Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30) - John Sandford Page 0,123
with him, and checks the site, he’ll see us.”
“Why don’t you take down the cameras?”
“We’ve done that, Lucas. But we can’t even find where it’s going out to, the video that’s already been shot. Even if we find the security server, I doubt they’d take the site down, even if we yelled at them. I mean, they’ll have hundreds of surveillance videos coming in all the time, we can’t simply order them to shut down.”
“Figure something out,” Lucas said.
“We’re trying,” Chase said. “The big brains are scratching their heads. I don’t know what will come of it.”
“I thought you were a big brain.”
“Well, yes, but I’m on the strategy side. This problem is tactical,” she said.
“More left to the second lieutenants.”
“Exactly.”
* * *
—
LUCAS PICKED UP A CARBINE in Arlington, from a marshal who wanted to make sure he knew how to operate it and that he’d eventually get it back—Lucas had to tell him that he’d already been shot by one, which did make an impression. The case was big and awkward, but about as secure as a case could get, with an actual padlock holding it closed.
“That’ll put a bullet where it’s aimed, if you know how to shoot,” the marshal said. “Try not to whack it around too much.”
Lucas stopped at the Watergate to grab some clothes and made it back to National forty minutes before they’d close the door on his flight. Checking the gun and ammo took up half that time, even with his marshal’s ID, and he made it through security and as he was jogging down to his gate, took a call from Chase.
“Where are you?”
“Jogging,” Lucas said.
“You know, jogging can be dangerous in DC.”
“I’m in DC and I’m jogging, but I’ve got a gun.”
“All right. I’m calling to tell you that we got a return from Rapid DNA. Dunn’s our man,” Chase said. “No question. We tracked down that cabin in West Virginia, maybe a survivalist deal, the way it looks from a satellite view. We’ve got two SWAT teams on the way.”
“Luck,” Lucas said.
He was jogging under a speaker when a plane announcement was made and Chase asked, “What was that sound?”
“Bus,” Lucas said. “Jesus, almost got hit. Gotta go.”
He turned off his phone and the airline attendant at the gate said, “You made it. Last guy on.”
* * *
—
HENDERSON HAD GOTTEN him a seat in first class. The woman in the seat next to him, who’d already begun knitting something in a color of green so dreadful that Lucas didn’t want to sit next to it, said, “You must be important.”
Catching his breath, as he settled into the seat, Lucas asked, “Why?”
“They told us they might have to hold the plane for you.”
“I’m not that important,” Lucas said. “Must’ve been somebody else.”
She shook her head. “No, I think it was you.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Dunn gassed up at an I-95 truck stop north of Savannah, where he took a few minutes to go online with the truck stop’s Wi-Fi and check his security cameras.
And saw the FBI agents crawling through his house.
They’d found him.
He’d felt it coming, wasn’t completely surprised. He decided that he was going in, way back when he’d first found the 1919 site, even if it cost him. He’d already begun preparing for it, when he’d pulled the battery from his cell phone that morning.
* * *
—
HE SAT IN THE TRUCK, watching the agents tear through his house, his mouth beginning to tremble, but he fought back tears. He wouldn’t cry about it. He wouldn’t exactly be martyred, since the website was a fake, but if he took out the Coil girl, at least people would see a lesson: you don’t fuck with serious people.
And he fantasized about hiding out in a wilderness—that had been done, and successfully—but it was, he thought, a fantasy. He could try, but the deep state would get him.
Before he left the truck stop, he called up a map program and found a Walmart Supercenter in Fitzgerald, Georgia, a half hour northeast of Tifton. He’d stop there for the night, he thought, outside the target town, in case somebody might have anticipated him.
He’d scout the next morning, find a spot, hit the girl, and run. The truck would be a liability after he hit her, because they’d have a starting point for him. Had to think about that.
From Savannah, he picked up a few miles of I-16 going west, then cut cross-country to Fitzgerald, arriving well after dark. He went inside the Walmart, got a sandwich, ate