Edge

realized thisand reached up and extracted the cotton balls from her ears.
    “Loving’ll be there soon and in about an hour the primary or the people who work for him will too.”
    “Nothing at all about why they want her?”
    “No. He said it wasn’t hard to find or kidnap Amanda. Anybody could have done that.” Her voice was rock steady as she said, “The reason they hired Loving was that nobody else was willing to torture a teenager, if it came to that.”
    Ryan gasped. I noted that Joanne and her husband had not looked at each other since she’d left the outbuilding. He’d glanced inside to see her handiwork. There was a lot of blood on the floor. The reaction on her husband’s face was one you don’t see often in a police officer.
    Joanne continued, “The three men who took her are minders. They might work for the primary or maybe Loving hired them. McCall doesn’t know. Only the primary knows what information to extract. Even Loving doesn’t.”
    I asked, “Does Loving expect McCall?”
    “No. He’s supposed to stay here, within cover.”
    This was good. If he’d been required to, say, report to Loving every fifteen minutes, that would have been a tactical problem.
    But now it was our move.
    What strategy was best?
    Rock, paper or scissors?
    Joanne turned to Pogue. “A G team?”
    I’d never heard the term but it wasn’t hard to deduce.
    The operative said, “Two, three hours. We’re notas mobile here as we used to be. More New York and L.A.”
    I glanced at Pogue. “You and me?”
    “I’d say.” He cast an eye toward Joanne and for a moment it occurred to me that while he may not have been the partner on the Pakistani deli hit, there was history between them.
    A voice said firmly, “I’m going too.”
    Ryan Kessler.
    I said, not unsympathetically, “This isn’t your expertise, Ryan.”
    “Because I’ve been sitting behind a desk for six years, watching my ass spread? I’ve been on tac ops in the past. I know what I’m doing.”
    “No. Because you’re involved. She’s your daughter. You can’t engage a hostile if you’re involved. It’s not efficient.”
    “Look,” the man said, sounding reasonable. “It’s no risk my being there. He doesn’t want me, Corte.”
    I pointed out, “He could use you as an edge to get Amanda to talk.”
    “She’s a sixteen-year-old girl,” Ryan muttered. “He doesn’t need an edge. He barks at her and she tells him what he wants to know.”
    That wasn’t the Amanda Kessler I’d seen.
    “You’re too emotional. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you’ll have to stand down.”
    “That’s a dirty word to you, Corte, isn’t it? ‘Emotion.’ Tough being a robot, isn’t it?”
    “Ryan, honey, please,” Joanne said, reverting to the good wife she’d been earlier. Or, more accurately, the role of the good wife she’d been playing.
    I didn’t argue with Ryan. How could I? He was 100 percent right.
    He walked close. “Maybe it’s time to take the gloves off, Corte. And be honest. It was all bullshit, wasn’t it? What you said?”
    I could see what was coming.
    “You’ve just been patting me on the head, haven’t you? The way you’ve been handling me? Is it out of the bodyguard’s manual of tricks? Give your principal some busywork. Lie to him. Tell him he’s going to help you save the day. ‘We’ll take down Loving together, just wait till we’re someplace else.’ Then send him off to guard a field of fucking daisies and ragweed. In Fairfax, at my house, you knew Loving wasn’t going to come at us from that direction, didn’t you? You had me guard it to keep me occupied.”
    I hesitated. “Yes, I did.”
    “And you still had the balls to tell me what a great job I’d done.” He shook his head. “Oh, fuck, Corte. And when there actually was somebody to take down here—McCall—you didn’t consider me, did you? You called in our friend.” A contemptuous glance at Pogue. “You have a term for it, for keeping us principals busy? Making sure we sit in the corner with our toys and don’t bug the adults? Come on, Corte.”
    “Ry, honey, please. You—”
    “Shut up!” he snapped to Joanne. Then turned back. “So what do you call it?”
    “Bait-and-switch.”
    “You son of a bitch,” he muttered. “ ‘Guard the side yard, Ryan. Aim low, avoid his femoral artery. You’re probably a great shot. . . .’ ”
    “I needed to get you on my side.”
    “And sharing your war stories. How you