Prey: Night Prey Part 36

"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 off about 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 das.h.i.+ng down half a block and re-crossing 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 briefcase. 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 s.h.i.+t."

"Christ, Del, move up. . . ."

"I'm coming, I'm coming. . . ."

Connell moved back 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 calm 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 wan derer, 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 him-even through him-but not at him.

"I 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."

"I 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, grabbed a copy of The 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.

"I guess." s.h.i.+t. 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 b.u.t.ton. Lucas stepped in beside him, turned the other way, pushed the b.u.t.ton 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 b.u.t.t b.u.mping the front of Koop's pants. "Sorry," she mumbled, flas.h.i.+ng 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.

"I saw that," Connell said to Jensen, grinning. "You're the b.i.t.c.h from h.e.l.l."

"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 f.u.c.ker," Connell hissed at him. "Get back there."

At nine o'clock, they sat at a stoplight and watched two middle-aged 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 loop-and 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."

33.

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 b.u.t.t-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. . . .

"H E ' 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 Journal 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.

When Koop entered Jensen's building-if he did-Greave and his partners would turn off the elevators from the main-floor control box, and seal the stairs. At the same time, Jensen would go to the woman's apartment, with Sloan, for safekeeping. Del would come off the roof, down the stairs, step into a maintenance closet at the other end of the hall.

When Koop arrived at Jensen's, they'd wait until he'd made a move at the door-tried to unlock it, tried to break it. Lucas would give the word, and Sloan would take him from one end of the hall, Del from the other. Lucas and Connell would come out of the apartment. Four-on-one.

Connell had her pistol out, checking it. She'd fed it with safety slugs. They'd rip ma.s.sive holes in a slab of meat, but would pretty much fall apart when they hit a wall. She held the gun with the barrel up, her finger alongside the trigger guard, her cheek against the cylinder.

"On the roof. He's on the roof," Del called from Jensen's roof. He was breathing hard: he'd beaten Koop up to the top by thirty seconds. A moment later: "He's on the air-conditioner."

KOOP PULLED HIMSELF up, crawled to his protective vent, looked across the street. Sara was there, on the bed, reading. He'd seen her doing this twenty times, prowling through her papers. He put the Kowa scope on her and saw that she was looking through long lists of tables. Her concentration was intense. She turned a page.

She was wearing a white terry-cloth robe, the first time he'd seen it. He approved. It set off her dark, dramatic looks like nothing else would. If her hair had only been wet, she'd have looked like a movie star, on stage. . . .

"HE'S ON THE air-conditioner," Lucas said quietly to Jensen. She showed no sign that she'd heard, although she had.