Edge

buzzed.
    “Freddy.”
    “Just for the record, he tried the same thing—false alarms. Prince William’s had ten assault-in-progress calls. Just like you guessed.”
    I hadn’t guessed. I was learning Loving’s strategy.
    “But our guys are en route. Make it fifteen minutes now.”
    “We’re leaving. He found out about us forty-five minutes ago. He’s got to be close by now. I can’t talk.” I disconnected.
    Garcia and Maree were behind a pillar, the agent scanning those black, leering windows looking down on us. The rooftops too.
    Ahmad went next with grim-faced Joanne, again clutching her purse to her chest and wheeling her suitcase. They hurried past Garcia and turned left down the alley to the parking lot.
    I got a sign from Garcia.
    “Let’s go,” I whispered to Ryan.
    I started one of the longest walks of my life.
    I was close to Ryan and knew that Loving wouldn’t risk killing him to take me out, despite the partner’s skill as a sniper, but they might have sprayed our legs and kept Garcia and Ahmad pinned down while they dragged Ryan away.
    But we joined Garcia without incident and, as I covered the troubling windows, he and Maree slipped to the back lot. When they’d made it, Ryan and I moved out. My pistol in one hand, the key fob in the other, I pressed the start button for the Yukon. I hadn’t expected an explosion but I still felt relieved when there wasn’t one. We hurried forward and scrambled inside the vehicle, belting up and locking the doors.
    No incoming shots, no diversions—screams or collisions—to take our attention.
    In ten seconds I was out of the space fast and we were heading around the back of the wing on the right of the motel, the way we’d come in. I eased to the front and merged onto the main driveway, which led to the highway via a hundred yards of winding asphalt. I was trying to narrow down the time calculation to gauge how likely it was that Loving was close.
    I was angry with myself. Most shepherds used the two-part transport to get their principals to the ultimate safe house. It makes sense—to organize your escape, to make sure nobody’s following, to change vehicles. I reflected that my strategy, however, had backfired; it was because of going to a public facility that Loving had a lead to us. If I’d driven right to our safe house, we’d be home free.
    Just as I often pretend to be a lifter, to anticipate their moves, I wondered if Loving had stepped into my shoes, compiling names of hotels that’d make good halfway houses. Maybe he had the same list we did.
    But so far, so good. We were in an armored SUV and my principals were unhurt. No sign of Loving. Most likely it had taken him longer than I’d thought to get here.
    Rolling farther along the drive . . .
    I could see the highway eighty yards away, then sixty, fifty.
    Oh, how I wanted to be on that road. The Hillside Inn was a great place to be invisible and the suite we’d taken was good for defense. But here in front of the building were hedgerows and trees for cover and ponds to limit escape routes and a very serpentine drive—picturesque but hard to see in the dusk without headlights.
    It was, in short, a great spot for an ambush.
    Forty yards from the road.
    I rolled fast over a speed bump.
    Thirty yards.
    Ahead, the driveway cut through a thick hedge, eight feet high, which separated the highway from the grounds. I saw a Nissan van waiting to make a left turn into the motel grounds from the far lane. The driver was a woman and I could see a child belted in beside her. Not a threat.
    But then I hit the brakes.
    “What?” Ryan asked.
    “Why isn’t she turning?” I asked no one.
    The woman had been waiting too long for oncoming traffic to pass before she made her leftturn into the inn’s drive. I could see in her windshield the flash of an oncoming car’s turn signal. That driver, making a right turn into the inn, would have the right of way.
    But he wasn’t turning.
    Then I saw the vague form of a man settling into the thick boxwood. Something in his hand. A weapon? That’s why Loving was pausing on the road—somehow he’d spotted us leaving the back of the motel and he’d told his partner to climb out and flank us.
    Did I have time to get away before he aimed and fired?
    I jammed the accelerator to the floor. But as we leapt forward, Henry Loving’s black Dodge Avenger skidded to a stop before us, blocking the drive.
    I hit the brake pedal. We faced each other.
    An endless