Edge (44 page)

Sickle
 . . .

McCall asked, “They know about me?”

“I don't know. Maybe not yet but they will. It's just a matter of time till they figure out that you clipped Barr.”

Defensively McCall said, “The body's in a storm drain. Take 'em days to find it.”

“You can fucking hope. But the point is we've gotta bail. Get to Henry and warn him—we can't use the phones or radio. They have all our numbers and frequencies.”

“What about him?” McCall pointed my own Glock at me.

“He's coming with us. There's things my boss wants to know. But the priority is we've got to get to Henry. I mean, now. Where is he?”

“Last time I talked to him he was pretty close.” McCall smirked. “They bought all that crap about him going to Philly.”

“Well, let's get to him. Before they track him down. Where is he exactly?”

Careful, I thought to Pogue. I was worried he might be overdoing it.

“He was going to facility, after he and the crew picked up the target.”

Pogue asked, “The target? Joanne Kessler?”

McCall frowned. “No, no, man. She doesn't have anything to do with this. . . . I mean, the
real
target. Amanda, the daughter.”

AMANDA
 . . .

She
was the Kessler they were after? Not Ryan or his wife?

I desperately tried to piece together how this could be.

Recovering, Pogue said, “I know
that.
I just thought Henry'd want to take Joanne and her husband out.”

McCall shrugged. “Maybe. But he didn't say anything to me about it.”

Pogue muttered, “I want to get the fuck out of here now. We'll meet him at the facility. Where is it again?”

This was a good try. I probably would have waited a little longer to pry some more details out, but there it was.

And I could tell by the thick silence that followed that the ruse was over. McCall had grown suspicious.

I couldn't take a chance he'd discard my Glock—it was unloaded—and go for his machine gun. I rolled to my feet. “Now. Take him.”

Gasping, McCall reacted fast, lifting the only weapon in his grip, my Glock, toward us.

Pogue muttered calmly, “It's empty.” He targeted
McCall with the suppressed Beretta. I stepped forward and grabbed my Glock from McCall's hand, reloaded, drew the slide and released it.

I covered McCall, gaping at us in shock, as Pogue slipped restraints onto his hands, cinching them tight. I took my phone and quickly dialed the detention center.

Lyle Ahmad now appeared from the bushes, where he'd been stationed with his own M4, a night scope mounted. I'd sent Ahmad into the woods to target the imposter while Pogue and I put on our little performance to see what we could learn from the man.

Grasping how completely he'd been suckered, McCall muttered, “I'm fucked.” He was staring at my leg, where the bullet holes should have been. “I am so fucked.”

I spoke to the supervisor at the detention center and learned that he still couldn't get in touch with the guards who were escorting Bill Carter and Amanda back from the rendezvous point.

I exhaled slowly between gritted teeth. Now that I realized Amanda was the target I knew that McCall would have told Loving the girl and Bill Carter were leaving the detention center. He wouldn't know the rendezvous spot specifically but Loving or other partners could have been waiting outside the prison for the car to emerge.

“Call me the minute you hear anything.”

“Yessir.”

I disconnected. I knew the mole was in the Bureau so I couldn't call Freddy for a tactical team. And I couldn't contact anybody in our organization,
even Claire, in case the traitor was in touch with someone there.

I debated and decided to call local police and county troopers, sending them to search the road between the detention center and the rendezvous spot—a strip mall in Sterling, Virginia. There was a possibility of a kidnapping, I told them. I warned them that the suspect or suspects were armed.

I slipped the phone away and crouched beside McCall, who was sitting slumped forward on the grass. His eyes met mine every fourth heartbeat.

“You were the one shooting at us in North East, at the warehouse?” I asked. “And you were the one who got the trackers onto my car?”

He said nothing but a flicker in his eyes told me that I was on the money.

“And at Bill Carter's place, you were in the woods across the road?”

McCall's lips tightened but still he remained silent.

“Why do they want Amanda?”

No response.

“Where is this facility? What is it?”

“I'm not saying anything.”

In a raspy voice, Pogue said, “You just admitted killing Tony Barr, a federal agent. You have no leverage here.”

McCall whispered, miserable, “Whatever you'd do to me, it doesn't come close to what Loving would do if he found out I talked. I've got family, friends—Loving'd take them out in a minute. Or do worse.”

“We'll protect them,” I said.

“From Loving?” McCall laughed coldly. “Right.”

“You said you didn't know the primary's name. What
do
you know about him?”

Silence.

My phone buzzed. I stepped away and quickly hit
ANSWER
. “Corte.”

It was a captain with the state police. “Sir, some of my troopers found William Carter. He's alive. Wounded but alive. A security guard from Northern Virginia Detention is dead.”

“And the girl?”

“Afraid she's gone. They were about six miles from the prison. Carter said a black SUV ran them onto the shoulder, shot out the tires. Three men inside. None of them fit the description of the suspect, Loving.”

Three
other
actors?

“Carter didn't get any look at the tag.”

“What happened there?”

“Amanda kicked one of the suspects you know where. . . . Then she turned around and shoved Carter down a steep hill into a creek—to save him, you know. Kid was a real hero, Carter said. She started to jump after him but they got her.”

A hero, like her father.

“They fired on him but they didn't want to wait around. And took off. Winged him in the ankle but he'll live.”

“Which direction did they go?”

“No idea, sir. We put it out on the wire but so far, nothing. Follow up?”

“No. Keep it quiet for the time being.”

“Yessir.”

After we disconnected I looked at the house, where the girl's father and stepmother waited. I
looked over the fields around the house, growing lighter and darker as passing clouds squelched the moonlight from time to time. Debating. Were the three men in the SUV the primaries? Or were they muscle too? Or other partners of Loving?

I wondered again, what information could a primary possibly want to extract from a sixteen-year-old girl?

I glanced at Pogue, then crouched down in front of McCall.

Calm, Corte. Whatever happens you have to stay calm. When you look into your opponent's face, when you talk to him, it should be like you're discussing cornflakes. Never more emotional than that. . . . Emotion's deadly.

What's the goal? I asked myself.

What's the most efficient way to achieve it?

I knew these questions. I knew them in my heart. Yet for some reason now I grabbed McCall by the collar, gripped until he started to choke and shouted, “Where did they take her?”

He shook his head, as best he could.

“What's the facility, where is it?” Twisting harder. I felt Ahmad's eyes on me. He'd never seen me like this.

Spittle formed in the corners of McCall's lips.

“Where?” I raged.

His terrified eyes turned toward me. But he still remained silent.

I released him, stood up. I didn't want to take him into the house with my principals. I glanced toward the panic house, a small outbuilding about the size of a detached three-car garage. It didn't look substantial but it was. People could flee inside,
seal the doors and be safe from any kind of armament up to the level of a rocket-propelled grenade.

“Get him inside.”

Ahmad and Pogue dragged McCall roughly into the outbuilding.

I remained on the dewy grass and looked toward the panic house. The heavy steel door was open and the lights were on inside. I could see McCall shackled to a kitchen chair. His face wasn't defiant; he was scared.

The place was brightly lit and painted in easy colors—yellow and pastel blue—on the theory that if there was an extended siege, the occupants might be less inclined to surrender if the setting was cheery. Little things like that make a difference.

I turned away and walked to the main house. I punched in the key to the door. I wasn't looking forward to delivering the news.

All of my principals were clustered around a window, staring out. I hadn't explained to them about my suspicions of the man posing as Barr. But I now gave them the details of how he'd gotten inside and how Zagaev was a feint.

“Oh, Christ,” Maree said. “He could've killed us. While we were asleep he could've, like, cut our throats.”

Ryan asked, “Who's the other one, the tall guy?”

It was Joanne who spoke. “His name's Jon Pogue. He works for my organization.” Then her voice faded, as she looked at me. “Why would they need a feint, though, Corte? Getting a mole inside here should've been enough. What else is going on?”

I inhaled a little deeper than usual. “It's Amanda they're after. And they've got her.”

Joanne's mouth tightened and Ryan growled, “Where, where is she?”

“We don't know. But there's no doubt. Amanda was the Kessler they wanted.”

“No, no,” Maree whispered.

Joanne said in a voice as calm as mine, “Why? What does she know?”

I shook my head.

Ryan's face was red. “Those pricks! My little girl . . . what . . . ?” Then, it seemed, forming words became too much for him.

“And Bill?” Joanne asked.

“Minor injuries. He'll be okay. They killed the detention center guard who was with them. We believe they've taken Amanda to a rendezvous site nearby. Loving's on his way there. But we don't know where. We tried to find out from McCall but he caught on and he's not saying anything.”

Ryan muttered, “Well, Jesus, what're we going to do?”

I said, “I could use some help.” My eyes on Joanne.

She lifted an eyebrow.

I said, “Part of McCall wants to cooperate. I can tell. He's on the borderline. I'm thinking if you could talk to him, he might help us out.”

“Appeal to his sense of decency?” she asked.

“As Amanda's stepmother, yes.”

Her eyes swung to the wedge of light falling on the grass from the open door of the panic building. “I'll give it a try.”

POGUE AND I
stood outside the closed door to the outbuilding.

I observed him closely for the first time.

The head beneath that sandy hair was long, a predator's skull. His features were pinched—they'd circled in on themselves—and a scar curved forward from his chin, short and narrow, from a knife, not shrapnel. He didn't smile or offer much expression and I doubted that he ever did. No wedding ring, no jewelry. I noted remnants of stitching where insignias had been removed from his green jacket. I supposed that it was a personal favorite and that he'd had the garment for years.

His narrow hips were encircled by a worn canvas belt. It held a special holster—a clamp basically, fitted for a silenced pistol—and a number of magazine holders, along with a knife and several small boxes whose purpose I couldn't guess.

Unlike Ryan Kessler, Pogue didn't constantly tap or fidget with his weapons. He knew where they were if he needed them. On the ground beside him was a battered dark nylon rucksack, whose contents were heavy. I'd heard a clank when he'd set it down.

He stood with his arms crossed, looking over the property with the eye of a shepherd, as if he weren't
aware of my presence. Finally he said, “Missed this one.”

Meaning Barr, I assumed.

He continued, “I had information. Bits of it. But nothing fit together.”

Though that wasn't completely true. The bits
did
fit together, like a machine-cut jigsaw puzzle. I'd been focused on the individual pieces, though. Not the image as a whole. I'm not much of a jigsaw player—it's not really a game—but I know the strategy generally is to do the outer border first, so that you have a framework, and then fill in.

Exactly what I hadn't done here. I'd made a lot of assumptions.

He looked at my back. “You like that Glock?”

“I do.”

“They're fine firearms.” Then, with a hint of criticism: “Prefer a little longer barrel myself.”

“Interesting holster.” Nodding down at his hip.

“Hmm,” he replied.

More silence. Pogue said, “Evolution.” There was some thoughtfulness in his voice.

While pursuing my various college degrees I usually found time to take some courses for no reason other than that I was curious about the topic. Once I'd taken a very good class in medical school, called Darwin and the History of Biology (also because the lecture hall was next to where Peggy was taking Anatomy). I was curious what Pogue meant and I glanced his way.

“Weapons reflect efficient evolution more than anything else in society, don't you think?”

Survival of the fittest, in a way, but not quite what Darwin was thinking of.

But it proved to be an interesting idea. Pogue continued, “You've got medicine and vehicles and paint and clocks, computers, processed food, you name it. Think about them. Giving mercury as medicine or leaching blood out of people. Or making airplanes that crash and bridges that collapse. Engineers and scientists just flailing around, trying to get it right, killing people, themselves included, in the process. Failure after failure after failure.”