Hidden Prey

control, were hustled down the stairs to the squads. Lucas, Marcy, and Nadya sorted through the piles of computers and came up with four Sony Vaios. Lucas lined them up on the kitchen counter and plugged them in, then brought them up, one after the other. All four were loaded with Microsoft Word; the third one showed a Cyrillic character set.
    “Excellent,” Nadya said. “I will translate.”
    Lucas shook his head, shut down the machine. “We’ve got our own translators,” he said, grinning at her. “They’ll save you the trouble.”
    “You see,” she said, seriously, “you do not trust me.”
     
    L UCAS CALLED A NDY H ARMON , who said he was in Duluth, and who was intrigued by the computer. “Barney’s gonna be happy with this. Good job, Davenport. Where are you going to take it?”
    “The Minneapolis cops have it right now. We’ll put it on the search warrant return, and then you guys can pick it up.”
    “How soon?”
    “Hour?”
    “Excellent.”
     
    M ARCY TOOK THE COMPUTER , left another of the intelligence cops in charge of the scene, and then, back in her car, led them a mile or so to a coffee bar where they got coffee and scones.
    “Tell me everything,” she said. “I read the story in the Pioneer Press, said you were up to your ass in spies . . .”
    They talked for half an hour, about spies and Marcy’s love life, catching up on old times. Then Marcy got a phone call, listened for a minute, and said, “I’m on the way. Fifteen minutes.”
    To Lucas: “Gotta go. That was the feds. They want the computer.”
    On the street, Lucas said, “Stay in touch,” and Marcy stood on her tiptoes and pecked him on the lips.
     
    B ACK IN THE CAR , Nadya asked, “How long—is it permitted to ask?—since you were romantic together?”
    Lucas cut his eyes at her, then smiled and said, “Pretty obvious, huh? It’s been a while. Three years, four years. Only lasted a month or so.”
    “Your wife knows about this?”
    “Yes. She wasn’t my wife at the time. Weather and I had been seeing each other, then we had a big problem and stopped seeing each other—actually, she stopped seeing me—and then there was the little episode with Marcy . . . and then Weather came around again.”
    “You’re a very busy man,” Nadya said.
    “Didn’t seem busy,” Lucas said. “I like women, and I waslonely without one around. Now I’m married, and I have kids, and I’m happy.”
    “Good,” she said. “I’m happy that it works. My life . . .”
    She looked out the window and Lucas did a U-turn in traffic, hoping that the screeching turn would distract her, that Nadya wouldn’t start some goofy rambling about her problems; listening sympathetically to one woman’s problems was enough.
     
    W EATHER AND N ADYA got along famously. Weather was wide-eyed at the idea of a spy in the house, although Nadya said she was not a spy but a policewoman; and Nadya seemed genuinely interested in Weather’s reconstructive surgery work. Weather had dozens of photographs and computer graphics of a young girl born with a deformed head, for whom Weather was planning to construct a new eye socket.
    Then Sam was brought out and fed and changed, and the two women ganged up on Lucas when Weather accused him of not doing his share of the diaper changing, and Lucas excused himself, got a beer, and parked in front of the TV to sulk. A little later, the women brought Sam in, in his walker, and let Lucas watch him as he rolled around the room pulling at upholstery and trying to eat magazines.
    At dinner, the discussion focused on the upper limit of a woman’s ability to have babies, and the technicalities of the problem. Weather mentioned that aging men were also to blame for prenatal problems—it wasn’t just older women—and again, he felt that he was being ganged up on. When the conversation drifted from obstetrics to gynecology, and stories of postmenopausal women and their hot flashes, Lucas again moved into the TV room.
    He’d returned to the kitchen for another beer, when Ellen Jansen, their housekeeper, returned; she’d been out having dinner with a new beau, and Weather asked, “Well, did he kiss you good night?”
    “Jesus Christ,” Lucas said. “I’m going for a walk.”
    At seven, Weather and Nadya left for the Megamall, and didn’t make it back until ten. Nadya looked at Lucas and said, “Hooters,” and laughed.
    At bedtime, Weather took Nadya to the guest room and showed her how to plug