Edge

turned to Ellis and me. “I heard from the Bureau’s Charleston, West Virginia, field office this morning. Make a long story short, the state police were running a meth sting out in the boonies and they stumbled on some prints on a pay phone, turned out to be Henry Loving’s. For some reason the homicide and surveillance warrants weren’t cancelled after he died. Well, supposedly died, looks like.
    “They call our people and we take over, find out Loving flew into Charleston a week ago under some fake name and ID. Nobody knows from where. Finally, they tracked him down to a motel in Winfield this morning. But he’d already checked out—a couple of hours ago, around eight-thirty. Clerk doesn’t know where he was going.”
    At a nod from her boss, Teasley continued, “The surveillance warrants are technically still active, so the agents checked out emails at the hotel. One received and one sent: the go-ahead order and Loving’s acknowledgment.”
    Ellis asked, “What would he be doing in West Virginia?”
    I knew Loving better than anybody in the room.I said, “He usually worked with a partner; he might be picking somebody up there. Weapons too. He wouldn’t fly with them. In any case, he’ll avoid the D.C.-area airports. A lot of people up here still remember what he looks like after . . . after what happened a few years ago.” I asked, “Internet address of the sender?”
    “Routed through proxies. Untraceable.”
    “Any phone calls to or from his room in the motel?”
    “Mais non.”
    The French was irritating. Had Westerfield just gotten back from a package vacation or was he boning up to prosecute an Algerian terrorist?
    “What does the order say exactly, Jason?” I asked patiently.
    At a nod from him, Chris Teasley did the honors. “Like you were saying, it was solely a go-ahead. So they’d have had prior conversations where they laid out the details.”
    “Go on, please,” I said to her.
    The woman read, “ ‘Loving—Re: Kessler. It’s a go. Need details, per our discussion, by Monday midnight, or unacceptable consequences, as explained. Once you get information, subject must be eliminated.’ End of quote. It gave an address in Fairfax.”
    Unacceptable consequences . . . all hell breaking loose.
    “No audio?”
    “No.”
    I was disappointed. Voice analysis can tell a lot about the caller: gender, most of the time, national and regional roots, illnesses, even reasonable morphologicaldeductions can be made about the shape of the nose, mouth and throat. But at least we had a confirmed spelling of the principal’s name, which was a plus.
    “Kessler’s a cop in the District. Ryan Kessler, detective,” Westerfield explained.
    “Loving’s response?”
    “‘Confirmed.’ That was it.”
    “The primary wants the ‘details’ ”—Westerfield did air quotes—“by late Monday. Details . . .”
    I asked to see the printout. Noted a slight hesitation on Teasley’s part, then she passed it over when Westerfield gave no reaction.
    I read through the brief passage. “Grammar, spelling and punctuation are good. Proper use of ‘per.’ ” Teasley frowned at this observation. I didn’t explain that “as per,” what most people say, is redundant; she wasn’t my protégée. I continued, “And matching commas around the appositive, after ‘details,’ which you hardly ever see.”
    Everyone stared at me now. I’d studied linguistics a long time ago. A little philology too, the study of languages from analyzing texts. Mostly for the fun of it, but the subject came in useful sometimes.
    Ellis toyed his neck sideways. He’d wrestled in college but didn’t do many sports nowadays that I knew of. He was just still built like an iron triangle. He asked, “He left at eight-thirty this morning. He probably has weapons so he’s not going to fly . . . and he doesn’t want to risk being seen at an airport here, like you were saying, Corte. He’s still about four hours away.”
    “His vehicle?” I asked.
    “Nothing yet. The Bureau’s got a team canvassing the motel and restaurants around town.”
    Ellis: “This Kessler, what does he know that the primary’s so interested in extracting from him?”
    “No clue,” Westerfield said.
    “Who exactly is he, Kessler?” I asked.
    “I’ve got some details,” Teasley said.
    As the young attorney dug through a file, I wondered why Westerfield had come to us. We’re known as the bodyguards of last resort (at least