Mortal Prey

"Can they see the street from the back of the house, where these rooms are?" Lucas asked.

Carter said, "We cruised by. They could see the street, but not much of it. They could see it especially on the north side, the garage side. The other side, they'd be looking down a little narrow strip between the next house over."

"So if we sent Sally in with another guy, the youngest-looking guy, and we got into this old lady's house with some listening gear… we should be able to figure out if they're in there."

"We could do that," the team leader said. "And we could get a better layout from her."

"So let's do it," Mallard said.

WITHOUT THE PROSPECT of instant action, the intensity faded a bit, the entry team guys peeled off their armor and flopped around the place, and ten minutes later, when Sally and a youthful, blond agent named Meers left for McCombs's house, Lucas and the three St. Louis ex-cops congregated around Andreno's car.

"You guys get anything to eat?"

"Meatball sandwiches up at Dirty Bill's," Andreno said.

"Nasty, but tasty. You better stick close to the can," Carter said. Then, to Lucas: "What do you think?"

"Maybe," Lucas said. "They wouldn't be going out much in the daytime."

"What about these guys?" He nodded at the federal entry team.

"Look like pros," Lucas said. "The ones up in Mi

Bender nodded. "Everything I've heard about these guys is, they're good."

"So we wait," Lucas said.

THEY WAITED AN hour and a bit more, the sun still bright in the sky, but angled now, and Lucas began to worry about the problems of darkness. Then Sally came back with a layout. "The old bat, you oughta see her," she said to Mallard. "She's got a bad mouth, she apparently hates people on sight, she smells-"

"Are they there?" Mallard asked impatiently.

"I don't think so, not at the moment-but it's her. It's Hill," Sally said. Sally was wearing an olive-drab shirt, made of a crinkly cotton fabric, without epaulets but with a military cut. "Tommy set up the listening gear and it's working, and we put it right on the wall, but we didn't hear anything. They could be asleep."

"How many rooms?

"Kitchen, living room, bath, bedroom and a spare room, but it's small, more like a closet. One hallway. You come into the living room and look straight back at the kitchen, down a hall, with the main bedroom on one side of the hall, and the bath and the small room opening off the other side. Thirty feet, maybe, from the front of the living room to the back wall of the kitchen. One door in and out, with a push-out fire window on the north side, in the main bedroom. There's a window on the south side…"

They worked through it, still playing the possibilities. Go in hard, and if they weren't there, wait. Or wait, ready to snap when they walked in.

"I don't want to wait," Mallard said, finally. "There're too many possible ways for things to go wrong, and we've been waiting…"

But as he ran down his rationale for hitting McCombs's house, a call came in for Malone, and after listening for a moment, she said, "What?" in a harsh, incredulous tone and everyone went quiet. The tone was bad news, and they waited.

Malone, more puzzled than anything, Lucas thought, after a moment looked at Mallard and said, "The Memphis police just called. A woman who says she's Patricia Hill just turned herself in on the old homicide warrant. She's with her lawyer. She says she's scared and she's willing to give up Rinker. The Memphis cops want to know what to do."

"Holy cow," Mallard said. He looked around, spotted Lucas. "You hear that?"

"Yeah," Lucas said. "I du

Malone was listening again, and when Lucas asked the question, she nodded and said, "She's giving up the house. I mean, the house. McCombs's house."

"She says Rinker's there?"

"She says she was this morning."

"Let's go," Mallard said. "Let's hit it."

"Wait a minute," Lucas said, then louder, "WAIT A FUCKIN' MINUTE."

"What?" Mallard asked.

"What if Rinker's setting us up? She says she's go

Mallard pulled at a lip. Then: "Goddamnit." He looked at the entry team leader. "We're go

THE COPS CAME in a wave, ru

"Ain't go

Malone shook her head. "She won't. She's not on a suicide run. Not yet."

"You know that for sure."

"Yeah. She's not done with Dallaglio or Ross. Her brother killing himself pissed her off, but her brother's not the same as losing her fiancй and her baby. She doesn't want to die yet."

"Hope you're right. But something's hinky here."

THE HOUSE SEEMED so lifeless that they had little hope that Rinker was inside. She could be asleep, Mallard argued. They might not hear her, he said, because the bedroom didn't share a wall with anything they could reach with the sound equipment.

With the sun almost on the horizon, and long dark shadows striping across the lawns, everything was finally set and Mallard gave a go to the entry team. The team's vans moved, rolling back from their surveillance sites, and the team piled out. One man set up to watch the windows, while the others came in from the front of the house, crept under one window, reached the back door.

Lucas watched, feeling the pressure. Then the door man moved, then another guy, then the door man stepped back with a monster wedge, normally used for splitting wood, ready to swing. Two guys on the sides of the house, coordinated by radio, pitched flash-bangs through the windows, and as they went off, sounding to Lucas like distant ca

"Empty," Mallard groaned. "Okay. Get some guys out in the garage, close the door. We'll set up for surveillance."

WHEN THEY WERE SET, and nothing was moving, Mallard, Malone, Lucas, and Andreno crossed the street and walked up to the house, Lucas nervously watching the windows in the houses up and down the street. Nothing happened. Inside, the surveillance team leader said, "Nothing."

They walked through the apartment, looked in the chest of drawers, looked at the walls, checked the medicine cabinet.

"Bullshit," Lucas said. "They cleared out before Hill ever went to Memphis. There's nothing left here but junk. Nothing sentimental. She wasn't ru

"When were they here?"

Lucas was still poking around, and came up with a newspaper. "This morning's paper," he said, showing them the Levy headline. "They brought it in this morning."