Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30) - John Sandford Page 0,45

the government should be a lot smaller. Maybe . . . ten percent of what it is. We’ve got two million people in the military, counting the reserves. You really think we need two million soldiers? When we’ve got missiles and hydrogen bombs? Who’s going to invade us? We’ve got all those soldiers because we’re poking our noses into other people’s business. Let them take care of themselves. There are almost a million cops. You think we need a million cops? There are one-point-three-million lawyers, all sucking on the government tit in one way or another. You think we oughta need one-point-three-million lawyers to get through our lives? We have no problem with a government that builds roads and bridges and sewers and water plants and such. But two million soldiers and a million cops? More than a million lawyers? And listen—I could go on a while. Don’t get me started on how all our tax money gets pissed away.”

Lucas: “From our point of view, us deep-state people, it looks like it might help your cause if you had some leverage over the people who run the government, who pass the bills that do all the things you don’t like. Leverage you could get from a site like 1919, if a kid gets shot.”

“Bullshit. How in the hell would we keep track of that?” Oxford asked. “We’d need a hundred over-ground people in Washington to figure out what’s going on in Congress and who’s voting for what, and when. We’re not that kind of group. What we are, is, we’ve got an idea and we’re pushing it. We’re growing, slow but steady. We’ve got more people with us than anybody knows. Smart people, too. Not crazy.”

“All right, but you’ve still got those alt-right contacts,” Lucas said. “John: call me.”

They talked for a few more minutes, and John pushed Lucas into admitting that he thought that government was often overbearing and wasteful, and that maybe there were too many cops and soldiers and lawyers.

“See,” John said, “You’ve got some potential to think for yourself. Maybe already been doing it.”

Outside, the lawnmower shut down and Lucas said, “I guess I better run.”

“Guess you better.” Oxford pushed himself up from the chair and followed Lucas to the door. He said, “You’ll soon enough find out what you’ve done here and it really gets me down, as a personal thing. Really bums me out, as us old hippies used to say.”

Lucas stopped and turned: “What have I done?”

“You’ll find out.”

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Elias Dunn had been so shocked by his murder of Rachel and Randy Stokes that he called in sick the next day and the day after that and spent most of his time lying facedown on his bed with a killer headache crawling up the back of his head, a headache that neither Advil nor Aleve could touch.

He couldn’t eat, couldn’t hold anything down. He lived on tap water. It all had been too close, too personal, much more bloody than he’d expected. He hadn’t done it efficiently—he’d even shot himself.

That shot had traveled between his buttocks, cutting a shallow groove in each of them. He’d bled through his clothes and onto the car seat, but the seat was made of some kind of leather-like plastic and was easily cleaned.

The wounds were not easy to treat, because he couldn’t see them well. Even in his floor-to-ceiling dressing mirror, he had to bend over and peer at them between his legs, which was not only painful, but humiliating. He washed the two wounds with soap and water, then slathered them with disinfectant ointment, covered them with stickless gauze from a first aid kit, and then, because he didn’t have enough actual medical tape in the first aid kit, used duct tape to cover the layers of gauze.

The first night and the following day he couldn’t leave the house because he couldn’t drive with the headache. When he stood upright, or sat upright in his truck, clusters of bright blue specks flickered in front of his eyes like neon gnats. He called his survey crew, told them he was sick, told them he’d pay them full wages each day until he was back on the job, and he’d call them the night before they should come back to work.

The second night, he managed to get out to a Walgreens, where he bought a heavy-duty first aid kit including some disinfectant ointment that incorporated a painkiller. He rewashed and re-covered the wound, following instructions he found on the