Double blind sahl-3

by Ken Goddard

  "Uh, no, except… uh, do you know if Maria's coming in this morning?"

  "I told her to take the day off, get some rest," Whatley reported without the slightest trace of emotion. "It was a tiring weekend for everyone."

  Chapter Twelve

  "Does this mean we've got to paint red knees on all the giant spiders that just have brown legs?" Special Agent/Pilot Thomas Woeshack asked plaintively, looking up from his copy of the fifty-two-page briefing document Deputy Special Ops Chief Freddy Moore had left with the covert team at seven-thirty that morning, along with specific instructions to read it thoroughly and be ready to discuss options by ten.

  "Paint the — what the hell are you reading?… here, gimme that!" Larry Paxton demanded, lunging out of his chair and ripping the thick document out of the visibly concerned agent/pilot's hands.

  "I mean, how could you hold them still long enough do that?" Woeshack asked, turning to Henry Lightstone, who was laughing so hard tears ran down his face as he and the other members of Bravo Team watched their team leader frantically flip through Woeshack's copy of the document. "All spiders have eight legs, don't they? Does that mean four of us would each have to hold two legs while somebody else…?"

  "It does say here in the Wildlife Inspector ID Manual that unscrupulous dealers will frequently paint the knees of — what? — plain old brown-kneed giant tarantulas, I suppose, to pass them off as the exotic and endangered red-kneed kind to unsophisticated buyers.. although it also says that the red knees are actually more of a reddish orange," Technical Agent Mike Takahara noted, looking up from the screen of his notebook computer. "Does it say anything in there about us being unscrupulous, too, or do we just get to be unsophisticated?"

  "Either way, I'll bet you anything at least one of us is going to get bit," Woeshack predicted.

  "Thomas may have a point there, guys," Takahara agreed, as he continued scanning the digitized identification manual. "It also says here, and I quote, 'all tarantulas have fangs, and certain subspecies are more aggressive than others. In fact, some are actually known to stalk and attack humans if they are sufficiently stimulated.' I wonder if that means…"

  "I am not holding any giant spider legs, Paxton," Dwight Stoner, the huge ex-Oakland Raider offensive-tackle-turned-agent warned. "I'll stuff boas and pythons back in their cages all day long if I have to, but I draw the line at tarantulas. That sounds like a team leader's job to me. And not that I really care one way or the other, but just how big are these things anyway?"

  "According to the manual, about like this." Mike Takahara spread the fingers of his right hand as far as he could, and then dropped his fingertips down on the surface of the nearby table.

  "Jesus."

  "You know," Henry Lightstone finally composed himself enough to examine the opened map of Oregon, "there may actually be a bright side to all of this."

  "Oh yeah?" Dwight Stoner grumbled skeptically. "What's that?"

  "You remember my buddy, Bobby LaGrange?"

  "Yeah, sure. He's kind of a hard man to forget, seeing as how we damned near got him killed along with the rest of us on that Cayman Islands deal."

  "Well, I got a letter from him a couple of months ago saying that he and Susan were fed up with humidity and cockroaches and drug dealers, and Justin was starting to talk seriously about buying a sailboat and going out looking for that little kid nurse — you remember her, don't you, Paxton… the one who thought you were kinda cute?"

  "Oh yeah, I remember her all right," Paxton rolled his eyes heavenward. "And how old's that boy now?"

  "About thirteen, I think."

  "Then Bobby'd better either chain him to the house, take away his bank account, or move the hell away from the East Coast, or he's gonna end up being a grandfather a whole lot sooner than he expected," the Bravo Team leader predicted as he went back to flipping through the briefing document, searching for the part about painting tarantula legs.

  "You think Loggerhead City in Jasper County, Oregon's far enough?"

  Larry Paxton's lower jaw dropped.

  "You're kidding."

  "Not if this map's right. Bobby said his place is on the outskirts of a little town called Loggerhead City, and about a half hour drive from Loggerhead Lake, both of which are definitely in Jasper County according to the map. So if I'm reading this thing correctly, it looks like we're going to be setting up shop about twenty miles or so from his ranch. Which means, if nothing else, we've always got a place to hang out, drink beer, and bum an occasional home-cooked meal."

  "Sounds like a good deal to me." Paxton nodded approvingly as he went back to his determined search for references to spider knees.

  "Wait a minute." Dwight Stoner looked at Lightstone suspiciously. "This is the same guy who invited us out on his brand-new super-expensive yacht, and then got it blown right out from under his ass, right? What makes you think he's gonna let us anywhere near him and his family, let alone his brand-new ranch?"

  "No problem." Lightstone smiled cheerfully. "Bobby's not the type to hold a grudge. And besides, according to his letter, he and Susan used what he described as a ridiculously inflated insurance settlement to buy what he also described as a piece of God's country, so he ought to be happy about the way things worked out. Especially since now that all he has to worry about are the local Oregon girls getting Justin mutually pregnant."

  "Not to mention us coming into town to infest the place with poisonous snakes and giant spiders," Stoner reminded him.

  "Wow, that's right!" Woeshack exclaimed. "Say, you know, this whole deal's beginning to sound just like that movie — remember, Rack-no-phobia, or something like that — where this young doctor and his family move to this little town in the country, and this really scary tarantula from South America falls out of a tree and accidentally gets smuggled into the town in a coffin, and everybody it bites dies?"

  Henry Lightstone collapsed on the floor, holding his ribs and nearly choking in laughter while Larry Paxton stared at his agent/pilot incredulously.

  "This is all your fault, Paxton," Stoner muttered ominously. "I told you we went too far on that septic-tank idea."

  "My fault? What do you mean, my fault?" Larry Paxton demanded, looking properly aggrieved. "Who was the one who said 'to hell with protocol, these guys are going down'?"

  "Actually, I believe you did." Mike Takahara looked up from his computer screen long enough to correct Bravo Team's leader. "You want to know what it says here about Australian Tiger Snakes?"

  "No, I don't want to know what that damned computer says about Australian Tiger Snakes," Larry Paxton replied testily as he tossed Woeshack's copy of the briefing document aside. "Why should I? If I'm gonna be running this sting operation, and you can bet your badge I am," he added emphatically, "we are not going to be buying or selling any damned Tiger Snakes, whatever the hell they are, based on the simple fact that anything with the word 'tiger' in its name is probably dangerous as hell. And the fact of the matter is, I don't care what Halahan says, we're not gonna buy or sell anything more threatening to my hide than a simple little garter snake. We have to, we'll paint whatever we've got to make it look dangerous. But I'm telling you, that's as far as I'm gonna go on this deal.

  "And never mind what I said back when," the covert team leader warned before anyone could respond. "What I want to know is, where did Halahan and Moore ship Charlie Team off to so quick and sneaky-like?"

  "Three to one, somewhere warm," Stoner grumbled.

  "And I'll bet you ten bucks it doesn't have anything to do with snakes and spiders either," Woeshack added.

  "Of course it doesn't," Paxton dismissed the remark irritably. "Halahan wouldn't give the job of running a storefront operation full of goddamned snakes and spiders and God knows what else, in the middle of winter in some God-forsaken part of Oregon, to some rookie covert team who'd probably whimper and whine like a bunch of crybabies the first time something got loose."

  "Oh-oh, watch it, guys," Henry Lightstone warned cheerful
ly, trying very hard to maintain a straight face as he sat up on the floor and leaned his back against the couch, "I think ol' Paxton's about to go motivational on us."

  "You're damned right I am," Paxton set his jaw firmly. "That's what us motivational leaders are here for, to inspire the troops. 'Specially when all they do is piss and moan when they draw a piddly-ass rough assignment every now and then."

  "I hate to break this to you, buddy," Lightstone pointed out casually, "but I really don't think there was any 'draw' involved in this deal at all. Far as I'm concerned, this whole setup is just a little too bizarre, even for the federal government. I mean, who in their right mind sets up a storefront operation for reptile dealing in the middle of Oregon when they're supposed to be working bad guys down in Nogales? Christ, the airfares alone are going to — "

  "Actually, Henry," Mike Takahara interrupted, "I don't think you should worry too much about airfares right away."

  "If you think I'm going to let Woeshack fly me a thousand miles from Oregon to Nogales, in the middle of winter, through the, what?" — Lightstone looked down at his map — "Cascade Mountain Range, when you probably can't even see out the window in a damned car, you're out of your — "

  "Didn't you read the briefing document?"

  "What, fifty-some pages of single-spaced type? Are you nuts?"

  "You don't need to read the whole thing. They always put the really sneaky stuff in the middle, because they're pretty sure you'll skip that part." Takahara smiled cheerfully when he located the page he sought. "For example, page twenty-nine informs us that while the rest of us are busy reading snakebite-kit instructions and nailing cage doors shut, Special Agent Henry Lightstone will, and I quote, 'attempt to initiate contact with subject Alistaire Sager, AKA "Sage," for the specific purpose of purchasing wildlife parts and products made from a Sasquatch, AKA "Bigfoot," as well as suspected Apache Indian battle charms."

  "What?"

  Henry Lightstone bolted off the floor and snatched Woeshack's copy of the briefing document.

  "Also right here on page twenty-nine," Takahara went on, "it says that 'Agent Lightstone will endeavor to determine subject Sage's source of materials, as well as any links he may have with other illicit wildlife parts and products dealers in the area.'"

  "What's a Sasquatch?" Woeshack stared at the others bewilderedly.

  "A mythical beast," Larry Paxton replied absentmindedly as he quickly flipped to page twenty-nine of the briefing and began reading.

  "More precisely," Takahara expanded on Paxton's meager description, "it's a mythical beast that stands somewhere between seven and ten feet tall, weighs about five hundred pounds, and believe it or not, has feet bigger than Stoner's… or at least that's what they say."

  "Wow, no kidding?" Thomas Woeshack's eyes grew wide in amazement as he glanced down at his huge partner's oversize boots. "So what does that have to do with Apache Indian battle charms?"

  "Better ask Henry," the tech agent advised. "He's the one who's going to be buying them."

  "I don't believe this shit," Henry Lightstone muttered as he flipped over to page thirty and continued reading.

  "Tell you what, Paxton," Dwight Stoner suggested irritably, "you either start exerting some serious supervisory authority around here and get these assignments changed so that Woeshack and I get to buy parts and products made out of eight-foot-tall mythical beasts from the local fruitcake, and Mr. Quick-Reflexes over there gets the spider-knee-painting detail, or you and I are going to go outside and discuss a change in leadership right now."

  "What the hell is this?" Paxton demanded to the room at large, ignoring Stoner's threat and tossing the thick document to the floor. "Halahan and Moore must have lost their goddamned — "

  "Just out of curiosity, did you get to page thirty-six?" Mike Takahara inquired. "The part about the preauthorized shipping inventories coming out of Miami and Newark?"

  Larry Paxton blinked, looked down at the discarded document, and then glared at his tech agent.

  "No, I didn't get to page thirty-six yet," he whispered menacingly. "So why don't you just tell me what it says about preauthorized shipping inventories, whatever the hell they are?"

  "To tell you the truth," Mike Takahara replied seriously, "I really don't think you want to know."

  Chapter Thirteen

  David Halahan, chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's covert investigations branch, looked up when his obviously frustrated deputy walked into his office.

  "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "They can't find Boggs."

  Halahan frowned.

  "What are you talking about? Who can't find Boggs?"

  "Charlie Team… and Boggs's secretary," Moore explained. "Riley just called in. They've been out to his office and his house a couple of times, left a half dozen messages on his answering machine. Checked in at a couple of his favorite watering holes. No Boggs."

  "What does his secretary say?"

  "Well, apparently it's not unusual for him to be out in the field two or three days without calling in."

  "Yeah, but he knew we were sending Charlie Team out there — " Halahan started to protest, but then hesitated.

  "Assuming he got the message in the first place," Moore verbalized the thought in both of their minds. "He never did call us back to confirm."

  "Yeah, that's right."

  "And to make things just a little more confusing, Riley says his house is locked up tight, the government rig's in his garage — they could see it through the side window-and his personal truck and boat are parked in the carport."

  "What about the government boats, other vehicles?"

  "He's got two boats and a four-wheeler assigned to his office, and they're all present and accounted for in the storage shed next to his office."

  "Maybe he went out on a detail with some of the state guys?" Halahan suggested.

  "Yeah, Riley's checking on that now. Thing is," Moore went on uneasily, "we don't want to burn the guy or his operation if he's got something going that we're not supposed to know about, but…"

  "But he's a district agent, not a covert operator, and he's supposed to keep himself available," Halahan finished.

  "Yeah, right." The deputy Special Ops chief nodded glumly.

  "What's Charlie Team doing now?"

  "Riley's got them staying in a couple of the local hotels while they work out vehicles and comm links. The plan is to break them up into three units — Donato and LiBrandi for the hunts, and Riley, Wu, Green, and Marashenko for the two rotating cover units, but we're going to have a problem with transportation if we don't get hold of Boggs pretty soon. We can get by on a rental for Donato and LiBrandi, no problem, because they're acting like they've got more money than brains anyway. But I was counting on Boggs to track down a couple of trucks and a van with Oregon plates for the cover units. Jasper County's a place where you pass your old car down to your kids, then go out and buy a newer used one. Brand-new rental cars won't blend in too well out there."

  "Christ, I never thought about that."

  "We can always wire them more money to pick up a couple of halfway decent clunkers from a used-car lot," Moore suggested, "but we've got to be careful about buying local. It'll look pretty suspicious if somebody starts poking around, tracks down some sale or registration paperwork, and then starts comparing dates."

  "These Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal characters don't like or trust the government," Halahan reminded his deputy. "You really think they'd walk into the DMV and ask for information?"

  "No, but the way our luck's been going lately, Riley'd probably end up buying a car with a countywide history from some Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal member's used-car-dealing uncle. Far as we know, all of the members of the group were born and raised in that area."

  "Good point."

  "So I figure the best thing to do is send them over to Jackson, or even better, Josephine County, where they can spend a little more money and get something only a couple
of years old that they can depend on not to fall apart in an emergency."

  "And in the meantime," Halahan grumbled to his deputy, "Donato and LiBrandi get to troll themselves through the local bars like a couple of county-next-door idiots looking for a quick and easy way to connect with a big-game trophy hunt. Jesus."

  Freddy Moore shrugged. 'Yeah, I know, but what else can they do if they can't find Boggs? I sure don't want them trying to approach one of these paranoid Seventh Seal militants out of the blue and try to bring the conversation around to illegal hunting. That's something a guy like Lightstone might be able to pull off, but he's in a different league."

  "Just make sure they know to take it slow and easy. I don't want them pushing too fast and blow the whole operation. We've got to respond to that congressional in a reasonable amount of time, but we're not in that big of a hurry."

  "Slow and easy are my middle names," the Southern-born deputy Special Ops chief replied with a smile.

  "You and Paxton, God help us all." Halahan grinned, but then immediately grew sober again. "Getting back to those vehicles. Another thing to keep in mind is that the more time those kids spend wandering around outside the target area, the more likely they'll run across Bravo Team, or vice versa. We don't need that right now, either."

  "Yeah, I know. That's why I wanted to talk to you about wiring the money this afternoon. According to my schedule, the shipments from Newark and Miami should be arriving by air freight" — Moore glanced down at his watch — "right about now."

  The deputy Special Ops chief smiled cheerfully at Halahan.

  "I figure that by tomorrow morning, our favorite band of renegades ought to be fully occupied with a little matter of unpacking."

  Chapter Fourteen

  At eight o'clock that Tuesday morning, the Sage was sitting in his accustomed booth adjacent to the rest rooms at the back of the Loggerhead City Pancake House, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, when Sergeant Aran Wintersole suddenly slid into the bench seat opposite him.