Extreme Prey Read Online Free PDF

president, for a whole variety of different reasons. There’s no sure thing, but if I can get there, get to be the VP, I’ve got a fair chance at the top job. Bowden has almost got the nomination sewn up. Jack Gardner’s still hanging around, but he’s well back in third place and he’s too wimpy for any major job. I’m a perfect fit for the vice presidency. I’m popular in the Midwest, where Bowden’s weak, I’m a Catholic and she’s a Protestant . . .”
    “Male and female, tall and short, blond and brunette, left-wing crazy and moderate centrist . . .” Lucas added.
    “Exactly,” said the left-wing crazy. “We’ve gotten some strong signals from her camp that if I don’t say anything too rude, I’m at the top of the list. If I beat her here in Iowa and ease up and let her take New Hampshire, it’s a done deal.”
    “But. There’s gotta be a ‘but.’”
    “There is.” He paused, then, “I was working the rope line down at the Des Moines airport and this chubby white-haired middle-aged lady took my hand and held on to it, walked along with me for a way, and she said, ‘Governor, you’ve got to move to the center. You have to be ready for the nomination, in case Bowden doesn’t make it, in case something happens to her.’ She was quite intense, very sincere, and I think a little unhinged.”
    “Uh-huh. What’d you say?”
    “I rolled out a cliché or two and kept trying to get my hand back. Eventually I did, but the incident was odd enough that I remembered it, because she had this scary intensity about her. A few days later, I was in Waterloo and this farm kinda guy took my hand and said, ‘Governor, you gotta move to the center. We know where your heart is, but you’ve got to pretend to move to the center if you want the nomination. You gotta be ready if Bowden goes down.’ The thing is, this guy had these pale gray eyes, you really felt them. Creepy. And he
looked
like the chubby lady, except he had a thin face and the gray eyes . . . The
features
were hers, you know what I mean? The mouth and the nose . . . And he said the same thing she had, almost exactly the same words. And when
he
said it, I had the feeling that something bad might happen to Bowden. He had that look about him—like somebody had slapped him on the side of the head with a flatiron.”
    “That’s pretty serious,” Lucas said. “You talk to Bowden’s security people?”
    “I didn’t myself. What I did was, I called Bowden directly and told her I was worried. She said she’d talk to her security. One of her guys came over to talk to me and I couldn’t give him anythingbut those gray eyes, that curly white hair on the old lady—she wore rimless glasses—and the dates of the encounters.”
    “Did they take you seriously?”
    “Sure, but I didn’t give them much to work with,” Henderson said. “These guys really aren’t investigators. They’re security people, bodyguards.”
    “You want me to find the chubby lady . . .”
    “Wait one,” Henderson said. He waved at a couple walking along the sidewalk, and they cooed at him, and they went on their way. “Bowden and I had that little get-together in Sioux City, along with the also-rans. I’m looking out at the crowd, and here’s this farmy-looking guy again. He looks like those pictures you see of Confederate soldiers. Those flat gray eyes, shaggy hair, too skinny. He was
staring
at Bowden, fixing on her, then he glances at me and sees that I’m fixed on him. Alice was right off the stage and I excused myself for a minute and I grabbed her and told her about him and she tried to get a picture of the guy with her cell phone, but he was moving away, fast. The photo she got is less than half-assed. Anyway, we passed it all along to Bowden.”
    “What’d she do?” Lucas asked.
    “Got more security, I hope—but she’s got this weasel working for her, Norman Clay, and he comes by and he says, ‘You’re not trying to push Secretary