Edge

arrived. This conclusion was reasonable since there were only two vehicles here—Loving’s and the SUV the minders had used to kidnap the girl. Amanda would be held for the time being, until the primary who wanted the information from her arrived.
    The reason they hired Loving was that nobody else was willing to torture a teenager, if it came to that. . . .
    What on earth could she possibly know? Something she’d learned about one of her father’s earlier cases? Or something else? Like all teens in the D.C. area she’d have friends whose mothers or fathers worked for the government and for government contractors. Had she and a girlfriend read through files in a parent’s computer, something classified?
    But that question would have to wait.
    Our job now was simple: Save the girl.
    Pogue listened for a moment and whispered a few more words. Then he signed off. He eased closer to me and whispered, “Williams says you’re in charge. How do we handle it?”
    “I don’t want to wait for the primary. I want to extract her now. Use nonlethal if possible . . . at least on one of them.”
    I wanted somebody alive to learn who was behind this.
    “All right.” He glanced at my gun. “You tapped?”
    Meaning: Was my Glock threaded for a silencer? I rarely had reason even to draw my weapon, let alone make sure it fired in a whisper. “No.”
    He handed me his. “One in the bedroom. Safety’s on.”
    He’d tell me this because Glocks don’t have asafety lever; they have a double trigger that prevents accidental discharges. I was familiar with the Beretta, though, and slid the lever smoothly to the fire position. The Italians made as efficient weapons as the Austrians.
    I was curious why he’d given me his gun. Then he said, “Cover me.”
    He opened his backpack and extracted some metal and plastic pieces. He assembled them into a small crossbow, steel.
    The evolution of weapons . . .
    It took two strokes to cock it. The bolt he loaded didn’t have a sharp tip but instead an elongated tube.
    “I should be a little closer,” he whispered.
    We moved forward. I was in the lead, using my training as an orienteer and amateur sign cutter yet again to keep our transit silent. I thought back briefly to that very long, very hot day outside San Antonio, leading the illegals to safety as quietly and as unobtrusively as I could.
    Pogue and I eased into a compacted stand of weeds about forty feet from the guard. With a nod at the bow, Pogue said, “Stun gun. It’ll immobilize him for about twenty seconds, so we’ll have to get to him fast. I’ll go first, you come behind and cover me with the Beretta. You’re okay with that, right?”
    Meaning killing somebody. I said, “Yes.”
    I aimed toward the doorway, where any reinforcements would come from.
    “Go,” I whispered.

Chapter 61
    POGUE LIFTED THE weapon, looking completely at ease, like a man about to cast a fly into a clear stream.
    He was compensating for gravity and the slight breeze. When the guard turned away from us, Pogue pulled the trigger. With a faint snap, the bolt zipped into the air in a perfect arc, hitting the man somewhere in the middle of the back. I didn’t know how many volts the flying Taser had but it was enough. The guard went down, shivering.
    Then we were on our feet, running in tandem. Pogue had dropped the bow and had a backup pistol in his hand. With the silenced automatic, I scanned the doorway, the building’s windows and the area around us for signs of hostiles. There were none. Pogue hog-tied the guard with plastic restraints and slapped an adhesive gag over his mouth. He bent down and pocketed the man’s phone and radio, after shutting them off, as well as his pistol, while I patted him down for other weapons. Even though tactical ops aren’t my specialty, I knew you never left weapons for the other side to pick up later.
    Take or trash, the saying went.
    I dug the man’s wallet out of his pocket. I was disappointed but not surprised to see he was apro and there was no evidence of his employer or affiliation. He had four driver’s licenses—different names, same picture—money and credit cards in those various names.
    In a moment the man revived. He looked up at us, fearfully, and began to retch. Pogue and I dragged him around the corner of the building and I ripped the gag off and let him vomit. When he was done Pogue slapped another gag on him. I crouched down and pulled out the small locking-blade Buck knife