Extreme Prey

by John Sandford

  She said to Caralee, “C’mon. Grandma needs the potty.”

  Caralee, stoned on sugar, smiled and nodded.

  —

  LUCAS LEFT the Varied Industries building, took a right outside the door, and continued up the street, searching the crowd.

  Something had changed. He remembered the moment when he’d seen Whitehead, the woman who looked like Marlys Purdy, and it had prodded his unconscious mind with an idea. He’d tracked the idea down in his own head, and it had turned into something.

  Now he was struck by the same feeling: he’d seen or heard something important, in the street, in the last minute or so, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He cast his mind back, trying to track it down. Had he seen something in the building he’d just left? He turned and looked back at it, but it didn’t seem right. It wasn’t in the building . . . Where was it? And it wasn’t a face . . . So what was it?

  Wasn’t the phone calls from Wood. Nothing about a grenade. Was it Greer? Something to do with Greer? Why would it be Greer?

  He looked at his watch: ten-twenty. The march would be starting in ten minutes. He was at the end of the route, had seen nothing. He turned back, thought about walking down the other side of the street, but that felt wrong.

  The radio in his pocket vibrated, and a man’s voice said, “I think we’ve got Cole Purdy. He’s over at the Riley Stage. We need some guys to start moving in that direction, now.”

  There was more radio chatter, but from his morning tour, Lucas knew where the Riley Stage was, and it wasn’t far, maybe a hundred yards away. He began jogging in that direction, saw a uniformed cop doing the same thing. Fifty yards out, he slowed, saw the uniformed cop doing the same thing and then another cop closing from farther down south.

  Another vibration from the radio and the man said, “We’re moving in now.”

  There was some kind of presentation going on at the stage, with some kids facing a sparse crowd in a semicircle of seats. As he closed in, Lucas picked out the three cops who were moving in: and saw the target.

  Could be Cole Purdy, he thought, but if it was, Marlys was somewhere else.

  The target wasn’t looking in his direction and he started jogging again, and then as the three cops moved swiftly to get on top of the targeted man, Lucas broke into a full run.

  Five seconds later he joined what was now a small crowd of cops surrounding a tall, thin man with long hair, wearing an olive-colored long-sleeved canvas shirt.

  “Not him,” Lucas said to the cops.

  One of the cops asked, “Who are you?”

  “Davenport—working with Bell Wood,” Lucas said.

  “Sure it’s not him?” one of the cops asked.

  Lucas took another long look at the scared tall man, who said, “Whoever it is, it’s not me. My daughter’s supposed to go up there for the 4-H awards.”

  Lucas said, “He looks like him, even the shirt’s right—but it’s not him. Goddamnit. He’s in exactly the right place, too. This is where Purdy should be.”

  The lead cop got on a radio and talked to Wood, who told them that Lucas would know Purdy, and other cops looked at the tall man’s driver’s license, which had a good photo and an address near Sioux City. A minute later, the lead cop was apologizing and giving a perfunctory explanation for the stop.

  Lucas listened for a minute, then wandered out of the stage area. There were all kinds of cops along the street, so he decided to walk behind the Varied Industries building, which would take him along a line parallel to the street but a hundred yards or so south of it.

  —

  COLE PURDY WAS at the machinery grounds. There were trees around the stage area, but he had a clear view of it when the commotion started, men running toward the back of the seating area.

  They gathered around somebody in a seat, a whole bunch of them, and then he saw Davenport join them. Cole stepped behind a John Deere windrower to watch; Davenport said something to the group, and the group suddenly loosened.

  Cole got on the phone to Marlys. “Davenport’s over by that stage. They thought they caught me, the guy looks just like what I used to look like,” Cole said.

  “Be careful,” Marlys said. “I’m in the diaper-changing room. I keep going in and out. Have they started marching yet?”

  “Not yet. I don’t know what’s holding them up. Maybe we should call it off—”

  “No! No! We’re right there, and they will march. You be ready.”

  “I’m ready,” Cole said. Then Lucas started walking toward him. “Gotta go.”

  Cole peeked around the windrower and saw Davenport getting closer. He touched the pistol at his hip, but he really didn’t want to get in a shoot-out five minutes before they went after Bowden. That wouldn’t work. And Davenport was wearing a loose T-shirt, and Cole had a feeling that it would be a shoot-out, not just a one-way bullet . . .

  Better to walk away. Now.

  —

  LUCAS WAS LOOKING at the John Deere vehicles on the machinery grounds and was again prodded by the feeling that he’d seen something and missed it. Greer had gone by on John Deere equipment, they’d seen John Deere equipment in the Purdys’ barn . . .

  As he watched, a soldier in fatigues stepped out from behind one of the machines and walked away. Lucas fixed on him. The way he was walking, that self-consciousness . . . The soldier glanced back at him, then kept moving, and Lucas knew.

  He put the radio to his face, squeezed the alarm button three times, and said, “This is Davenport. I’ve got Cole Purdy. I’m ninety-nine percent. He’s south of all that machinery stuff, the plows and stuff, at the back of the Varied Industries building, and he’s walking south. He’s dressed as a soldier in camo fatigues and an army hat. I’m a hundred yards behind him and we’re walking toward the barns, if we’ve got anybody down there.”

  Cole glanced back and saw Davenport on the radio and fixed on him, and then he knew, and he started running. If he could get down to the barns, he might get lost in the crowds and the pens . . .

  Lucas saw Cole break into a run, and he ran after him, shouting into the radio, “He’s running . . . He’s running . . . He’s going around— Ah shit, I don’t know what it is, it’s that big brown building with that dome thing, it’s down by that zip line, the west side of the barns . . .”

  —

  COLE PUSHED THE SPEED DIAL button on his phone, about the only luxury the phone had, and when Marlys came up, he shouted, “Davenport spotted me, I’m running, I’m running . . .”

  He dropped the phone in a cargo pocket, yanked the jacket open and pulled the pistol out of its holster and shoved it into his belt line, with his hand over it. Davenport had been calling somebody on a phone or radio . . . had to be ready.

  He glanced back as he was about to turn a corner behind the exhibition center, saw Davenport, still a hundred yards back, or more. Cole was naturally faster than Davenport, but he was wearing combat boots. He hadn’t thought about the possibility of having to run . . .

  He turned the corner and two cops were right there, running toward him, thirty feet away and closing fast. Neither had a gun in his hand and when they saw him they both reached for their holsters . . .

  Too late! Too late!

  Cole yanked the 9 out of his waistband and shot them both. Fearing that they were wearing bulletproof vests under their uniform shirts, he shot them in the legs, one-two, one after another, the second shot from no more than five feet, and they went down screaming and he jumped over the cop on the left and kept going . . .

  Heard a shot behind him, must’ve gone wild . . . and he had the crowd in front of him, if they kept shooting, they’d be shooting into a crowd . . .

  Ran as hard as he could. More cops ahead. He dodged into the horse barn, and ran . . .

  —

  LUCAS TURNED THE CORNER and saw the cops on the groun
d, a few shocked spectators standing, twisting, trying to see where the danger might be, a man picking up his young son and running away, running in the same direction that Cole had gone, another man, then two, with iPhones overhead, making movies . . . people screaming and running . . .

  Lucas dropped to his knees next to the wounded cops and shouted into the radio, “We got two men down, two men down behind the big brown building with the dome, by the barns. We need an ambulance here right now! Right now!”

  One of the cops said to him, “I think it busted my leg, but Danny’s bleeding bad, bad . . .”

  The other cop groaned, “Shot me in the balls, shot me in the balls . . .”

  He was holding his groin and Lucas dropped the radio and the .45 and pulled the cop’s hands away and said, “Let me look, let me look . . .”

  The cop hadn’t been shot in the balls, but on an inner thigh and was leaking blood ferociously. Lucas clapped his hand over the wound and with the other hand, picked up the radio and shouted, “We’ve got an artery here, we’ve got an artery, we need somebody here right now, goddamnit, get me some help . . .”

  To the cop, he said, “Your balls are fine.”

  A woman came out of the crowd and said, “I’m a nurse, let me look, let me see it . . .”

  Lucas pulled his hand off and the woman said, “Okay, we need lots of pressure, lots of pressure . . .”

  She jammed her hand against the wound and the cop screamed and said, “Don’t, don’t,” and the woman said, “Got to,” and the cop cried, “It hurts bad, it hurts bad . . .”

  No ambulance, no siren . . .

  Lucas was screaming into the radio, realized that somebody was talking, and another woman broke out of the crowd and dropped next to the other wounded cop and said, “Let me see, let me see . . .”

  Lucas: “You a nurse?”

  “Yes, physical therapist,” and to the cop, “Let me see where you’re bleeding.”

  Lucas stood up and saw an ambulance lurching toward them, moving too slowly, too tentatively, and he waved his arms, and then shouted to the crowd, “Everybody wave, everybody wave, get the ambulance over here . . .”

  People started waving and the ambulance veered toward them and Lucas said, “I gotta go, gotta go . . .”

  He picked up his .45 and shouted, “Did anyone see which way the soldier went?” and a bearded fat man in a Hawkeye shirt shouted back, “He went in the horse barn. The soldier guy went in the barn . . .”

  Lucas ran that way and said into the radio, “He’s in the horse barn. He went in the horse barn . . .”

  —

  LUCAS RAN INTO the entrance to the horse barn, saw people running away from the door, but a few standing, staring, and he shouted, “Which way did the soldier go? Which way . . . He’s not a soldier, he’s shot some cops . . .”

  One man tentatively pointed toward the far end of the barn and Lucas ran that way. He could hear people calling on the radio but had no time to listen.

  At the end of the barn he peered across a narrow street. An exit gate was down to his left, the entrance to another barn across the way. No sign of Purdy. He looked down to his left again, saw a guard at the gate peering at him. He ran that way, and the guard shouted, “I’m unarmed, I’m unarmed . . .”

  Lucas shouted back, “I’m a cop. Did you see a guy in fatigues?”

  “He went there,” the guard shouted. “Through there, into the swine barn.”

  Lucas ran that way, pressed the alert button on the radio, called, “This is Davenport. He’s in the swine barn. Get some people here, but be careful, he’ll kill you . . . he’s a good shot, he’ll kill you . . .”

  —

  COLE RAN INTO the south side of the swine barn, pulling off his fatigue jacket as he went. People were looking at him, but he didn’t care, it was the cops he was worried about, they’d be calling on their radios about a man in fatigues. He threw the jacket and his army hat into a pigpen and ran on, holding the gun next to his thigh.

  He looked back, saw nobody after him, stopped, caught his breath, walked out the exit and across a narrow street into the cow barn. As he did, he looked to his left and saw three cops running toward the scene of the shooting, running away from him.

  Had a chance, had a chance . . .

  Kept walking. Had to get out of the fatigue pants . . .

  He tucked the gun under one armpit and called Marlys. She came up and said, “I heard shots . . .”

  “That was me, I’m okay, I can’t come up there, you gotta pull the trigger. I got guys after me. I’m down in the cow barn . . .”

  As he said it he was coming up to the exit of the barn and a man in a civilian shirt and tan slacks came through the door, mouth open, breathing hard, checked around . . . gun held chin high, ready to fire. Cole was coming up to him and shot him in the chest and ran on when the man went down, out of the barn, slowed again, walking again now, not running, not catching the eye . . .

  —

  LUCAS WAS IN THE SWINE BARN when he heard the gunshot ahead, but muffled, not in the barn, maybe outside . . .

  He shouted into the radio, “Another shot, this is Davenport, got another shot outside the pig barn.”

  He ran toward the exit and saw people running out of the cow barn, where he’d been earlier that morning, and he shouted into the radio, “This is Davenport, he’s in the cow barn, cow barn . . .”

  He ran across the street into the cow barn, saw a crowd of people milling around the opposite exit, ran that way, and when people saw him coming, they began to run away: his gun, but he couldn’t help that, and as he came up he shouted, “Where did he go? Where did the soldier go?”

  Several people pointed and then Lucas saw two men hunched over a figure on the ground with a gun beside him, and he saw that man was shot and he shouted into the radio, “Got another man down in the cow barn, in the cow barn, need an ambulance . . .”

  Lucas ran out of the barn and shouted, “Where did the soldier go?” and a man behind him shouted, “Hey, cop! Cop!”

  Lucas turned and the man yelled, “He took off his camo shirt and hat. He’s wearing a white T-shirt now.”

  Lucas shouted, “Where did he go?”

  The man pointed to his right and Lucas ran that way. And saw, a hundred yards away, a tall, thin man walking fast, white T-shirt and camo pants and yellow desert combat boots, and ran after him, trying to keep only Purdy’s head in sight while he hid himself in the twisting running crowds of people at the barns . . .

  Into the radio he said, “Davenport—got a cop shot bad in the cow barn, gotta get an ambulance, Purdy is walking east toward the art show place, he’s wearing a white T-shirt and fatigue pants, need more guys going that way, he might be heading for the campgrounds, need guys with guns at campground gates.”

  Lucas was closing in on Cole, but the crowd was thinning out and he wouldn’t stay hidden much longer.

  —

  COLE WAS RUNNING for the campground gates. Once there, in the welter of campers and RVs and trucks and cars and tents, he could hide and even hijack a truck out of the place, but first he had to get through the gate before the cops figured out where he was. He glanced back and saw a man in a straw cowboy hat looking at him, pacing him, but fifty yards back, talking into a cell phone, and he realized he’d seen the man near the barn and that the man was following him, probably talking to 911.

  Had to run. Not far now.

  He began walking faster, looked back again . . .

  Saw Davenport, coming fast, still sixty or seventy yards back.

  Now he did have to run. He broke into a sprint, running right at the gate, and saw a big man in a dark uniform come through the gate with a gun. The man pointed the gun at him and fired, and missed, and Cole fired a shot at him and the man jumped back, behind a phone pole, and Cole realized he wouldn’t be able to force his way
out and he turned left and ran across the horseshoe courts along a fence line toward the next gate.

  Saw a man in a John Deere Gator pull around the corner of a building, look right at him, jump out of the Gator, pull a gun. Too far away to take down yet, Cole thought. He swerved . . . and was hit in the hip by a gunshot from behind.

  Going down.

  Got back up, dragging his leg, into the shelter of some kind of museum. The leg was bleeding bad, the pain was crawling all the way up to his shoulder . . .

  Looked back and saw the guard in the dark uniform and Davenport coming, realized he had to move . . . or give up.

  He moved, one last spurt: if he could get past the guy with the Gator and get through the gate behind him, still had a chance. He brought the gun up and fired three wild shots at Davenport and the guard, who went down to the turf, not hit, but getting ready to open up on him . . .

  If the guy with the Gator was still there, and he could get to him, he could ride the Gator out . . .

  He dodged around the corner of the building, away from Davenport and the guard, before they could fire at him . . .

  And the guy from the Gator was right there, ten feet away. A half dozen 9mm bullets crashed through Cole’s chest, and the world went away, dissolving in a bruised purple light, and then nothing at all . . .

  —

  GREER WAS STANDING OVER Cole Purdy’s body when Lucas and the guard got to them and Greer was looking shaky and Lucas looked down at Purdy, who was lying on his back, gray eyes open to the hot sun, but already gone dull and blank. Blood spotted the front of his T-shirt, which was pulled tight over his chest: Greer had shot him six times, all the shots in the space of two hands, including two through Purdy’s heart.

  Lucas clapped him on the back and asked, “You okay?”

  Greer said, “I think so,” but then dropped his gun, muzzle-down, into the dirt, and almost fell when he reached down to pick it up. Lucas picked it up for him, pulled the magazine and ejected a round from the chamber, handed the mag and the cartridge to Greer, and said, “Put these in your pocket,” and then passed him the empty gun.