Hidden Prey ld-15

by John Sandford

  "What about a hammer?"

  "Got one in the car."

  "So let's go."

  "What's happening?" Nadya asked, as they pulled away from the curb. Her face was pink, her eyes bright.

  "Gonna sneak up on this guy's apartment and knock the door down. Grab him before he can run," Lucas said. And that, Lucas thought, should have been clear enough to any real cop.

  Like student villages everywhere, Dinkytown was a collection of old retail buildings that housed overpriced student supplies and clothing, and even older residences that had been converted to overpriced apartments that were given as little maintenance as was legally possible.

  Larry, the fence, lived in a crappy green shingle-sided two-story house with a sagging front porch and four rusting mailboxes nailed to the outside wall next to the door. Marcy's sources had said that there were four apartments inside, two up and two down, and that Larry rented both the upstairs apartments. There was a connecting door between the two of them with deadbolts on both sides, and the informants said Larry hoped to use one or the other as an escape route if the cops came.

  They parked down the block, sideways out of sight from the apartment. Another intelligence cop wandered down the block toward them and said, "He's still inside. His girlfriend's in there with him."

  "We understand he's got those fire rope things, tied to radiators, ready to go. When we kick the door, he runs into the other apartment, locks the connecting door, goes out the window," Marcy said.

  "But we've got the squads," Lucas said.

  "With the best on-duty runners." Sherrill reached under her coat, pulled out a Glock, checked it, reholstered it, and said, "If everybody's ready…" She lifted a radio to her face, got the squads, and said, "Go."

  They went down the street in a rush, Nadya trailing. They were exposed to view from an upstairs window for five seconds, and then they were on the porch, still moving quietly, careful not to bang open the outer door. A student with a backpack stood on the sidewalk across the street, gaping at them.

  One of the intelligence cops, wearing soft Nike running shoes, led the way up the interior stairs, gun drawn, the hammer man right behind him; the stairway smelled of old flaking wallpaper and detergent and onions and maybe the early twentieth century. Marcy followed behind the hammer, then the third intelligence guy. The rest of them came up behind, as quietly as they could. Lucas had just crossed the top stair when the hammer man hit the door lock, and with a rush, the first few were inside and one of the cops was yelling, "Wait wait wait wait," and there was another bang as a second door went down, and a woman began screaming, "Run, Larry, run." She didn't sound frightened; she sounded excited, like a bettor at a racetrack.

  Then Lucas was inside and heard a male voice saying, "Take it easy, I'm not running, take it easy, man, okay, okay…"

  Lucas followed the sound of the voices through a bedroom, where a cop was looking up at a tall, skinny, black-haired young woman standing on a bed, wearing only semitransparent underpants. She had small cupcake breasts with brown nipples, a tattoo of a dragon around her navel, and was pierced in several places by bits and pieces of metal; she was bouncing on the bed, excited, laughing, clapping her hands.

  The voices were in the next room, and when Lucas went through, he found two of the intelligence cops leaning over a blond man in white Jockey shorts who lay on the floor, his hands bent behind him. One of the cops was putting on handcuffs. "Not too tight, for Christ's sakes, I play the piano," the guy said.

  "Gonna be the skin flute from now on," the cop said.

  "Look at this place," Marcy said, coming in behind Lucas. "We hit the fuckin' mother lode."

  Dozens of laptop computers, piles of high-end audio equipment, perhaps fifty televisions, and what appeared to be hundreds of PDAs were lined up on raw pine-board shelves along the walls.

  The intelligence cops lifted Larry to his feet and they all backed into the first room, where the woman was still standing on the bed. "Get down from there," Marcy said.

  "You gay?" the woman asked.

  "Get off the fuckin' bed," Marcy said.

  "You're getting a pretty good look," the woman said. She stuck her tongue out at Marcy, then said, "Watch this." She licked her two index fingers and then twirled them over her nipples which perked right up. "Pretty good, huh?"

  "You want me to get her off?" asked the intelligence cop who'd kept her on the bed. He looked like he'd enjoy it.

  "Yeah, do that," the woman said to the cop. "I need somebody to get me off."

  Lucas said, "Just hose her down with Mace, put the cuffs on, and throw her into the fuckin' car."

  "Hey, wait a minute," the woman said, offended. "I'm coming down." To Lucas: "Jesus Christ, I was just kidding." She hopped off the bed, picked up a shirt, and pulled it over her head. As they brought Larry out of the back room, she stepped close to him and kissed him and said, "See you around in a couple years, I guess."

  "Ah, fuck you," Larry said, but he laughed.

  Nadya, who'd followed well behind the entry, peered first at Larry, then at the young woman, and said, "This was very interesting." To the woman, who was buttoning her shirt, "Why do you poke so many holes in yourself?"

  " 'Cause it feels so creamy," the woman said.

  Larry and the woman, both of whom were allowed to put on jeans and boots, as soon as the cops figured they were under control, were hustled down the stairs to the squads. Lucas, Marcy and Nadya sorted through the piles of computers and came up with four Sony Vaios. Lucas lined them up on the kitchen counter and plugged them in, then brought them up, one after the other. All four were loaded with Microsoft Word; the third one showed a Cyrillic character set.

  "Excellent," Nadya said. "I will translate."

  Lucas shook his head, shut down the machine. "We've got our own translators," he said, grinning at her. "They'll save you the trouble."

  "You see," she said, seriously, "you do not trust me."

  Lucas called Andy Harmon, who said he was in Duluth, and who was intrigued by the computer. "Barney's gonna be happy with this. Good job, Davenport. Where are you going to take it?"

  "The Minneapolis cops have it right now. We'll put it on the search warrant return, and then you guys can pick it up."

  "How soon?"

  "Hour?"

  "Excellent."

  Marcy took the computer, left another of the intelligence cops in charge of the scene, and then, back in her car, led them a mile or so to a coffee bar where they got coffee and scones.

  "Tell me everything," she said. "I read the story in the Pioneer Press, said you were up to your ass in spies…"

  They talked for half an hour, about spies and Marcy's love life, catching up on old times. Then Marcy got a phone call, listened for a minute, and said, "I'm on the way. Fifteen minutes."

  To Lucas: "Gotta go. That was the feds. They want the computer."

  On the street, Lucas said, "Stay in touch," and Marcy stood on her tiptoes and pecked him on the lips.

  Back in the car, Nadya asked, "How long-is it permitted to ask?-since you were romantic together?"

  Lucas cut his eyes at her, then smiled and said, "Pretty obvious, huh? It's been a while. Three years, four years. Only lasted a month or so."

  "Your wife knows about this?"

  "Yes. She wasn't my wife at the time. Weather and I had been seeing each other, then we had a big problem and stopped seeing each other-actually, she stopped seeing me-and then there was the little episode with Marcy… and then Weather came around again."

  "You're a very busy man," Nadya said.

  "Didn't seem busy," Lucas said. "I like women, and I was lonely without one around. Now I'm married, and I have kids, and I'm happy."

  "Good," she said. "I'm happy that it works. My life…"

  She looked out the window and Lucas did a U-turn in traffic, hoping that the screeching turn would distract her, that Nadya wouldn't start some goofy rambling about her problems; listening sympathetically to one wo
man's problems was enough.

  Weather and Nadya got along famously. Weather was wide-eyed at the idea of a spy in the house, although Nadya said she was not a spy but a policewoman; and Nadya seemed genuinely interested in Weather's reconstructive surgery work. Weather had dozens of photographs and computer graphics of a young girl born with a deformed head, for whom Weather was planning to construct a new eye socket.

  Then Sam was brought out and fed and changed, and the two women ganged up on Lucas when Weather accused him of not doing his share of the diaper changing, and Lucas excused himself, got a beer, and parked in front of the TV to sulk. A little later, the women brought Sam in, in his walker, and let Lucas watch him as he rolled around the room pulling at upholstery and trying to eat magazines.

  At dinner, the discussion focused on the upper limit of a woman's ability to have babies, and the technicalities of the problem. Weather mentioned that aging men were also to blame for prenatal problems-it wasn't just older women-and again, he felt that he was being ganged up on. When the conversation drifted from obstetrics to gynecology, and stories of postmenopausal women and their hot flashes, Lucas again moved into the TV room.

  He'd returned to the kitchen for another beer, when Ellen Jansen, their housekeeper, returned; she'd been out having dinner with a new beau, and Weather asked, "Well, did he kiss you good night?"

  "Jesus Christ," Lucas said. "I'm going for a walk."

  At seven, Weather and Nadya left for the Megamall, and didn't make it back until ten. Nadya looked at Lucas and said, "Hooters," and laughed.

  At bedtime, Weather took Nadya to the guest room and showed her how to plug her laptop into the phone jack and then came back downstairs and asked, "I'm sorry; have I been neglecting you?"

  "You guys…" But he was mildly amused. They went around and checked doors and turned off the lights, made sure Sam was okay, both kissed him and headed down the hall to their bedroom; and then Nadya called, across the house, "Lucas, are you there?"

  "Yeah…"

  He walked back toward the guest room, Weather a step behind. Nadya came around a corner, still dressed. She held a finger up, and said, "I must tell you, I have not been completely truthful."

  "What?" Lucas looked at Weather, who shook her head.

  "Truthful. I have not been completely."

  "What, uh…" Weather stepped up to Lucas and put her hand on his biceps.

  "I have a shadow; this I knew."

  Lucas shrugged: "So did everybody else."

  "This shadow, I do not know him. He was assigned by the embassy, and he was investigating beside us. This morning, I told you, a man telephoned the embassy and asked to speak to a man in intelligence. I didn't tell you that he mentioned some… items… that told us he was genuine. He spoke in Russian. He arranged to meet the shadow this evening at the Greyhouse Bus Museum in the town of Hibbing. You know this museum?"

  "Never heard of it, but it's probably the Greyhound Bus Museum. So what happened?"

  "The shadow is missing. His cell phone rings, he doesn't answer. He always answers. There is a strict rule that he call back every half hour with information about destination and names and he had one of these, eh, photographic telephones, but his telephone now rings without answer and he took no photographs…"

  "When was the last time they heard from him?" Weather asked. "The last moment?"

  "Tonight, as he arrived at the bus museum. Since then, nothing."

  "Let me make a call," Lucas said.

  She was anxious, twisting her hands. "Could you hurry? People are very worried. This shadow has a daughter, but his wife died three years ago, and everybody is worried for this man and especially the daughter."

  Chapter 13

  Jan Walther had honey-colored hair with a few streaks of gray, a round, pink-cheeked face, and worried green eyes. She worried about everybody and everything. She worried that her son, Carl, might be gay, or into drugs. She worried that her mother would have to go to a nursing home, and about where the money would come from. And she worried most of all that she wouldn't make the weekly nut at Mesaba Frame and Artist's Supply, her store in downtown Hibbing.

  The one thing she hadn't worried about much was her sex life, for, though the men came around at regular intervals-some nice, respectable guys, too-she'd firmly pushed them away and focused on the business. If a thousand dollars didn't come through the door each week, she'd be out of it.

  Now the whole sex thing was coming up again. A guy who owned a steel-fabricating business, a three-year widower with a couple of kids, had come in to get a watercolor framed-a whitetail deer standing in a forest glade, its front feet in a leaf-dappled pool. He'd chatted awhile when he came back to pick it up, and then he'd stopped a couple of times, passing by, he said, just to see how things were.

  She'd known him most of her life-he was three grades ahead of her in school-so they were comfortable. He hadn't asked her out yet, but he was edging up to it, and she liked him. She even liked his kids, and she wouldn't mind, after this long hiatus, getting laid again.

  Which brought her back to worrying about Carl. Bill, she thought, wouldn't be too happy about a gay stepchild, if that was the situation. On the other hand, she had no reason to think Carl was gay. Maybe he was just a little slow with girls. From what she read in the papers and saw on TV, half the girls Carl's age were already sexually active, and Carl had never been on a date. He was certainly good-looking enough to attract girls, but he had that tall, willowy, clear-complected look that she'd associated with homosexuality-TV homosexuality, anyway. And something sexual was going on with him; she'd been bleaching the semen stains out of his shorts since he was twelve.

  She was in that questioning mood when she saw the cut on his arm. She'd come home late-she kept the place open late two nights a week, trying to make that thousand-dollar nut-and she'd heard him in the shower. A strange time to take a shower, she thought; had he been up to something?

  She unpacked a sack of groceries, then heard the pipes bang as the shower was turned off. She headed into the back hall a minute later, just as Carl came out of the bathroom in Jockey shorts, carrying his clothes. He jumped when he saw her, and shied away, and that's when she saw the cut.

  "Carl," she began, then frowned. "What's that on your arm?"

  "Where?"

  "There on your arm. What happened?"

  "Oh…" He hid it, slid sideways into his bedroom. "We didn't want to worry you. I was helping Grandpa wash some storm windows, and one was cracked, and it broke on me and I cut myself. It's all right now."

  "Let me see…"

  "Mom, jeez…" But he turned his arm.

  The cut was clean, but the stitch holes were still evident. "Oh, God, Carl…" He didn't tell his mother about a cut like this? It made her feel like a failure.

  "Mom, this is what we thought would happen," Carl said. "That you'd worry. But don't worry: it's all taken care of. It's almost healed."

  "You should have told me." A little angry with him.

  "You'd just worry more. You already worry too much."

  She knew she did. She sighed, and changed directions. "Are you taking somebody to the homecoming dance?" And if so, would your date be female?

  "I don't know," he said. He edged deeper into the doorway, trying to escape into his room. "I don't know who to ask."

  "You've got ask somebody sooner or later. You've got to bite the bullet. Don't worry, girls are never insulted by being asked. You're so good-looking, that won't be a problem anyway, believe me. You're the age where you should start."

  "Well, I thought about asking Jeanne McGovern," Carl said. "She talks to me in choir quite a bit, and her brother said nobody's ever going to ask her out because she's too smart."

  Jan tapped her son on the bare chest: "That's exactly the kind of girl, uh, woman, person, you know, you should ask. Smart women are a hell of a lot more entertaining than the stupid ones."

  "I'm thinking about it," Carl said. "But I've been helping Grandpa out a lo
t…"

  "You're over there all the time. What's going on?"

  "I don't know. We just like to talk, and Grandma's so messed up, that I feel like I oughta help Grandpa out."

  "You're a good boy, Carl," Jan said. "I just want you to be happy. Do ask this Jeanne girl, okay?"

  "Okay, Mom."

  He eased the door shut and left her standing in the hall. After a moment, she turned away, worried that something about him was being left undone; but also relieved. He wasn't gay. Probably. She'd have to check out the McGovern girl.

  Carl got on the walkie-talkie. He'd worked out a routine with Grandpa, both of them a little excited about the small black radios: this was like the Resistance in World War II, calling from the Underground. He beeped him, beeped him again, listened.

  Grandpa picked up-"Yes"-and Carl said, "Mom came home before I got out. Call and ask if I can come over. Tell her the car's got a flat."

  "Yes." Click.

  The phone rang a minute later, once, twice, and then stopped. A minute after that, his mother knocked on his door. "That was Grandpa. It's late, but he says the car's got a flat and he wants to go out early tomorrow…"

  "I can get it," Carl said. He'd already put on the camouflage shirt. He opened the door. "I left a book over there, too, I can get that."

  "Jeanne McGovern," Jan said.

  "Mom…" But he smiled at her.

  He thought about Jeanne McGovern on the way to Grandpa's. McGovern wasn't great-looking, but she had all the necessary equipment, and Carl was attracted to the freckles scattered across her face; the freckles made her seem approachable, somehow. He thought of himself playing football, basketball, baseball, hockey, all the things he didn't play, with McGovern looking on, watching him score-would a smart girl be impressed? Did a smart girl give blow jobs?

  He was still working on the question when he pulled through the alley to Grandpa's, and parked. They wouldn't be taking the Chevy.

  Grandpa was wearing a dark turtleneck shirt and jeans, which looked strange on him: the turtleneck over Grandpa's withered neck, the jeans flapping around his elderly ass and matchstick legs.