Edge

kidnapped or hurt. And her concern about the neighbors in Fairfax, the Knoxes—a worry at the time that seemed out of proportion to the situation. She’d been horrified at the chance that she was the cause of Teddy’s wife’s death at the hand of Henry Loving. I recalled too how hard she’d been pressing me for information about which of Ryan’s cases could be the reason Loving had been hired. And her searching Maree’s computer, hoping to find any clues that she wasn’t the cause.
    She’d also supported my choices in the tactical situations, pleading or even ordering her husband to follow what I’d decided—because, as a pro, she knew I was right.
    In a matter-of-fact voice, she said to me, “Have you found out anything more than that?” She glanced toward the documents, which said nothing directly about her job.
    “Only that you were with the Sickle project. My associate’s good but she couldn’t get much more than that. Your archives’re locked pretty tight. As for active files—if the group is still active . . .” She said nothing. “If it’s still active, she didn’t find anything on record.”
    Though the nickname of the group was anglicized to the name of the farm implement, in fact it came from the Israeli Defense Force’s name for assassination—in Hebrew, sikul memukad, which means “focused foiling.”
    “My associate found you’ve been a target before.”
    “Corte, everybody in Sickle was permanently targeted. Because of what we did. There were never any operations, though. Just surveillance. That report is five years old.” She continued, “Yes, I’m sure I have enemies. But there wasn’t a shred of intelligence that suggested I’d have any information that somebody wanted—certainly nothing that would justify hiring a lifter like Henry Loving.”
    The past . . .
    I said, “You’ve been in touch with your people? How?” I’d monitored their phone use.
    “I have another phone,” she said. “It’s untraceable. Believe me, it’s untraceable.”
    “You uploaded the pictures to them on it—the ones from Maree’s computer?”
    Her eyes took in her purse, where I supposed the very fancy, shielded device rested. Now I understood why she kept the handbag so close. “I transferred them, yes. Everything went encrypted through a half dozen proxies. There won’t even be bulges in the Internet traffic in the area here. The system takes care of that.”
    My immediate impression was that, despite the trauma of being caught, Joanne was more comfortable now, more at peace. She’d been living a lie for a long time. At least she wouldn’t have the burden of carting around that secret anymore. I understood too that you don’t hook up with organizations that run operations like Sickle unless the work is at least partly in your blood. She’d undoubtedly been a good wife and stepmother but I wasn’t sure I believed her denials that she was so eager to give up her clandestine side. I knew how I’d feel if I had to abandon the job of being a shepherd. It would have destroyed something within me.
    “All right, you tell me there’re no leads. But it’s my job to keep you and your family alive. I want to know exactly what your people have focused on.”
    “Every case I worked is closed. All the principals were either abducted and resettled . . . or zeroed,” she said, using a verb that I’d heard from time to time if my principal was in a similar line of work. It had become popular among the Mossad. They liked to use shorthand they thought was American.
    Zero . . .
    “The only assignment with a residual actor was my last one. In the deli. He was a friend of the deliowners we targeted. He was a minor player. A liaison and runner basically. . . . He was cleared years ago.”
    “Tell me about him anyway.”
    “The couple were collecting and selling nuclear arms intelligence. This man put them in contact with a few government contractors and people in helpful positions, academics. He delivered some files and software to them. That was it. When they were zeroed he panicked and went completely straight, gave us names. We monitored him for years. Then took him off the list.”
    “Name?”
    “That I can’t do, Corte.”
    “Surveillance on him yesterday and today?”
    “Yes. Nothing puts him together with Loving.”
    I considered what she’d told me. I considered the dwindling leads in the case that might reveal the primary who’d hired Henry Loving. Alone,