by Ken Goddard
Mike Takahara checked the peephole and quickly unlocked and opened the door.
"How's it going?" the tech agent asked as he closed and re-bolted the door.
"It's not," Lightstone grumbled as he walked over to the window and checked the street. "Where's everyone?"
Takahara glanced at his watch.
"It's three o'clock on what any normal person would consider a beautiful Saturday afternoon, so assuming everything's proceeding in a reasonably uneventful manner, which is pretty unlikely, all things considered," the tech agent added ruefully, "Larry and Thomas should be transferring 750 giant tarantulas into forty or so terrariums as we speak."
"How'd you and Stoner manage to escape that detail?"
"In my case, I was saved by predictable bureaucratic inefficiency." Takahara smiled as he walked over to the coffee table, picked up a rubber-band-wrapped packet of papers, and tossed them to Lightstone. "However, before we get to that, and speaking of bureaucratic efficiency for a change, there's your ID packet. Congratulations. You're now officially Henry Randolph Lee."
"Henry Lee?" Lightstone blinked in disbelief. "That's the Washington Office's idea of a Southern name that can pass a casual background check?"
"Actually, I do recall something about Lee being a reasonably famous Southern surname," Takahara looked at the ceiling pensively.
"Yeah, well, there's a reasonably famous Taiwanese-American forensic scientist named Lee who's been in the news lately, too. You don't think it's going to draw attention when I start calling myself Henry Lee?"
"Hey, don't look at me. I'm Japanese-American. What do I know?" Mike Takahara shrugged. "I thought I was doing good when I only had to threaten them three times to get them to send us a pair of guaranteed non-interceptable and encrypted cell phones."
He held up the phones, then tossed one of them to Henry.
"That is efficient," Lightstone agreed as he slipped the phone into his back pocket.
"It's not great, but it sure beats the phone company," the tech agent groused. "I can't get anyone to install a phone line in the warehouse yet. Now they tell me Monday morning at the earliest, and I wouldn't bet much on that. Meanwhile, Larry asked me to hang around here and monitor the phone until I heard from you and Halahan."
"What about Stoner?"
"Larry's got him staked out on Charlie Team's warehouse, trying to keep an eye on things until we find out what the hell's going on."
"Any sign of my military buddies?"
"Not as of a half-hour ago."
"So what's Charlie Team doing?"
"According to Stoner, still making a serious effort to connect up with anybody who might be running illicit guided hunts out here in Jasper County. The way he put it, about the only thing they haven't tried so far is putting Marashenko out on a street corner with a short skirt and small purse."
Lightstone's features darkened in confusion. "Is she the only one they're trolling?"
"No, actually, it looks like they're sticking pretty much to a script. Marashenko, Donato, and LiBrandi alternate as the bait in varying combinations, with Riley, Wu, and Green on rotating surveillance duty when they're not out looking for Wilbur Boggs."
"Wait a minute. Why use LiBrandi for bait instead of Green? Shouldn't the team's tech agent stay focused on the monitoring chores?" Lightstone asked reasonably.
"That's the standard procedure," Mike Takahara acknowledged. "But according to Stoner, Riley's added an interesting twist. He's got both LiBrandi and Marashenko taking pictures of each other all over town. Even using a flash for some evening shots."
"Setting the stage for either one of them to have a camera either in their hands or within reach to snap off a covert picture or two with infrared film if somebody starts nibbling at the bait." Lightstone smiled appreciatively.
"You got it. In fact, Stoner's pretty sure they're using one of the new 30–70 zooms with an extra wide setting. If they watch out for the incidental lighting and work the angles right, the bad guys will never know they've been shot."
"They'd better be careful," Lightstone muttered. "I sure wouldn't want to be in their shoes if one of those military characters got his hands on that camera and found it loaded with sneaky-type film. And speaking of that, does Marashenko know how to use infrared film?"
"She should. She monitored the photo surveillance course at FLETC on her own time, and from what LiBrandi told me, she's a pretty accomplished amateur photographer. I don't think we need to worry about her on the technical end even though LiBrandi's definitely got more training and experience, but I'm not sure that's the only reason why Riley decided to use him instead of Green."
"Why not?"
"I'm thinking that even though it makes sense to pair Marashenko up with an accomplished street actor like Green, our buddy Riley may have felt a little uneasy about an interracial couple walking around town in conservative Jasper County."
Lightstone thought about that for a moment.
"I guess that could be a problem, depending on the circumstances. But it could also work to their advantage… if they played it right."
"Sure it could," Mike Takahara agreed. "But Green came to us straight out of the Refuge program — basically a uniformed, public image type of law enforcement — so he's still pretty new to covert investigative tactics. And Marashenko's still a little unsure of herself, which makes her a wild card as far as her temper is concerned — which, as I recall, you got to experience firsthand, so to speak," the tech agent reminded Lightstone with a smile.
"Yeah, that is a point," Lightstone conceded.
"Anyway," Mike Takahara went on, "knowing Riley, I bet he thought the whole thing out and decided it'd be a lot easier for Charlie Team to make contact with these militant assholes if they didn't piss them off first."
Henry Lightstone blinked.
"Hey, wait a minute. That's the second time you used the word 'militant' instead of 'military,'" he pointed out his friend's critical change in terminology.
"About time you started paying attention." The tech agent smiled as he handed Lightstone a piece of paper. "Take a look at this."
"What is it?"
"E-mail message from Freddy Moore. Came in a few minutes ago."
Henry Lightstone scanned the paper quickly.
"'Charlie Team was assigned to observe and infiltrate a local militia group known as the Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal in Jasper County, Oregon,'" he read out loud. "'That being the case, it's not surprising that members of the Brigade might monitor their movements; however, the group as a whole is believed to represent a minimal threat. Accordingly, Bravo Team will continue with its assigned project, and shall avoid contact with Special Agents assigned to Charlie Team unless so directed.'"
Lightstone looked up at the team's tech agent in disbelief. "Minimal threat? What the hell's he talking about?"
"You got me," Mike Takahara confessed. "The way I read that message, we're dealing with one of two likely situations. Either this whole thing really is a game, like Larry said — which probably means your tripping across that spooky sergeant spoiled some aspect of the surprise, but Halahan still wants to keep the scam going — or there's something going on here that's a lot more serious than either Halahan, Moore, or Charlie Team understands. Which reminds me," the tech agent added, "what did you find out about Boggs?"
"Nothing that makes me feel any better about option number two," Henry Lightstone said as he tossed the paper down on the couch.
"How so?"
"As best I can put it together, sometime before five A.M. last Monday, Boggs got into some kind of accident with his boat — his personal boat, not the government one," he clarified — "that probably involved getting the motor caught in some fishing nets. I'm not positive about the net angle, but what happened almost certainly occurred at a fairly high speed, because he managed to knock a couple of his front teeth out on the steering wheel and left a lot of his blood all over the instrument panel, windshield, and deck."
Mi
ke Takahara's eyes widened. "You sure it was Boggs who got hurt?"
"Oh yeah, I don't think there's much doubt about that."
"Why not?"
"Well, mostly because at five A.M. last Monday, a neighbor found him unconscious in the cab of his truck, wearing only a pair of jeans and a down jacket — no socks, shoes, underwear, or shirt — after Boggs backed that very same boat into the neighbor's mailbox directly across the street, again at a fairly high rate of speed."
"What the hell was Boggs doing dressed like that and driving crazy at five in the morning?" the tech agent demanded. "Drunk?"
"Possibly." Lightstone shrugged. "At least that might explain the driving and clothing parts. But from then on, things get a little more complicated."
"How so?"
"Well, first of all, the paramedics who responded to the scene transported Boggs to the local emergency room here in Loggerhead City. But the attending physician immediately medevacked him to Providence Hospital in Medford, where they're better equipped to treat head injuries."
"Makes sense." Mike Takahara shrugged. "So?"
"So Boggs gets checked in to Providence as a John Doe," Lightstone went on, "because he wasn't carrying any identification, and the paperwork from the traffic-accident investigation — assuming there even was one — never caught up with him. He regains consciousness at least once, starts mumbling to the floor nurse and on-duty resident about being a federal agent, and then goes out on them again before they can get a name. In the meantime, the resident continues to treat Boggs for a concussion, broken nose, broken hand, loosened teeth, assorted cuts and scrapes and bruises on his hands and feet — including one really good bruise on his right shin — and exposure."
"Exposure? So whatever happened with his boat occurred real close to the time of his truck accident."
"That's how I read it. But it also implies that Boggs was running his boat at high speeds in the middle of the night, which doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense for a guy who's spent the better part of his life on the water," Lightstone reminded the tech agent.
"No, it doesn't," Mike Takahara agreed.
"But according to the emergency-room physician's notes," Lightstone went on, "Boggs's overall condition — which specifically included reduced mean body temperature, bluish fingernails, severely wrinkled skin, weed and algae fragments in his hair, etc. — was consistent with a person who had been exposed to very cold lake water for several hours."
"Several hours?"
"Right. But then," Lightstone went on, "before anyone at Providence Hospital can put all of this together and get a few answers out of their John Doe patient, he regains consciousness when no one's around — as best anyone can tell, sometime after the floor nurse made her rounds at about two o'clock yesterday afternoon. Shortly thereafter, he — the hospital staff is assuming Boggs did this all on his own, because no one saw him with anyone else — shut off his monitor, removed his IV and a set of electronic sensors, exchanged his hospital gown for a pair of hospital pajamas, slippers, and robe, walked out of his room using the IV rack as a prop, and managed to get all the way out the front entrance of the hospital without anyone asking who, what, or why. Then, in some as-yet-undetermined manner, he effectively disappeared."
"In Medford? Wearing pajamas, slippers, a bathrobe, assorted bandages and a cast on one hand, and dragging an IV bottle rack down the street?" The tech agent raised his eyebrows skeptically.
"They found the IV rack at the curb."
"Meaning somebody probably picked him up?"
Henry Lightstone brought his palms up in a who-knows gesture.
Takahara observed his companion pensively.
"So how does all this link up with Charlie Team and those militant idiots we think slapped a MTEAR on your truck?"
"That's the jackpot question," Lightstone admitted. "We know Charlie Team's been looking for Boggs in a very low-key, behind-the-scenes manner, which is exactly what they ought to be doing if they're really working a legitimate assignment and want to pick up some hints on the local environment. And whatever Boggs is up to sure as hell isn't a game, unless he's got a serious masochistic streak."
"Speaking of games, that reminds me." Mike Takahara walked over to the small desk, where he'd connected his computer notebook and small portable printer to the telephone jack, and picked up another piece of paper. "Take a look at this."
"What is it?"
"Preliminary examination report on those supposed Bigfoot hairs you and Bobby dropped off at the lab last Wednesday."
Lightstone quickly scanned the report, his eyes furrowing in confusion. He read it a second time, much more slowly and carefully.
"Did you look at this?" he asked.
Mike Takahara nodded.
"So what do you make of it?"
"Makes about as much sense as everything else," the tech agent replied, dusting off his keyboard with his sleeve.
"Which means damned little," Lightstone muttered.
"It's just a preliminary report," Takahara reminded him. "Which, I guess, does make some sense, when you stop to think about it. Obviously not the kind of thing a forensic mammalogist runs across every day."
"I guess not. But what does it mean, technically?" Lightstone pressed.
"Well, among other things, I'd say it means your new playmate is deeply involved in this, all the way up to her pretty little eyeballs
… either way you look at it."
"Exactly." Henry Lightstone tossed the report down, looking thoroughly disgusted with himself.
"Hey, it could be worse," Mike Takahara attempted to console his teammate.
"Yeah? How?"
"Well, if it really is a game, then the rest of us could just as easily be involved in it, too. You could be out on the limb all by yourself on this deal… with the possible exception of Larry, who's suffered more than anybody," the tech agent added thoughtfully.
"Yeah, I guess." Henry Lightstone nodded his head slowly, then suddenly looked directly at his friend. "You know what really bothers me about this whole deal?"
"What?"
"Bobby."
"Bobby LaGrange? Your ex-partner?" Mike Takahara blinked in confusion. "I don't follow."
"Unless he's become a lot better actor in his retirement years, I got the distinct impression his blood turned to ice water when I suggested he and Susan might be targets. Bobby's a pretty laid-back guy, and it takes a lot to get him riled, but going after Susan or Justin would definitely do the trick. I really don't think he was faking it."
"Unfortunately, that takes us right back to the rather frightening idea that none of this has anything to do with Halahan wanting to get back at us for screwing up his training program," the tech agent pointed out.
"That's how I see it."
"Which takes us back to the equally frightening idea that Charlie Team may have put themselves right in the crosshairs of some whacked-out militants, and not know anything about it."
"Exactly."
"So what do we do about it, given the fact that Halahan and Moore just gave us direct orders to stay the hell away from Charlie Team?" Mike Takahara asked reasonably.
"Like I've always said, the only way to deal with bullies is to stand your ground, confront the bastards right away, get in their face
… or they'll go right over the top of you."
"Sounds like useful advice for a ten-year-old schoolboy," the tech agent commented. "But how does that apply to Halahan… let alone those militants?"
"I'm not sure it does, but I think it's worth a try. Got a plain piece of paper, a plain envelope, and a first-class stamp handy?"
"I think so."
Two minutes later, Mike Takahara peered over his partner's shoulder as Henry block-printed twelve words in the middle of the sheet of paper.
"You really think that'll draw them out?"
"I think it'll draw someone out," Lightstone promised as he addressed the envelope, folded the paper, sealed it in the envelope, applied the stamp,
then handed the envelope to the tech agent. "The relevant question is 'who?' "
"Not to mention when, where, and how," Mike Takahara added thoughtfully.
"Oh yeah; that, too." Henry Lightstone smiled pleasantly. "You know how to find the post office?"
"Dogsfire Inn, at the intersection of Brandywine Road and Loggerhead Creek?"
"That's the place."
Mike Takahara looked at his watch. "I can be there in a half hour, no problem. Then what do we do?"
Henry Lightstone shrugged. "After that, we go back to doing what we always do when things go to shit on us."
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"We stop playing by the rules."
Chapter Thirty-nine
At almost 1830 hours — six-thirty in civilian terms — that Saturday evening, Lt. Colonel John Rustman's rogue hunter-killer recon team finally re-grouped at a hidden campsite approximately eight miles northeast of the Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal's training grounds.
Concerned but not totally surprised by the events of the day, First Sergeant Aran Wintersole maintained a thoughtful silence while his team went through the practiced motions of stowing their assault gear for ready access; establishing a concentric pair of perimeter trip wires, heat sensors and motion detectors; setting up camp; tending to their prisoner; preparing hot water, coffee, and a composite MRE combat ration meal with three dug-in, Sterno-fueled burners; consuming the high-protein, high-carbohydrate rations; then washing the team's cooking and eating utensils and burying the resulting trash before he finally brought them all together.
The campsite was far removed from the militant's compound, the town, rural homes, popular camping sites, and all of the established hiking trails in the area. And the outer-perimeter detection system would alert the team to the presence or movement of any warm-blooded creature larger than a medium-sized dog. So they could have built a small fire to fend off the evening chill without adding any significant risk to their security if they so desired.