Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30) - John Sandford Page 0,37

meet you because I’m very fast and can run like hell, if necessary.”

He smiled at that, as a phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered, listened for a moment, then clicked off and said, “The guy who’s following you is trying to sneak up on us. He’s about a half block down Virginia. I’d rather he not see my face.”

Lucas looked down the street and the man said, “I gotta go.”

He waved a hand and a car crossed the street and pulled up next to them, a blue LED “Uber” sign in the window. He nodded at Lucas and said, “We’ll call, one way or the other,” and climbed into the Uber. The car pulled into a stream of traffic and was gone.

It had been, Lucas thought, as he looked after the Uber, well done. He’d hoped to get some hint of where the man was from, or where he was going, or who he might work with, or, with any luck, something with a bit of DNA on it. He’d gotten only a sliver of that: the guy might be a government employee, somebody with intelligence contacts, he was a sprinter, and Lucas had a good description. Maybe the FBI could work with that, and maybe not.

A teenaged couple were walking past. Stoners, Lucas thought. The boy looked at the bronze statue, then at Lucas, and asked, “Who the fuck was General José Artigas?” He pronounced the general’s first name as “Josie.”

Lucas shook his head. “Who the fuck knows?”

* * *

—

HE WAS LOOKING FOR A CAB—he was apparently one of the few people on earth who didn’t have the Uber app—when his phone dinged with an incoming message. He checked it, and found himself looking at a photo of Lang’s assistant, Stephen Gibson, walking away from a blue RAV4. A second photo showed the RAV4’s back license plate, still with a smear of mud, but he could make out the tag numbers. Probably a rental, he thought.

It also told him more about the ANM. They could call for help from people who could do effective surveillance, and not be seen, even when taking photos of someone who was, or should have been, wary.

Lucas waved at a taxi. The driver waved back and sped on.

* * *

—

HE WOUND UP WALKING BACK to the Watergate and called Jane Chase on the way, to tell her about the meeting. “Damnit, Lucas . . .”

“I didn’t want to scare the guy away. When he was telling me the conditions for the meeting, I figured he’d spot you. Anyway, I’m good, and I know Gibson is following me, but I’m not exactly sure why. I’ll call Lang and ask him.”

“Tell me more about the guy you met. The ANM guy. If we have enough detail, we might be able to put a finger on him.”

Lucas gave her what he knew: the man had been an inch over six feet, a few pounds either side of one-eighty, blue eyes, brown hair with a touch of white, athletic, a runner, maybe ex-military or a cop, possible connections in the intelligence community, well-spoken, likely a college grad.

“That gives us a chance,” Chase said. “Why don’t you come around later in the day . . . two o’clock . . . I’ll have my assistant put together a video show.”

“All right, I’ll see you then. Did the media coverage kick out anything?”

“Not so far. The media doesn’t seem to have reporters anymore, they just have commentators. What we’re seeing is mostly hot air. Our guys who work the alt-right say there’s some talk about the 1919 site, and apparently it was mirrored on a couple of alt-right websites before it got taken down, so the web page is still out there.”

* * *

—

WHEN LUCAS AND CHASE were finished talking, he called Charles Lang, and asked, “Why is Gibson following me? I assume you assigned him to do it.”

Lang tried bluster: “Stephen isn’t following you. That’s ridiculous. What makes you think . . .”

“I’ve got a photograph of him, Charles. Standing right next to the RAV4. I suspect that’s a rental car, right? In case I spotted it?”

Silence. Then, “We wanted to see who you spoke to. We are a research team and you wouldn’t commit to keeping us informed.”

“Well, tell him to fuck off. If I see him around anymore, I’ll find a way to put him in jail. Interfering with a government investigation or something. Maybe you could go with him. It’d be a new cultural experience