John Sandford - Phantom prey

The car straightened out and drifted across the street and ran into a parked car in front of the bagel shop, and sat there.

Lucas was running after the second runner, screaming, “Del, Del,” and Del, at the top of a low hill, finally heard him, saw the second runner across the street coming toward him, ducked behind a car, and fired half a magazine at him, and the runner unloaded his weapon, whatever it was, the bullets pounding and zinging under the car that Del was hiding behind. Then he was out of ammo and he dropped the gun and started running again, and Del shot him, one long leading shot, and knocked him off his feet.

Lucas saw the second runner go down, then there were two more flash- bangs and the machine gun stuttered once, again, then a heavier, harsher sound erupted, and the higher- pitched shooting stopped.

All of a sudden, it was absolutely quiet in the street. Lucas ran across and looked in the car Siggy had tried to take. Siggy was dead, his face a hash of blood and meat where Shrake’s.223 slugs had torn into him. Jenkins was talking to the car’s driver, a young guy in a blue suit, now wearing a pair of broken glasses and a stunned look.

Up the street, Del was approaching the man on the ground. The SWAT commander ran out of the apartment and said, “We okay?"

"Got a loose runner, maybe two, got two down,” Lucas said

“What happened?”

“Guy on the front room couch with a fuckin’ M7 and we came through the door and man, he opened up and didn’t quit; we shot him.”

“Any of our guys…?"

"We’re all okay, got some cuts and splinters and shit."

"Heather and the baby…?"

"They’re okay.”

Del’s bullet went through the second runner’s triceps, his armpit, and into his chest, where it made a hash out of his heart and lungs. They called ambulances, but he was gone before Del even crossed the street.

They never saw the first runner again. The way they later worked it out, he’d run three blocks, spotted a passing cab, jumped in, and took the cab to Minneapolis. The driver said he dropped the passenger conveniently close to a light- rail station, which went to the airport, among other places.

They got Heather dressed and took her out in cuffs, and downtown to be processed, but she was already screaming, “I didn’t know he was coming, I didn’t know…”

She wanted a lawyer; and had his card in her purse. Jenkins asked, “Where’d they get those fuckin’ machine guns?” Lucas shook his head: “They were coming in from Miami."

"But we got him,” Shrake said.

Then everybody in the world came down on top of them: TV and newspapers and even a public radio guy with a tape recorder and a boring voice, a dozen cop cars, the cops to check the neighborhood for any collateral injuries or damage, crime- scene people. The street and the various shooting scenes were cordoned off, and crime- scene guys landed in force, the ME’s investigators, Jackson with his Nikon D3 and every lens in the world, the St. Paul police photographer with an inferior Canon camera, a variety of deputy chiefs, homicide investigators, and a partridge in a pear tree.

It all took forever, it seemed; and Lucas was there, the whole time, and they all talked about it over and over, what everybody had seen and done, and Lucas had this sense that he hadn’t done much, but he was there, and it all felt pretty large.

By six o’clock, the activity was petering out, and most of the cop cars were gone, and the crime- scene people were turning off work lights, and the TV guys were peeling away.

Lucas called Weather and told her; and made sure that Del was okay, and that Shrake was okay, and they were, but now they were getting shaky with the realization that they’d actually killed people. Nobody knew exactly who’d killed the machine- gun guy in the apartment, because a number of cops had fired at him.

Lucas said, “Who’d have thought."

"Submachine guns,” Del said. “Goddamn, if they’d been heavier, if they’d been assault rifles, we’d of had some dead guys."

"Saw the goddamn slugs powdering the street around you,” Lucas said. “Scared the shit out of me, it was like hail, but they weren’t getting through the tires,” Del said. “I don’t know what they were shooting, but the tires went flat and the slugs weren’t getting through.”

“Thank God for steel- belted radials, eh?” Lucas said. “I could hear them hitting those bricks around that bagel shop.”

“That was a hell of a shot you made across that street."

"Luck, was what it was. Forty yards- I’d be lucky to hit a garbage can at that range."

"You all right?"

"A hell of a lot better than the alternative,” Del said. “I didn’t know he’d dropped that fuckin’ gun until you told me."

"You see that guy come out of the store with that pie in the box?” Lucas asked. “He comes out and sees a dead guy laying there…"

"Hope it wasn’t a cherry pie; he might be getting flashbacks about now.” In his mind’s eye, Lucas saw Siggy’s head, and the thick coagulating pool of blood underneath it. Imagined a fly buzzing around, though he hadn’t seen any flies.

Fuckin’ Siggy.

“See you back at the office?” Del asked. “Yeah. We all oughta get something on paper tonight. This was a long way from perfect."

"See you there,” Del said. “I’m gonna stop at home first. Cheryl’s been barfing again."

"See you there.”

Fairy had the gall and the will and even-maybe-the sense of humor that would make it possible to kill Davenport and get away with it. Alyssa herself was too fragile, and could feel the stress pecking at her even as Fairy, with her Valley- girl voice, called Davenport’s home and spoke to Weather.

“Is Lucas Davenport there?"

"No, he’s not-who is this, please?” Weather was using her surgeon’s voice, with the crisp edge of command. “Um, I’m an old friend of Frances Austin’s. Do you know when Officer Davenport will be home?"

"Actually, I don’t. There’s been a big problem, a shooting, in St

Paul, and he’s working it. You might be able to get him at his office.” At his office. The BCA. Where was that? Fairy was standing at a phone kiosk without phone books, or even a place to put them. Had to be some way-how did people get to the BCA, if they had an appointment?

Five minutes later, Alyssa, now in her office at the Highland Park spa, brought up the BCA website and got not only a map, but a photograph. The photograph gave her an idea, and she brought up Google Earth, homed in on east St. Paul, and two minutes later sent a satellite view of the BCA building and parking lots to her printer.

And it all came in handy: the BCA was located out of the city center, near a popular lake and park. She cruised the parking lot, spotted Davenport’s Porsche. How many cops had Porsches? Very convenient.

She parked across the street, in an empty lot behind some kind of clinic, and let Fairy take over.

“Simple enough,” Fairy said, meeting Loren’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “If he’s by himself when he comes out, I’ll kill him here. If he’s not, we follow him home, and we kill him at his garage. How far do you have to drive before you’re lost in traffic? Not far, I think.”

“But you’re going as Alyssa,” Loren said. “If Weather sees you… I’d be happier if we had time to get another wig. Have you go dark.”

She shrugged. “If I bought a dark wig, and somebody ran it down… This is okay, because”-she tapped her forehead-“Alyssa’s right here, and she’s a big chicken. If there’s any reason not to do it, she’ll tell us.”

“And you’ll let her back."

"Of course,” Fairy said. “Alyssa and I are very close now.”