Extreme Prey: A Novel Part 8

"No. All he has is some basic descriptions. He said the candidate from the North saw you and a fellow he believed was related to you, and pa.s.sed along the description. If he starts asking around among our people, he's going to find you. I won't ask if . . . you know . . . you're planning something. I'm already in enough trouble, lying about not knowing you."

"I appreciate that," Marlys said.

"You better more than appreciate it. Your action isn't . . . appropriate. That's not a strong enough word, but you know what I mean. I won't ask if you're planning something, but I'll tell you, if you are, you better quit it."

"Things are getting desperate. Everything is out of control," Marlys said, a pleading note in her voice. "If we don't do something now . . . four years from now may be too late. We can already see how things are going this year, and we have to do something this year."

"Mar . . . I'm sorry, that's crazy talk. You have to stop and think," Likely said.

"You think I haven't thought about this? I'm more scared and more worried than you are, Joe, but not about myself. About the whole country-"

"Careful about names . . ."

"I'm sorry. But look-we need to talk about this. Maybe I'm too isolated out here," Marlys said. "The only place I get to talk serious politics is the beauty salon."

"I'll talk anytime you want-but you know what my position has to be. No violence. No violence. Violence is the true root of all evil, worse even than money. If John Kennedy hadn't been killed, if Lyndon Johnson hadn't taken us into Vietnam, can you imagine what this country could be? If Reagan-"

"Old fights, old fights," Marlys said. "But . . . let's talk. There's time. I'll talk to my boy, see what he thinks. Maybe even come by tonight, if I can find a babysitter for my granddaughter."

"Okay. Let me know, soon. I think . . . this is all very troubling."

- LIKELY GOT OFF THE PHONE and felt himself creeping around the store, waiting for a hand on the shoulder. Nothing happened. He bought a roll of Bounty paper towels and a pack of paper plates and slunk out the doors, heading back home.

Checked around the parking lot for watching faces; scanned the rearview mirror in the car. At home, walked from window to window . . . Nothing. That didn't mean they weren't out there.

EIGHT.

The Hotel Blackhawk was an older building in downtown Davenport-excellent name for a city, Lucas thought as he parked the truck-with a political bustle going on in the streets around it, cars and buses jamming things up, the sound of a band somewhere nearby, a police siren off in the deepening twilight. He'd come up along the Mississippi, and could still feel the presence of the river as he walked across Third Street to the hotel.

He'd called Norm Clay on the way north and Clay said that a woman named Sally Rodriguez would be waiting for him in the lobby with a campaign badge. "She's short, brunette, gorgeous, and unavailable," Clay said.

"I've heard rumors of a thing called campaign s.e.x, which doesn't count," Lucas said.

"So have I, but I don't get any," Clay said. "Anyway, I told her to look for the big guy in an expensive suit with a black eye. Call her five minutes before you get here. She'll meet you in the lobby."

Lucas did that and found Rodriguez sitting in the lobby, talking on a cell phone: she held a hand up to him and pointed at the chair next to hers. Lucas sat and Rodriguez said into the phone, ". . . can tell Mary Lou that she can go f.u.c.k herself, that Mike's going to win the election and the presidency and the next time she'll get an interview is in the late 2040s. I'm going now."

She clicked off without saying good-bye and smiled at Lucas and said, "Straightening out a TV station's priorities." She was as good-looking as advertised, wore a deep-red dress with matching shoes, lipstick, and nails.

"Does it do any good?" Lucas asked.

"Oh, yeah. TV people love it when politicians treat them like they're important and respected. I'd told them that we'd give them an exclusive five minutes with Mike, but she didn't want to talk about the gun issue, because it had been done to death. What's the first question they asked? 'Will you require gun registration if you're elected?' I catch a raft of s.h.i.t from Mike, and now the producer catches a raft of s.h.i.t from me."

As she spoke, she was digging into a leather bag and produced a laminated card with a neck loop that said, at the top, "The Mike Campaign, 2016," and at the bottom, in small green letters, "All Venues," with a smiling shot of Bowden in between.

"Norm told me to give you this and I'll ask you not to abuse it-it gets you into everything and there aren't many like it. Don't loan it to anyone."

"I'll use it carefully," Lucas said. "And probably not much."

"Good," she said. Her phone rang and she looked at it and said, "I've got to take this. Mike's up in the main ballroom right now . . ."

"Gotcha," Lucas said. He held up a hand to say good-bye as she clicked on the new call, walked over to the main desk, got directions to the ballroom. On the way, he hung the laminated card around his neck, spotted one of Bowden's security guys, and went that way, to introduce himself.

"Norm told us about you," the guy said. He grinned, gestured at Lucas's black eye, and said, "Looks like you walked into a door."

"Yeah. Door. Lots of doors around. I want to look at the crowd, see how you do things. I'd like to talk to your other guys, too."

"You go on. I'll call Dan Jubek, he's the boss, and tell him you're coming. He'll be standing at the bottom of the stairs up to the stage. He's a big black guy, wearing a tan suit, looks like an NFL lineman because he used to be one."

- BOWDEN'S SPEECH was in a large ballroom with arches and a shaky-looking temporary stage; there were metal detectors at the doorways and security people standing by them, but the audience was already inside. The place was jammed, with standing people crowded around the chairs that took up the center of the room, which smelled of sweat, perfume, and hair spray. Three television crews were shooting from one side, a fourth from the other side. Lucas worked his way around the edge of the crowd until he came to a rope that kept him from continuing behind the platform. A security man saw him, crooked a finger at him, and lifted the rope so he could cross the line.

"Dan's waiting for you . . ."

Bowden was saying, ". . . need to care for the less advantaged among us. The Republicans and even some of my fellow Democrats would have you believe that these people are nothing but lazy . . ."

Her eyes touched Lucas's and she gave him a minute nod and kept talking.

- LUCAS WORKED HIS WAY to the side of the stage, where Jubek was standing. He was four inches taller than Lucas and six inches wider. He was wearing round-toed shoes that almost pa.s.sed for dress, but would have a solid steel cap under the toe. He had a bug in his ear and a microphone b.u.t.ton on one collar. He leaned toward Lucas and said, "She's about four minutes from finishing and then we're off to the c.o.c.ktail party down the hall. Be best if we talked then."

"Okay."

Lucas backed off and scanned the crowd. Lots of middle-aged women, but no farm boys with distinctive gray eyes. Everybody seemed well-groomed, even when long-haired. Nothing for him here, he thought; the crowd was too well-watched and chosen and metal-detected. The c.o.c.ktail party would probably be even more selected. A problem, if there ever was one, would come from the outside, while Bowden was moving from one place to another.

- BOWDEN FINISHED HER TALK with comments about all the great old friends she had in Davenport and how much she enjoyed seeing them again, which seemed unlikely to Lucas, but then she was off the stage and Jubek escorted her down a side hall and through a couple of back rooms and out into another hallway, to another event s.p.a.ce already populated by a couple dozen people holding drinks.

When she was securely inside, Jubek dropped back to speak with Lucas.

"Give me the odds that this is something real and not a false alarm," he said.

Lucas said, "Maybe fifty-fifty."

Jubek's eyebrows went up, and he said, "That bad? Fifty-fifty makes me seriously nervous."

"Mrs. Bowden and Norm Clay suspect that Governor Henderson may be trying to discourage her from campaigning here in Iowa, but that's not true," Lucas said. "Henderson doesn't really believe he can get the nomination, but he thinks if Bowden is nominated, she could pick him as a running mate, and n.o.body else would. What I'm saying is, he wants her to get the nomination."

"Interesting. That's not what I'm hearing from Norm-the governor's doing a little better than we'd expected. Anyway, what I need here is specifics, who and what and mostly when."

Lucas shook his head. "Don't have any of that yet. I'll feed you everything I get. The thing that worries me the most is the fact that she's going to the state fair. That's gonna be a mess."

"We know that," Jubek said, going grim. "I've tried to talk her out of it, but it's the biggest event on the schedule, and not going would be considered an insult to the entire state of Iowa. She's going."

"All right. I'll try to track these guys down before then . . ."

As Bowden worked the room, Jubek took Lucas around to all the other security people and told them to take a good look. "If this guy tells you something, you listen," he told them. He gave Lucas his cell phone number, and said, as Lucas was leaving, "I sincerely hope you're a self-aggrandizing bulls.h.i.tter who's trying to get attention for himself, but I looked you up and I've got the bad feeling you're not."

"'Self-aggrandizing.' Pretty big words for a former lineman," Lucas said.

Jubek grinned and slapped him on the shoulder and said, "See ya."

- LUCAS CHECKED HIS WATCH: he'd gotten done what he'd wanted to get done-met Bowden's security, which he hadn't had time to do in Burlington-and he still had time to make it to Iowa City. He pushed through the front door into the street . . .

And saw Cole Purdy leaning against a wall across the street.

Didn't know the name, couldn't be certain that it was who he thought it was, couldn't see that distinctive eye color from that distance, but the hair, the leanness of the face, the stance, and even the high-collared shirt were right. Everyone else around was in short sleeves . . . Was the shirt covering a gun? Lucas turned around and walked back into the lobby and found the security guy he'd met when he first walked in.

"You gotta come with me," he said. "C'mon, c'mon . . ."

"What's up?"

"There's a guy across the street, watching the door," Lucas said. "He might be one of the people we're looking for."

The security guy, whose name was Andy, said, "Go!" and started talking into his lapel, and Lucas led him out the door. The guy was gone.

Lucas ran to the middle of the street-it'd been fifteen seconds, no more-and then saw the guy sixty or seventy yards down the street, more than half a football field, walking swiftly away. He glanced back, as he'd done in the photo taken by Alice Green, and then Lucas was sure.

"That's him," he said to Andy, who'd come up behind him. He started toward Cole, walking fast, but there wasn't enough of a sidewalk crowd to hide him and the guy looked back again and their eyes touched and the guy broke into a full-out run down Third Street.

"s.h.i.t!" Andy said, and he was shouting into his lapel as he and Lucas dashed across the street, through and past cars. Lucas realized that he wasn't far from the truck, and shouted at Andy, "Chase him! I'll get my truck!"

- COLE WAS FAST and wearing running shoes and was pulling ahead. They crossed Pershing Avenue, losing ground, then Cole turned at Iowa Street and was out of sight. Lucas came up to his truck and opened it with the remote key, climbed inside, fired it up, had to wait for a pa.s.sing car, did a U-turn, saw Andy disappear around a corner.

- ANDY TURNED THE CORNER at Iowa, couldn't see anyone running, but then a white pickup roared out of a parking lot that faced a set of railroad tracks, banged over a curb, and headed away from them, down Iowa, made a screeching turn onto Second Street. By the time he'd run a block to the corner of Second, out of breath, he was in time to see the truck turn left on Pershing.

Then Lucas was coming up behind, pulling over. Andy popped the pa.s.senger-side door and shouted, "Next street, take a left."

By the time they got to Pershing, the white truck was gone, and they didn't know which way.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, he's gone," Andy shouted into his lapel mike. "Probably on the highway, but which way . . . I dunno. White pickup, a Ford, I think, white male with long-sleeve OD shirt worn unb.u.t.toned over T-shirt, jeans, long hair . . . G.o.dd.a.m.nit."

- COLE HAD DRIVEN only a short block on Pershing, turned down an alley, back the way he'd come. Before leaving the alley, he pulled behind a car and watched Pershing. A few seconds later he saw a black SUV, moving far too quickly, pa.s.s the alley, pause at the highway, and take a left.

Cole pulled ahead, took a left himself, back on Iowa, went around a couple of blocks and onto the highway, heading in the opposite direction from the black SUV. A few minutes later he was on I-74 heading north; and five minutes later, on I-80, going west.

- LUCAS AND ANDY never saw him again, though they'd seen a lot of white pickup trucks. They drove around for a while, in case he'd stopped to hide, then went back to the hotel.

At the hotel, Jubek asked Lucas, "How sure?"

"Pretty sure," Lucas said.

Andy said, "I'm pretty sure, too. When he saw us, he started running. No reason to, if he was innocent. He was looking right at us and he took off like a big-a.s.sed bird."

"Most of the city cops were here, on crowd control, none of them in cars," Jubek said. "Probably didn't get rolling until a couple minutes after I got to them, and I didn't get to them for a couple minutes after you called. He was probably a couple of miles away before the cops started looking. They stopped about fifty white pickups . . ."

"He could have been across the river in Illinois before we even started looking," Andy said.

"C'mon. We're gonna talk to Mike," Jubek said.

"You already told her about it?" Lucas asked.

"First thing. She wanted to know the chances that you were bulls.h.i.tting us, that this whole incident was set up to scare us. I told her less than one percent. Because our guy was with you during the chase and Andy knows what he's doing, and if you'd set it up, and if either Andy or the local cops had broken it down, that would be the end of Henderson. Henderson is too smart for that, and so are you."

- BOWDEN EXCUSED HERSELF from the c.o.c.ktail party, and when they were together in a side room, she glanced at Lucas and asked Jubek, "What happened?"

Jubek told her, and then said, "Now we have an actual sighting and a reaction, and it's not good, Madam Secretary. We need to talk to the Iowa campaign security and get them to help Davenport. Whoever this guy was, we need to break him out."

"Then do that," she said. She started twisting a ring on her left hand, glanced at Lucas again, then back at Jubek. "I'll want to staff the incident tonight, after the party."

"Yes. We need to do that," Jubek said.

Bowden nodded at Lucas and stepped back toward the party. Before she got to the door she turned to Lucas and said, "You're not invited to the staff meeting. We'll be staffing you, too. And talking with Governor Henderson."

"I'll tell the governor to expect the call," Lucas said.

NINE.

Cole called home as soon as he was clear of the city and was sure no cops were trailing behind. Jesse had gone to town and Marlys had put Caralee to bed early, but the kid was restless and heard Marlys talking to Cole on the phone and started calling out for her.

"Got a problem," Cole said. "A couple of Bowden's security people spotted me. I managed to outrun them, but-I don't know how-they recognized me. This one big-looking dude seemed to know who I was."

Marlys was shocked, nearly into silence. "But that, but that . . ."

"Don't know how, but that's the case," Cole said. He glanced down at the speedometer: he was doing almost ninety, purely from the stress; had to rein it in. He took his foot off the gas.

Marlys said, "That's crazy." Caralee had been asleep on an air mattress in the parlor, and now she toddled into the kitchen, towing her blankie, a child's quilt that Marlys had made for her, and caught hold of Marlys's pant leg. Marlys patted her on the head and said into the phone: "You don't think we've been under surveillance?"

Cole shook his head; that wasn't right. "I've been thinking about it ever since it happened and I can only come up with one thing. You know how I thought that chick took my picture at the Henderson rally? I wonder if they pa.s.sed that around?"

"They'd only know what you look like?" Marlys chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then said, "That's gotta be it. n.o.body's come around here, so they don't know who you are. You had mud on your license plates?"

"Yeah, n.o.body read those . . . I'm gonna stop and clean them off when I get a chance, in case they're looking for a white pickup with muddy plates. I haven't seen a cop at all. Not even one. Anyway, I'll be home in an hour or so."

Marlys shook her head as Caralee started crying. Like being nibbled to death by ducks. "Something else has come up. It's bad."