Edge

you back to his hidey-hole.
    “I want to get moving,” I said, gesturing at the house. I was uncharacteristically impatient. I glanced at the tactical agents and whispered, “Ihaven’t seen any sign of anyone since I’ve been here. Loving might not remember what he told his cousin—he was doped up—and he might’ve come back to go to ground or at least to pick up his things.” I regarded them gravely. “And it’s possible he said what he did to the cousin to make sure it was relayed to us. This could be a trap. And remember, he’s got a partner.”
    They scanned the grounds, the trees, the black windows of the house with keen eyes.
    We divided into three groups and, Freddy and I leading, moved forward.

Chapter 34
    AWARE OF THE fine shooting that the partner was capable of, we didn’t expose ourselves by surveying any vantage points for more than a second or two before dropping to the ground or crouching behind trees.
    In five minutes we arrived at the house and made arrangements for the tactical entry. This is not my area of expertise, nor was I as heavily armed as everyone else in the group. I would remain outside on the front porch and keep an eye out for any flanking movement until the house was cleared. Another tactical officer would do the same at the back door.
    Freddy gestured to one of his tac officers. The large man examined the door and with a single kick sent it flying inward, simultaneously blurting the requisite, “FBI, serving a warrant!” Agents streamed inside through the front and back doors. Flashlights clicked on but I ignored the search and continued surveying the front and side yards, crouching and presenting as little target as I could to a sniper in the surrounding woods. Using my night vision monocular, I scanned but spotted no evidence of shooters.
    Finally Freddy stuck his head out the front door. “We’re clear.”
    “Any sign of inhabitants recently?”
    “Yep. Food and drinks with pretty far-off expiration dates. A set alarm clock. Five a.m. Boy’s an early riser. Fresh linens. Some clothes that don’t seem too old. Loving’s size.”
    So he had been staying here.
    I walked inside and drew closed any open shades and curtains, then clicked on the lights. The air was musty and tinged with cedar and rot. An agent appeared in the doorway; he’d checked for evidence of the vehicles but reported that the driveway and apron were gravel and he’d found no tire prints.
    “What are we looking for?” another agent called. Freddy tipped his head to me.
    “Credit card receipts, correspondence, computers or hard drives, bills . . . anything with or without Henry Loving’s name on it. He uses fake identities a lot.”
    I doubted we’d find much about his immediate plans; he was too smart to leave obvious evidence but even a player as conscientious as he made mistakes sometimes.
    Game theory takes this into account. In a “trembling hand equilibrium,” a player can accidentally pick an unintended strategy—say, when you reach for a queen’s bishop’s pawn and accidentally move the knight’s in error. If you release the piece, you’ve made the move, even if the consequences are the opposite of what you’d intended and are disastrous.
    Still, we found little or nothing that was helpful.
    But one thing I did indeed find was Henry Loving’s past.
    Virtually all of it. Neither he nor his family had eradicated his history.
    Everywhere throughout the house were photographs, framed postcards, ribbons from awards won at state fairs and carnivals, pictures of Loving family vacations. On the mantelpiece and on the shelves in place of books were souvenirs and memorabilia like ceramic animals, ashtrays, hats, candleholders.
    And, in the den, scrapbooks. Probably thirty or forty of them. I checked quickly but none was more recent than about five years ago. The most current one contained only a single item about Loving himself. It was a clipping from the Washington Post, the same clipping I had in my office, as a matter of fact. About Loving’s murder of Abe Fallow and the woman he’d been guarding. Had he clipped it? And if he had, why? I guessed it was a matter of craft: to see how the authorities were handling the investigation.
    I flipped through the memorabilia and examined the many pictures of a younger Henry, his sister and their parents. I was struck by the fact that in most of them he seemed somber and preoccupied, rarely smiling and seemingly distracted. But there