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  He moved his from the holster on his hip.

  I introduced myself. Shook his hand. I showed him my ID, which has my picture, name and a federal government logo on it, eagle included like the Justice Department's but our own brand of bird. There's nothing specific about our organization. I'm described simply as a "United States officer."

  He took a fast look and didn't ask the questions I would have.

  "Did you call Agent Fredericks to check on me?"

  "No." Maybe he felt his cop's intuition could verify my credibility. Maybe it didn't seem very macho.

  Ryan Kessler was a solid man, broad shoulders and black hair, looking older than his years. When he tilted his head down, which he had to do because I was shorter and a step below, a double chin rolled outward. A round belly above tapering thighs and hips. His eyes were inky and focused. It was as hard to imagine a smile on his face as on mine. He'd be good at interrogation, I surmised.

  "Well, Agent Corte--"

  "Just Corte's fine."

  "One name? Like a rock star."

  My ID has two initials but I never use them or anything more than Corte. Like some people, Ryan seemed to consider this pretentious. I didn't explain to him that it was simply a wise strategy; when it came to my business, the rule was to give people--good people, bad or neutral--as little information about myself as possible. The more people who know about you, the more compromised you are and the less efficiently you can do your job protecting your principals.

  "Agent Fredericks is on his way over," I told him.

  A sigh. "This is all a big mixup. Mistaken identity. There's nobody who'd want to threaten me. It's not like I'm going after the J-Eights."

  One of the most dangerous Latino gangs in Fairfax.

  "Still, I'd like to come in if I could."

  "So you're, what, like protection detail?"

  "Exactly."

  He looked me over. I'm a little under six feet and weigh about 170, a range of five pounds plus or minus depending on the nature of the assignment and my deli-sandwich preference of the month. I've never been in the army; I've never taken the FBI course at Quantico. I know some basic self-defense but no fancy martial arts. I have no tattoos. I get outside a fair amount, jogging and hiking, but no marathons or Iron Man stuff for me. I do some push-ups and sit-ups, inspired by the probably erroneous idea that exercise improves circulation and also lets me order cheese on my deli sandwich without guilt. I happen to be a very good shot and was presently carrying a Glock 23--the .40--in a Galco Royal Guard inside-the-pants holster and a Monadnock retractable baton. He wouldn't know that, though, and to Ryan Kessler, the protection package would be looking a little meager.

  "Even them." His eyes swung toward the FBI car across the street. "All they're doing is upsetting my wife and daughter. The fact is, they're a little obvious, don't you think?"

  I was amused that we'd had the same observation. "They are. But they're more a deterrent than anything."

  "Well, again, I'm sorry for the waste of time. I've talked it over with my boss."

  "Chief of Detectives Lewis. I spoke to him too on the way over here."

  Ronald Lewis, with the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department. Squat, with a broad face, dark brown skin. Outspoken. I'd never met him in person but heard he'd done a good job turning around some of the more dangerous neighborhoods in the city, which was one of the more dangerous cities in the country. He'd risen high in the MPD from street patrol in South East and was a bit of a hero too, like Ryan Kessler.

  Ryan paused, registering that I'd been doing my homework. "Then he told you he doesn't know any reason I'd be a target. I really will have to ask you to leave now. Sorry you wasted your time."

  I said, "Mr. Kessler, just do me a favor? Please. Let me come in and lay out a few things. Ten minutes." I was pleasant, not a hint of irritation. I said nothing more, offered no reasons--arguments held in doorways are hard to win; your opponent can just step back and close the door. I now simply looked up at him expectantly. My eyes never left his.

  He sighed again. Loudly. "I guess. Come on. Five minutes." He turned and, limping, led me through the neat suburban house, which smelled of lemon furniture polish and coffee. I couldn't draw many conclusions about him or his family from my observations but one thing that stood out was the framed yellowing front page of The Washington Post hanging in the den: HERO COP SAVES TWO DURING ROBBERY.

  A picture of a younger Ryan Kessler accompanied the story.

  On the drive here Claire duBois, as efficient as a fine watch, had given me a backgrounder on Ryan. This included details of the officer's rescue. Some punk had robbed a deli downtown in the District, panicked and started shooting. Ryan was en route to meet an informant and happened to be in the alley behind the deli. He'd heard the shots, drawn his weapon and sped in through the back door, too late to save the husband and wife who owned the place, but he had rescued the customers inside, taking a bullet in the leg before the robber fled.

  The story ended with a curious twist: The woman customer had stayed in touch with him. They'd started going out. She was now his wife, Joanne. Ryan had a daughter by his first wife, who'd died of ovarian cancer when the girl was six.

  After delivering the bios, duBois had told me in the car, "That's pretty romantic, saving her life. Knight in shining armor."

  I don't read much fiction but I enjoy history, medieval included. I could have told her that knight's armor was the worst defensive system ever created; it looked spiffy but made the warrior far more vulnerable than a simple shield, helmet and chain mail or nothing at all.

  I also reflected that getting shot in the leg seemed like a rather unromantic way to get a spouse.

  As we moved through the cluttered family room, Ryan said, "Here it is, a nice Saturday. Wouldn't you rather be hanging out with your wife and kids?"

  "Actually, I'm single. And I don't have children."

  Ryan was silent for a moment, a familiar response. It usually came from suburbanites of a certain age, upon learning they're talking to an unmarried, family-less forty-year-old. "Let's go in here." We entered the kitchen and new smells mingled with the others: a big weekend breakfast, not a meal I'm generally fond of. The place was cluttered, dirty dishes stacked neatly in the sink. Jackets and sweats were draped on the white colonial dining chairs around a blond table. Against the wall the number of empty paper Safeway bags outnumbered the Whole Foods four to one. Schoolbooks and running shoes and DVD and CD cases. Junk mail and magazines.

  "Coffee?" Ryan asked because he wanted some and preferred not to appear rude, only discouraging.

  "No, thanks."

  He poured a cup while I stepped to the window and looked out over a backyard like ten thousand backyards nearby. I observed windows and doors.

  Noting my reconnaissance, Ryan sipped, enjoying the coffee. "Really, Agent Corte, I don't need anybody to stand guard duty."

  "Actually I want to get you and your family into a safe house until we find the people behind this."

  He scoffed, "Move out?"

  "Should just be a matter of days, at the most."

  I heard sounds from upstairs but saw no one else on the ground floor. Claire duBois had given me information on Ryan's family too. Joanne Kessler, thirty-nine, had worked as a statistician for about eight or nine years, then, after meeting and marrying widower Ryan, she had quit to become a fulltime mother to her stepdaughter, who was ten at the time.

  The daughter, Amanda, was a junior at a public high school. "She makes good grades and is in three advanced placement programs. History, English and French. She's on the yearbook. She volunteers a lot." I'd wondered if some of the organizations were hospitals or devoted to health care because of her mother's death. DuBois had continued, "And she plays basketball. That was my sport. You wouldn't think it. But you don't have to be that tall. Really. The thing is you have to be willing to bump. Hard."

  Ryan now said, "Look, I'm just a cop handling some routine nonviolent c
ases. No terrorists, no Mafia, no conspiracies." He sipped more of the coffee, snuck a look at the doorway and added two more sugars, stirring quickly. "Agent Fredericks said this guy needed the information, whatever it is, by Monday night? There's nothing I'm working on that has a deadline like that. In fact, I'm in a down period now. For the past week or so, I'm mostly on some departmental administrative assignment. Budget. That's all. If I thought there was something to it, I'd let you know. But there just isn't. A mistake," he repeated.

  "I had a principal last year I was protecting." He hadn't invited me to sit but I did anyway, on one of the swivel stools. He remained standing. "I spent five days playing cat and mouse with a hitter--a professional killer--who'd been hired to take him out. It was all a complete mistake. The hitter had been given the wrong name. But he would have killed my principal just the same. In this case, it isn't a hitter who's after you, it's a lifter. You ever heard that term?"

  "I think. An interrogator, right? A pro."

  Close enough. I nodded. "Now, a hitter's one thing. Mistake or not, you'd be the only one at risk. But a lifter . . . he'll target your family, anything to get an edge on you--some leverage to force you to tell him what he wants. By the time he realizes it's a mistake, someone close to you could be seriously hurt. Or worse."

  Considering my words. "Who is he?"

  "His name's Henry Loving."

  "Former military? Special ops?"

  "No. Civilian."

  "In a gang? Organized crime?"

  "Not that we could find."

  In fact, we didn't know much about Henry Loving, other than he'd been born in northern Virginia, left home in his late teens and had maintained little contact with most of his family. His school records were missing. The last time he'd been arrested was when the sentence involved juvenile detention. A week after he was released the magistrate in the case quit the bench for reasons unknown and left the area. It might have been a coincidence. But I, for one, didn't think so. Loving's court and police files vanished at the same time. He worked hard to hide his roots and protect his anonymity.

  I looked out the window once more. Then, after a brief conspiratorial pause and a glance into the still-empty hall, I continued, speaking even more softly, "But there's something else I have to say. This is completely between us?"

  He gripped the coffee he'd lost his taste for.

  I continued, "Henry Loving has successfully kidnapped at least a dozen principals to interrogate them. Those are just the cases we know about. He's responsible for the deaths of a half dozen bystanders too. He's killed or seriously injured federal agents and local cops."

  Ryan gave a brief wince.

  "I've been trying . . . our organization and the Bureau have been trying for years to collar him. So, okay, I'm admitting it: Yes, we're here to protect you and your family. But you're a godsend to us, Detective. You're a decorated cop, somebody who's familiar with tactical response, with weapons."

  "Well, it's been a few years."

  "Those skills never go away. Don't you think? Like riding a bicycle."

  A modest glance downward. "I do get out to the range every week."

  "There you go." I could see a change in his dark eyes. A bit of fire in them. "I'm asking for your help in getting this guy. But we can't do it here. Not in this house. Too dangerous for you and your family, too dangerous for your neighbors."

  He tapped his pistol. "I'm loaded with Glasers."

  Safety bullets. Powerful rounds that can kill, but they won't penetrate Sheetrock and injure bystanders. They're called suburb slugs.

  "But Loving won't be. He'll come in with M4s or MP-5s. It'll be carnage. There will be collateral damage."

  He was considering all that I'd said. His eyes took in the dirty dishes, seemed to notice them for the first time. "What're you suggesting?"

  "You, another officer and I'll form the guard detail. We'll get you and your family into a safe house that'll give us a defensive advantage over Loving. My people and the Bureau'll try to take him on the street or his hidey-hole, if they can find him. But if he gets through, and he could, I'll need you. I have a safe house in mind that'll be perfect." I was speaking very softly now, making clear that what I was asking was off the record.

  "You sound like you've been up against this guy before."

  I paused. "I have, yes."

  As he debated, a female voice came from the hallway: "Ry, those men're still out there. I'm getting--"

  She turned the corner and stopped quickly, glancing at me with narrowed brown eyes. I recognized her face immediately from the photos duBois had uploaded to me. Joanne Kessler. In running shoes, jeans and a dark zippered sweater sprouting a few snags, Joanne had a handsome, though not pretty or exotic, face. She got outside a lot, sun wrinkles and tan, gardening, I guessed, from the short nails, two of which were broken. She didn't seem athletic, although unlike her husband she was slim. The hair was dark blond, frizzy and long, pulled into a ponytail. She wore glasses, which were stylish, but the lenses were thick, a reminder of her prior career. If anybody looked like a statistician for the Department of Transportation, it was Joanne Kessler.

  Her face had registered a moment of shock seeing me--apparently she hadn't heard me arrive--and then went completely blank. Not stony or cold in anger. She was numb--a bookish woman, I guessed, who'd been thrown by these events.

  "This is Agent Corte. He works with the Justice Department. He's a bodyguard."

  I didn't correct Ryan about my title or employer. I shook her limp hand and offered a momentary smile. Her eyes remained uninvolved.

  "Mrs. Kessler--"

  "Joanne."

  "You're familiar with the situation?"

  "Ry told me there's been some mixup. Somebody thought he was being threatened."

  I glanced at Ryan, who tipped his head in response.

  I kept a calm visage and said to Joanne, "There may be a mixup, yes, but the fact is that there's no doubt a man has been hired to get information from your husband."

  Her face deflated. She whispered, "You think we really might be in danger?"

  "Yes." I explained about lifters and Henry Loving. "A freelance interrogator," I summarized.

  "But you don't mean he tortures people or anything like that, do you?" Joanne asked softly, her eyes eerily emotionless as she stared at her husband.

  I said, "Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

  Chapter 4

  "SOME LIFTERS BRIBE, some threaten, some blackmail with embarrassing information," I explained. "But the man who's after Ryan, yes, specializes in physical extraction."

  "'Physical extraction,'" Joanne muttered. "'Specializes.' You make it sound like he's a lawyer or doctor."

  I said nothing. In this line you look for anything to help you do your job. It's like the games I play--board games exclusively. I like to see my opponent. I learn a lot, noting body language, verbal language, eye contact, clothing. Even breathing patterns. I had to convince the Kesslers that they needed me. I made a decision based on what I'd learned just now. I spoke to them both, though directed most of my attention to the wife.

  I said evenly, "Loving's low-tech. Usually he uses sandpaper and alcohol on sensitive parts of the body. Doesn't sound too bad but it works real well."

  I tried not to picture the crime scene photos of the body of my mentor, Abe Fallow. I wasn't very successful.

  "Oh, God," Joanne whispered and lifted her hand to her narrow lips.

  "A lifter's basic technique is 'getting an edge,' as in getting the advantage over you. In one job where I was protecting someone from him, Loving was going to break in and torture a child right in front of the father he wanted information from."

  "No," Joanne gasped. "But . . . Amanda. We have a daughter. This is . . ." Her eyes swung from one part of the room to another, then settled on the sink and the dirty dishes. Almost urgently, she stepped forward, grabbed a pair of yellow kitchen gloves, pulled them on and twisted the hot water faucet open wide. This happened a lot
, principals focusing on--sometimes obsessing over--the little things. Things they can control.

  Ryan said, "We should do what Agent Corte says. Get out of the house for a little while."

  "Leave?"

  "Yes," I said. "Just a precaution."

  "Now?"

  "That's right. As soon as possible."

  "But where? A hotel? One of our friends' . . . We're not packed. Leave now?"

  "You just need to take a few things. And you'd go to one of our safe houses. It's not far away. It's a nice place." I wasn't more specific about the location. I never was. I didn't blindfold principals before I drove them to a safe house and they could probably figure out some general idea of where it was located but I never told anybody the address. "Now, if I could ask you to pack your--"

  "Amanda," Joanne interrupted and, perhaps forgetting she'd mentioned it before, said, "We have a daughter. She's sixteen. Ry! Where is she? Is she back from school yet?"

  Principals often slipped into a hyperactive mode, and their minds jumped from thought to thought. At first I guessed she'd forgotten it was Saturday morning but it turned out the girl was taking a computer course for extra credit at a nearby community college on weekends.

  "I heard her come in a half hour ago," Ryan said.

  Joanne was staring at the bright yellow gloves. She tugged them off, twisted the faucet closed. "I'm thinking . . ."

  "Yes?" I prompted.

  "I don't want her there, Amanda, I mean. I don't want her with us at that safe house."

  "But she's as much at risk as Ryan is. So are you . . . what I was saying earlier, about the edge Loving wants."

  "No, please," she said.

  It seemed important to Joanne that the girl be separated from them. I recalled that Amanda was Ryan's alone and I wondered why the Kesslers had not had any children. Maybe he'd had a vasectomy during his first marriage or maybe Joanne had been unable to conceive or maybe they'd simply chosen not to have a family together. Preferring to know all I can about my principals, I consider information like this. It can make a difference. Joanne stared at the dishes and put down the gloves.

  Ryan was considering this too. "I agree. Let's get her someplace out of harm's way." I realized he'd be thinking of what I'd mentioned--about the possibility of a firefight to take Loving.