Prey

Chapter Six

Chad Krugman waited in the terminal at the Butte airport as the SkyWest flight carrying Mitchell Davis taxied closer. There were only a few commercial flights a day coming in and out of Butte, most of the traffic was general aviation, but for all that the flight times were decent. Davis was an experienced hunter, so he wasn’t expecting to be able to fly first class in a 747 right up to the hunting area. Out-of-the-way was pretty much the norm for good hunting.

Out-of-the-way was perfect for his plans. In fact, the more remote the area their guide, Angie Powell, took them to, the better. He’d made a point of asking her about the general area, keeping the tone of his e-mails casual, but there was nothing casual about his interest. Once he’d known where they were going to be hunting, at least within about ten square miles, he’d studied maps, downloaded images from Google Maps, and taped them together to give him a better idea of topographical features and possible landmarks. The images weren’t as close up and detailed as he’d have liked, but they did give him a very good idea of the terrain and what he would have to do to execute his plan.

He’d known this day would be coming, had known it from the moment he’d begun skimming cash from the money-laundering service he provided for Mitchell Davis. No, even before that, because what he’d done had been carefully thought out, and all possibilities considered, before he’d ever taken that first step. With that in mind, he’d set a silent alarm on the accounts and computer files, an automatic notice if anyone tried to access certain files and information. That was his tripwire, and he was so good at what he did he’d even anticipated how long it would take Davis to become suspicious, and timed this trip accordingly.

Chad couldn’t help feeling a little smug. As the time neared for the hunting trip he’d begun to wonder if he’d overestimated Davis, the vicious bastard, but then, bang!—just yesterday his silent tripwire had sent out the alarm. The precision of the timing made him almost giddy with triumph. Was he accurate, or what?

For the past year he’d been training for this, making preparations, studying and learning and getting the timing down just right. Maybe he was too careful in making certain nothing he did would signal Davis that he himself had been alerted, but he’d bypassed certain toys and tools that might, if Davis was enterprising enough to search his belongings, have made him wary because they weren’t something Chad would ordinarily have possessed—at least, not as far as Davis and everyone else knew. That meant no sophisticated GPS, no satellite maps, no passport. His passport was safe in a post office box here in Butte, easy to retrieve when he needed it. He’d have bought an airline ticket in advance, but he wasn’t certain exactly which day he’d need it, so that was something he’d have to do at the last minute. No big deal.

Chad enjoyed the disconnect between the way people perceived him and how he really was. No one, literally no one, had any idea what he was capable of, but then he’d spent almost his entire life carefully building his persona, crafting his mask, as if he’d known from childhood that one day his life would depend on it. He’d been blessed—or cursed, depending on how you looked at it—with ordinary features, and he’d worked hard to make himself even more ordinary. He kept himself in fairly good shape, something no one would ever guess to look at him, because he deliberately dressed in clothes that never quite fit properly, that made him look shorter and heavier, and as dweebish as possible. Who would ever be wary or suspicious of a slightly plump Woody Allen? No one. And so he’d gone about his life all but invisible, and all the while he’d been amassing a fortune right under their noses.

It was second nature to him now; he didn’t even have to think about stuttering, or the slightly off-balance way he’d taught himself to walk, or the fumbling way he handled everything from a water glass to a cell phone. God, the CIA could take lessons from him in undercover guises.

Mitchell Davis approached the baggage claim area, pulling a rolling duffel behind him and carrying a computer bag in his other hand. Chad stumbled to his feet, dropping his cell phone and sending it skittering across the floor. Clumsily he lurched for it, and when he straightened his face was red from being bent over. He didn’t let himself even glance at the computer bag, though it was a solid confirmation, if he’d needed one, that Davis was on his electronic trail. He felt a little bit of a thrill, because Mitchell Davis would have him killed without a second’s hesitation if he could find what he was looking for, but at the same time Chad was contemptuous of Davis, not only for bringing the laptop but evidently not being aware enough of where they were going to realize that not only would there not be wifi everywhere, there wouldn’t even be cellular service.

“Good flight?” he asked, automatically monitoring the amount of nervousness he let enter his tone. He judged it to be perfect.

Davis grunted. He was several inches taller, his hair going gray, his eyes cold and hard. “I hope you’ve already got the rental.”

“It’s waiting for us. I got a four-wheel-drive SUV, is that okay? I thought we’d need one for, um, the room in back and all that. But I can change if—”

“It’s fine,” Davis said curtly. “Let’s go.”

Davis was accustomed to people kissing his ass, but he wasn’t usually that brusque. He’d want to be certain, though. Chad was too good at what he did for Davis to have him eliminated without solid proof. There were money launderers, and then there were true currency geniuses, and Chad was the latter. To some people, those more astute than others, that would have been a tip-off, so Chad had countered that signal with his degree in accounting and the implication that his talent with money was more along the lines of savant than savviness. That way his talent could be regarded as an oddity, an outlier, rather than an integral part of his overall intelligence. For this he thanked that Tom Cruise/Dustin Hoffman movie about the autistic savant, because that was the image that had been planted in people’s minds.