The naked edge

7

They spread the printouts across the floor and studied them.

"Here," Jamie said. "Duran's name."

"Three years ago," Rutherford said. "But not later."

"When you're trying to disappear," Cavanaugh said, "the rule is, abandon everything about your former life. Some people can't make a complete break, though. They have ties they can't give up."

"Such as a passion for knives," Jamie noted.

Cavanaugh nodded. "Carl got fired because of discipline problems. Maybe those problems carried over into his attempt to disappear. He'd have tried to be careful. He might have used intermediaries. But I'm betting that, under another name, he continued to subscribe to knife magazines. He's been getting Blade since he was a kid."

"After he dropped the subscription, maybe he just bought the magazine in a store," Rutherford suggested.

"When he was working for a drug lord in South America?" Jamie looked skeptical. "A specialty English-language publication would be almost impossible to find down there."

"Then maybe he had somebody buy it in the States and mail it to him," Cavanaugh wondered.

"A big nuisance needing to depend on somebody," Jamie said. "Plus, that probably wouldn't be the only knife publication he'd want. The easy way is to subscribe, have the publishers mail them to a drop site in the U.S., and then have them forwarded."

"John, can the Bureau investigate the background of anyone who subscribed after Carl's name disappeared from the list?" Cavanaugh asked.

"No," Jamie said. "Not after his name disappeared from the list. Before."

Cavanaugh and Rutherford looked puzzled.

"Suppose Duran anticipated that someone might try to find him this way," Jamie explained. "What if he took out a new subscription using a different name before he pretended to be dead? It's a better way to hide his trail."

"Smart," Rutherford concluded.

"That's why I married her," Cavanaugh said.

"It's all a long shot, of course," Jamie admitted.

"But it's the only lead we've got." Rutherford picked up the phone.