Edge

Chapter 52

WAITING AGAIN.

At 4:00 p.m. we were in a deserted field near the park embracing the site of the First Battle of Manassas or-if you’re a Northerner-the First Battle of Bull Run.

Not far from where Thomas Jonathan Jackson fought his way through the brush-and grape and chain shot-to earn the name Stonewall.

In the still, overcast day, waiting.

“It’s the most dangerous time of all,” Abe would tell me, as I would later lecture my protégés. “Waiting. Because if you’re in this line of work, if you’re a shepherd, you’re smart. And smart minds need stimulants-crack, speed, puzzles, Rubik’s Cubes. Waiting’s going to make you dull. But you can’t afford to become dull, because the hitter or lifter never waits. Why? Because he’s using all his energy to move in close to you.”

It was a lesson I took to heart. Especially since Loving had the tendency to appear unexpectedly. But it didn’t lessen the difficulty of waiting. I scanned the ground. Even on short notice, Freddy had managed to pull together four teams of special ops experts, all with military backgrounds, and chopper them into a staging area nearby but not so close Loving might notice. We’d arrived a half hour earlier and left our cars in a suburban strip mall parking lot a hundred yards away, then had made our way here through bushes and reedy fields. Birds zipped into the air and grasshoppers sprang away startlingly.

We assembled near the battlefield-it was surprisingly small, hardly able to have hosted the carnage of 150 years ago-and moved silently into position in a field and a stand of trees surrounding the deserted parking lot where Zagaev had agreed to meet with Loving. The lot was next to the site of a demolished warehouse or small factory. Freddy and the tactical officers and I were linked with special com devices, earbuds and invisible stalk mikes that could pick up the faintest of whispers. The brand name was Micro-Mike and they cost two thousand each.

But as we deployed, there was no chatter. The ops teams were consummate professionals.

At the far end of the lot Zagaev’s car was parked, the silhouette of a man’s head just visible in the driver’s seat. The Chechnyan had panicked when I told him he was going to call The lifter, cancel the job and meet him here to pay the remainder of his fee.

But I wasn’t going to put him in danger. I didn’t dare risk Zagaev’s life-for humanitarian reasons, of course, but primarily so that he would be able to testify in the eventual prosecution of Loving. Also, I liked the idea of handing him over alive to Westerfield, to keep the prosecutor from devouring me. Zagaev wasn’t exactly behind a front-page terrorist plot but it would be a good win for the vindictive man who would soon be deprived of his juicy Metropolitan Police corruption case.

Accordingly, the occupant of the car was not Aslan Zagaev, nor was it one of the tactical agents. It was Omar, essentially a robotic head and torso, with a few servo motors inside that let him-well, it-mimic pretty well the movement and gestures of a human being. You could program the system so that Omar would act bored or drunk or-the most-used setting-nervous and fidgety. The features weren’t as good as Disney animatronics but inside a vehicle or in the dark, he could usually trick a shooter. Omar-and Omarina (brunette or blonde and 36D)-came in white, black and Latino.

“No Chechnyan models, son,” Freddy had told me.

The best part about Omar was that he wasn’t simply a decoy. Surrounding the robot was a grid of ultraviolet and microwave beams. When Loving or his partner, presumably from some distance, took up position and fired the typical three-burst round into Omar’s head, empty and inexpensively replaceable, a computer would instantly correlate trajectory, speed and GPS coordinates and indicate on our handhelds where the shooter was, down to three feet.

Would Loving take the bait?

I believed so. Back in Tysons, Zagaev had gotten in touch with the lifter. In the script I prepared I had him tell Loving that he wanted to terminate the job. He’d pay him the rest of the money and they could go their own ways. As I’d listened in on the conversation, I’d noted what seemed to be disappointment in Loving’s voice. I wondered if that was due to his reluctance to cease playing this game with me personally.

But that was perhaps projecting my feelings onto him.

I’d also had Zagaev inquire casually if anybody else knew that he was the one who’d hired Loving. The lifter assured him that he hadn’t said anything; he never did. That would be unprofessional.

Of course, I’d had Zagaev ask this seemingly innocent question for a very specific purpose: to make Loving believe that Zagaev might try to kill him and save the rest of the fee.

So, I was betting that Loving would meet him here to eliminate the man who knew his identity and perhaps a few other incriminating facts about him.

Was I right?

You never knew with Loving.

As in the Prisoners’ Dilemma, Prisoner One could never be sure that Prisoner Two was going to refuse to confess. The bank depositor would never be sure that all the other depositors would stand firm and not withdraw their savings.

But, though economists and mathematicians don’t admit it, game theory is about playing the odds. I don’t believe in luck but I do believe in circumstance. It had not worked to my advantage in Rhode Island. Perhaps it would here.

We heard distant traffic, immediate insects, a barking dog, the cheerful shouting of children at the battlefield where more than thirty-five thousand men engaged in the summer of 1861, and five thousand died or were wounded. I was in cover behind thick trees that had not even been seeds when those soldiers fell.

The meeting had been arranged for 4:45. We were now a few minutes past that.

In the distance, a light-colored vehicle quickly turned onto the road that led to the deserted parking lot we surrounded. The skidding turn was a standard tactical maneuver, not to evade any following cars but to see if you were in fact being followed. If you signal your intention to turn, a tail will do the same. If you skid around a corner, keeping an eye in the rearview mirror, you can easily judge from the reaction of the driver behind you if it’s a tail, even if he decides to stay on the road. The car’s rapid turn now suggested that it might be Loving’s.

Some of the tactical officers weren’t in view of the road, and the commander-Freddy’s lieutenant-alerted everyone to the newly arrived car. I found myself tensing, flashing back to the sight of Loving earlier-at the flytrap. I reached behind me and rested my hand on my Glock. This was instinct only; there were people present who were more talented at this sort of thing than I. Lowering my hand, I watched the transit of the light-colored car.

Was it the lifter? This road didn’t lead to the battlefield; it didn’t lead anywhere, really. The occupants could be kids here to smoke grass or drink or make out. It could be a Civil War buff who wanted to experience the historic site from this angle. Manassas also had its share of meth cookers. Maybe a deal was going down.

Before reaching the parking lot where Zagaev’s car was idling, the new vehicle pulled off into the bushes.

Then came a whisper through my earbud: “Team Three. Two males exiting vehicle, civilian clothing. One is armed, handgun. Proceeding toward parking lot through brush.”

Loving and his partner. I’d hoped they’d both be here.

“Roger. All teams, stay in position. No motion, no sound. Sniper one, can you target the subject vehicle?”

“Negative.”

“Roger.”

I wondered momentarily if the partner was Loving’s protégé, as I had been Abe’s and Claire duBois mine. Did Loving lecture about the rules of play the way I had been lectured and I lectured now? This seemed at first a crazy thought but then I asked myself, why? Tradecraft of all types had to be mastered.

“Team Two. Subjects are on western perimeter of the parking lot, observing Zagaev’s vehicle.”

Freddy’s voice whispered, “Move Omar’s head around but not so he’s looking back toward them.”

“Roger that.”

The robot glanced to the side. The head dipped. Whoever guided the mannequin was an artist.

“Subjects’re checking out the park. Okay, they’re separating, moving up on either side of the car. Be advised, both have weapons now. Autoloader handguns.”

“Copy that.”

So they weren’t going for a sniper shot; they were going to take him from behind, close. Just shoot him and have done with it.

Or, I reflected, this might not be a kill at all. Maybe their intention was for the partner to cover the transaction as Loving collected the money. They would shake hands and leave.

I was breathing hard, forcing myself not to strain forward for a glimpse but staying low in the brush. Suddenly I felt a trickle down my spine and looked behind me fast, though I knew Loving couldn’t have come up behind me here, not with the tactical agents arrayed as they were.

I saw nothing but saplings and brush.

“Tac Op Leader. We’ve got a visual. Both suspects are in confinement positions.”

Freddy said, “You’re greenlighted.”

“Roger. Greenlighted. On my command, Teams Three and One, flash-bangs… then move in, flanking and rear. Hold… hold…”

I wondered what the communications here had been like in July of 1861 when troops had been preparing to engage.

“Now. Move in, move in!”

I heard a series of explosions and saw flashes as the tactical ops teams sped forward.

My hand was cramping-my left hand, not the one I used for shooting-and I was half rising from cover. I sucked in air. I realized that I hadn’t been breathing for a good thirty seconds or more.

The teams converged, screaming, as they were instructed to do, “FBI, FBI, on the ground, let me see your hands! Let me see your hands!”

“We’ve got-” one started to radio.

A long pause. “Team Three to Tac Op Leader. Need you here. Now.”

What was going on?

“I don’t get it…”

“Shit.”

My heart sank at the transmissions, hardly what you would have hoped for in a successful operation.

And, moving from cover, I made a deduction that proved to be true. The two men sneaking up on Omar were displaying what appeared to be law enforcement shields. They were, of course, detectives from Prince William County, here to investigate the reports of a drug deal or cries for help that Loving had undoubtedly called in the minute he hung up from speaking with Zagaev.

A call made to distract us while he orchestrated his escape.