Winter Prey

pistols strapped around their waists, one with a shotgun in a jury-rigged scabbard hung on the side of the sled.
    “You been listening?”
    “Got it,” said one of the cops. Rusty and Dusty. In their helmets they were unidentifiable.
    “All right. Stand off behind the lot, there. As soon as he gets off his sled, we’ll bring you in. If something happens, be ready to roll. One way or another, we take him.”
    “Got it.”
    The two men took off and Lucas ran back down the corridor, clumping along in his boots, zipping his jacket over the body armor. Henry Lacey trotted down the hall toward him.
    “Good luck,” he called as he passed Lucas.
    Carr was hanging up the phone when Lucas got back. “More stuff coming in on the sonofabitch. Lot of stuff from Duluth. He resigned there, just like he told us, but if he hadn’t, the cops were gonna get him for ripping off homes after fires. A couple of arson guys think he might have set some of the fires himself.”
    “Good. The more we can pile up, the better, if there’s a trial.”
     
    Davenport, you got it right. He’s coming, he’s past us, he’s on the hospital road, he’s on the hospital road, we’re running parallel down the highway . . . Goddamn, it’s hard to see anything out here.
     
    “Shelly, you know where to go. Weather, get your coat on. Tighten up the straps, goddammit.” He pulled the adjustments tight on the body armor, helped her with her mountain parka. She’d be cold without her regular jacket, but it’d only be for a minute or two. “You know what we’re doing now.”
    “Pace it out, take it slow, stay with you. As soon as anybody yells, get down. Stay on the ground.”
    “Right. And everybody knows the panic drill if he decides to come inside.” Lucas looked at Climpt and Carr, and they nodded, and Carr gulped and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
    “Nervous?” Lucas asked Weather, trying a smile.
    “I’m okay.” She swallowed. “Cottonmouth,” she said.

    Even on a blizzard day, there’d be twenty or thirty people in the hospital—nurses, orderlies, maintenance people. Unless Helper had freaked out, he wouldn’t try a frontal assault onthe building. And he knew that Weather had a deputy as a bodyguard. His only chance was to snipe her with a rifle or to get in close with a pistol or shotgun, shoot it out with her bodyguard, like he’d tried when he ambushed Weather and Bruun. They’d set up Weather’s Jeep within a rough circle of cars, they’d given him places to hide, places they could reach with snipers on the roof. They’d show her to him, just long enough.
    As soon as he flashed a gun, they’d have him.

    He’s thirty seconds out.
    Anybody see a weapon?
    Didn’t see a thing when he went by. He didn’t show a long gun on the machine.
    He’s ten seconds out. All right, he’s slowing down, he’s slowing down. He’s stopped right at the entrance to the parking lot. Davenport, you got him?
    Lucas put the radio to his mouth, stared through the waiting room window out to the parking lot. He was looking into a bowl of snowflakes. “We can’t see a thing from in here, the goddamn snow.”
    He’s still sitting there, can you guys on the roof see anything?
    I can see him, he’s not moving.
    What’s he doing?
    He’s just sitting there.
     
    “Is he coming in?” Weather asked.
    “Not yet.”
     
    Wait a minute, wait a minute, he’s moving . . . He’s moving past the lot, he’s going past the lot down the hospital road. He’s moving slow.
    Where’s he going?
    He’s going on past the hospital.
     
    Lucas: “You guys on the sleds, he’s coming your way, stay out of sight.”
    We’re up in the woods, don’t see him. Where is he? Still coming your way.
    Don’t see him.
    He’s on the road by that gas thing, that natural-gas pump thing, he’s just going by.
    Wait a minute, we got him, he’s moving slow. What do we do?
     
    “Stay right there, let the FBI guys track him,” Lucas said.
     
    He’s passing us. Boy, you can hardly see out here.
     
    The FBI man’s voice came in over the others: He’s stopped. He’s stopped. He’s two hundred yards behind the hospital, by that big woods.
     
    “Janes’ woodlot,” Climpt said. “He’s gonna come through the woods, sneak in through the back door by the dumpsters.”
    “That’s always locked,” Weather said.
    “Maybe he’s got some way to get in.”
     
    He’s not moving. Somebody’s got to take a look.
     
    Carr, fifty