Edge

you. . . . And you mentioned Amanda?”
    “Loving’s given up looking for her. He’s going for another edge. We don’t know who or what.”
    Joanne was staring at an old photograph on the wall: a family in nineteenth-century clothing.
    Ten long, long minutes later the phone rang again.
    “Go ahead, Freddy,” I said urgently.
    “Corte, listen to this.” The man’s voice was surprisingly animated, for a change. “Getting better. We tracked Zagaev to a warehouse in Springfield. He goes inside, gets some weapons.”
    My heart was racing. “He can’t touch a gun, not with his felony plea.”
    “Exactly, son. Hold on.” A pause. Freddy then said, “Okay, he just left and our people’re with him.”
    “Where is he headed?”
    “North. Inner loop of the Beltway.”
    “Was anybody with him? Even a shadow?” I asked.
    “You mean Loving?”
    “I mean was anybody with him, even a shadow.”
    “Feisty as ever, Corte.”
    “Freddy.”
    “No, he was all by his little old lonesome. So what do you think? It’s your call.”
    I’d been considering my strategy all along. I said quickly, “Continue the surveillance and let me know the minute he changes direction. I’ll be on the road in three minutes.”

Chapter 49
    WHAT WOULD MY opponent do here?
    I wasn’t thinking of Henry Loving at the moment, but of his primary, Aslan Zagaev. He’d collected weapons. He’d made this unexpected and purposeful drive after a call from Loving. What did that mean, what did he have in mind?
    I was on Route 7, moving south, aiming for the same residential and commercial cluster—Tysons Corner—that Zagaev seemed to be driving toward from the opposite direction.
    My opponent . . . what is he going to do?
    In game theory analysis the followers of eighteenth-century statistician Thomas Bayes hold that the world is made up of constantly changing knowledge, and in determining the probability of an event—what Zagaev was planning, in this case—you have to continually readjust your predictions as you learn new bits of information. The odds that he’ll play rock, as opposed to paper or scissors, change from 33 1 / 3 percent, for instance, if you learn that your opponent has a muscle problem that makes it painful for him to form a fist.
    But with Zagaev, there was very little information at all to narrow my predictions of what he was doing and to come up with a rational strategy onhow to deal with him. He’d have the answers to what Joanne Kessler knew, the identities of other primaries, if he wasn’t working alone. And, of course, he’d know where Henry Loving was or how to find him.
    Should we continue to follow, should we arrest him, should we set up surveillance on his employees?
    I blew through a red light, grateful the county police were busy elsewhere. I plugged in the earbud and called Freddy.
    “Yeah? Corte? Yeah?”
    “Where is he?”
    “Route Seven, heading north. About five minutes from Tysons.”
    I was on Route 7, heading south. And about five minutes from Tysons.
    Freddy added, “We’re a half mile behind him. He’s being a good citizen. Stopping for yellows, yielding to pedestrians.”
    So being inconspicuous was more important to the Chechnyan than getting wherever he was going quickly with his weapons. This was more information but it wasn’t particularly helpful.
    “Teams?” I asked.
    “Two. We’re keeping back. Relying on GPS.”
    “Zagaev make any calls?”
    “We haven’t picked up anything since he hung up with Loving forty minutes ago.”
    “You’re scanning all his employees’ phones and their relatives?”
    “Hey, Corte, guess what? We’ve done this before.”
    I didn’t remind him that nobody at Williams’s organization or the Bureau thought to consideremployees’ family members until I suggested doing so.
    “Okay,” Freddy said. “He’s still moving steady. Taking us right into Loving’s arms.”
    Was he?
    Imperfect information . . .
    “Something’s bothering me,” I said.
    “You’d be a bad person to go to a ball game with, Corte. You’re so negative. You ever been to a ball game?”
    “I don’t think he’s going to Loving.”
    “Why not?”
    “Most primaries want to keep some distance from their lifters. Safer for them.”
    “He’s delivering the guns.”
    I pointed out, “Loving doesn’t need armament from a primary. He’s got plenty of his own. His partner certainly does.”
    “So what’re you saying?”
    I made a decision. “I want to