Night Prey

by John Sandford

  "Just a spritz?"

  Men's perfume. "Oh, no, I'm sorry," Lucas said, moving on. The woman looked after him.

  Koop was moving, and Connell beeped. "He's headed toward the nonh door.

  Still moving slow."

  "I've got him," Lucas said.

  Sloan said, "I'm going through the skyway."

  "I'll move into Sloan's spot," Del said. "Meagan, you've been the most exposed, youo either oughta go through way ahead or stay back."

  "It's too soon to go through ahead of him,'' Connell said. "I'll hang back."

  "I'll catch up to you," Lucas said.

  Lucas moved up to a glass case of Coach briefcases and looked down the store at Koop's back. Koop had stopped again, no more than thirty feet away, poking a finger through a rack of leather jackets. Lucas stepped back, focused on Koop, when a hand hooked his elbow. A youngish man in a suit was behind him, another to his left. The perfume woman was behind them.

  "May I ask you what you're doing?" the man in the suit asked.

  Store security, a tough guy, with capped teeth. Lucas stepped hard behind the counter, out of sight of Koop, the two men lurching along with him.

  The security man's grip tightened.

  "I'm a Minneapolis homicide cop on surveillance," Lucas said, his voice low and mean, like a hatchet. He reached into his pocket, pulled his badge case, flipped it open. "If you give me away, I'll pull your fucking testicles off and stuff them in your ears."

  "Jesus." The security man looked at the bug in Lucas's ear, then at his face, at what looked like rage. He went pale. "Sorry."

  "Get the fuck out of this end of the store, all of you," Lucas said.

  He pointed the other way. "Go that way. Go separately. Don't walk in the aisles and don't look back."

  "I'm..." the man was stuttering. "I'm sorry, I used to be a cop."

  "Yeah, right." Lucas turned away and sidled out from behind the case.

  Koop was gone. "Shit."

  Connell beeped. "He's moving."

  Roux was scared to death. Connell's idea had scared her so badly that she thought about switching back to Gauloises.

  But Jensen had come to see her the day before, wearing a power suit and carrying a power briefoase, and she'd laid it out: a sucker game might be the only way to take him.

  Roux, stuck between a rock and a hard place, had gone for the hard place.

  "Thanks," Connell had said to Jensen when they were in the hall outside of Roux's office. "Takes guts."

  want to get him so bad that my teeth hurt," Jensen had said.

  "When will he get out?"

  "Tomorrow morning," Connell had said. Her eyes defocused, as though she were looking into the future.

  "And you," Jensen said to Lucas. "Did I tell you, you remind me of my older brother?"

  "He must be a good-looking guy," Lucas said.

  "God, I'm sick, and he's trying to push me under," Connell groaned.

  "The nausea is overwhelming...."

  They'd tracked him from the moment Koop had left the jail. Took him home, put him to bed. Everything was visual: all the tracking devices had temporarily been taken off the truck. If he thought about his arrest, he might wonder how they'd picked him up at a liquor store.

  The next day, he'd left the house a little earlier than usual.

  He'd gone to his gym, worked out. Then he drove to a park, and ran.

  That had been a nightmare. They weren't ready for it, they were all in street shoes. They'd lost him a half-dozen times, but never for more than a minute or two, when he was running hills.

  "This guy," Lucas said when they watched him run back to the truck, "is not somebody to fuck with. He just did three miles at a dead run.

  There are pro fighters in worse shape than he is."

  "I'd take him on," Connell said.

  Lucas looked at her. "Bullshit."

  The Ruger was in a mufBike opening of her handbag, and she slipped it out in one motion. Big hands. She spun the cylinder. "I would," she said.

  After the park, Koop went home. Stayed for an hour. Started out again, and wound up pulling the team through the skyways, right up to Jensen.

  "Where's he going?" Connell asked as Lucas caught up. She took his arm, made them into a couple, a different look. "Is he going after her?"

  "He's headed in her direction," Lucas said. They were closing a bit, and Lucas turned her around, spoke into the radio. "Sloan, Del, you got him. He's coming through."

  "It's ten minutes to five," Connell said. "She gets offabout now."

  Sloan beeped. "Where is he?"

  Del: "He's stopped halfway across, he's looking down at the street."

  Lucas pulled Connell to one side. "Walk across the entrance sideways, glance down there. Don't come back if he's looking this way."

  She nodded, walked across the aisle that led to the skyway, glanced to her left, continued across, looked back, and said, "He's just looking out." She waited a moment, then crossed back to Lucas, again glancing down the skyway.

  "He's moving," she said to her radio.

  "Got him," said Del. "He's out of the skyway."

  "Coming through," Lucas said. "Raider-Garrote's in the Exchange Building."

  Another department store separated them from the Exchange Building, but Koop didn't linger. He was moving quickly now, glancing at his watch.

  He went through the next skyway, Sloan out in front of him, Del breaking off to the side, then dashing down half a block and recrossing in a parallel skyway, turning back toward the surveillance team.

  Lucas and Connell split up, single again, Connell now carrying her huge purse in one hand, like a briefoase. Lucas put the hat on.

  "Sloan?"

  "It's going down, man," Sloan said, sounding like he might be out of breath. "Something's gonna happen. I'm going past Raider-Garrote right now. I'm gonna stop here, in case he goes in, pulls some shit."

  "Christ, Del, move up...."

  "I'm coming, I'm coming...."

  Connell moved hack to him. "What're we doing?" she asked.

  "Get close, but not too close. I'm gonna call Sara." Connell strode away, her gun hand resting on top of her purse. Lucas fumbled in his breast pocket, pulled out the cellular phone, pushed the memory-dial and the number 7. A moment later, the phone rang and Jensen picked it up.

  "It's happening," Lucas said. "He's right outside your door. Don't look directly at him if you can avoid it. He'll see the trap in your eyes."

  "Okay. I'm just leaving," Jensen said. She sounded cahm enough, he felt like there might be a small smile in her voice.

  "You'll take the elevator up?"

  "Like always," she said.

  Lucas called the other three, explained. Del came up and they started off together, Sloan interrupting: "Here he comes. And Connell's right behind him."

  "We're coming in," Lucas said. "Del's coming first. You better move out of sight, Sloan. What's he doing?"

  "He's looking through the windows... I see Connell."

  Del tottered on ahead, perfect as a skyway wanderer, a little drunk, nowhere to go, staying inside until the stores closed, and moving out on the streets for the night. People looked away from himþeven through himþbut not at him.

  just went by him," he called back to Lucas. "He's looking through the window, like he's reading the numbers off their boards.

  Jensen's on the way out."

  just walked back past him," Sloan said. "Del, you better get out of sight for a minute."

  "I'm coming," Lucas said.

  There was a moment of silence. Lucas was conspicuous, loitering in the skyway, and he crossed to a newsstand cut as a notch into the skyway wall. Sloan came on. "Jensen's out. He's walking away, same way I am, coming at you, Lucas."

  "I'm going into the newsstand," Lucas said. "I'll pick him up."

  A moment later Sloan said, "Christ, Lucas, put your radio away. I think he's coming in there."

  Lucas turned it off, slipped it into his pocket, gr
abbed a copy of Tke Economist from the newsstand, opened it, turned his back to the entrance. A second later, Koop came in and looked around. Lucas glanced at him from the corner of his eye. The store was just big enough for the two of them plus the gum counter with a bored teenager behind it.

  Koop took down a magazine, opened it. Lucas felt him turn toward the skyway, glanced at him again. Koop's back was turned, and he was looking over the top of the magazine. Waiting for Jensen.

  Sloan walked by, kept going. Koop was close enough that Lucas could smell him, a light scent of aging jock-sweat. People were streaming by the doorway as offices closed throughout the building, mostly women, a few of them still wearing the old eighties uniform of blue suit and after-work running shoes. Koop never looked at Lucas: he was completely focused on the skyway. A man came in and said, "Give me a pack of Marlboros and a box of Clorets." The girl gave them to him, and he paid, opened the cigarettes, and threw all but two of them in a trash can and walked away "Doesn't want his wife to know," the girl said to Lucas.

  guess." Shit. Koop would look at him.

  Koop didn't. He tossed the magazine back on the rack and hurried out.

  Lucas looked after him. Just down the skyway, he saw Connell's blond hair and Jensen's black. He put the magazine back, and started after Koop, using the radio again.

  "They're coming at you, Sloan. Del, where are you?"

  "Coming up from behind. Sloan said you were pinned, and I stayed back in case he came that way. I'm coming up."

  "Elevators," Connell grunted.

  "I'm coming," Lucas said. "Del, Sloan, you better get your rides."

  Sloan and Del acknowledged and Lucas said, "Greave, you guys ready?"

  "We're ready." They were in the van, on the street.

  "Elevator," Lucas said. He took the bug out of his ear, put it in his pocket.

  Koop was facing the elevator door, waiting for it to return. He'd be the first on. Four other people waited, including Jensen and Connell.

  Jensen stood directly behind Koop's broad back, staring at the seam at his neck. Connell was beside her. Lucas edged in, just in front of Connell.

  The elevator light went white, and the doors opened. Koop stepped in, pushed a button. Lucas stepped in beside him, turned the other way, pushed the button for Jensen's floor. Connell moved in on the other side of Lucas, in the corner, where Koop couldn't see her face. Lucas stood a half-step from the back of the elevator, quarter-turned toward Connell. Koop had never gotten a straight-on look at them, but they couldn't do this again, not for a couple of days. Jensen and another woman got on last, Jensen stepping immediately in front of Koop.

  The doors closed and they started up. Lucas couldn't see Koop, couldn't look at him. He said, "Long day," to Connell, who said, "Aren't they all..

  . I think Del's coming down with a cold."

  Elevator talk. The woman beside Jensen turned to look at Lucas, and Jensen stepped back a bit, her butt bumping the front of Koop's pants.

  "Sorry," she mumbled, flashing a glance back at him.

  When they got off, Lucas and Connell got off behind her. The doors closed and Koop went on up. He was parked on seven.

  saw that," Connell said to Jensen, grinning. "You're the bitch from hell."

  "Thank you," Jensen said.

  "Don't do it again," Lucas said as they walked toward the cars.

  "Right now, we're golden. A little too much, and we're screwed."

  Koop followed Jensen out to a small strip shopping center, waited outside while she bought groceries.

  "He's gonna do it," Connell said. She was watching him with the binoculars. She sounded elated and grim at the same time, like a burned survivor of a plane crash.

  "He hasn't looked away from the door since she went in. He's totally focused. He's gonna do it."

  Koop tracked Jensen back to her apartment, the pod of cops all around him, running the parallel streets, ahead and behind, switching off.

  Jensen rolled into the parking ramp. Koop stopped, watched for a few minutes from his truck, then began wandering, out on the interstates.

  He did a complete loop of the Cities, driving I-494 and I-694.

  "Go on back, you fucker," Connell hissed at him. "Get back there."

  At nine o'clock, they sat at a stoplight and watched two middleaged men on a par-three golf course, one with white hair and the other with a crew cut, trying to play in the quickly closing darkness. The crew cut missed a two-foot putt, Lucas shook his head, and Koop moved on.

  Ten minutes later, he was on I-35, heading north. Through the Minneapolis loopþand then, like a satellite in a degrading orbit, watched as he was slowly pulled back toward Jensen's apartment.

  "He's headed in," Lucas said. "I'm breaking off, I'll beat him there.

  If he changes direction, let me know."

  He ran the backstreets, Connell calling Jensen on the cellular phone.

  A minute later they rolled into Jensen's parking garage, dumped the car.

  "Where is he?" Lucas asked the radio.

  "He's coming," Greave answered. Greave was riding the van. "I think he's looking for a parking place."

  "Let's get set up, gang," Lucas said. Then the elevator came, and he and Connell rode up.

  Jensen met them at the door. "He's coming?"

  "Maybe," Lucas said, stepping past her. "He's just outside."

  "He's coming," Connell said. "I can feel him. He's coming." C H A P T E R From the moment he'd left the jail, Koop had been consumed by his hunger for the woman.

  Couldn't think of anything else.

  Worked out, muscles still sore from jail, until he was loose again.

  Took a shower, thought about Jensen.

  Went for a run in Braemar Park, up and over the hills. Went to an Arby's, ordered a sandwich, wandered away without it. The counter girl had to catch him in the parking lot. Thinking about Sara Jensen.

  Then, in the elevator, he was crowded against the back of some big dude in an expensive suit, and Sara stood just in front of him. Halfway up, she stepped back and gave him another butt-rub. Yes.

  She knew about him, all right.

  This was the second time.

  No mistake.

  Koop drove the Cities, barely aware of the road, and found himself, just after dark, coming up to Sara Jensen's apartment house. He walked across the street and looked up. Frowned. The light wasn't quite right.

  She'd pulled one of the drapes in the bedroom at least partway.

  Koop felt a pulse of danger: had they figured out the roof? Were they waiting up there? But if they had, she'd never have pulled the drapes.

  They'd leave everything alone.

  No matter.

  He'd go up anyway....

  "He's inside," Greave called. "He had a key." Greave was still on the street, with the van. Del and Sloan had taken the elevators up as soon as it appeared that Koop was looking for parking. Sloan would wait at another apartment. Del was on his way to the roof.

  "He did that couple, the woman across the street. To get the guy's keys," Connell said. "For sure."

  Lucas said, "Yes."

  Connell was sitting on the kitchen floor, below the counter. Lucas was in the hallway between the living room and Jensen's bedroom. Jensen was sitting on her bed. She'd partially pulled the drapes in her bedroom, so there was a two-foot-wide slit in them. Lucas had objected: "We should leave things the way they were."

  "Wrong," she'd said. "I know what I'm doing."

  She sounded so sure of herself that he let it go. Now he stood up and stepped toward her room. "Cameras," he said. "Action."

  She stood up. She was wearing a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and showed bare legs and feet. "I'm set," she said. "Tell me what he's doing when you get it from Del."

  "Sure. Don't look at me when I'm talking. Just keep reading."

  They'd decided that she'd be reading in bed. Koop would be able to see most of her through the slot in the drapes. She picked up copies of the Wall Street Jo
urnal and Investor's Daily, spread them around, and dropped on the bed. "I'm a little jumpy."

  "Remember: when I say get out, you don't do a thing but get," Lucas said.

  They had an apartment down the hall, an older woman recommended by the manager. She'd agreed to let them use her apartment as long as she could be around for the action. Lucas had been unhappy, but she'd been firm, and he had finally given in. The woman was there now, opening the door for Sloan. Greave and the van waited on the street, with two more guys from intelligence.