Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(95)

They crossed a rocky hump, still on the track, down into another arroyo, and up a higher hump and around the heel of a bluff, and the trailer was there, four hundred yards away. They backed off, behind a clump of brush, where they could see the trailer without being seen.

“Old Airstream,” Tremanty said, looking at the trailer with his binoculars. “Pretty beat up, like a salvage job.”

A dark sedan was parked outside the side door. Tremanty put the binoculars on the car and said, “Yes! That’s Gloria Harrelson’s Lexus.”

“Told’ ja,” Rae said.

Bob said, “If they’re watching, they’ll see us if we try to get closer on the track.”

Lucas: “Why don’t we backtrack, get a drink, and come up behind that ridge.”

He pointed downhill to a ridge that would cover an approach from the south side of the trailer. They wouldn’t be able to get all the way in, but they’d get closer.


THEY ALL TOOK long drinks after fishing the bottles out of Lucas’s backpack, and Lucas took a final look through the binoculars. Not much to see: everything around the trailer was deathly still, although, after a moment, he became aware of a vibration. He slid the glasses sideways, saw the silver oval of a propane tank. There was a surface pipe leading to the trailer. And there was another snaking away from the tank and up the hill and out of sight.

“Okay. There’s a propane tank, probably for heat in the winter, but you feel that vibration? I think he’s got a generator back there, behind the tank. He’d want it away from the trailer so he wouldn’t be breathing the fumes.”

“Does that help us?” Rae asked.

Bob was looking at the trailer through his scope and said, “It could. It’s gotta be running the AC. If we could slide around the trailer, we could kill the generator, and somebody would either have to come out and see what the problem was or die of heatstroke.”

They passed the binoculars around and speculated about the Lexus. Had the gang driven the car to Las Vegas? Were they already back? They’d seen a pickup on the satellite image and it was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the motorbike.

“He had to have taken the truck,” Lucas said. “That’s how he got the bike to Vegas.”

“Then he’s not back yet,” Tremanty said.


BOB SAID, “If we get down below that ridge and keep going right, you see that hump? We could low-crawl across there and get behind those bushes or trees, or whatever they are, and get back to the generator without being seen.”

“One of us could,” Lucas said. He looked at Rae. “You.” “Why me?”

“Because if we drive somebody out of the trailer, we’ll need the sniper out front. I’ll call the shot, Sandro will talk to me about it. And if we get spotted, we’d want the machine gun up high and behind the trailer to pick off runners coming out the back.”

She nodded. “Okay.”


THEY BACKED OFF their vantage point, screwed the caps on their bottles of water, talked about the plan, and headed downhill and around behind the ridge that would block the view from the Airstream.

Five minutes later, they were walking back up the ridge, only four hundred yards to the right. Rae took Tremanty’s backpack with a handset and a bottle of water and slid even farther to the right, crouching as she approached the track to the Airstream, eventually going to her knees. She waved once and was out of sight, crossing the track, before heading up the hill to the generator.

Lucas, Tremanty, and Bob crept up the ridge and lay in the skimpy shade provided by a circle of shadscale bushes. They could no longer see Rae, and nothing was moving around the trailer.

Then Rae called: “You were right, Lucas. There’s a generator back here and it’s running. It’s got a lockdown cover on the switch, but I can get at it with a stick. Want me to throw it?”

Lucas looked at Tremanty and Bob. They both nodded. “Throw it,” Lucas said.

A moment later, the vibration stopped, and Rae said, “Done.”


NOTHING HAPPENED for a minute or two, then a door opened and a blond woman looked out and then stepped outside. She looked around for a moment, shaded her eyes, looked down the approach track, went back inside the trailer, came out a moment later and went to the Lexus, got inside and started it, got back out, leaving it running, went back to the trailer, came back a minute later with what looked like a six-pack of beer or soda, and got back in the car.

“I can take out the tires if we need to,” Bob said.

“She is not going anywhere,” Lucas said. “She’s waiting for Deese and the others. They’re all down in Vegas. She’s in the car for the air-conditioning.”

Tremanty: “What do you suggest?”

Lucas said, “I suggest we wait.”

“There’s probably nobody else inside—we could take the trailer,” Tremanty said.

“Too late,” Bob said. They turned toward him and he pointed. A cloud of dust was rising from the track far away, but not too far away, a few miles at most. “If she has a way to call them . . .”

“Okay,” Tremanty said. “We wait. Need to get tight under the bushes.”

Rae called: “You see them?”

“We do. Sit tight.”





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