Winter Prey

winter camouflage suit that he’d bought for deer hunting, pac boots, and a camo face mask. He kept a pair of binoculars in a canvas bag with the radio, and a Thermos of hot chocolate in another bag. He’d been in place for two hours, reasonably warm, fairly comfortable.
    He’d watched Davenport and Climpt go into the station to nail Helper down. After they’d been inside for a minute, the FBI man, the black guy, jogged up from the back, used a key to go through the access door into the truck bay. Two minutes later the FBI man slipped out and disappeared into the snow. Then Davenport and Climpt pulled out, followed by the crime techs from Madison. Since then, nothing. The trooper had expected immediate action. When it hadn’t come, sitting in the drift out of the wind, he’d felt a bit sleepy; the winter storm muffled all sound, dimmed all color, eliminated odors. He unscrewed the top of the Thermos, took a hit of chocolate, screwed the top back on. He was pushing the jug back into his carry sack when he saw movement. The door on the far truck bay, where theFBI man had gone in, was rolling up.
    The trooper pulled the radio from the bag, put it to his face: “We got movement,” he said. “You hear me?” The radio was unfamiliar, provided by the FBI, all talk scrambled.
     
    We hear you. How’s he moving?
     
    “Hang on,” the patrolman said. He studied the open door through the binoculars. A moment later Helper bumped out through the door on his snowmobile, looked right and left, then turned toward the highway.
    “He’s on the sled,” the patrolman said into the radio. “He’s moving, he’s on the trail down 77. He’s coming up toward your post . . . He’s not moving too fast . . . wait a minute, he’s moving now, he’s really taking off.”
     
    Davenport, are you monitoring?.
     
    “Yes, I heard.” Lucas was at the hospital, among the smells of alcohol and disinfectant and the stray whiffs of raw meat and urine. “Are you tracking him?”
    We got him, and he’s moving your way. The caller was the FBI man who’d provided them with the special handsets and the radio beacons now attached to Helper’s sled and truck. He’s coming up on us. We’ll let him pass and then try to hang on.
    “We’re set here. Keep us posted,” Lucas said. He looked at Weather. “He’s coming.” Lucas pulled the magazine from his .45, checked it. Climpt, who’d been sitting on an examination stool, picked up his Ithaca twelve-gauge and jacked a shell into the chamber. “He ought to be here in twenty minutes.”
    “If he’s coming here,” Carr said. The sheriff had buckled on his pistol again, but left it untouched in its holster.
    “I got a buck that says he is,” Lucas said. He slipped the magazine back into the .45 and slapped it tight with the heel of his hand.
    “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” Weather asked.
    “We’re not trying to kill him,” Lucas said levelly. “But he has to make his move.”
    “I don’t see how you won’t kill him,” Weather said. “If he has a gun in his hand . . .”
    “We’ll warn him. If he opts to fight, what can we do?”
    She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “If we had more time, I could think of something.”
    “Women shouldn’t be involved in this sort of thing,” Climpt said.
    “Hey, fuck you, Gene,” she said harshly.
    “Take it easy,” Lucas said mildly. He put the .45 up to his face and clicked the safety on and off, on and off, on. He saw the look on her face and said, “Sorry.”
    “I’m not being silly about this,” she said. “Better he dies than anyone else. This ambush just seems so . . . cold.”
    “We ain’t playing patty-cake,” Climpt said.
     
    The FBI came back: He’s passing us . . . Okay, he’s past, he looked us over pretty good. No chance that we can keep up with him, Jesus, this snow is something else, it’s like driving into a funnel . . . He must be doing forty down there in the ditch, he must be flying blind . . . we’re doing thirty . . . Manny, he’ll be coming up on you in five minutes.
    A second voice, the other FBI man: Got him on the scope . . . Davenport, we’re five minutes out, he’s still coming, he’s maybe two miles back.
    “Got that,” Lucas said. To Climpt, Weather, and Carr: “Get ready. I’ll talk to the twins.” He ran down the hall, pushed open the double doors at the end of the corridor. Two cops were climbing onto snowmobiles,