Edge

Chapter 67

I SAW MY Honda-the one Amanda had escaped in-approach. I waved to the driver, an FBI agent I knew. I couldn’t see through the tinted glass but I knew the girl was in the backseat.

I hadn’t, in fact, given her any directions about where to drive. There was no address in the vehicle. I figured that even if she didn’t find anything she’d still drive as fast as she could to the nearest 7-Eleven or gas station to call 911. Giving her those instructions was the only way I could think of to keep myself alive long enough for Freddy to arrive with the troops and take Loving into custody. I’d made him believe that only I knew where she was going. I’d turned myself into the principal.

As it turned out, she hadn’t gotten very far at all. At a gas station a few miles north on Route 15 she’d pulled in a little fast and taken out a rack of tires. The local police had been apprised of the situation and they got in touch with Freddy, who sent a car to protect her.

I didn’t want Amanda to see the bodies. I also knew the primary was unaccounted for so I wanted to keep her out of sight. I climbed into the backseat with her and shut the door.

Breathlessly she said, “You’re all right! I heard you were but I didn’t know. What’s wrong with your foot?”

“Stubbed my toe. Your dad’s going to be okay.”

“I know. I heard.” The girl grew silent, looking at the compound. “That’s the man we were fighting with, Loving?” A glance at the tarp covering the body.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad he’s dead.” She said this firmly. She meant it.

Got some grit…

“Can I go see my dad?”

“Not quite yet. Somebody from my office’s going to take you to a place to stay with your stepmother and aunt.”

The Great Falls safe house was compromised, so I’d arranged for Ahmad to take Joanne and Maree to another one. The house was in Loudoun County, not too far away from here, also on an old estate. Though it wasn’t as nice as the Great Falls one.

“Uncle Bill’s all right too.”

“He had a little problem with his foot too. But he’ll be fine.”

Her face was still. “I was really worried when they were shooting at him, by the roadside.”

“You saved his life.”

She didn’t say anything but was looking at the compound. “All those guns… they’re so loud. They don’t sound like that in the movies. Or like the ones we shot at camp. That other man who was with you?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Did he have a family?”

“I don’t know.”

Amanda wiped tears.

I wished she hadn’t attacked the minder but she wouldn’t have known Pogue and I were there. I couldn’t help but admire her courage. I told her, “That was good, the way you handled yourself in there. The pepper spray.”

The girl’s face, ruddy with subtle dots of acne, gave a wan smile. “Dad taught me to look out for myself. Before I left with Uncle Bill I kind of borrowed some Mace from Dad’s dresser to take with me. I kept it hidden in my bear bag.”

“Smart. You’re sure you’re just sixteen?”

“That’s why I had it,” she said matter-of-factly. “They didn’t bother to search me. They were stupid.”

“They were.”

“Like, Agent Corte, I kind of messed up your car. I hit some tires. Like, I’m really, really sorry.”

“We’ve got insurance.”

She gave a weak smile.

I gritted my teeth from the toe pain and sat forward, taking a pad and pen from my pocket. “I need to ask you some questions.”

“Sure.”

“You know, we thought at first they wanted to kidnap you to get your father to tell them something about one of his cases.”

“But it was me they wanted.”

“Right. The people here were just hired-and we need to find out by who.”

“So you can throw their ass in jail.”

“Exactly. Now, did those men mention anything after they kidnapped you? Anything that might give us an idea of who hired them or why they wanted you.”

She thought for a moment. “Like, after they got me in the truck and we were driving here, they were talking some. But it was like they didn’t know anything about me. Or say anything about anybody else.”

I asked her to tell me essentially everything she’d done for the past month. Amanda understood that her father had been shot and she nearly killed because of some occurrence or someone she’d come in contact with recently, and she took her assignment seriously, launching into a lengthy recitation of her activities. The girl led an astonishingly busy life. And had a very good memory. I took voluminous notes as she described time with friends and their parents, her high school classes, sporting events, concerts, trips to shopping malls, her involvement on the yearbook, a French Club outing to the embassy in D.C., a cooking class, a picture-taking expedition with her aunt in Rock Creek Park, reporting for her blog about AIDS awareness and the fellow student who’d killed herself despite seeking help in the school’s self-harm clinic, her Facebook activities and friends (a lot of notes there), her college-level computer course in which her “weird and totally brilliant” Chinese professor let the students try out software programs and evaluate them. A dozen other entries.

Finally, I sat back, letting my mind consider possible reasons the girl had been targeted.

I noted an armored SUV arrive, driven by Geoff, the clone from our organization. I rolled down the window and waved. He pulled up.

I said to Amanda, “I think I have all I need. I’m going to have my associate here take you to your stepmother and aunt.”

“Yeah, I kinda want to see them.”

“I’m sure you do.”

She surprised me by giving me a hug and we climbed out. She got into the SUV and, with a nod from me, Geoff eased the big vehicle away from the site.

I sat down on a log and read through my notes of my interview with Amanda a few minutes before. Closed my eyes. Partly from the sting, partly to help me concentrate. Then I sent Claire duBois an email asking her to do what she did best. The replay-seconds later-assured me that she’d get to the requests immediately.

I rose and walked stiffly to a fire truck, where I got a bottle of water from a cooler and drank most of it down.

Just as I’d finished, I heard a voice behind me gruffly ask, “You got another one of those?”

I turned and found myself staring at Jonny Pogue, who was examining the cloth and skin on his left forearm, more troubled, it seemed, by his scorched green jacket than the seared flesh.