Shadow Prey

by John Sandford

“So you could run them against the genealogy—”

  “Right. I got about halfway through and found a Rose E. Love. Mother of Baby Boy Love. No name for the kid, but that wasn’t uncommon. Get this. I don’t know how she did it, but she got them to list two names in the space for the father.”

  “Interesting . . .”

  “Aaron Sunders and Samuel Close.”

  “Shit, Aaron and Sam, it’s gotta be . . .”

  “Their race is listed as ‘other.’ This was back in the fifties, so it’s probably Indian. And they turn up on Larry’s genealogy. They are the grandsons of a guy named Richard Crow. Richard Crow had two daughters, and when they married, the Crow name ended. We got Sunders and Close—but I’d bet my left nut those are the real names for Aaron and Sam Crow.”

  “God damn, Harmon, that’s fuckin’ terrific. Have you run—”

  “They both had Minnesota driver’s licenses, but only way back, before the picture IDs. The last one for Sunders was in 1964. I called South Dakota, but they were shut down for the day. I asked for a special run and the duty guy told me to go shit in my hat. So then I rousted the feebs and they got on the line to the SoDak people. They got to the duty guy and now he’s shitting in his hat. Anyway, we got the special run. They’re checking the records now. I figure with everything that’s happened, that’s the most likely place . . . .”

  “How about NCIC?”

  “We’re running that now.”

  “We ought to check prison records for Minnesota and the Dakotas and the federal system. Be sure you check the feds. The federal system gets the bad-asses off the reservations . . . .”

  “Yeah, I’ve got that going. If the Crows were inside in the last ten or fifteen years, it’ll show at the NCIC. The feebs said they’ll check with the Bureau of Prisons to see about their records before that.”

  “How about vehicles? Besides the truck?” Lucas asked.

  “We’re looking for registrations. I doubt they’d leave a car on the street, but who knows?”

  “Any chance that Rose Love is still alive?”

  “No. Since I was over there anyway, I went through the death certificates. She died in ‘seventy-eight in a fire. It was listed as an accident. It was a house in Uptown.”

  “Shit.” Lucas pulled at his lip and tried to think of other data-run possibilities.

  “I went through old city directories and followed her all the way back to the fifties,” Anderson continued. “She was in the ’fifty-one book, in an apartment. Then she missed a couple of years and was in ’fifty-four, in an apartment. Then in ’fifty-five she was in the Uptown house. She stayed there until she died.”

  “All right. This is great,” Lucas said. “Have you talked to Daniel?”

  “Nobody’s at his house, that’s why I called you. I had to tell somebody. It freaked me out, the way it all came out of the machines, boom-boom-boom. It was like a TV show.”

  “Get us some fuckin’ photos, Harmon. We’ll paper the streets with them.”

  Anderson’s discoveries brought a flush of energy. Lucas paced through the house, still naked, excited. If they could put the Crows’ faces on the street, they’d have them. They couldn’t hide out forever. Names were almost nothing. Pictures . . .

  Half an hour later Lucas was back in bed, falling into unconsciousness again. Just before he went out, he thought, So this is what it’s like to be nuts . . . .

  “Lucas?” It was Lily.

  “Yup.”

  He looked down at the bed. He could see the outline of where his body had been from the sweat stains. The dreams had stayed with him until he woke, a little after seven in the morning. He reached out, popped up the window shade, and light cut into the gloom. A moment later, the phone rang.

  “Jesus, where were you yesterday?” Lily asked.

  “In and out,” he lied. “Tell you the truth, I went back to my old net, to see if any of my regulars had heard anything. They’re not Indians, but they’re on the street . . . .”

  “Get anything?” she asked.

  “Naw.”

  “Daniel’s pissed. You missed the afternoon meet.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Lucas said. He yawned. “Have you had any breakfast yet?”

  “I just got up.”

  “Wait there. I’ll get cleaned up and come get you.”

  “Turn on a TV before you do that. Channel Eight. But hurry.”

  “What’s on?”

  “Go look,” she said, and hung up.

  Lucas punched up the TV and found an airport press conference with Lawrence Duberville Clay.

  “ . . . in cooperation with local enforcement officials . . . expect to have some action soon . . .”

  “Bullshit, local officials,” Lucas muttered at the television. The camera pulled back and Lucas noticed the screen of bodyguards. There were a half-dozen of them around Clay, professionals, light suits, identical lapel pins, backs to their man, watching the crowd. “Thinks he’s the fuckin’ president . . .”

  Lucas’ heart jumped when Lily came out of the hotel elevator. The angles of her face. Her stride. The way she brushed at her bangs and grinned when she saw him . . .

  Anderson had a stack of files for the morning meeting. South Dakota, he said, had files on Sunders and Close. There were photos in the driver’s-license files, bad but recent. And when the white names were run through the NCIC files, a list of hits came back, along with fingerprints. With a direct comparison available, fingerprint specialists confirmed that Sunders and Close were the men the Minneapolis cops had just missed in the apartment raid. An FBI computer specialist said later that the wide-base search of the fingerprint files would have identified them in “another four to six hours, max.”

  The South Dakota files had been faxed to Minneapolis, and the best possible reproductions of the driver’s-license photos arrived on an early-morning plane. Copies were being made for distribution to all the local police agencies, the FBI and the media.

  “Press conference at eleven o’clock,” Daniel said. “I’ll hand out the photographs of the Crows.”

  “We got some more coming from the feds,” Anderson announced. “Sunders spent time in federal prison, fifteen years ago. He shot a guy out at Rosebud, wounded him. He spent a year inside.”

  “Old man Andretti has agreed to put up an unofficial reward for information leading to the Crows. They don’t have to be arrested or anything. He’ll pay just to find out where they are,” Daniel said. He looked at Lucas. “I’d like to get that out to the media through the back door . . . . I’ll confirm it, but I don’t want to come right out and say there’s a price on their heads. I want to keep some distance from it. I don’t want it to sound like we’re turning a bunch of vigilantes loose on the Indians. We’ve got to live with these people later.”

  Lucas nodded. “All right. I can set that up. I’ll get the guy from TV3 to ask a question at the press conference.”

  Daniel flipped through his Xerox copies of the rap sheets. “It doesn’t seem like they’ve done much. A couple of small-time crooks. Then this.”

  “But look at the pattern,” Lily said. “They weren’t small-time crooks like most small-time crooks. They weren’t breaking into Coke machines or running a pigeon-drop. They were organizing, just like Larry said.”

  The files on Sunders and Close showed a sporadic history of small crime, except for the shooting that sent Sunders to prison. Most of it was trespassing on ranches, unlawful discharge of firearms, unlawful threats.

  The latest charge was six years old, on Sunders, who had been arrested for trespassing. According to the complaint file, he had entered private property and allegedly damaged a bulldozer. He denied damaging the bulldozer, but he did tell police that the rancher was putting a service trail through a Dakota burial ground.

  Close’s file was thinner than Sunders’. Most of the charges against him were misdemeanors, for loitering or vagrancy, back when those were legal charges. There was a notation by a Rapid City officer
that Close was believed to have been responsible for a series of burglaries in the homes of government officials, but he had never been caught.

  On a separate slip of paper was a report from an FBI intelligence unit that both Sunders and Close had been seen at the siege of Wounded Knee, but when the siege ended, they were not among the Indians in the town.

  “I’d say they’ve got a deep organization, going all the way back to the sixties, and maybe back to the forties,” Lily said, looking at the file over Lucas’ shoulder. A lock of her hair touched his ear, and tickled. He moved closer and let her scent settle over him. He had not yet told her about Jennifer. The thought of it made him uncomfortable.

  “The Star Tribune this morning called them our first experience with dedicated domestic terrorists,” Lucas said.

  “They picked that up from the Times,” Lily said. “The Times had an editorial Friday, said the same thing.”

  Daniel nodded gloomily. “It’ll get worse when they do whatever it is they’re planning to do. Something big.”

  “You don’t think . . . like the airport?” Anderson asked.

  “What?” asked Sloan.

  “You know, like the Palestinians? I mean, if you were going to do something big, shooting up the airport or blowing up a plane would do it . . . .”

  “Oh, Christ,” Daniel said. He gnawed on his lower lip, then got up and took a turn around his desk. “If we go out there and suggest tighter controls and the word gets out, the airlines’ll take it right in the ass. And I’ll be right there with them, gettin’ it in the same place.”

  “If we don’t tell them, and something happens . . .”

  “How about just a light touch . . . just talk to the security, a hint to the FBI, maybe put some people out there undercover?” suggested Sloan.

  “Maybe,” said Daniel, sitting down again. He looked at Anderson. “Do you really think . . . ?”

  “Not really,” Anderson said.

  “I don’t think so either. All the people they’ve hit so far have been symbols of something. Shooting up an airport full of innocent people wouldn’t prove anything.”

  “How about the Bureau of Indian Affairs?” Lucas asked. “A lot of old-line Indians hate the BIA.”

  “Now that’s something,” Daniel said, his eyes narrowing. “An institution instead of an individual . . . It’d be a logical step, to go after the people they see as their oppressors. I better talk to the feebs. Maybe they could put a couple of people in the BIA office.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lucas said. He stood up and walked around his chair, thinking. Then he looked at Daniel and said, “Jesus—it could be Clay.”

  They all thought about it for a moment, and Daniel shook his head. “Everything they’ve done has been pretty well planned. Nobody knew that Clay was coming in until the last couple of days.”

  “No, no, think about it,” said Lucas, jabbing a finger at Daniel. “If you look at this whole . . . progression . . . in the right way, you could see it as a lure to pull Clay in. The terrorist angle, the publicity . . . . That’s exactly the kind of thing Clay’d bite on.”

  “That’s an awful big jump,” Daniel argued. “They couldn’t be sure he’d come. You could wind up killing a half-dozen people and getting all of your own people killed, and Clay might sit on his ass in Washington.”

  “And why Clay?” Sloan asked.

  “Because he’s a big target and he’s got a bad rep among Indians,” Lily said. “You remember that hassle out in Arizona with the two factions on that reservation? I can’t remember what the deal was . . . .”

  “Yeah, he sent in all those agents to kick ass . . .” Anderson said.

  “If I remember right, there was an article in Time that said Clay has had a bunch of run-ins with Indians over the years. Doesn’t like them . . .” Lucas said.

  “The Crows can’t get at him,” said Sloan. “He’s got an unbelievable screen of bodyguards—you should have seen them this morning. If the Crows tried to shoot their way through them . . . I mean, these guys got Uzis in their armpits.”

  “All it takes is a guy on a rooftop with a deer rifle,” said Lucas.

  “Ah, shit,” said Daniel. He whacked the desktop with an open palm. “We can’t take a chance. We’ll talk to Clay’s security people. And let’s put some people around his hotel. Up on the rooftops, in the parking garage. Just put some uniforms in street clothes . . . . Christ, the guy is a pain in the ass.”

  “We oughta take a look at the hotel too,” Lucas said. He was still moving around the office, thinking about it. The idea fit: but how could the Crows get at Clay? “Look for a hole in the security . . . .”

  “I still don’t think it’s Clay. It’s gotta be something they could plan for,” Daniel said. “Keep thinking about it. Let’s get some more ideas going.”

  The meeting broke up, but ten minutes before the press conference, Daniel called them back together.

  “I’m going to tell you this quick and I don’t want any argument. I’ve been talking to Clay and his people, and the mayor. Clay will come here and will make the announcement about the identification of the Crows. He’ll pass out the photos.”

  “God damn it,” said Anderson, white-faced. “That’s our work . . . .”

  “Take it easy, Harmon. There’s a lot going on here . . . .”

  “They bought the information from us, is that right?” Anderson demanded. “What’d we get?”

  “You won’t believe it.” Daniel smiled a self-satisfied smile, spread his arms and peered at the ceiling, as though receiving manna from heaven. “You’re looking at the new Midwest on-line information-processing center . . . .”

  “Holy shit,” Anderson whispered. “I thought Kansas City had that wrapped.”

  “They just came unwrapped. We’re doing the deal right now.”

  “Our own Cray II,” Anderson said. “The fastest fucking machine ever built . . .”

  “What a crock of shit,” said Lily.

  “Let’s try to keep that opinion to ourselves,” Daniel said. “After the press conference, Clay wants to talk to the team. I think he wants to give us a pep talk.”

  “What a crock of shit,” Lily repeated.

  “Did you suggest that he might be the target?” asked Lucas.

  “Yeah,” Daniel nodded. “He agreed with me that it was unlikely, but he also went along with the idea of a screen of cops on the buildings around the hotel. And his guys are looking for holes in the security.”

  Four advance men arrived ahead of Clay. One waited outside City Hall, where Clay’s car would unload. The other three, guided by a cop, walked the hallway to the room where the press conference would be held. Lucas and Lily, lounging outside the door of the conference room, watched them coming. Two of the men stopped, a pace away.

  “Police officers?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Lucas.

  “Got an ID?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Sure.”

  “I’d like to see it,” the advance man said. His tone was courteous, but his eyes were not.

  Lucas looked at Lily, who nodded and flashed her NYPD case. Lucas handed over his ID. “Okay,” said the advance man, still courteous. “Could you point out the other plainclothes people inside . . . ?”

  It was quick and professional. In five minutes, the room was secure. When Clay arrived, he got out of his car alone, but two more advance men blocked either end of the car. The mayor came out and met Clay at the car, and they walked, chatting as casual friends, into City Hall. If any of the newsies noticed that the two men were walking through an invisible corridor of professional security, none of them said anything.

  Clay and Daniel did the press conference together, the mayor beaming from the wings. Anderson and an FBI functionary passed out photos of the Crows.

  “An hour from now, the Crows won’t be able to go on the streets,” Lucas said as the conference ended.

  “We’ve had Shadow Love’s face out there, and that hasn’t gotten an
ywhere . . .” Lily said, when he got in the car beside her.

  “We’re tightening down. It’ll work, with a little time.”

  “Maybe. I just hope they don’t pull some shit first. We better get down to Daniel’s office for this meeting with Clay.”

  Sloan, Lucas, Lily, Anderson, Del and a half-dozen other cops had been waiting ten minutes when Daniel and Clay arrived, trailed by the mayor, two of Clay’s bodyguards and a half-dozen FBI agents.

  “Your show, Larry,” Daniel said.

  Clay nodded, stepped behind Daniel’s desk and gazed around the crowded office. He looked like an athlete gone to fat, Lucas thought. You wouldn’t call him porky, but you could get away with “heavyset.”

  “I always like to talk to local police officers, especially in serious situations like this where everything depends on cooperation. I spent several years on the streets as a patrolman—got to the rank of sergeant, in fact . . .” Clay began, and he nodded at a uniform sergeant standing in the corner of the room. He was a solid speaker, picking out each local cop in turn, fixing him with his eyes, soliciting agreement and cooperation. Lily glanced up at Lucas after Clay had given them the treatment, and cracked a smile.

  “Good technique,” she whispered.

  Lucas shrugged.

  “ . . . wide experience with Indians, and I will tell you this. Indian rules are not our rules, are not the rules of a rational, progressive society. That statement—I’d prefer to keep it in this room—is not a matter of prejudice, although it can be twisted to sound that way. But it’s a solid fact; and most Indians themselves recognize it. But we don’t have two sets of rules in America. We have law, and it applies to everybody . . . .”

  “Heil Hitler,” Lucas muttered.

  When they finished, Clay whipped out of the building in his cloud of bodyguards.

  “Let’s go look at his hotel,” Lucas suggested.

  “All right,” Lily said. “Though I’m starting to have my doubts. His guys are pretty good.”

  Clay’s chief of security was a nondescript, pale-eyed man who looked like a desk clerk until he moved. Then he looked like a viper.