—
THEY ARRIVED AT THE STRIPmall and Rae said, “That’s a federal Ford pulling in there, or I’ve gone blind, one or the other.” She pointed to a dark blue Ford Excursion, and Lucas, who was driving, turned that way, and Rae pointed again and said, “Gun shop.”
The gun shop was dark, a narrow space, two barred windows with a barred door between them, and a “Closed” sign in the window. They parked and got out as the Ford pulled to a curb. Two suited men got out, followed by Chase, from the backseat, talking, as ever, into her cell phone.
Lucas, Bob, and Rae walked over, and Chase said, “You got here quick. The mall owner’s on his way over.”
Five minutes later, a tall bearded-and-turbaned Sikh showed up, carrying a wad of keys. He introduced himself as Mandeep Kaur. “I hated to hear what Lee had to say, that the gun might have come from here,” he said. “Lee’s a good man and this has upset him. I know he tries to weed undesirables from his clientele.”
“How would he go about doing that?” Chase asked.
“He interviews them, if he has any doubts,” Kaur said, as he found a key and unlocked the front door. “He says he can pick up on it, if a potential buyer has mental problems. Maybe he looks for anger? Pushes them, to see if he can get them riled up.”
They stepped inside the shop to the sound of a beeping alarm. Kaur flipped on the lights, found another key, walked a half dozen steps down the main entry aisle, then stepped between two racks of camo shirts to the side wall, used the key to open a steel box mounted next to a showcase, and punched in a code that killed the alarm.
“Lee’s office is in the back.”
He led the way around a showcase full of pistols to a door that led to the back of the store, then into a small side room that held a desk and a dozen hip-high black filing cabinets.
“He’s old school, there should be some three-ring binders...”
They found four fat three-ring binders, two with sales documents listed by the buyer’s name, and two listed by serial numbers on the gun. They found the sale in the second numbers binder, near the end of the file.
“Rachel Stokes,” Chase said. “Sale was last December. It’s all here, address, she lives in a place called The Plains.” She looked up, her glasses sliding down her nose. “I’m cranking the SWAT again.”
“We’ll lead off,” Lucas said. He tipped his head at Bob and Rae: “This is what we do.”
“Reconnaissance only, until I get the SWAT team there,” Chase said.
Lucas said, “Of course” and she gave them the address. Rae poked it into an iPhone app that said they were an hour and a half away from the address, back up I-95. They jogged to the truck, Chase shouting behind them, “Wait for me, wait for me.” She spent a minute talking to the two agents she’d arrived with and then all four of them were in the truck and rolling.
Rae said, “Oh-boy oh-boy oh-boy oh-boyo. Gotta drive fast, Lucas. Faster, faster, if we want to be first.”
—
THEY DROVE UPI-95 with lights and siren and ignored a shortcut on state highways to stay on I-95 as long as possible, until they cut cross-country through the town of Manassas to I-66, out I-66 and off at the small town of The Plains and then back out in the country, down a narrow blacktopped road. As they went along, Jane Chase was on the phone, gathering information about the target house: “Stokes, not much on her,” she reported. “No criminal record. Nothing—not even a traffic ticket.”
“Fake name?” Rae wondered.
“Lot of docs on her,” Chase said. “Driver’s licenses going back fifteen years...”
“She bought that gun,” Lucas said. “She might be laying low, but she bought that gun.”
—
AND THEY GOTthere first.
As they cruised the target, Rae said, “Tough-looking place.”
Bob: “Nothing moving.”
Chase: “Car in the back.”
Lucas: “If we stop down by the next house, we could circle around and come in through those trees.” The next house down had a large woodlot littered with rusted farm machinery, extending along the road toward the target. “Get within fifty yards anyway.”
Chase: “The SWAT squad is mobilizing and on the way.”
Bob: “I’mmobilizing.”
