Edge

strategies are. This usually occurs in games with what’s called perfect information, like chess or tic-tac-toe. Perfect information means that all of a player’s past moves—his strategies—are accessible to his opponent. Both see every move made from the beginning of the game. (Unlike the Prisoners’ Dilemma, say, which is a game of imperfect information, since Prisoner One doesn’t know what Prisoner Two’s choice will be.)
    For some reason, at times, all the past moves the opponent has made coalesce in my mind into a clear understanding—for me it’s almost a graphic or picture—and I know what his next strategy will be.
    Now, the pieces falling into place were the clear view of my principals in the mirror, the manager’s uneasiness in the front lobby a few minutes earlier, the bellboy’s nervousness.
    Though I didn’t know all the details, I believed almost to a certainty that Loving had posed as a law enforcement officer and sent faxes or emails to dozens of hotels and motels in the area—maybethe ones he felt might be good safe houses. He’d included a picture of Ryan Kessler, claiming perhaps that he was a fugitive. Loving would have given a phone number and instructions to call but warned the managers not to take any action on their own in the event the suspect was spotted. The manager would have shown the picture to the wait staff. When the food was delivered to our room, the employee would have gotten a glance in the mirror at Ryan and probably seen the man’s damn Colt on his hip.
    The manager wasn’t fidgety because I was unhappy with the service and checking out early; it was that two women and I were hostages of Ryan Kessler and the men with him—tough, unsmiling and dangerous-looking.
    The big question as far as I was concerned was when exactly the manager had called Loving. Ten minutes earlier, we probably would be fine. An hour, Loving was already nearby.
    “Clear,” each of my colleagues reported in his own accent.
    I called Freddy. He picked up at once. “Corte.”
    “We have a situation.”
    “You just had one, at the flytrap.”
    “Loving’s on his way here. The Hillside Inn.” I rattled off the address.
    “Okay, hold on. I’m scrambling our people—and Prince William County too.”
    “Try them. But I’ll bet he’s going to call in a fake incident, like he did in Fairfax.”
    “Sure. Right.”
    “Just concentrate on getting your folks here. Fast.”
    I ignored the frantic looks my principals sent me as they threw together their personal items. I did, however, gesture at Ryan Kessler to put his pistol away. With that much liquor he could shoot his wife, or me, or himself. Thank God his weapon was a revolver, which meant the trigger had a heavy pull. I noticed him looking at me with a broad shrug and I realized his meaning: Isn’t this what we’re supposed to be doing, luring Loving here and then taking him out, like I’d told him earlier?
    Bait-and-switch . . .
    Reluctantly he slipped the gun back into the holster.
    Freddy came back on the line. “Cavalry’s on the way. ETA probably twenty or thirty. You going defense? Or rabbiting?”
    “I don’t know yet. Patch me through one of your public lines to the motel lobby here. And don’t mask it. I want the clerk to see Justice Department or the Bureau on caller ID.”
    “Yeah, hold. I lose you, call me back. I don’t know this technical shit.”
    As the people in the room gathered jackets and suitcases, and my colleagues moved efficiently from window to window to door, signaling that they spotted no threat, I waited tensely, listening to clicks on the line.
    Finally, ringing.
    “Hillside Inn, may I help you?” It was the man I’d spoken to before. I’d just have to hope that he wouldn’t recognize my voice.
    I said briskly, “Yessir, this is Special Agent Hugh Johnston. We’re following up on that report about the suspect at your motel.”
    “I was just about to call back about that. They’re fixing to leave!”
    So I was right.
    “A hostage came in—Mr. Roberts,” the clerk continued. “He looked pretty beat up. He’s been here before, works for a company and they use our place some. He paid. Tried to act like nothing was going on but it’s weird, them checking out after only four or five hours or so.”
    “I’m coordinating the rescue efforts,” I told him. “Which agent did you speak to before?”
    “Said his name was Special Agent Jonathan Corte, with an e. ”
    My stomach did a