Night Prey

"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."

Co

Roux was scared to death. Co

But Jensen had come to see her the day before, wearing a power suit and carrying a power briefcase, 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," Co

"I want to get him so bad that my teeth hurt," Jensen had said. "When will he get out?"

"Tomorrow morning," Co

"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," Co

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 ru

"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," Co

Lucas looked at her. "Bullshit."

The Ruger was in a mufflike 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?" Co

"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," Co

Sloan beeped. "Where is he?"

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

Lucas pulled Co

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 Co

"Sloan?"

"It's going down, man," Sloan said, sounding like he might be out of breath. "Something's go

"Christ, Del, move up…"

"I'm coming, I'm coming…"

Co

"Get close, but not too close. I'm go

"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 Co

"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 Co

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 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 ru

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." 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 Co

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

"Coming up from behind. Sloan said you were pi

"Elevators," Co

"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.