John Sandford - Storm prey

"But if two out of the three are dead…"

"The other one, the one still alive, is a smart guy. He had to get rid of the other two for security reasons, after Peterson died. Maybe the smart guy knew what it meant when Haines got scratched. The assholes are getting onto DNA."

"The ME's sending DNA samples over to your lab, if we could get them to hurry it up a little," Marcy said. "The samples from Peterson's fingernails are already there."

"Well, you know, they keep telling me that chemistry is chemistry, but I'll call them," Lucas said. "I'll tell you what: shutting this down would be a load off my mind."

"I think we can shut it down," Marcy said. She leaned on the we, meaning Minneapolis.

"I'm not going to bullshit you, Marcy. We've got the gang guys and the files," Lucas said. "I'm going to take a look, see what's what, and go talk to whoever I need to talk to. This is my wife they're screwing with."

Long silence. "Take it easy. Talk to me."

"You know me," Lucas said.

Weather had reopened the sutures in the twins' heads, and the neurosurgeons got back to work, slowly, millimeter by millimeter, splitting the dura mater into separate sheets. By two in the afternoon, they were halfway done.

"We're showing some heart," the anesthesiologist said.

Maret stopped and peered at Sara.

"Not Sara. It's Ellen," the anesthesiologist said.

They got Seitz, the cardiologist, in. "Her blood pressure is too low," he said, looking at the monitors. "Too low… goddamn it, she's gonna arrest."

Then things got quick: Seitz put some chemicals into her, steadying her heart, and avoided arrest, but then Sara started looking shaky.

Seitz: "You've got to get out now. We've got to get her blood pressure up, but we can't let Sara's get too high. We need to get them in the ICU again."

Maret said, "If we could get another hour or two…"

The cardiologist shook his head. "We'd lose one or the other. They can't tolerate any more of this."

"Damn. Everything else is going so well…" Maret said. He looked at a clock, then up at the observation wall.

"Dr. Karkinnen… how long will it take you to close?"

Weather was in the front row, Jenkins two rows behind her. "Half hour."

"Scrub up, and we'll back out."

The babies looked like little pale meat loaves under her bloody gloves, faceless, masked and taped, the edges of the skin on their head drying and raggedy now, their personalities submerged. At times, it was like working on a couple of logs; and then they'd come back, and be children again. She moved fast, with Maret leaning on her elbow, pulling the kids together again. People in the room silent, watching, regretful. For every day they didn't finish, death got closer, for one or the other or both. WHEN WEATHER had finished, and gotten back into her street clothes, she walked with Jenkins back out to the front lobby. Marcy Sherrill was waiting with Lucas. Marcy took mug shots of Haines and Chapman from her briefcase and passed them to Weather.

"Is either one of these the guy you saw?"

Weather shook her head. "I don't think so. The guy had real thick hair, down on his shoulders, almost… How'd you come up with these guys?"

"Somebody murdered them. One of them has scratches on his leg; and they're members of the Seed."

Weather shuddered. "They may be the guys who did the holdup, but I don't think they're the one I saw. Could have been the driver-all I saw of him was a beard."

Lucas said to Marcy: "This might not be bad: it means we've still got a handle on our third guy."

Virgil was sitting on the front porch, in the cold, eating a Hostess cupcake, when they got home. Jenkins stopped at the curb behind a brown Cadillac and Lucas turned up the drive and took the truck straight into the garage.

Jenkins came crunching up the driveway and asked Virgil, "Shrake inside?"

"You know anybody else with a brown Cadillac?"

"He got a deal on it," Jenkins said.

"I should hope." Virgil finished the cupcake and led the way in. Lucas and Weather came in through the back, and they all met in the kitchen, where Shrake and Letty, Lucas and Weather's fifteen-year-old daughter, were playing gin rummy at the breakfast table.

Shrake was a big man, as big as Jenkins, in shirtsleeves, with a.40-cal Smith in a shoulder holster. He was staring fixedly at his cards, and Weather asked, "Who's winning?"

"Don't bother us," Letty said. "If he goes out, I've got to take off my bra."

Shrake jerked bolt upright, looked from Letty to Weather, mouth open, recovered and said, "Jesus Christ. It's dangerous just being around her."

"You got no idea," Lucas said. "So listen up, guys, we got a break-"

"What about me and my bra?" Letty asked.

"That's your problem," Lucas said. "Now either shut up, or go away."

Lucas laid it out: the Minneapolis cops were focusing on the hospital, but the BCA had the gang files. "So we're on it. We're cooperating, but I'm going after it full-time. Virgil, Jenkins, you guys stay with Weather. Shrake, I want you hanging around, keep loose. If something comes up, I'll call you."

Weather said, "You don't think this has anything to do with… that other time? With the Seed?"

Lucas shook his head: "That's ancient history. Those guys were nuts, everybody knows it. Nope: this has to do with the hospital. They've got themselves in a crack now, and they're trying to get out."

Virgil said, "You think somebody in the hospital was involved, an insider, right? Maybe Weather, or me, or somebody else, could talk up the idea that the Seed guys might be coming after him. Maybe break him out."

Letty said, "Put it on the ten-o'clock news."

Lucas shrugged: "We could try, but I don't see anybody confessing. We've got three murders now. More likely somebody'd quit his job and head out. That's something we could look for."

"Need to talk to other gang squads where the Seed and the Angels have branches," Jenkins said. "See if anybody dumps a load of commercial pharmaceuticals on the street."

"That we can do," Lucas said. "What else?"

"Roust the Seed," Shrake said. "Kick some ass. Keep an eye on Weather."

The BCA headquarters was in a modern building out in a St. Paul residential area, the parking lot mostly empty at six o'clock on a cold winter night. Lucas let himself in, climbed the stairs to his office, dropped his coat, and walked down the hall. Frank Harris was sitting in his office, in the dark.

"You asleep?" Lucas asked.

"Thinking," Harris said. "And my eyes are tired."

Lucas settled into a visitor's chair. "You know the situation."

"Yeah, and I'll give you everything we've got," Harris said. He was a slim shadow, in a suit and tie, on the other side of the desk. "But I don't like it. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't your wife."

"I don't need any inside sources. I don't need any of your guys, I won't give anything up. What I need is names: I'll generate my own information," Lucas said.

"If you talk to a smart guy, and a few of them are pretty smart, they'll get an idea of how deep our information is," Harris said. He didn't particularly like Lucas, and Lucas knew it, and knew why.

Harris was a third-generation cop, had struggled to get out of a suburban police force and into the BCA, had hustled his way up through the ranks, lived on his seventy-five thousand dollars a year, married when he was twenty, had three kids. Lucas had parachuted into a top spot, helped by political muscle, and worse, was rich, drove a Porsche, once had a reputation as a serious womanizer, and still got more than his share of face time with the media.

Now Lucas shook his head. "No. Two or three names-it's nothing. Especially if I go in dumb, and thrash around. I swear to God, Frank, we're not going to burn you. We just need a place to start."