John Sandford: Wicked Prey

"Don't see anybody watching," Shrake said.

Lucas said, "Goddamnit. I fucked this up." He looked around him, in a circle, at the buildings surrounding the park: the central library, the old federal courthouse, the Ordway Music Theater. "We should have met somewhere else, but I didn't take the time. What if they're in the old courthouse? Or the library? That's where I'd be.

I'd have a lookout up there with a radio ' They might be looking right down at us, right now. C'mon."

Now he started jogging, down the street, up the driveway to the front of the hotel. He looked in. Two women behind the check-in counter, a guy in hotel livery, with a lunchbox next to his hand, talking to them, leaning on the counter. He looked real, but the box might hold a gun.

Before they'd started over, he'd told Larkin to take off his cop hat and put it under his arm-it was too readily identifiable at a distance. Now he told him to put it back on: "Get your hand on your gun, but keep it out of sight," Lucas said to Shrake. "Through the doors all at once." He pushed through the revolving door, with Shrake and Larkin going through the swing doors beside it.

The people at the desk looked down at them, and Lucas, one hand on the.45 under his jacket, held up his credentials. "Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and St. Paul Police. I'm a police officer, let me see your hands, please. Put your hands on the desk."

The guy said, "What?" but then put his hands on the desk. "What?"

Larkin asked, "Where's your safe?"

One of the women said, "Uh…" and looked to the side.

Nobody in the strong room: and Shrake checked their ID'S. All Minnesota driver's licenses.

Lucas said to Larkin, "Call the guy on the back door. I want him here, behind the desk, in case they come in. Move the other guys around behind the St. Andrews. I think there's a skyway exit, too, out to the parking ramps; we need somebody in the skyway…"

As Larkin called, Shrake said, "St. Andrews?"

Lucas nodded. "Let's go."

"Starting to feel like an idiot yet?" Shrake asked.

"About forty percent," Lucas said. "It seemed like a really good concept. Christ, years ago, when I was first on the Minneapolis force, there was a hotel that got knocked over down in Miami, and they took millions out. Millions. That was more than twenty years ago ' And there was no kind of thing like they had tonight'"

At the door, Lucas turned around and called to the women at the desk: "Did you guys have the big ball tonight? The Gold Key, or whatever they called it?"

One of them shook her head and said, "I don't know anything about that," but the other one said, "That was at the St. Andrews. I saw them all coming out when I was coming to work."

"What time was that?"

"One o'clock…"

Lucas, Shrake, and Larkin jogged toward the white limestone structure at the other end of the block, Larkin and Shrake chatting now, Lucas feeling that they just didn't believe, but he felt the impatience pushing him, a hand in his back, and halfway up the block he stepped up the pace. The St. Andrews was a new hotel, less than four years old, but modeled on the St. Paul, with a similar rose garden in the front. A Toyota Sienna was parked in the drive. Lucas detoured around the garden, leading the other two by fifteen feet as he came up to the double front doors.

The lights were down in the hotel lobby; he could see lots of marble, plush red carpet, wood paneling, and gold paint. To one side, a single woman stood behind the check-in desk, doing nothing, and Lucas felt a tingle.

Shrake and Larkin came up and Lucas said, "She looks like a fuckin' cigar store Indian. Get your hands on your guns ' ready…"

They went in all at once, Lucas at the point, and six feet inside the doors, Lucas saw a second woman, this one in a gray suit with an odd face, something wrong here, and he dropped his gun hand to his side and suddenly the woman behind the desk dropped out of sight and the suit-woman lifted her hand and at the same time screamed, "Cops," and opened fire, flashes like firecrackers on the Fourth of July, and Lucas went down and rolled right and windows shattered and furniture exploded; he heard somebody screaming and he kept rolling and rolling and then somebody opened up with a machine gun '

Cruz recognized the big dark-haired cop as soon as he came through the door-recognized him from the press conference. Didn't know how they'd broken it down, but here they were. She saw Ann hit the floor and she screamed, "Cops," and pulled the little pistol and opened fire. She wasn't a good shot, and hardly knew what she was doing, but bullets are bullets and she put as many as she had in the air, the cops scattered and then Lane was there, his mask still up his face, with the Uzi, and he burned through a clip and then Cohn was there, shouting at them, and they broke toward the back of the building, and Cruz registered the fact that Lane was carrying the tool bag: now the jewel bag.

They turned a corner in the hallway and at the far end of the hall, a cop was crouching in the doorway, and hesitated, and Lane fired a one-handed burst at him and the cop went backward-Cruz had the impression that he was scrambling, not hurt-into the street, and they ran down the hall and now Cohn was firing backward, back where the original cops were from, and they reached the stairway to the skyway.

Lucas rolled and rolled and the couches and the chairs in the big reception area were useless as cover and so he kept scrambling and the bullets coming in were way too high. Then stopped. In the sudden silence, he heard Shrake screaming at him, "They're moving, they're moving."

The only place they could move to would be down the hall behind them and Lucas had rolled far enough to the side that he was out of their line of fire, and he rolled to his feet and let his.45 lead him toward the hallway. From the mouth of the hallway he peeked down its length, saw nothing, and then Shrake was coming up from the side and Lucas shouted, "How bad are you hit?" and Shrake shouted, "I'm okay," and Lucas shouted, "You've got blood running down your face," and Shrake brushed at it and said, "I'm okay, it's glass, a glass cut." Lucas shouted, "What about Larkin?" and Shrake shouted back, "He's okay, he's got some glass cuts, he's okay, he's trying to get people into the skyway."

Lucas shouted, "I'm going down the hall," and Shrake shouted, "Go," and Lucas went, saw the stunned face of the clerk behind the reception desk, saw the shambles of the strong room through the door, passed it, did a peek at the corner and saw a tall man in a dark suit all the way at the end of a long hall, at the foot of a red-carpeted stairs, and the man saw him and fired three or four shots that zinged off the wall, and Lucas was about to peek again when a man called to him from a side room, "Help us, we've got a dead man here," and

Lucas saw a dry country face close to the floor, a man on his hands and knees under a gold plaque that said "Nondenominational Chapel," and he said, "Help's coming," and he did another peek, saw a clear hallway, and launched himself into it.

Shrake came up and shouted, "Where'd they go?" and Lucas shouted back, "Up the stairs." He stepped into the hallway and there were two quick gunshots from the open ground-level door and two bullets smashed plaster off a pilaster next to his head and he went down and somebody from the doorway shouted, "Police!" and Shrake screamed, "Hey-hey-hey-hey we're police, police here, for Christ's sakes," and then Larkin came up and waved his hat around the corner, and then out with his hands up, and they heard more shouting outside.

A uniformed cop came in, his face white and scared, clutching his gun like a hammer, and he shouted, "You got them?"