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me. A shepherd has to know his principals’ buying habits—it’s very helpful in understanding them—and instinctively I noted Chanel, Coach and Cartier. A rich girl and probably near the top of her class at Yale or Harvard Law.
    Westerfield said, “This is Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Teasley.”
    She shook my hand and acknowledged Ellis.
    â€œI’m just explaining the Kessler situation to them.” Then to us: “Chris’ll be working with us on it.”
    â€œLet’s hear the details,” I said, aware that Teasley was scenting the air, floral and subdued. Sheopened her attaché case with loud hardware snaps and handed her boss a file. As he skimmed it I noted a sketch on Ellis’s wall. His corner office wasn’t large but it was decorated with a number of pictures, some posters from mall galleries, some personal photos and art executed by his children. I stared at a watercolor drawing of a building on a hillside, not badly rendered.
    I had nothing on my office walls except lists of phone numbers.
    â€œHere’s the sit.” Westerfield 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.
    â€œThey 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?”
    â€œRouted through proxies. Untraceable.”
    â€œAny phone calls to or from his room in the motel?”
    â€œMais non.”
    The French was irritating. Had Westerfield just gotten back from a package vacation or was he boning up to prosecute an Algerian terrorist?
    â€œWhat 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.”
    â€œGo 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.
    â€œNo audio?”
    â€œNo.”
    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.
    â€œKessler’s a cop in the District. Ryan Kessler, detective,” Westerfield