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Lucas told her what was happening in Taos. “It’s gonna be a mess.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “I’m going out to the grave site tomorrow; they’re sending some of the Detrick people out there with us.”
“Hold your breath,” Lucas said. And, with a certain tone, “You better get some sleep.”
She said, “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Lucas: “I knew that goddamn Hawkins was up to something.”
“Shut up.”
Rae started giggling, the first time Lucas had ever heard her do that, and he finally said, “Rae…”
She hiccuped, and said, “I can’t help it…”
—
They went outon the streets.
Nightfall made everything worse. Crowded streets, glaring lights, arguments at checkpoints, families with kids who had no place to stay.Lucas and Rae separated, moving between checkpoints, talking to the cops, chatting with civilians on the street.
Too many of them were tourists who were trying to get out of town and determined to do that. And too many were allowed to leave, in Lucas’s opinion, judgment calls by the cops. The cops were careful, but they only needed to make one mistake.
As he was walking between checkpoints, he took a call from Underwood. “We’ve covered Turney’s body, we’re keeping the captives in the bus until we can get a full decontamination crew here, which should be here by tomorrow morning. Danny and I are going to head down the hill in case we’re needed there in Taos.”
“Good. If they’re here, we’ll need you. Bring one of those docs and those white suits, just in case.”
—
Lucas and Raeran into each other at a midtown checkpoint, and Rae said, “Feels hopeless.”
The words had no more than gotten out of her mouth when Lucas took a call from Mellon, who asked, “Where are you?” and when Lucas looked up at the street signs and told him, the chief said, “We got a solid hit. You’re about six blocks away…”
They got directions and jogged the six blocks to a checkpoint with a line of cars waiting to go through. One of them, a Chevy Equinox with a Hertz look to it, had been pulled out of line, and a man and a woman were standing next to it, with a cop.
When Lucas and Rae came up, the cop said to the couple, “Federal marshals…” and turned a thumb to the couple and said to Lucas and Rae, “These folks are from New York…they got a place in Telluride and came down for the week…”
The woman said, “David and Niki Levy. We had an Airbnb place and were leaving to go back to Telluride…”
Her husband took it up, the words tumbling out: “…and we saw this couple walking down the street and they asked us if we knew where the Smith’s supermarket was, and we did, and we told them where…”
Niki Levy: “…When we got to the checkpoint this police officer showed us the pictures and the man…I mean, we saw him. It was him. Oh my God, it was him for sure…”
David Levy: “No doubt about it, it was the guy we talked to. They’re going over to Smith’s. This was ten minutes ago.”
Rae: “What did the woman look like?”
Niki Levy: “My height, maybe…middle thirties? Blondish…dishwater.”
David Levy: “Thin, white blouse, jeans…Nice looking, I guess, maybe a little tough, tattoos, like she might know about Harleys.”
Lucas asked the cop, “How far are we from Smith’s?”
“Two or three minutes if you run; one minute in the car. You gotta cross a highway…”
“We’ll run,” Rae said, “We don’t want a cop car around if we can avoid it…Point us…”
The cop pointed and they began running, the Levys and the cop looking after them. On the way, Rae said, “Go in separately.”
