Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(94)

THE LAST PART of the flight hugged the gray-and-tan desert terrain; at one point, they flew over a dozen huge, perfect green circles created by center-pivoting irrigation systems over some kind of crops, but what the crops were, none of them knew.

The pilots said something to Tremanty and he pulled the headset back on and asked for a repeat, then said to the others, “We just crossed the California line. We’ll be coming around for the approach.”

Bob had a heavily padded plastic case in his arms containing a bolt-action .300 Winchester Magnum sniper rifle. He’d taken it to a Las Vegas shooting range that morning, prior to joining the FBI SWAT team, to make sure it was still sighted in. He’d been satisfied then, but even with the padding he was worried about what the helicopter’s vibration might do to the heavy telescopic sight. He’d carried it cradled in his arms for the entire flight to give it further protection.

“Don’t want to shoot from more than two hundred yards out, if I have to shoot,” he said. “I hate this fuckin’ vibration.”


THEY WERE SLOWING, then slowing dramatically, then dropping. There was lots of dust thrown up that blocked the view, and the chopper eased back up and sideways for several hundred feet. Tremanty was wearing the headset again and said, “They see a rock. It’s flat and wide enough to land on. We’re going that way. Still well behind the hill.”

Rae was unzipping the equipment bag and pulling out a scoped M15 and then an unscoped M4. She handed the M15 to Lucas along with a thirty-round mag, slapped another mag into her own weapon, and asked Tremanty, “Do they see any snakes?”

Lucas took the rifle and said, “Not that funny.”

“Just askin’.”

They hovered over the reddish brown flat rock, a space some fifty yards across with a few desert plants pushing up out of the cracks. They settled, tipped a bit, settled some more, and were down.

Lucas got on his knees and unlatched and pulled back the side door and was hit by a wave of heat. He climbed out, followed by Tremanty, Bob, and Rae, all looking like an Outside magazine combat team in fashion-approved desert wear.


TREMANTY was carrying a backpack with the iPad, two bottles of water, and a pair of binoculars; he had a Sig P226 in .40-caliber on his hip. Lucas had the other pack with four bottles of water, plus his pistol and the M15. Both Bob and Rae had sidearms, and Bob broke the sniper rifle out of its heavy carrying case and slung it over his shoulder. Rae carried the M4 and a ton of ammo.

The copilot spotted their exact location on the satellite image and oriented them, pointing them toward the Deese mining claim, which was on the far side of a low mountain ridge.

“We’re all gonna feel like jackasses if they left there ten years ago,” Bob said.

Rae: “They didn’t. I got ten bucks says we’ll find them all right there. Deese and Uncle Deese and Cole, this blond chick, and Gloria.”

“Nobody take the bet,” Bob said. “It’d be bad luck.”

Lucas was pulling the chest straps tight on his pack. “Let’s stop bullshittin’ and start walkin’.”

Tremanty pointed, “That way,” and asked, “How come everybody’s got a machine gun except me?”

“Only one machine gun, and I got it,” Rae said. “Because I look hot with it. I might get a job modeling them.”

Tremanty said, “Hmm.”

Lucas nodded and said, “You could do that. Make the big bucks, too. Camo bikini, machine gun, hip-hop hair . . .”

Tremanty, again: “Hmm.”

Rae said to Tremanty, “That’s tension talk, the way Davenport goes on, being a wiseass. He always does that when we get close to the shit hittin’ the fan. Ignore him.”


LUCAS LED OFF, followed by Bob and Rae, with Tremanty trailing. The first mile had both uphill and downhill pitches, nothing severe, but not quite as easy as Bob had suggested. There were scattered rocks, like in the pictures taken by the Mars rover, and plants that bit. The heat was ferocious, the kind that burned the sweat off your face before you even got damp; it felt like a bad fever. They crossed two vehicle tracks, invisible on the satellite photos, apparently sworn in by three-wheelers. Rae saw a fist-sized spider, which she claimed was a tarantula and “can kill you as fast as a rattler.”

From the back, Tremanty said, “Untrue. In fact, they’re barely poisonous. They can bite, but the bite’s not venomous.”

Rae: “Killjoy.”

Lucas: “I think I’ll fuck with one to find out for sure.” He looked at the mountain, licked his lips, and said, “Sooner or later, we’ll have to start climbing. That’s when it’ll get hot.”

A half hour out of the chopper, they passed a low red rock bluff that threw a shadow out onto the desert. Bob pointed at the shadow and said, “Water stop. Two minutes.”

Lucas checked his watch. “If Deese left Las Vegas the minute he got the money and made no stops, and didn’t drive more than five miles an hour over the speed limit, he’ll be getting here about now.”

“Except for the bad road coming in,” Tremanty said. “That’ll slow him down. But we oughta trot this next part.”


THE NEXT PITCH was a slight uphill that continued on for most of a half mile. The footing was good, a layer of sand over a harder crust. They crossed an arroyo, with a deeper sandy floor, saw a motor track closer to the mountain they were skirting and moved onto it. “Looks like it’s going toward the trailer. We’re getting close,” Rae said.