Silken Prey

by John Sandford

  Dannon will kill Carver tonight at the hotel and bury him in the perfect graveyard. Best wishes, Taryn.

  Lucas said, “What?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Lucas sat for a minute looking at the message, didn’t understand how it could possibly be right, then called the BCA duty officer on his own phone and asked him to do a look-up on the number: he came back a minute later and said, “Billed to Taryn Grant.”

  Lucas said, “Sonofabitch,” to nobody. He couldn’t think what he had to lose, so he redialed the number, and was instantly switched to an answering service, which meant that the phone had been turned off. He said, “Davenport . . . you sent me a message. Call me back.”

  He waited four or five minutes, then his phone burped: Del.

  “Grant and Dannon and the campaign manager just came out of the house, and it looks like they’re putting a caravan together,” Del said. “I guess they’re headed downtown. I’ve been monitoring Channel Three, and they are leaning pretty hard on her winning. They haven’t called it yet, but they will before midnight.”

  “Last time I saw, it was pretty close,” Lucas said.

  “Yeah, but the suburbs are in, and the Iron Range isn’t—she’ll be two-to-one, up there.”

  “Okay. Listen—are you sure Dannon is with the convoy?”

  “Pretty sure. I saw him getting in the truck, he’s driving. That Green chick is in the second truck, and there are a couple more . . .”

  “Okay. I’m gonna want you to buzz Grant’s truck once it gets on I-94. I need to confirm that Dannon’s in the truck. When you’re sure, get your ass down here as fast as you can.”

  “I can do that.”

  Lucas rang off, waited for another call from Grant. Nobody called, until Del came back again and said, “I ran their convoy. Dannon’s driving.”

  “Get down here. I’m outside the Radisson parking garage. Drop your car, and hook up with me.”

  • • •

  DEL ARRIVED TWENTY MINUTES later, walking up the street in a gray hoodie, hands in the front pocket, looking a little like a monk. Lucas popped the lock on the passenger side, and Del climbed inside. “You sounded stressed,” he said.

  Lucas called up the message from Grant and passed the phone over to him. Del read it and said, “This don’t compute.”

  “I had Dave look up the number. It’s hers.”

  “Did you . . .”

  “I called her back,” Lucas said. “She’d turned off the phone.”

  “This is messed up. This isn’t right,” Del said. “I mean, even if it’s true . . . she wouldn’t send this message.”

  “That’s what I can’t figure out,” Lucas said.

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “Get past the first flush of the party . . . have Sarah and Jane keep an eye on Dannon and Carver . . . and maybe when things have settled down a little, I’ll go in and get Taryn alone and brace her.”

  “You’ve been friendly with Green. Is there any possibility . . . ?”

  Lucas groaned: “I should have thought of that. Maybe they’re all using phones paid for by Grant.”

  “But why did she sign it ‘Taryn’ instead of leaving it alone?”

  “Dunno.” Lucas took his cell back and messaged Green: “Did you send me a note about C&D a few minutes ago?”

  Del said, “She’s driving, it might take a while for her to get back.”

  “She’s a woman, it won’t take—” Lucas’s phone chirped, and he looked at the message screen. It said, “No,” and the incoming phone number was wrong.

  He texted back, “Are all your phones billed to Grant?”

  Another ten seconds. “No.”

  “Any new info on C&D?”

  “No.”

  Del said, “Something’s happening, and we don’t know what it is.”

  They thought about it, and then Del said, “You gotta make a call, here. Do we take it in and show it to Carver?”

  “There’s no way he’d believe it: he’d figure we’re trying to ramp up the pressure,” Lucas said. “It’d completely blow the fact that we’re watching them full-time.”

  “But if he gets killed . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not worried about him, man, I’m worried about you,” Del said. “If it got out that you got this message, and then didn’t do anything about it . . .”

  Lucas thought about that, then got on the radio to Bradley and Stack. He had to wait until the women got out of sight, where they could use their handsets. When they were both up, he said, “We’ve got a problem, and I can’t really explain it. But: we need to be all over Carver and Dannon. I need to come and talk with Taryn as soon as possible.”

  Bradley said, “Wait, wait . . . you won’t be able to talk to her for a while. Channel Three and Eleven called it for her. It’s a mob scene in here. . . . She’ll be up on the stage, making a speech . . .”

  Lucas could hear a wall of noise in the background, and he said, “Okay. Call me as soon as she gets offstage. But you and Jane must keep track of Dannon and Carver.”

  “That’s almost impossible, Lucas,” Stack said. “We can keep track of them, kinda, but they keep going backstage with these politicians, these out-of-bounds areas, and then they’ll pop out somewhere else. If we stay right on them, they’ll spot us for sure.”

  “Do what you can. Call me when Taryn gets offstage. The minute she gets off.”

  The party rocked on.

  Lucas rang off and Del said, “Maybe you ought to have them identify themselves, and tell Carver and Dannon that they’re bodyguards and they aren’t going away.”

  “Then we’re right back to where we started,” Lucas said. “With nothing—and with them knowing that we’re on them like a cheap suit. If we go to them directly, we’ll lose it all.”

  “Is that better or worse than somebody getting killed?”

  Lucas had to think about that, and finally said, “I want them.”

  They sat in the street for an hour, talking to Stack and Bradley, and were finally told that the noise and tumult were beginning to wind down. Most of the good food and booze was gone, and the less needy of the party faithful were beginning to leak out the doors, Bradley said. Taryn was thanking some fourth-level party worker and his big-hair wife, a guy who’d raised a quarter million or something.

  • • •

  DANNON WAVED CARVER into the back where the food service people were working, where the hotel functionaries were counting bottles and security guards were taking breaks, got him back to a side room with the soft-drink and candy machines and said, “She can’t get you all of it, not right now. She can get you a good part of it, if you’ll take gold.”

  Carver was truculent: “What’s a good part of it?”

  “Quarter million, give or take, in cash,” Dannon said. “She’s not sure of the exact amount, but it started at a half million that she stacked up over the last six years, for the campaign. As it turned out, she only needed about half the cash. The good thing is, it’s all cold, in case we had to make some payoffs. Then there are two hundred gold Eagles, no serial numbers or anything else. Right now gold is selling for seventeen hundred an ounce, which is another three hundred and forty grand. That’s close to six hundred thousand that we can get our hands on tonight. The diamonds . . . She won’t give up the diamonds. They’ve all got sentimental value for her. She says that as soon as we get clear of the campaign, she’ll put another four hundred thousand on you, in Panama. You might have to make some arrangements—”

  “Like what kind of arrangements?” Carver asked, but he’d brightened considerably.

  “You might have to get a piece of land down there with your own money. Like, pay a hundred grand for a piece of oceanfront, or whatever, under a different name. She pays you half a million for it. That keeps things straight with the tax people. It’ll all be handled through front companies.”

  “Well, shit, we can do that,” Carver said.

  “Sur
e. It’s not rocket science,” Dannon said.

  “When do I get it?” Carver asked.

  “When do you want it?”

  “Tonight, if we can do it,” Carver said. “I can be on a six o’clock plane for New York.”

  “There are going to be people around the house, people coming back with Taryn,” Dannon said. “I’ve got the numbers for the safe. We could do it right now—take your truck, you can drop it at Hertz on your way out of town. We were going to turn it back in tomorrow anyway.”

  “Good. Good. Can we go now?”

  “Let me talk to Schiffer.”

  • • •

  LUCAS AND DEL were still sitting in the street. Everything was running behind schedule; Taryn had been expected to speak at 11:30, but that got pushed to 11:45. She was supposed to talk for ten or fifteen minutes, but the thank-yous went on and on. Finally, at 12:30, Stack called Lucas and said, “It’s winding down. She won’t be here long after she finishes speaking.”

  “When was the last time you saw Carver and Dannon?”

  “They’ve been going in and out of the back,” Bradley said. “But Dannon’s here right now, he’s talking to Schiffer.”

  “Carver’s right at the edge of the stage,” Stack said. “He’s talking to some guy in a suit. . . . Wait, he’s going into the back again.”

  “I’m coming in,” Lucas said.

  Lucas took the stairs to the ballroom where the party was; people were going out through multiple folding doors, most of them with yellow credential tags around their necks that said, “Taryn VIP”—party invitees. There were guards at the door doing perfunctory credential checks, but there were more people leaving than arriving. A TV guy carrying a light stand hustled by, and a guard put a finger out to Lucas, a gesture asking for a credential, and Lucas showed him his BCA identification. The guard’s eyebrows went up and he waved Lucas through.

  Inside, a few hundred balloons, red, white, and blue, were scattered around the floor and floating around the ceiling, and a drunk young man was popping them with what looked like an Italian switchblade while his friends laughed at him. The carpet smelled like spilled champagne.

  Taryn seemed to be getting ready to leave the stage, waving fairly randomly at the crowd, laughing; strobes popped in her face and her teeth flashed in the brilliant white pops.

  Four sixty-inch TV screens were sitting on high stands at the edges of the ballroom, and Lucas paused to check the numbers: Taryn was up more than sixty thousand votes and the Iron Range was still coming in large; there were a few Republican counties yet to report out west, but they’d make little difference. It wasn’t a huge victory, but a clear one: Smalls was toast.

  • • •

  CARVER AND DANNON took the back stairs to the parking ramp. Carver said, “Man, I wasn’t sure she’d go for it. You gotta get in on this, dude. She’s not gonna fuck you forever, and money is definitely better than pussy.”

  “Shut up,” Dannon said.

  “True love, huh?” Carver said, and he laughed.

  Dannon was checking the garage. An older couple was getting into a Prius a hundred feet away, and a Chevy Tahoe was rolling toward the exit. He could see a man standing in the elevator lobby, apparently waiting to go up. They got to Carver’s truck and Carver went to the driver’s side, got inside, and Dannon took the pistol from his waistband and held it in his right hand, waited as Carver unlocked his door.

  When the locks clicked, he opened the door with his left hand and then climbed inside, keeping his right hand out of sight. Carver looked at the dash as he started the car, and Dannon pulled the door shut with his left hand, and Carver shifted into reverse to back out, looked over his left shoulder, checking for traffic . . .

  Dannon brought the .22 up and shot him in the temple. Carver’s head bounced off the side window and Dannon shot him again, the .22 shots deafening inside the truck, but hardly audible outside. Carver slumped, his face not even looking surprised. Dannon pushed the gear shift back into Park, took a plastic bag out of his jacket pocket and pulled it over Carver’s head, and cinched it around his neck. If Carver weren’t quite dead, the plastic bag would do the job; and it would keep blood out of the car, though there shouldn’t be too much in the way of blood, with the small-caliber bullets going straight into the brain.

  That done—it took fifteen seconds—he got out, climbed in the backseat, and pulled Carver into the back, and tried to wedge him down onto the floor. Carver was too big for that, so he got out again, moved the passenger seat fully forward, and pushed Carver’s head and chest down on that side, folding his legs onto the other side.

  The back windows were darkened, but Dannon walked around to the back of the truck, took out one of the blankets they kept there, for when passengers wanted to sleep on trips, and spread it over Carver’s body.

  He closed the door and walked back to the driver’s side, looking in the side windows as he went: Carver was invisible.

  Two minutes after the shooting, he backed the truck out of the parking slot and started toward the exit. He was forty-five minutes from the perfect graveyard.

  • • •

  LUCAS WORKED HIS WAY to the front of the ballroom. Taryn was still talking to people on the stage, but Schiffer had a hand on her back and was moving her toward the stairs. Lucas moved close, where Schiffer could see him, and fixed his eyes on her face and sent her a telepathic message to look at him, and, as usually happened, a few seconds later she glanced his way, recognized him, and frowned. He jabbed a finger at Taryn, and then did it again.

  She turned away, but he knew she’d seen him, and as they got closer to the edge of the stage, she said something sharp in Taryn’s ear, and Taryn frowned and looked down and saw Lucas, turned and said something to Schiffer that he couldn’t hear.

  Lucas kept working toward the end of the stage where a crowd was waiting to talk to and touch Taryn as she came off. She moved slowly down the stairs, then through the crowd, shaking hands and patting shoulders. Lucas kept moving to stay directly in front of her, and eventually she got to him and she said, to the side of his face, so only he could hear, “Now you’re in real trouble, governor or no governor.”

  “Why did you send me that message about Dannon and Carver?” Lucas asked.

  She pulled her head back and said, “What?”

  She didn’t send it, Lucas thought. It was right there on her face.

  “Do you have your cell phone? You sent me an urgent message from your phone.”

  She said, “What? Why would I . . .” She turned to look behind her and called, “Marjorie . . . Marjorie.”

  One of her campaign people, a short woman in a blue dress, shouldered her way through the crowd; she was carrying a clipboard, a huge tote bag, and two purses.

  Taryn said to her, “Give me my purse.”

  The woman handed the purse over. Someone in the crowd tugged on Lucas’s jacket, and he half turned and saw Bradley there. She put a hand to her ear, miming a handset, and mouthed, “Right now.” Bradley eased back into the crowd and Taryn was saying, “Where’s my phone? Marjorie, where’s my phone?”

  “I . . . I . . . I don’t know.” Marjorie looked frantic. “I never saw a phone.”

  “It was in there,” Taryn said. “I put it there.”

  “You did not send me a text message?” Lucas asked her, virtually speaking into her ear. They looked like they were dancing.

  She said, “No, no . . .”

  Lucas backed away, and Taryn looked after him, puzzled, then dug through her purse again, while talking to Marjorie, and Schiffer began to urge her through the crowd. Lucas got to the edge of the ballroom and stepped behind one of the TV-set stands, put the handset to his face and said, “This is Lucas: What’s up?”

  Shrake came back instantly: “Carver’s truck is moving, it’s leaving downtown. Jenkins and I are on it, but we’re gonna need help.”

  Jenkins said, “I was parked in the bottom of the garage, near the exit. I don’t think it�
�s Carver in the truck: I think it’s Dannon.”

  “Where’s Carver?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Del came up: “Dannon’s truck is still in the garage. Maybe they switched vehicles.”

  “Okay,” Lucas said. “Jane, Sarah, have you seen Carver?”

  Stack came back. “I haven’t, not since before you came up. He went in the back . . .”

  Bradley said, “I saw Dannon maybe ten minutes ago, going into the back.”

  Lucas said, “Okay, you guys take off, help Shrake and Jenkins. Chase them down. Lights and sirens until you get close, then hang back and follow, okay?”

  “Gotcha,” Stack said.

  Lucas asked, “Del, you’re pretty sure Dannon’s truck is still in the garage?”

  “Yeah,” Del said.

  “Okay. Work your way up the parking ramp, see if you can spot him or Carver or the truck. I’m going into the back, see if I can chase them down.”

  “What’s going on?” Del asked.

  “I don’t know—but Shrake, Jenkins, don’t lose that car. Don’t let it get too far ahead of you, either. I want you to be able to see it, if it stops.”

  “That’s a risk,” Shrake said. “He could spot us.”

  “I trust your professionalism that that won’t happen,” Lucas said.

  “Thanks a lot,” Jenkins said. “Shrake, I’m right behind you. Take a right.”

  “Taking a right,” Shrake said.

  “We need to get those goddamn women up here,” Jenkins said.

  “We’re coming, we’re coming,” Bradley said.

  • • •

  LUCAS BADGED HIS WAY into the back. Taryn and her closest campaign people, including Green, were going through in a cluster, heading for a back elevator that would take them to the parking ramp. Taryn never looked back but Green did; she nodded and went on. Lucas hurriedly checked the back area—no Carver—and then took the stairs down to the parking ramp.

  He arrived just as the elevator did. Green took the lead, and they walked over to the truck that Dannon had been driving, and Green took the wheel. Schiffer got in the passenger side and Taryn in the back, and the rest of the crew broke for different vehicles, and Lucas, still not seeing Carver, ran toward the truck carrying Green.