Prey (4 page)

Barry picked up the mailgram from his post office box and waited until he was back in his truck before opening it. He knew it was from Stormy. He smiled as he read. Stormy would be landing at Memphis International Airport later on today, and would be in this area in the morning.

Barry drove to a filling station and topped off the tank, then drove down the street to a supermarket. Sheriff Salter drove up just as he was pulling into the parking lot.

“As soon as bail was set, those two goons made one call to a Little Rock lawyer,” Don told him. “I had to cut them loose about an hour ago.”

Barry nodded his head. “They'll be back in New Jersey by this afternoon. They won't be back here. You can bet on that.”

“How'd you know they're from New Jersey? They never told me that.”

“Accents. They're from the New York/New Jersey area. I have friends from there.”

“Uh-huh,” Don said very drily. He knew with a cop's instinct that Barry had been lying to him from the first moment they met. But he couldn't prove it ... so far. Problem was, he didn't believe Barry was a criminal. He didn't know why he believed that, he just did.

“Buy you a cup of coffee, Sheriff?” Barry asked, a sudden twinkle in his eyes. “There is something I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure. Nellie's all right with you?”

“It's close enough.” Right across the street.

Over coffee, the sheriff asked, “What's on your mind?”

“When is the Speaker of the House due to arrive in town?”

Sudden suspicion flared in Don's eyes. “Why do you ask?”

Barry chuckled. “Sheriff, relax. It's just that a New York-based reporter from the Coyote Network is coming in to cover the story. As a matter of fact, she'll be here tomorrow, for a few days' vacation. She'll be staying out at my place. I just want to know how much time we'll have together before she has to go to work, that's all.”

“What reporter?”

“Stormy Knight.”

The sheriff's eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you lyin' to me, Barry?”

“No. We've been seeing each other socially for about a year now. Let me check with Stormy to see if she wants company, and if it's all right with her, why don't you and your wife come out for supper?”

The sheriff was incredulous. He sat for a moment, his mouth hanging open, his coffee forgotten. “I, ah ...” He shook his head. “Okay, Barry. My wife never misses a Stormy Knight report. She would love to meet her.”

“I'm sure it will be all right with Stormy. Just keep all this under your hat, if you don't mind.” He smiled. “Not that I wouldn't like for the whole world to know.” Barry took out his wallet, removing a snapshot that Ki had taken in Idaho the past year. He held out the picture. “This is us last year.”

The sheriff studied the picture, then looked across the table and grinned. “Well, I'll just be damned.” He quickly revised his thinking about Barry. If he was dating a reporter of Stormy's status, he sure as hell had nothing to hide from the law.

Which was exactly why Barry had brought up the subject and showed him the picture.

* * *

“You understand, then, what you are to do, Mr. Ravenna?”

John looked at the senator's intermediary with much the same expression he would use if gazing at a large roach. He did not reply vocally, just let his countenance speak for him.

“Then I'll be leaving,” the go-between said.

John arched an eyebrow in reply.

The spokesman was only too glad to get the hell away from John Ravenna. Even though he'd been dealing with thugs and muscle and professional hit men for years, this man scared him—reached down into his soul and touched some primitive part.

John waited for a moment, then followed the man. John always covered his bets.

* * *

“My people in New York tell me that Stormy Knight, of the Coyote Network, is going to cover the Speaker's trip,” Jim Beal told a gathering of his cell leaders. “I have got to get to her . . . somehow. Our side of the story has to be told, and told to someone who will report it fairly and accurately. Miss Knight will do that without liberal bias.”

“What about Victor Radford?”

“Vic is an idiot. Struts around in that damn Nazi uniform and spouts the writings of Hitler. He and that whacky bunch of his have given all of us a bad name.”

After the short meeting was over, Jim Beal sat down in a recliner-lounger and sipped his bourbon and water. He had to find a way to meet with this reporter; had to impress upon her that he and his followers presented no threat to the government or to any person, regardless of color. Jim Beal simply did not believe in race mixing. He did not wish any harm to come to black people, but he did not wish to live around them or to have his children go to school with black children. He believed that he had a right to refuse people service in his place of business. He used his own money to start his business, used his own money to see the business through the rough times, and the government had no right to tell him how to run his business.

Unlike Victor Radford, Jim Beal was very careful about who he allowed in his group. There were no cross burners in his association, no radical haters, no wild-eyed revolutionaries. The weapons they practiced with were all legal.

Furthermore, Jim Beal knew that the majority of people living in this area supported his views, to one degree or another, but most were reluctant to speak out openly for fear of government retaliation. Privately, the majority of people agreed with him, and he understood why they could not go public with their sentiments. While not a fanatic about religion, Jim was a religious person, and he tried to live a decent life, in accordance with his views of right and wrong.

The few black families who lived in the county would not trade in any of the several businesses owned by Jim Beal or in any business owned by members of Beal's organization. That was a silent understanding that went back years.

Jim would have laughed if someone had told him he was a very complex man. But he most certainly was.

* * *

Stormy had no trouble locating Barry's house, for he had drawn her a detailed map of the area. After visiting briefly with Barry, Ki had driven on up into Missouri to visit her family for a few days.

After getting reacquainted in the privacy of the bedroom, Barry and Stormy went for a leisurely walk around the property, Pete and Repeat with them. Because of who he was and what he could become, the hybrids obeyed every command from Barry and always stayed close.

Pausing to sit by the bank of the little creek that ran through the property, Stormy told Barry about the warning she had received on her answering machine.

“You've gotten these before?”

“Oh, sure.” She flipped a pebble into the cold waters of the spring-fed creek. “Probably everyone in the public eye gets threats sometime in his or her life. But this one was, well, different in a way that is hard to explain. Most of the others, if they were delivered vocally, were screaming threats from obvious nuts. If they came by letter, depending on what report set them off, they would be something like, ‘Die, you fag-loving bitch,' or ‘God will punish you for your sins.' But this one, this one was calmly given, as if the man was trying to warn me of impending danger not of his doing or liking.”

“Could you tell if it was long distance?”

She shook her head. “Not really. But I got the impression it was.”

“Why?”

“The voice spoke with an accent not from the Northeast. Much softer than that.”

“Southern accent?”

“Probably. But not deep south. Not syrupy. Mid-south.”

“This area would be called mid-south.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if it might have something to do with the Speaker's visit next month.”

“Which is next week, by the way. I don't know. Maybe.”

Barry told her about the sheriffs visit, his suspicions, and of inviting Don and his wife over for supper. “If that's all right with you.”

“Sure. It'll be fun. Talking informally with the sheriff will also save me a lot of legwork.”

Then he told her about his early morning visitors.

She was silent for a moment, then cut her eyes to him. “Robert Roche?”

“Probably.” He sighed and shook his head. “Perhaps it's time for me to go public and put an end to this long run of mine. I have been giving it a lot of thought.” He held up a hand for silence. “But . . . there are others like me in the world, Stormy. A lot more than I suspected even a short time ago.” He smiled. “Well, a short time for me.”

She ignored that, knowing that Barry's sense of humor could be very weird at times. “How many more, Barry?”

“Several hundred. Maybe a lot more than that. And they have to be considered in any decision I make. If I go public, what happens to them?”

“Nothing. If you don't mention it.”

“Don't be too sure of that, Stormy. Many other governments around the world have suspected there are people like me. Many have married and produced offspring. Although that is something most of us try not to do.”

“The children, are they immortal?”

“Rarely. And both partners have to be the same.”

“Then there might be ... ?”

“A lot more of us? Yes. It's certainly possible. I've had to revise my thinking as to why we are what we are several times.”

“I see now why this is not an easy decision for you to make.”

“We'd be treated like freaks, Stormy. This government, all governments worldwide, might came up with some obscure law that would make it legal to imprison us indefinitely for study. And if they don't have it on the books already, they'll pass legislation. I know firsthand how governments work.”

She studied his face for a moment, that handsome and ageless face that had witnessed so much during his long march through history. “You really despise big government, don't you, Barry?” she asked softly.

Barry picked up and rattled a couple of pebbles in his hand. “Yes, I do. Oh, most start out with good intentions. But that doesn't last long, once the men and women in control realize that they have absolute power. You recall that line about absolute power and what it leads to?”

“Corruption.”

“Yes. And once they taste the heady wine of absolute power, most are very reluctant to give it up. They think of themselves as gods, looking down on all the little people and thinking, ‘I know what is best for you. You might not like the legislation I'm introducing, but trust me, it's for your own good.' It doesn't take long for the men and women in power to lose touch with the people, the masses, if you will. And it makes no difference what political party is in power. They still think they know what is best for everyone else. Bear this one small example in mind, Stormy: I helped build the first T-model automobiles to roll off the assembly line, the engine and the body. A simple, highly functional mode of transportation. And for years it remained basically the same. Then, some years ago, when the balance of power shifted in Washington the automobile changed ...”

“What the hell are you talking about, Barry?” Stormy asked with a frown.

“Just listen for a moment. The men and women in power, the liberals, instead of demanding that the punishment for stealing a car be made more severe, demanded that the car itself be made more theft-proof. At whose expense? The consumer—the long-suffering taxpayer—who must foot the bill for all the nonsense that comes out of Washington. Remember, Stormy,” Barry's tone was sarcastic, “don't let a good boy go bad. Always take the keys out of the ignition. Stormy, good boys don't steal cars, punks do.”

Stormy looked at him, an exasperated expression on her face. “Barry, you can come up with the damndest analogies I have ever heard.” Then she laughed. “But I see your point. Okay, all right. You don't have to convince me that big government is out of control. I agree with you. And I know you have a very difficult decision to make. I also know you don't think much of the press. But in this case, we can help you.”

Pete's and Repeat's heads suddenly rose as one, their ears pricked up, eyes looking in the same direction.

Barry sniffed the air. The odor of nervous human sweat filled his olfactory sense.

“What is it?” Stormy asked.

The hybrids growled low in their throats.

Barry threw himself against her and pinned her to the ground just as a bullet whined over their heads, the crack of the rifle a split second behind it.

“I feel like I'm back in Bosnia,” Stormy muttered.

Barry shoved Stormy behind the bank of the creek into a slight depression in the earth. Pete and Repeat were already there, belly down on the ground. “All of you, stay! And don't move!” he ordered, and then was gone, slipping through the brush and timber.

Stormy looked into the eyes of the big hybrids, their snouts about three inches from her face. “Life with your friend is certainly not lacking in excitement,” she muttered.

Pete licked her on the nose.

Barry ran for about fifty yards, then cut to his left, jumping over the creek and bellying down on the other side. He got his bearings, then began slipping toward where the shot had come from. He rose to his feet and began running just as the rifle banged again, then once more. Barry burst out of the brush and jumped, landing on the man, feet first, both his hiking boots impacting against the man's chest and knocking him backward, the rifle falling from his hands.

The sniper recovered very quickly and rolled to his feet, coming up with a knife. In the sunlight that managed to filter through the thick timber, dappling the ground with shards of illumination, Barry could see the blade was honed down to a razor sharpness.

Barry could also see that the man was not an experienced knife fighter. He held the weapon all wrong. Instead of moving his free hand to distract his opponent, the man was moving only the blade. Barry did not think he had ever seen the man before.

The man lunged at him, and Barry easily parried the move, sidestepping with the grace of a dancer—a vocation he had worked at in the seventeenth century in Italy.

The man cursed him. Barry's only response was a smile.

The assailant tried to fake Barry out, and that got him a hard right fist to the mouth that crossed his eyes and brought a bright stain of blood to his lips. Before he could fully recover, Barry whirled and kicked high in a classic savate move, the sole of his boot slamming into the side of the man's face and knocking him to the ground. The knife slipped from suddenly numbed fingers. Barry moved in quickly and applied a pressure hold to the man's neck. In a few seconds, the man was asleep and softly snoring.

Barry used the man's belt and strips of his shirt to truss him up securely; then he ripped down thick vines and tied the man to a tree.

Barry walked back to the creek. “It's all right,” he announced. “Let's go find a phone and call the sheriff.”

Stormy rose from the ground and brushed the dirt and twigs from her clothing. “Where is the nearest phone, Barry?”

“Oh, about a mile down the road. Come on. We'll drive.”

“One of these days, Barry, you're going to have to accept the fact that you are in the twentieth century.”

“Soon to be the twenty-first.”

“And you might get a phone then?”

“We'll see.”

* * *

One of Salter's younger deputies took a misstep and fell off the front porch while staring at Stormy. Salter gave the deputy a look that promised this was not the end of it.

“We'd better go get this guy before you lose all your troops,” Barry remarked innocently.

Salter sighed with a patience that was somehow bestowed to all sheriffs and chiefs of police.

The trussed-up man glared ribbons of silent hate at the sheriff, the deputies who were still able to walk, and at Barry. Stormy had elected to stay in the house, with Pete and Repeat. The signs of his thrashing about, trying to free himself, were evident, but Barry had tied him securely.

“Bag the rifle, the knife, and this guy's hands for residue testing,” Salter ordered. He looked at the deputy who had fallen off the porch. “You go find the slugs that were fired at Miss Knight and Mr. Cantrell. And don't come back until you have them in an evidence bag.”

“But that's liable to take me a week!” the young deputy protested.

“The elementary school at Chestnut and Poplar still needs a crossing guard for this next term,” Salter told him. “Would you like that position?”

The deputy quickly headed into the timber.

“You don't know this guy?” Don asked Barry.

“Never saw him before, and neither has Stormy. And I don't know if he was shooting at me or Stormy.”

“Abortionists must die!” shouted the man, who was now on his feet and handcuffed, startling everyone. “Those who support abortion are murderers. Praise be to the Lord. Give me strength to kill that harlot.”

“Now we know,” Barry said. “Stormy did an editorial last month on a woman's right to choose.”

“Get this nut out of here,” Don ordered. “Book him on two counts of attempted murder.”

“I hope the events of the past couple of days are not any indication of things to come when the Speaker gets here,” Barry remarked.

“Don't even think it,” Don replied, taking off his cowboy hat and wiping his forehead and face with a handkerchief. The woods were deep and no breeze touched them.

Barry told him about the warning Stormy had received before she left New York City.

The sheriff nodded. “This is probably what the caller meant. Someone in that nut's group got cold feet and tried to warn her away.”

Barry said nothing, but in the back of his mind, he did not believe the shooter had anything at all to do with the warning Stormy had received. “Don, I talked it over with Stormy. How about you and your wife coming out tomorrow evening for steaks and beer?”

“Sounds good to me. I told Jeanne, and she's real excited about it.”

“Okay, then. That's settled. I'd better get back to the house and see about Stormy.”

“We'll finish up out here and get out of your hair. See you tomorrow, Barry.”

* * *

“Going to report this, Stormy?” Barry asked, when the outside world was hushed by closed doors and the soft hum of the central air-conditioning.

“You know I have to, Barry.” She smiled. “I'm going to drive into town, find a pay phone, and call it in. But your name won't be mentioned. I'll just say, ‘While visiting a friend.' ”

“I told the sheriff about your warning call. He thinks the call was about the abortion report you did.”

“And you don't?”

“No. Let me change clothes and I'll drive you in.” He glanced at a wall clock. “And if we hurry, I can put in a rush order for a telephone. I'll talk to the sheriff. He can probably expedite the request.”

“Welcome to the twentieth century, Barry.”

“The last one was better.”

* * *

Don Salter certainly did expedite matters. The phone company installation man was knocking on the front door of the house at eight o'clock the next morning. Since the lines were already in place, it took him only moments to get the phone (which Barry had bought at a local Wal-Mart the afternoon before) up and humming. He would be charged a small fee each month to have his number unlisted and unpublished.

Ki had heard Stormy's phoned-in report on the evening news and had left her parents early. By midmorning she was sitting in Barry's living room.

“How have you been, Ki?” Barry asked, smiling at the petite woman with the shining black hair.

The award-winning camera-person waggled her right hand in a so-so gesture. “This shoot going to be as exciting as Idaho, gang?”
²

“I hope not,” Stormy replied. “But it's certainly starting off with a bang.”

Ki cut her dark eyes to the newly installed telephone, then to Barry, and grinned. “Progress slowly closing in on you, huh?”

“It seems that way.”

“Don't like it, though, do you?”

“No. But progress is inevitable. The alternative would be much worse.”

The phone rang and Barry glared at it. “Shit!” he muttered, getting up to answer it while Stormy and Ki laughed at the disgusted expression on his face. “What?” Barry spoke into the phone. “What are you talking about? No, I don't want to listen. Goodbye.” He hung up and sat down. He pointed to the phone. “I haven't been with this phone service for two hours and already another company is calling trying to get me to switch. I thought my number was unlisted.”

Stormy laughed at him. “Modern technology, love. Isn't it grand?”

“That's one word for it. I can think of a number of others that would be more appropriate.”

“You were right about us hammering away on government excesses against private citizens, Barry,” Ki said. “The other networks have even changed their formats—to some degree—but nothing like we're doing.”

“They never will, either,” Barry told her. “They don't have the stomach for it.”

The phone rang.

Barry looked at it and sighed.

“Why not buy an answering machine?” Ki suggested. “That way you can screen each call and let the recorder take the ones you don't want.”

“Good idea.” Barry rose from the chair and walked across the room and stilled the ringing. He listened for a moment. “No,” he said, then hung up and sat back down. “I had a telephone in 1910,” he said. “It was a very simple device. You lifted one part, stuck it to your ear, and turned the crank. When the operator came on, you spoke into the mouthpiece and gave her the number. I don't recall anyone ever trying to sell me anything over the telephone.”

Stormy was having a difficult time keeping a straight face. “What was that last call?”

“Some long distance service.” He looked at Ki. “You armed, Ki?”

“Not for this trip, Barry. This is a resort area. I wasn't anticipating any trouble.”

“That's when it always comes at you. I have a pistol you can use. It's an old Chief's Special.”

The phone rang. Barry gave the instrument a very dark look.

Stormy quickly stood up. “I think we'll drive around a bit. Get a feel for the area.”

Just as the two women were walking out the front door, Barry grabbed up the phone and started speaking in what sounded to the women very much like Chinese . . . sort of.

“Ma Bell will never be the same,” Stormy muttered.

* * *

Most conservatives and moderates of all political parties loved the news format of the Coyote Network. Liberals hated it. The Coyote news staff never let up on government excesses, be they national, state, county, or local. But it wasn't just the government who felt the bite of Coyote. The Coyote reporters went after welfare cheats with a vengeance, asking questions that the viewers had never heard a reporter ask before. They went after rich farmers who received massive farm subsidies they didn't need. They went in depth on every subject they probed, from crime to religion. But more than anything else, Coyote loved to tweak the nose of government . . . and especially loved to bloody the nose of liberals. But conservatives quickly learned that Coyote had no intention of treating them with kid gloves. Coyote went after military waste and all sorts of pork with the tenacity of a pit bulldog. Members of Congress—republican or democrat, liberal or conservative—discovered early on that when they spent taxpayer money, there had better be a damn good reason for doing so.

The Coyote Network had eyes and ears everywhere across the nation. And most citizens wouldn't take a dime for their efforts: they just wanted to see corruption on all levels ferreted out, placing strong emphasis on getting repeat drunk driving offenders off the road (Coyote publicly humiliated them and the judges who kept turning them loose and the sheriffs and chiefs of police who showed favoritism toward them).

Coyote went after men who battered women, showing their faces to the world in public service announcements. They went after deadbeat dads, punks, gangs.

Coyote grabbed the IRS by the butt and wouldn't turn loose. Since the Internal Revenue Service was, without question, the most loathed of all federal agencies, the weary-of-taxes public loved the reports. But Coyote didn't just hammer at the IRS; they reported on the taxes imposed upon the citizens by states and cities and counties, where the money was going and more importantly, why.

Coyote questioned, loud and frequently, why the government had to have certain departments.

Coyote was, in the words of one bureaucratic twit, “A great big pain in the ass!”

But the public loved it and clamored for more.

Coyote didn't do any reporting on the personal hygiene problems confronting the Glopawho-pamopapoopoo tribe in Lower Boomgawha, or the political problems of the prime minster of England, or the sexual escapades of the prince of Romania, or homosexuals in Denmark, but they sure as hell caused many a sleepless night for elected and appointed officials in the United States in all levels of local, state, and federal government.