John Sandford - Sudden prey

Jeez: this was almost too good, Anna thought.

As Creek tracked him, the Bee was back with her nagging voice: ''Do you want an on-camera statement?''

And Anna thought, Who's running this thing? But she had to smile at the other woman's effective management: ''Yeah, but we'd better hurry,'' Anna said. ''The cops'll be coming.''

Anna said into the mike, ''Jason, get on the Bee, she'll make a statement.'' She pushed the mike up, raised her voice, shouted, ''Rat, where are you?''

The man with the pig turned toward her. ''I'm the Rat,'' he said. His teeth were bared, his face spotted with what looked like mud but could be pig shit.

''We're gonna need you over here: we need a comment,'' Anna said.

''No problem,'' he said. He handed the struggling pig to awoman. ''What exactly do you want?'' The Rat had a deep, smooth voice, a singer's baritone, and showed square white teeth and a California surfer-boy cleft chin beneath the black mask.

''Just tell us why you did it,'' Anna said, nodding at Jason's camera.

He leaned forward and stage-whispered, ''For the publicity.''

Anna grinned back and said, ''Tell that to the camera.''

Jason yelled, ''Hey, Rat: You wanna do this, or what?'' As the Rat and the Bee talked to Jason's camera, Anna pulled the mike down in front of her face and said, ''Creek, let's talk to the kid. Let me in there first.''

Creek hung back a couple of steps so the camera wouldn't be right in the kid's face. Anna squatted next to him and patted him on the shoulder. ''Are you okay?''

The kid looked up, dazed, a pale teenage child with brown eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses. ''What?''

''Are you okay?'' Anna asked again.

''They're gonna fire me,'' he said. He looked back at the building. ''I was supposed to watch them. They were my responsibility, the animals. I was supposed to keep everybody out, but they came in so fast…''

''How'd you get the bloody nose?'' Anna asked.

''I tried to hold the door, but they kicked through. Then about four of them held me and I couldn't get to the phone, and they tipped everything over in the lab, all the animal cages, everything.'' He touched his face. ''I think the door hit me…''

''Look, there's gonna be two sides to this,'' Anna said. She looked back at

Creek, and said, ''Creek.''

Creek stepped away, spotted a mouse looking at him from the top of the loading dock and closed in on it. Behind him, the Bee and the Rat were still talking to

Jason's camera; thepig was still struggling with the woman who'd taken it, but the squealing had stopped, and the scene was almost quiet.

Anna turned back to the kid and continued, ''The animal rights guys will be heroes to some people. And some people will be heroes to the scientific community.''

She patted his thigh. ''Now, go like this. From your nose.'' She made an upward rubbing gesture with her hand, on her own face.

The kid gulped. ''Why?''

''Want to keep your job?'' Anna grinned at him. She was a small woman, dark-haired, with an oval face and flax-blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses: she had an effect on young males. ''Be a hero. Smear a little blood around your face and we'll put you on camera, telling your side. Believe me, they won't fire you.''

''I need the job,'' the kid said tentatively.

''Smear a little blood and stand up… what's your name?''

The kid was no dummy: He'd been born in front of a TV set. He wiped blood up his cheek and said, ''Charles McKinley… How do I look?'' His cheek looked like a raw sirloin.

''Great.''

Her cell phone rang. She unclipped it and stepped away. ''Yeah.''

Louis, calling from the truck seventy-five feet away, excited: ''Jesus, Anna, we got a jumper on Wilshire, he's on a ledge.''

''Where?'' A basic rule: everything happened at once. Anna looked back at the two interviews, calculating.

''I don't know, somewhere on Wilshire, close, I think. I'm getting the address up.''

''Get it now,'' Anna rapped. Very tense: a jumper would make everything. The networks, CNN, everything-if they got the jump. She could hear Louis tapping on the laptop keys, where he kept the address database. ''C'mon, c'mon.''

''I'm getting it…''

''How're we doing on the cops here?''

''You got a couple-three minutes, I just heard the call.''

''Get the address, Louis.''

''I'm hurrying.''

Anna turned to Creek: ''Get ready to wrap it up.''

And to the kid, ''Cops'll be here to help, minute or two.'' Louis came back on the phone: ''Jesus, Anna, it's just down the street, we're a half-mile out. And he's still up there.''

Anna spoke into the mike, her voice urgent: ''Jason, Creek. Back in the truck.

Now! Kill the lights. Move it!''

''Hey, what, what?'' Jason kept shooting.

''Close down! Get in the truck. Now.''

As Anna and Creek came up, Louis jammed it into park and climbed over the seat into the back, and Jason came through the side. Creek slipped into the driver's seat and Louis shouted, ''Down Gayley, then left on Wilshire, it's three blocks, it's a place called the Shamrock.''

Creek: ''I know the place. Jesus, it's two minutes from here.''

''Gotta hustle,'' Anna said. ''Gotta hustle, gotta hustle.''

Creek spun the truck in a U-turn, headed back toward the Shell station, paused at the red light just long enough to make sure he wouldn't hit anything, then powered on through.

Louis had an earphone clamped over one ear. ''The guy's still out there. On a ledge. There's hotel people talking to him. He's from a party, high-school kids.''

Creek had the gas pedal on the floor and they just caught the light at Wilshire.

As they swept through the intersection, Anna said to Jason, ''Give yourself some space on your tape. You gotta be ready, but the first tape is good, too.''

''I'm ready,'' Jason said.

''Creek?''

Creek nodded. Creek was always ready.

''Louis, talk to me,'' Anna said.

Louis's eyes were closed, and he was leaning away from them, listening hard.

''There're cars on the way, we got maybe a minute by ourselves. Maybe two minutes.''

Anna said, ''Jason, I want you tight on the guy. Creek will pull back a bit, get the full jump, if he goes. But I wanna see his face…''

''You got it, sugarbun,'' Jason said.

Creek showed his teeth: ''Sugarbun?''

Jason grinned at him: ''Me'n Anna getting intimate.''

''Yeah?'' Creek glanced at Anna, who rolled her eyes.

''Me'n Anna doing the thing,'' Jason said. He was almost talking to himself, looked as though he might giggle. He was wound, his eyes big: he liked the movement, maybe too much. He was talented: might go big in Hollywood someday,

Anna thought, if he didn't blow his brains out through his nose. ''Doin' the thing,'' he muttered.

''Shamrock,'' Anna said and pointed. Ahead, a twentystory green glass-and-steel building showed a bright green neon shamrock at the top. And Jason, who'd crawled between the seats, spotted the jumper: ''There he is! He's toward the bottom, like five or six stories up, you can see him…''

He pointed, and Anna noticed that his hand had a tremor: not the trembling of excitement, but the jerk of a nerve breakdown. She glanced at his stark, underfed face: Christ, she thought, he's back on the crank.

She turned away from the straining face, and looked where he was looking. Five stories, Anna counted. And there he was. The would-be jumper wore dark pants and a white shirt. From a block away, in the lights that bathed the outside of the building, he looked like a fly stuck to a sheet of glass. ''Get us there,

Creek,'' Anna said, breathlessly.

They were doing seventy-five, the wheels screaming, right up to the hotel, then

Creek hammered the brake and cut sidewaysand they went over the curb again and