if she were speaking before a congressional committee, she said, “My organization was involved in domestic national security projects.”

“What does that mean?” Ryan was trying desperately to reconcile this information with accounts of her life she'd told him earlier. What was true and what wasn't? How deep did the lies go? He'd be thinking of places she said she'd been, people she said she'd known. Was there some honesty in the stories that could legitimize their marriage and family? Because that's what was at risk now, of course.

For her part, Joanne would be considering exactly what and how much she could tell him—which, in theory, was nothing. The British have their Official Secrets Act, which forbids government employees from talking about their activities while they were in the employ of certain agencies. We don't have quite such a grandly named law but
similar regulations are in effect. She'd already committed federal offenses by her disclosures here in this rustic, cozy living room. If she went further, the crimes would be compounded significantly, I understood.

But Ryan Kessler was no fool. He investigated crimes and he put people in jail for a living. The pieces were coming together—yes, slowly and in a patchwork way, but he had a clue as to where this was going. In a whisper he asked, “There was something going on when we met. You talked about a boyfriend you were breaking up with. You'd call him occasionally. Late at night. But he wasn't your lover, was he? You
worked
with him, right?”

“Yes. I called him my former boyfriend but that was part of the cover.” Joanne was slumped forward, shoulders drooping. It was a confessional pose. “We were supposed to talk about each other like ex-lovers. Those were operational rules.”

Her sister broke in. “I don't understand any of this, Jo. You're talking like you were in the army. Like Dad used to talk.”

Joanne surprised me, at least, by laughing. “Dad . . . funny you should mention him. He's the one who helped me get into my organization. Right after college.”

“But you backpacked through Europe.”

“No, Mar. The postcards were fake. I went to a training center in the States. I can't say anything more about it.”

As often happened in this line of work, I realized that one of my principals was speaking to someone else in the room through a third party. Doing this seems easier. It was safer for Joanne to confess to
her sister than to her husband—the person she was really communicating with. I'd learned that when it comes to deception, we believe that the gravity of the sin depends not on the nature of the lie but on the person lied to.

But Ryan asked directly, “Projects, Jo? National security projects?”

She finally turned to face him, held his eyes. “We did risk assessment.” Then she took a deep breath and I knew that the complete truth was about to come out. She added in a voice that was barely audible, “And we did risk elimination.”

“You and your partner?”

“Partners,” she corrected. “I was active for eight years. I had a number of partners.”

Maree said, “For God's sake, Jo, tell me in English what you mean. Risk assessment, risk elimination?”

Ryan Kessler said evenly, “Maree, your sister killed people.”

“
RYAN, DON'T BE
crazy. That's bullshit. Of course she didn't. Jo, tell us. What were you really doing?”

But it was the truth, I understood.

Joanne's federal government employment history had been hidden very efficiently, of course. DuBois hadn't found anything specific about what the woman or her coworkers did. But you could deduce their mission from what my protégée did uncover: the group's funding (lavish and murkily channeled through nonexistent government agencies) and jurisdiction—in the U.S. only (office leasing and travel authorizations). Its history was enlightening too. The organization was created two weeks after the first Trade Towers bombing in New York in the 1990s, and their budget and personnel were doubled after the African embassy bombings and tripled after the attack on the
Cole.

After 9/11 the budget increased ten times.

But the real key was that in the archives duBois had found unsigned legal opinion letters from government attorneys. They discussed at length the standards for justifiable homicide in all states and the District of Columbia. And general guidelines for deciding when to refer a death to the prosecutor's
office and when not to. There were also memos about procedures at hundreds of coroners' and medical examiners' offices around the country.

Joanne's operations would have involved staging deaths to appear to be suicides, accidents, random crimes of violence and self-defense.

I thought back to what Ryan had told me when I'd first arrived at their house on Saturday morning.

You know, Corte, this world . . . what you and I do? Joanne can't handle it well. Things freak her out, things we don't even think about. . . .

Ryan whispered, “Did you . . . did you do it yourself?”

“No.” Shaking her head, Joanne sucked in a great breath. She started to speak and her voice caught. Then she started again. “We were anchors—two-person teams. We ran a third-party contractor. He was the . . . active party. But I was on site. I gave the order.”

“Jo,” her sister gasped. “You didn't. You couldn't have.”

“Yes, I did, Mar. Yes, I did. I was there when it happened. A dozen times, more. I was there.”

Absolute silence. Ryan seemed paralyzed. It was Maree who moved closer and took her sister's arm. “It's all right, it's okay. You didn't want to do it. You got sucked in. They do that. See, businesses and government—what I tell you all the time. They suck you right in. Get you to do things you don't want to do.”

Joanne was looking at her sister's hand as it kneaded her forearm. She said, “Oh, but I
did
want to do it, Mar. It's what Dad wanted me to do, and what I wanted. Be a patriot, doing something good.”

Ryan asked, “A dozen times? More?”

“I ran twenty-two assignments.”

“You killed twenty-two people?”

“Some were multiple target assignments but some were also renditions for interrogation.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Ryan muttered. “Jesus.” Then some silence passed and he asked, “After we met . . . did you keep doing it?”

“No. Well, for about a year I was active but I didn't run any operations. I told them no. They wanted me to. But I told them no.”

They'd want her because she was good, I surmised.

Then she turned to me. “Really, Corte, the people in my organization have looked into everything. There's no connection between any of my assignments and Henry Loving. I left six years ago. It makes no sense for anybody to target me now.”

Ryan Kessler was then staring out the window and from the icy smile on his face I saw that his thoughts had arrived where mine had been for the past ten minutes or so. He asked his wife, “Were you doing this when I met you?”

Joanne swallowed, her face flushed. “I told you I was active for a year but I didn't—”

“No, I mean the day I met you, Jo?”

When she said nothing he continued, “Oh, my God. At the deli. You were on assignment.”

Joanne lowered her eyes.

I supposed that the owner and his wife were probably key in some terrorist cell. Joanne and the partner had been ordered to eliminate them. They had gone into the deli and as soon as it was clear they called in the contractor, who was fronting as a
robber for the security camera. He killed the couple. The plan would have been for him to flee, and Joanne and the partner would give statements to the police describing the incident as a robbery gone bad.

Only, Detective Ryan Kessler had heard the shots and raced into the store.

The hero . . .

“It wasn't some crankhead from South East who shot me; it was your fucking hit man.”

Now emotion bled into Joanne's voice. “I checked the police schedule a dozen times! Nobody was supposed to be nearby.”

“You were the one in charge?”

She sighed. Like me, she knew what was coming. “I was primary anchor on that one, yes.”

“The anchor gives the . . . what'd you call it? A shoot order?”

“We don't call it that but I gave the order, yes.”

“And you also gave him the order to shoot me?”

Joanne started to speak but her voice choked to a stop. “We had to get our contractor out of there. I used a code. It means to use nonlethal force on an innocent. We never would have done it if you hadn't been armed. But all of a sudden there you were.”

There was a crash, and I jumped at the sound. Maree had leapt to her feet and a wineglass and coffee cup had tumbled to the floor and shattered. She stepped forward and leaned into her sister's face. Joanne looked down as Maree raged, “You go off on me because I end up with a boyfriend you don't like. You say those terrible things about me, being irresponsible. And you . . .” Her voice choked. “You murdered people for a living!”

Joanne said nothing but looked away. I saw her fists were kneading and fingers white. Maree spun around and stomped up the hallway to the bedroom.

Ryan shook his head and said to Joanne, “I didn't rescue you. I didn't rescue anybody.”

“I . . . Oh, honey. A million times I tried to tell you. I—”

“So you went out with me for sympathy. Out of guilt.”

“No! I went out with you because I wanted to change. I wanted a real life, a normal life. I wanted you. You were good. You did the right thing! I couldn't live with what my organization was doing anymore.” She moved her hand toward him. He eased away. He stepped into the kitchen, snagged the whiskey bottle that had been untouched for a day and vanished down the hall.

The bedroom door closed. Though I expected a slam, I knew it was shut only because the wedge of light faded to black. I didn't hear so much as a latch click.

I WAS IN
the den with Joanne, alone.

Looking over the top-secret sheets duBois had emailed me. Much was redacted, including the name of her organization, which was far less public even than mine. Though one thing that wasn't redacted was a picture of Joanne from eight or ten years ago. And her name within the organization, Lily Hawthorne. The woman in the picture looked much like the woman in front of me. Handsome but not pretty, unsmiling, slim.

Reserved and secretive too.

I realized a lot of other curiosities over the past few days made sense now. Joanne's desperation to get her stepdaughter away from her, afraid that she was in fact the reason the girl might be kidnapped or hurt. And her concern about the neighbors in Fairfax, the Knoxes—a worry at the time that seemed out of proportion to the situation. She'd been horrified at the chance that
she
was the cause of Teddy's wife's death at the hand of Henry Loving. I recalled too how hard she'd been pressing me for information about which of Ryan's cases could be the reason Loving had been hired. And her searching Maree's computer, hoping to find any clues that she wasn't the cause.

She'd also supported my choices in the tactical situations, pleading or even ordering her husband to follow what I'd decided—because, as a pro, she knew I was right.

In a matter-of-fact voice, she said to me, “Have you found out anything more than that?” She glanced toward the documents, which said nothing directly about her job.

“Only that you were with the Sickle project. My associate's good but she couldn't get much more than that. Your archives're locked pretty tight. As for active files—if the group is still active . . .” She said nothing. “If it's still active, she didn't find anything on record.”