Edge

Chapter 45

“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.