Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(66)

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BOB, RAE, AND LUCAS toured the garage, which was actually a gunsmith’s workshop, including a sophisticated reloading bench in addition to all the weaponry. Chase was on the phone talking to somebody in Washington about what to do about the guns—Toby Boone’s brother claimed that they all belonged to him, but it turned out the buildings belonged to Toby Boone, and not the brother, so . . .

“It’s gonna take a platoon of lawyers to figure out what to do,” one of the SWAT guys told Lucas. “Hate to see it, but they might get to keep the guns.”

“You ask anybody about all those Ruger 10/22s?”

“Yeah, they said they have a shooting club, go out to a range for training. Nothing illegal about that. Same with the ARs, AKs, and shotguns.”

Chase was still going full speed on the radio and the phone. Bob and Rae went to talk guns’n stuff with the SWAT team, but Chase finally got off both the radio and the phone and drifted over and asked Lucas, “What do you think?”

He shrugged: “What did Toby Boone tell you?”

“He asked for an attorney, but I hit him with the 1919 thing and he said he’d heard of it, but it didn’t have anything to do with them. He said it looked like something run by crazies. He said the Senate was run by people on their side, why would they want to shoot anybody? He said he didn’t know anybody named Linc.”

“If Cop was telling the truth in that recording, both he and Boone know a Linc who might be shooting a kid.”

“And we’ll be talking to them about that, as soon as we get back to Arlington and get them lawyers,” Chase said. “That recording is almost enough to hang them—Cop for sure, we not only have Gibson calling him that, we have his voice, and we can match it. We’ll be talking to Boone about the needle, if Linc winds up shooting somebody. That could catch his attention.”

Lucas: “We’ve been talking about this, me’n Bob and Rae. We got unbelievably lucky with Gibson’s digital recorder and busting Cop. We’ll be even luckier if we find this Linc guy before he pulls a trigger. But we won’t find any more of them this way. We won’t get that lucky again.”

“What then?”

“You’ve got to start planning some kind of media offensive—and FBI offensive,” Lucas said. “Take down all the sites that mirrored 1919, file lawsuits, make explicit threats, talk about people getting the needle. Talk to Greene, the Greene Mountain Boys guy, about doing a blog post on the penalties you’re talking about. Don’t just take down likely extremist groups, take them all down. Roust them. Make threats. Make it look like the end of the world is coming down.”

“What about you? Are you giving up?”

Lucas spread his hands: “If you wind up taking down everybody we know about, then what would we contribute?”

“Stay on a while longer. I tend to agree with you about a media blitz, but that’s gonna take a few meetings,” Chase said.

“We could stay a couple days anyway. We could do some sight-seeing if nothing specific comes up . . .”

“Do that. Or go look around Cop’s house and see if you spot anything that might lead to this Linc guy—you’ve got a great eye,” Chase said. “If you hadn’t seen that phone list, and taken the time to read it, we might not have gotten to Cop as quickly as we did. We’re really looking good. So stay. Buy me some luck.”

“All right. I would like to take a look at Cop’s place, the sooner the better. And we’ll want to take a look at his car. We’ve got that spotted. We’re gonna need warrants.”

“I’ll have those in an hour. Boone’s married, we’ve already hit his house. I understand his wife is giving us a hard time. But, that is what it is; so far, nobody’s called to tell me about any big discoveries there.”



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LUCAS’S PHONE BUZZED and he looked at the incoming call, but didn’t recognize the number.

“Davenport,” he said.

“Marshal Davenport?” Young male voice, heavy breathing. “This is Blake Winston.”

“What’s happening, Blake?” His eyes clicked over to Chase, who’d caught the name, and stepped closer. Lucas thumbed the speaker option so she could listen.

“You were right. I got into Audrey’s computer and that 1919 site is in there, the pieces of it. Audrey put the site together.”

“Where are you?”

“At home,” Winston said. “I put all the pieces I found on a thumb drive for you. I have it here.”

“Don’t talk to anyone. I mean, anyone. We’re coming,” Lucas said. “I’m way up north, it’ll take an hour.”

“I’ll go hit some tennis balls with my mom. I did tell her about it and she’s royally pissed.”

“Try to calm her down, Blake. I’m on my way.”



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LUCAS CLICKED OFF AND CHASE, eyes wide with horror, said, “No, no, no, no-no-no.”

Lucas: “Oh, yeah. I had a funky feeling right from the first meeting with Audrey and her mother. I recruited Blake to spy on her.”

“That’s awful.”