Home > Work > Edge
61 " 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 a safety 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 "
― Jeffery Deaver , Edge
62 " I want to say something,” I told her. “It’s important.” “Under these circumstances,” she said, with a dark grin, “one wouldn’t really expect unimportant, now, would one? "
63 " Maree may have noted that I said “wife” and not “ex,” which imparted some information to her. She was smarter than the package suggested. She frowned her sympathy, which I didn’t respond to. "
64 " I realized finally what the problem was,” I told Maree. “It wasn’t him. It was my wife. She was treating him like a normal human being. Polite, giving him the benefit of the doubt, humoring him. She was a good person, just thinking about who he’d been when they’d been going out, charming and funny. But that was the past. When all this happened he wasn’t a normal human being. He was something else. You can’t be friends with a shark or a rabid dog, Maree. That’s where you get into trouble. Andrew’s a different kind of danger but that doesn’t matter. Anyone who isn’t good for you is as dangerous as Henry Loving.” I "
65 " The young woman shrugged, walked to her computer, picked it up. She flopped down on the couch and scanned through it. This was something else I’d noticed that my principals had done more and more recently, in the safe house and halfway motels: withdrawn into their cyberwombs. Joanne "
66 " The government’s Intelligence Assessment Department is a very small federal agency with very large computers, located in Sterling, Virginia. The IAD’s purpose is to maintain files of names, faces, physical attributes and personal preferences of national security threats and to analyze data about all of the above. If anybody’s ever wondered why the CIA or the military can be so certain that one bearded thirty-year-old on the streets of Kabul is an innocent businessman and, to our Western eyes, an identical one a block away is an al Qaeda operative, IAD is the reason. However, "
67 " The sky was overcast and the scenery was probably what it had been for dozens of years: bungalow farmhouses, shacks, trailers and motor vehicles in terminal condition but still functioning if the nursing and luck were right. A gas station offering a brand I’d never heard of. Dogs toothing at fleas lazily. Women in stressed jeans, overseeing their broods. Men with beer-lean faces and expanding guts, sitting on porches, waiting for nothing. Most likely wondering at our car—containing the sort of people you don’t see much in this neighborhood: a man in a white shirt, dark suit and tie and a woman with a business haircut. Then "
68 " I sat for a moment and again looked out the window of my organization’s unmarked headquarters in Old Town Alexandria, the building aggressively ugly, 1970s ugly. I stared at a wedge of grass, an antique store, a Starbucks and a few bushes in a parking strip. The bushes lined up in a staggered fashion toward the Masonic Temple, like they’d been planted by a Dan Brown character sending a message via landscaping rather than an email. My "
69 " I WAS SITTING in one of our director’s scuffed chairs next to a man who clearly knew me, since he’d nodded with some familiarity when I entered. I couldn’t, however, place him beyond his being a federal prosecutor. About my age—forty—and short, a bit doughy, with hair in need of a trim. A fox’s eyes. Aaron "
70 " What he was really asking was this: Was he making the right decision in assigning me, and not someone else, to the job of guarding principals from Henry Loving? In short, could I be objective when the perp was the one who’d murdered my mentor and had apparently escaped from the trap I’d set for him several years before? "
71 " For her part, Joanne would be considering exactly what and how much she could tell him—which, in theory, was nothing. The British have their Official Secrets Act, which forbids government employees from talking about their activities while they were in the employ of certain agencies. We don’t have quite such a grandly named law but similar regulations are in effect. She’d already committed federal offenses by her disclosures here in this rustic, cozy living room. If she went further, the crimes would be compounded significantly, I understood. But "
72 " Joanne’s federal government employment history had been hidden very efficiently, of course. DuBois hadn’t found anything specific about what the woman or her coworkers did. But you could deduce their mission from what my protégée did uncover: the group’s funding (lavish and murkily channeled through nonexistent government agencies) and jurisdiction—in the U.S. only (office leasing and travel authorizations). Its history was enlightening too. The organization was created two weeks after the first Trade Towers bombing in New York in the 1990s, and their budget and personnel were doubled after the African embassy bombings and tripled after the attack on the Cole. After "
73 " I’m thinking about it,” she mused, almost to herself. “The building burned. . . . There was a DNA match. I recall the report. There were some typos in it, remember?” Claire duBois was older than her adolescent intonation suggested, though not much. Short brunette hair, a heart-shaped and delicately pretty face, a figure that was probably very nice—and I was as curious about it as any man would be—but usually hidden by functional pantsuits, which I preferred her wearing over skirts "
74 " In a matter-of-fact voice, she said to me, “Have you found out anything more than that?” She glanced toward the documents, which said nothing directly about her job. “Only that you were with the Sickle project. My associate’s good but she couldn’t get much more than that. Your archives’re locked pretty tight. As for active files—if the group is still active . . .” She said nothing. “If it’s still active, she didn’t find anything on record.” Though the nickname of the group was anglicized to the name of the farm implement, in fact it came from the Israeli Defense Force’s name for assassination—in Hebrew, sikul memukad, which means “focused foiling. "
75 " Every case I worked is closed. All the principals were either abducted and resettled . . . or zeroed,” she said, using a verb that I’d heard from time to time if my principal was in a similar line of work. It had become popular among the Mossad. They liked to use shorthand they thought was American. Zero "
76 " One said, “Nobody paused in front of the house since we’ve been here.” I slipped my ID case away. “Any out-of-state tags?” “Didn’t notice any.” Different answer from “No.” One "
77 " glanced at Pogue. From his pocket he withdrew earplugs. I was familiar with them. They block out the high decibels and pitch of gunfire but allow human voices through. He handed a pair to me. I shoved them in. I took a deep breath and let fly the piece of glass, which landed with a tink in the far corner of the room. The "
78 " Remember that this is a game of defense as well as offense and be prepared to protect the areas which you occupy. —FROM THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BOARD GAME RISK "
79 " And him?” I looked toward the revived guard. Freddy said, “Wants a lawyer like a baby wants a bottle. "
80 " I didn’t blame him one bit. I’d give them up too, in circumstances like that. Abe Fallow himself said to me when I joined our organization, “Corte, listen. Rule number one, and it’s a rule we don’t mention to anybody but ourselves, is at the end of the day your principals are packages. They’re a dozen eggs, they’re crystal vases, lightbulbs. Consumer goods. You risk your life to keep them safe. You don’t sacrifice your life for them. Remember that.” Ellis "