The naked edge

6

Opening and closing his knife, the man who'd shot the sniper watched from a road on a bluff across from the police barracks. He was forty years old, tall and lean, with an etched face. His powerful forearms resulted from years of pounding a hammer onto an anvil, forging blades. He used various names. Currently, his devotion to knives had prompted him to choose the alias of Bowie. Sitting in his car, he used a night-vision magnifier that wasn't affected by the stark contrasts of light and darkness in the parking lot a quarter mile from him. While he listened to the sirens, he studied the sequence of vehicles speeding away: the first cruiser, the second cruiser, the three civilian cars, then the police van.

Damned smart, Bowie thought.

He spoke into a two-way radio. "It's a shell game. The target's in one of the police vehicles. The question is which."

A voice from one of the pursuing civilian cars said, "I vote for the van."

"Or maybe the target's still in the barracks," Bowie replied. "Maybe those police vehicles are decoys. We don't have enough personnel to follow everybody."

"Wait!" the voice blurted. "Ahead of us. One of the police cars is pulling to the side of the road."

"For God's sake, don't stop," Bowie ordered.

"But we need to act like real reporters. Real reporters would stop."

"That's what they want you to do. You'd be caught between the cruiser that stopped and the van behind you. Meanwhile, the first cruiser would get away. That must be where the target's hiding."

"Okay," the voice said five seconds later, "I didn't stop. In my rearview mirror, I see the other cars-the reporters who left with us-they're stopping. Shit. The cruiser ahead of us. It's stopping!"

"Drive past it!"

"It's turning sideways! It's blocking the road!"