Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(92)

“I can’t talk directly to that, to specific items of evidence we may or may not have uncovered, but, I’ll repeat that we’ve made significant progress today.”

The reporter came back: “Does it have anything to do with a double murder in Virginia?”

An almost mischievous look flickered across Chase’s face. “Again, if you didn’t get it, we’ve made . . .”

In other words, Yes.

Made Lucas laugh. She was a star. And he thought, The lights are no longer hot, babe, because LEDs don’t burn, but really, who’d know that, out in the unwashed viewing audience?



* * *



—

LUCAS WENT TO BED, but lay awake and thought about the 1919 shooter.

The key to the man’s psychology—the DNA had proven the shooter was male, which Lucas had never doubted—was anger mixed with calculation. Anger about the people who ran the country and a calculation of how that might be fixed, by influencing the U.S. Senate.

Since the 1919 site was nothing more than a teenage fraud, and that was now public, the calculation had been completely overturned, but the anger would remain. Not only would it remain, but it would almost certainly intensify.

The shooter, the calculator, had been careful in his selection of targets, in his selection of his sniper’s nest (being so far away from the target that the Secret Service and the FBI hadn’t even considered it) and unlike the man arrested in the parking garage, had not even taken a look at the garage—all the cars coming and going were on a thirty-day video loop and had been checked and cleared.

His brain would be working overtime, both constraining and inflaming the anger.

There was, Lucas thought, the possibility that he’d crack, would load up a black rifle and a sack full of mags and shoot up a school or a synagogue or a government building.

It seemed, though, from the care with which the young boy was shot, that he didn’t want to get caught. He wasn’t a suicide-by-cop. He’d want his revenge, but he’d make a point with it.

Satisfied with his analysis, Lucas went to sleep, to wake up only once, long enough to wonder, What if I’m wrong?

Then, Nah, and he went back to sleep.





CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE



Saturday morning.

Dunn needed another gun, because he needed to shoot at least one more kid. The first kid was a wrong one, but that was okay; with all the publicity, the U.S. Senate knew what might be coming and all he had to do was prove it.

One more shot, but he needed that gun.

The day was warm with hazy blue skies, a good day for a road trip, cross-country to Merkin, West Virginia, and the Merkin National Gun and Knife Show. There were gun shows all over the place, but Dunn decided to move away from the Virginia-Maryland-DC area, where federal agents were apparently raiding everything in sight.

They had hit a group called White Fist, according to the Washington Post, and more significantly, apparently had found his rifle and his sniper’s nest at the cemetery. They might, he thought, be able to get DNA from the rifle, but since he’d never been DNA-tested, they’d have nothing to compare it to. He’d have to be careful in the future. If he got caught in a spot that would require a DNA test, he’d have to shoot his way out.

Or something—the “something” not defined. He’d have to wait for the moment, if it ever took place, but he was now looking for a carry pistol, in addition to a new rifle. The good thing about West Virginia gun shows was that no background check was required on person-to-person sales of anything.

All the gun stuff was giving him a definite tingle: he should have explored guns earlier in life.



* * *



—

THE MERKIN GUN show was staged in the auditorium of the local National Guard Armory, a beige concrete building that looked like an oversized Quonset hut with its hemispherical roof. The show pulled in a few hundred people, mostly big happy people, both men and women, driving pickups, on top of the fifty or so exhibitors. A friendly woman sat at a card table inside the door, selling tickets. Dunn paid his five dollars and accepted a pink plastic wristband that “will let you get in and out the whole weekend, honey, so don’t go taking it off the minute you get outside, in case you need to come back for another look.”

Inside the auditorium, he drifted past the tables displaying dozens of different kinds of rifles and pistols, and scopes, ammo magazines, knives, hatchets, camo shirts and pants, targets of all kinds, books about guns, self-defense, and the Second Amendment. The distinct odor of Hoppe’s No. 9 bore cleaner, mixed with the scent of carnival hot dogs, hung over the auditorium.

Not an unpleasant smell, Dunn thought; like a whiff of WD-40 or the tang of road-trip gasoline.

At the first table, a group of beefy men were gathered around a Barrett .50-caliber rifle mounted on a heavy tripod, available for the bargain price of $9,999.99; on a stand behind the gun, a rack of .50-cal cartridges were mounted in a plexiglass rack, each cartridge bigger than Dunn’s middle finger. He’d seen similar-looking guns in movies—The Hurt Locker, maybe?—but never one in real life. Not something he needed, really. He kept moving.

Looking around, two-thirds of the men at the show had beards and were overweight and out of shape, going for the Papa Hemingway vibe; most of them seemed to be wearing khaki photographer’s vests. The other third were snaky-looking lightweights like himself, jeans and long-sleeved shirts, a bit of camo here and there, distant looks in their eyes. American flags on their rolled-bill hats.