Free Storm Prey by John Sandford Page A

part will take a while ...” The parents nodded. They had a time line, knew about what each procedure would take. The bone-cutter would be working for a couple of hours, followed by the neurosurgeons.
    After talking with the parents, Weather left them in the lounge and walked down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee and a roll. Several members of the team were there, called or waved to her when she came in; she went to the line for a roll, then joined them.
    Barakat had come in well behind her, watching, got a slice of pizza and a cup of coffee, careful to keep his back turned when she might look his way. When she was seated, he carried his tray to a table behind her, his back to her. A few minutes later, after some chatter about the twins, she was telling her friends about doing an artist sketch for the police, of the man coming out of the parking structure.
    Barakat finished his coffee, checked the time. Too early for a civilized call, but the Macks weren’t civilized, and Lyle Mack said to call as soon as he knew who she was.
     
     
    WEATHER WAS IN the gallery when the operation started going sour. The first indication was simple enough, when the anesthesiologist said, “We’re looking at a little thing with Sara’s heart, here.”
    Maret nodded to an associate and backed away from the table. “What can we do?”
    He and the anesthesiologist began talking about it, and the cardiologist came in and looked at all the numbers on all the machines. He wasn’t sterile, so he stayed back, watching.
    The anomalies continued to develop. The cardiologist ordered medication to steady the rhythm of Sara’s heart, but the medication began to slow Ellen’s, and finally the cardiologist told Maret that they needed to move the children to intensive care, where they could be taken off the anesthesia and treated for the heart problems.
    “You see no alternative?” Maret asked.
    “We could go a little longer, but then, if Sara really gets into trouble, it could take longer to bring them both back ... we could wind up with an emergency.” An emergency most likely meant Sara would die.
    “Damnit.” But Maret acceded, looked up: “Weather, we’ll need to close up here.”
     
     
    “ANOTHER FIVE THOUSAND, and all you have to do is make the one ride,” Lyle Mack told Cappy. They were back in Cherries, Cappy an hour out of bed. “We’ve got a bike spotted for you, a Yamaha sports bike. Almost new, perfect condition. Owner keeps a spare key in a magnet box shoved up under a flap behind the seat. Joe will drop you at his garage. The guy doesn’t come home until eight o’clock. You ditch the bike after the ride, Joe’ll pick you up. Clean, quick.”
    Cappy’s eyes slid over to Joe Mack. “Saw your picture on TV Like you used to look.”
    “I saw it; it don’t look like me. Like I used to look,” Joe Mack said.
    “Not exactly, but it had all the right parts in the right place,” Cappy said.
    “Once this woman’s gone, it’s no problem. Can’t identify somebody on the basis of a drawing-thing if the witness is gone,” Lyle Mack said.
    “The thing that bothers me, a little bit, is the spotter,” Cappy said. “You know ... that’s another guy. I thought we were cutting down on the number of guys who know.”
    “Well ... maybe we can talk about that sometime,” Lyle Mack said.
    Cappy smiled his minimalist smile, a slight widening of his narrow lips. “I was thinking about it at work. This could be like a job. I could be, like, you know, one of those eliminators.”
    “You could be,” Lyle Mack said. He scratched his head, and like any small-business man, got thinking about the bureaucracy of it. Nobody ever thought about the bureaucracy, but that’s most of what any small business was. He said, “I don’t know how you’d set it up. You know, find guys who need the work. If any one of them folded up, you’d go down with them. But we ought to think about it. If there was some way to do it, you could sure