Edge

Chapter 16

MY MIND HAD done something that occasionally happens when I’m playing certain types of games against a skilled opponent.

Via instinct, I understand exactly what their strategies are. This usually occurs in games with what’s called perfect information, like chess or tic-tac-toe. Perfect information means that all of a player’s past moves-his strategies-are accessible to his opponent. Both see every move made from the beginning of the game. (Unlike the Prisoners’ Dilemma, say, which is a game of imperfect information, since Prisoner One doesn’t know what Prisoner Two’s choice will be.)

For some reason, at times, all the past moves the opponent has made coalesce in my mind into a clear understanding-for me it’s almost a graphic or picture-and I know what his next strategy will be.

Now, the pieces falling into place were the clear view of my principals in the mirror, the manager’s uneasiness in the front lobby a few minutes earlier, the bellboy’s nervousness.

Though I didn’t know all the details, I believed almost to a certainty that Loving had posed as a law enforcement officer and sent faxes or emails to dozens of hotels and motels in the area-maybe the ones he felt might be good safe houses. He’d included a picture of Ryan Kessler, claiming perhaps that he was a fugitive. Loving would have given a phone number and instructions to call but warned the managers not to take any action on their own in the event the suspect was spotted. The manager would have shown the picture to the wait staff. When the food was delivered to our room, the employee would have gotten a glance in the mirror at Ryan and probably seen the man’s damn Colt on his hip.

The manager wasn’t fidgety because I was unhappy with the service and checking out early; it was that two women and I were hostages of Ryan Kessler and the men with him-tough, unsmiling and dangerous-looking.

The big question as far as I was concerned was when exactly the manager had called Loving. Ten minutes earlier, we probably would be fine. An hour, Loving was already nearby.

“Clear,” each of my colleagues reported in his own accent.

I called Freddy. He picked up at once. “Corte.”

“We have a situation.”

“You just had one, at the flytrap.”

“Loving’s on his way here. The Hillside Inn.” I rattled off the address.

“Okay, hold on. I’m scrambling our people-and Prince William County too.”

“Try them. But I’ll bet he’s going to call in a fake incident, like he did in Fairfax.”

“Sure. Right.”

“Just concentrate on getting your folks here. Fast.”

I ignored the frantic looks my principals sent me as they threw together their personal items. I did, however, gesture at Ryan Kessler to put his pistol away. With that much liquor he could shoot his wife, or me, or himself. Thank God his weapon was a revolver, which meant the trigger had a heavy pull. I noticed him looking at me with a broad shrug and I realized his meaning: Isn’t this what we’re supposed to be doing, luring Loving here and then taking him out, like I’d told him earlier?

Bait-and-switch…

Reluctantly he slipped the gun back into the holster.

Freddy came back on the line. “Cavalry’s on the way. ETA probably twenty or thirty. You going defense? Or rabbiting?”

“I don’t know yet. Patch me through one of your public lines to the motel lobby here. And don’t mask it. I want the clerk to see Justice Department or the Bureau on caller ID.”

“Yeah, hold. I lose you, call me back. I don’t know this technical shit.”

As the people in the room gathered jackets and suitcases, and my colleagues moved efficiently from window to window to door, signaling that they spotted no threat, I waited tensely, listening to clicks on the line.

Finally, ringing.

“Hillside Inn, may I help you?” It was the man I’d spoken to before. I’d just have to hope that he wouldn’t recognize my voice.

I said briskly, “Yessir, this is Special Agent Hugh Johnston. We’re following up on that report about the suspect at your motel.”

“I was just about to call back about that. They’re fixing to leave!”

So I was right.

“A hostage came in-Mr. Roberts,” the clerk continued. “He looked pretty beat up. He’s been here before, works for a company and they use our place some. He paid. Tried to act like nothing was going on but it’s weird, them checking out after only four or five hours or so.”

“I’m coordinating the rescue efforts,” I told him. “Which agent did you speak to before?”

“Said his name was Special Agent Jonathan Corte, with an e.”

My stomach did a little flip at Loving’s perverse sense of humor, if that was what it was. Jonathan was his own middle name.

“And,” I asked, “when did you call him exactly?”

“Had to be forty-five minutes ago, just after Benny got a look at the kidnapper when he delivered the food. He’s got a gun but I guess you know that. You have to move fast, they’ll be leaving any minute.”

“All right. Now listen,” I said seriously. “The MO of this man-you know MO?”

“Modus operandi. The wife and I watch Criminal Minds.”

“His MO is that he sometimes leaves somebody behind to stop pursuers. You understand what I’m saying? I want you to try to keep everybody inside their rooms for the next hour or so. I don’t want any innocents caught in a cross fire.”

“God… Sure. Okay. I’ll do what I can. God.”

I disconnected and rubbed my forehead as I debated, considering the timing. Loving had heard forty-five minutes ago that we were here. He and his partner would have to rendezvous, ditch the car Loving had collected on the embankment near the flytrap. They’d switch wheels, which would take a little time.

But not much.

Rock, paper, scissors…

Defense or rabbit?

I thought for a moment. “Okay, we’re going. Now, fast.”

“Still clear,” Garcia said, peeking out through a splinter of window.

Ahmad echoed him.

Then Ryan limped closer to me, the skin around his drunken eyes crinkled. “Corte, come on, we can take him. We can do it. There’s four of us. Jesus Christ, we’re running from one man.”

“Two,” Joanne corrected. “His partner. And he could have more.”

Ryan ignored her and said to me, “You just called for backup. Look, it’s perfect. He doesn’t know we know about him. He’ll walk into a trap. Get him in a cross fire!”

I said, “No. My job is to get you away.”

“I’m tired of running. I’m tired of this crap. Fuck it, Corte. You get Joanne and Maree out of here. Take ’em to that safe house. I’ll stay. Him too.” He looked at Ahmad, who wore two weapons.

“We don’t do last stands, Ryan. Too many innocents.”

“There’re always innocents around, Corte. There’re always excuses for not doing what you should.”

“Ryan,” Joanne snapped. “Please! I’m scared.”

I calmly said, “This is not the time or place for a firefight. It’s not the rational choice to engage.” Implying: The safe house we’re headed for is better.

“Honey,” she begged. “Please.”

With the obligatory look of disgust, Ryan grabbed his belongings. “Fuck.”

I gazed over Ahmad’s shoulder into the courtyard of the hotel. What troubled me were the dozens of black windows facing us across the parking lot and garden. We would have to exit the suite, turn to the left and traverse about fifty feet, exposed to those windows, before we got to the alley that would lead us behind the building where the Yukon was parked.

I regarded the windows of those rooms facing us. You couldn’t open them but every hitter or lifter in the world knows the two-shot technique of firing through windows-first bullet aimed way off target into the sky or ground to take the glass out without letting your target know he or she is under fire and then the money shot a moment later.

Still, we’d have to take the risk. I knew the Yukon was safe; it had a security system that called the key fob in my pocket if somebody so much as breathed on the bumper. I decided to break us up into separate groups. That way Loving or his partner-a good shot, I now knew from experience-couldn’t hit all of the personal security officers at once. “We’re going to the SUV, behind the building, three groups. Garcia, you’re with Maree. Ahmad, Joanne. Ryan’s with me.” In the air I drew a letter U on its left side, explaining, “Garcia, you first. Out the door, down the sidewalk to the left. Hold at the alley to the parking lot and cover us. Ahmad, you next. Go all the way to the lot and hold there. You cover the back.”

“Roger.”

“We’ll go next and cover your retreat to the lot,” I said to Garcia.

Her pretty jaw trembling, Maree looked like she was going to cry. The flippancy was gone completely. In many ways she was a child in a woman’s body.

“I’ll start the SUV remotely. Jump in and get your belts on. Okay. Now.”

Garcia and Maree moved slowly along the sidewalk as I crouched in the doorway, looking for threats. I saw no obvious ones.

My phone buzzed.

“Freddy.”

“Just for the record, he tried the same thing-false alarms. Prince William’s had ten assault-in-progress calls. Just like you guessed.”

I hadn’t guessed. I was learning Loving’s strategy.

“But our guys are en route. Make it fifteen minutes now.”

“We’re leaving. He found out about us forty-five minutes ago. He’s got to be close by now. I can’t talk.” I disconnected.

Garcia and Maree were behind a pillar, the agent scanning those black, leering windows looking down on us. The rooftops too.

Ahmad went next with grim-faced Joanne, again clutching her purse to her chest and wheeling her suitcase. They hurried past Garcia and turned left down the alley to the parking lot.

I got a sign from Garcia.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Ryan.

I started one of the longest walks of my life.

I was close to Ryan and knew that Loving wouldn’t risk killing him to take me out, despite the partner’s skill as a sniper, but they might have sprayed our legs and kept Garcia and Ahmad pinned down while they dragged Ryan away.

But we joined Garcia without incident and, as I covered the troubling windows, he and Maree slipped to the back lot. When they’d made it, Ryan and I moved out. My pistol in one hand, the key fob in the other, I pressed the start button for the Yukon. I hadn’t expected an explosion but I still felt relieved when there wasn’t one. We hurried forward and scrambled inside the vehicle, belting up and locking the doors.

No incoming shots, no diversions-screams or collisions-to take our attention.

In ten seconds I was out of the space fast and we were heading around the back of the wing on the right of the motel, the way we’d come in. I eased to the front and merged onto the main driveway, which led to the highway via a hundred yards of winding asphalt. I was trying to narrow down the time calculation to gauge how likely it was that Loving was close.

I was angry with myself. Most shepherds used the two-part transport to get their principals to the ultimate safe house. It makes sense-to organize your escape, to make sure nobody’s following, to change vehicles. I reflected that my strategy, however, had backfired; it was because of going to a public facility that Loving had a lead to us. If I’d driven right to our safe house, we’d be home free.

Just as I often pretend to be a lifter, to anticipate their moves, I wondered if Loving had stepped into my shoes, compiling names of hotels that’d make good halfway houses. Maybe he had the same list we did.

But so far, so good. We were in an armored SUV and my principals were unhurt. No sign of Loving. Most likely it had taken him longer than I’d thought to get here.

Rolling farther along the drive…

I could see the highway eighty yards away, then sixty, fifty.

Oh, how I wanted to be on that road. The Hillside Inn was a great place to be invisible and the suite we’d taken was good for defense. But here in front of the building were hedgerows and trees for cover and ponds to limit escape routes and a very serpentine drive-picturesque but hard to see in the dusk without headlights.

It was, in short, a great spot for an ambush.

Forty yards from the road.

I rolled fast over a speed bump.

Thirty yards.

Ahead, the driveway cut through a thick hedge, eight feet high, which separated the highway from the grounds. I saw a Nissan van waiting to make a left turn into the motel grounds from the far lane. The driver was a woman and I could see a child belted in beside her. Not a threat.

But then I hit the brakes.

“What?” Ryan asked.

“Why isn’t she turning?” I asked no one.

The woman had been waiting too long for oncoming traffic to pass before she made her left turn into the inn’s drive. I could see in her windshield the flash of an oncoming car’s turn signal. That driver, making a right turn into the inn would have the right of way.

But he wasn’t turning.

Then I saw the vague form of a man settling into the thick boxwood. Something in his hand. A weapon? That’s why Loving was pausing on the road-somehow he’d spotted us leaving the back of the motel and he’d told his partner to climb out and flank us.

Did I have time to get away before he aimed and fired?

I jammed the accelerator to the floor. But as we leapt forward, Henry Loving’s black Dodge Avenger skidded to a stop before us, blocking the drive.

I hit the brake pedal. We faced each other.

An endless moment, silence in the car, silence outside. Then the partner, hidden somewhere in the bushes, opened fire, as the tires on Loving’s car squealed to smoke and he sped directly toward us.