Edge

meet him here to pay the remainder of his fee.
    But I wasn’t going to put him in danger. I didn’t dare risk Zagaev’s life—for humanitarian reasons, of course, but primarily so that he would be able to testify in the eventual prosecution of Loving. Also, I liked the idea of handing him over alive to Westerfield, to keep the prosecutor from devouring me. Zagaev wasn’t exactly behind a front-page terrorist plot but it would be a good win for the vindictiveman who would soon be deprived of his juicy Metropolitan Police corruption case.
    Accordingly, the occupant of the car was not Aslan Zagaev, nor was it one of the tactical agents. It was Omar, essentially a robotic head and torso, with a few servo motors inside that let him—well, it—mimic pretty well the movement and gestures of a human being. You could program the system so that Omar would act bored or drunk or—the most-used setting—nervous and fidgety. The features weren’t as good as Disney animatronics but inside a vehicle or in the dark, he could usually trick a shooter. Omar—and Omarina (brunette or blonde and 36D)—came in white, black and Latino.
    “No Chechnyan models, son,” Freddy had told me.
    The best part about Omar was that he wasn’t simply a decoy. Surrounding the robot was a grid of ultraviolet and microwave beams. When Loving or his partner, presumably from some distance, took up position and fired the typical three-burst round into Omar’s head, empty and inexpensively replaceable, a computer would instantly correlate trajectory, speed and GPS coordinates and indicate on our handhelds where the shooter was, down to three feet.
    Would Loving take the bait?
    I believed so. Back in Tysons, Zagaev had gotten in touch with the lifter. In the script I prepared I had him tell Loving that he wanted to terminate the job. He’d pay him the rest of the money and they could go their own ways. As I’d listened in on the conversation, I’d noted what seemed to be disappointmentin Loving’s voice. I wondered if that was due to his reluctance to cease playing this game with me personally.
    But that was perhaps projecting my feelings onto him.
    I’d also had Zagaev inquire casually if anybody else knew that he was the one who’d hired Loving. The lifter assured him that he hadn’t said anything; he never did. That would be unprofessional.
    Of course, I’d had Zagaev ask this seemingly innocent question for a very specific purpose: to make Loving believe that Zagaev might try to kill him and save the rest of the fee.
    So, I was betting that Loving would meet him here to eliminate the man who knew his identity and perhaps a few other incriminating facts about him.
    Was I right?
    You never knew with Loving.
    As in the Prisoners’ Dilemma, Prisoner One could never be sure that Prisoner Two was going to refuse to confess. The bank depositor would never be sure that all the other depositors would stand firm and not withdraw their savings.
    But, though economists and mathematicians don’t admit it, game theory is about playing the odds. I don’t believe in luck but I do believe in circumstance. It had not worked to my advantage in Rhode Island. Perhaps it would here.
    We heard distant traffic, immediate insects, a barking dog, the cheerful shouting of children at the battlefield where more than thirty-five thousand men engaged in the summer of 1861, and five thousand died or were wounded. I was in cover behindthick trees that had not even been seeds when those soldiers fell.
    The meeting had been arranged for 4:45. We were now a few minutes past that.
    In the distance, a light-colored vehicle quickly turned onto the road that led to the deserted parking lot we surrounded. The skidding turn was a standard tactical maneuver, not to evade any following cars but to see if you were in fact being followed. If you signal your intention to turn, a tail will do the same. If you skid around a corner, keeping an eye in the rearview mirror, you can easily judge from the reaction of the driver behind you if it’s a tail, even if he decides to stay on the road. The car’s rapid turn now suggested that it might be Loving’s.
    Some of the tactical officers weren’t in view of the road, and the commander—Freddy’s lieutenant—alerted everyone to the newly arrived car. I found myself tensing, flashing back to the sight of Loving earlier—at the flytrap. I reached behind me and rested my hand on my Glock. This was instinct only; there were people