by Ken Goddard
Working at a feverish pitch, the Bravo Team leader frantically drilled hole after hole in the wooden sides of the shipping crates and the tops of the aluminum terrarium covers, sending slivers of wood and aluminum flying as he urged Woeshack — his ever-loyal and faithful Eskimo special agent/pilot assistant — to move faster between temporarily plugging up the holes in the sides of the crates, connecting sections of clear-plastic tubing between the holed crates and terrariums, filling small plastic boxes with crickets, and securing the aluminum covers to the filled terrariums with long strips of duct tape.
In fact, only after the two Special Agents taped the sixteenth terrarium cover to the sixteenth filled terrarium did it occur to Paxton to ask a relevant question.
"Thomas, how are we doing on duct tape?" he inquired as he wrapped his chilled and slightly trembling hands around the blissfully warm drill.
"No problem." The diminutive agent smiled cheerfully. "I bought sixty-two rolls — every one left in town, far as I could tell."
"Sixty-two, huh?" The nearly exhausted Bravo Team leader surveyed the warehouse, noting uneasily that in addition to approximately fifty duct-taped terrariums now lining the three-tiered shelf, sticky clumps of the easily tangled adhesive now covered a good portion of the warehouse floor. "How many have we got left?"
"Uh… just a second." Woeshack disappeared behind a pile of crates, then popped back up a few moments later. "Looks like at least forty or so."
Paxton smiled.
"Thomas, my man," he announced cheerfully, "in my humble opinion, I believe the crucial elements of this insane operation are finally starting to come together."
Thanks to a slight head wind, the pilot of the bumpy flight from Medford to Portland touched down on the long PDX runway four minutes behind schedule.
It was all that Simon Whatley — who had frantically checked and re-checked his watch every fifteen seconds throughout the entire flight — could do to keep from unbuckling his safety belt, running down the aisle, ripping open the flimsy barrier to the cockpit, and screaming at the pilot and copilot who, from Whatley's fevered and biased viewpoint, barely looked old enough to qualify for a driver's license.
Christ Almighty, the congressional district office manager raged to himself, whatever happened to the idea of taking a goddamned plane to get somewhere faster?
Simon Whatley continued checking his watch every ten seconds or so as the pilot taxied toward the terminal, knowing full well he was hopelessly trapped by the sixteen people in the eight rows of seats in front of him, who undoubtedly would use those few first deplaning minutes to dawdle or suddenly decide to share photos of their latest grandchild with a perfect stranger. Suddenly, the idea of unbuckling his safety belt and running down the aisle seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Accordingly, Whatley waited until the plane almost reached the gate, quickly released his seat belt, and lunged down the aisle… unfortunately at the precise moment the pilot braked suddenly to avoid hitting an errant baggage carrier.
The sudden forward acceleration caused his flailing arms and legs to slam into the backs and armrests of four separate seats, triggering a series of startled screams and angered curses in his wake as his head, knees, chest, and elbows bore the brunt of his headfirst slide along the rough carpet… until finally, thanks to the effects of abrasive friction and the amazingly sturdy cockpit barrier, he came to a sudden halt.
Stunned and bleeding, Whatley managed to regain his feet and brace himself against the low ceiling, ignore the glares and mutterings of his fellow passengers and the perplexed look of the youthful copilot, who struggled to open the combination door and collapsible stairway, stagger down the stairs of the small plane, snatch his briefcase and suit bag from a baggage handler, and run for the terminal building.
Once inside the terminal, Whatley continued running — elbowing his way through the densely populated Horizon boarding area, charging down the hallway and up the seemingly endless ramp, then sprinting across the main terminal, plunging through another security checkpoint and bolting down another long hallway — to the United gate where, seventeen minutes later, red-faced, wheezing, oozing blood from his knees and elbows, and barely able to hold his briefcase and suit bag in his cramped and fatigued hands, much less stand upright on his wobbly legs, he learned that the flight to San Francisco would be delayed.
It was probably just as well for all concerned — the airline representative at the gate, the nearby security guard who was scrutinizing Whatley carefully, and Whatley's fellow passengers, not to mention his as-yet-unblemished rap sheet — that it took the senior congressional staffer another ten minutes to regain his breath, color, and strength… which, in turn, gave him a fighting chance to regain what amounted to a very tenuous grip on his composure.
Only then did that sorely abused congressional district office manager finally comprehend that he couldn't check his suit bag in, right here, at the Portland gate — for automatic transfer to the American Airlines red¬eye flight — because the anticipated delay would give him, at most, only a very few minutes to make his connecting flight at San Francisco International Airport.
"So we can't check your luggage, sir," the polite airline representative explained in a professionally patient voice. "Because even if you manage to make your connection in San Francisco, any luggage you check here definitely will not."
With understandable amazement, then, at 11:55 that Sunday evening, Simon Whatley — bandaged, exhausted, sweat-soaked, aching, and thoroughly numbed by the six drinks he'd consumed at the Portland Airport and on the United flight — finally stuffed his suit bag, briefcase, and coat into the overhead compartment of the American Airlines 757 red-eye flight to Washington Dulles, and collapsed into his rearmost aisle seat adjacent to two of the plane's three toilets.
Understandably, too, any plans to review the messages from Lt. Colonel John Rustman's rogue hunter-killer recon team prior to his next meeting with Regis J. Smallsreed, Sam Tisbury, and the harrowing presence in the shadows of Smallsreed's congressional office, immediately evaporated when Simon Whatley fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.
At precisely seven minutes after midnight Monday morning — just as the American Airlines 757 jetliner bearing the unconscious body of Simon Whatley arced into the night, and just as Bravo Team leader Larry Paxton taped the next-to-last aluminum cover to the next-to-last giant-tarantula-filled terrarium with hands that definitely trembled with exhaustion and the surrounding cold — special agent/pilot Thomas Woeshack made a relevant discovery.
"Hey, Larry," he called, holding up a box filled with a fifty-fifty mix of long red and purple light tubes, "weren't we supposed to put these IR and UV lights back in those terrarium lids you drilled before we taped them shut?"
Chapter Forty-four
The impact of the 757 jetliner's wheels against a solid surface jarred Simon Whatley out of a deep sleep.
Christ, what was that? Did we hit something?
Whatley's eyes snapped wide open just as the spinning rear wheels struck the runway for the second time, whereupon he became aware — once again — of the stench of the nearby chemical toilets, and the noise of the rear cabin, where at least a half dozen small children now yowled from the effects of the sudden change in cabin pressure.
Landing? Can't possibly be there yet. What time is it?
Whatley tried to blink his sleep-blurred eyes into focus enough to see the hands of his very expensive Rolex.
Quarter to five. Can't be Dulles. Way too early. Not supposed to be there until… oh, right.
Seven-forty-five.
Three hours difference. Time zones.
God, we are here, he realized, blinking his eyes at what his numbed brain finally recognized as daylight — in the form of dreary clouds and the inevitable rain — through the windows of the now taxiing plane.
He immediately gave immensely grateful thanks that the first leg of this latest in a series of nightmarish trips had finally ended.
Not until the plane came to a final stop, and he stood up on his stiff, aching legs to retrieve his suit bag and briefcase from the overhead compartment did he realize…
Oh Jesus, the messages from the drop box. I haven't even looked at the damned things yet.
Simon Whatley felt sorely tempted to sit right back down and go through all of the messages from Lt. Colonel John Rustman's rogue hunter-killer recon team right there. Very tempted indeed, because Smallsreed had given him the specific task of reading, analyzing, and digesting their contents and presenting a summary of the relevant information to the congressman, Tisbury, and the horrifyingly ominous shadow-man who haunted the dark corners of Smallsreed's private office
… and scared Whatley far more than any one individual he'd ever met.
But Smallsreed's bagman immediately realized that any such effort — with kids whining, and babies crying, passengers trying to recover their luggage and other carelessly stowed personal items, and the flight attendants hovering with amazing patience, trying to get everyone off the plane so that they could get off, too — courted disaster.
Christ, what if I drop one of them… and some kid grabs it.. and it ends up in the hands of some nosy law-enforcement official?
Or worse, much worse, someone from the Washington Post?
The mere thought sent a chill down Simon Whatley's spine.
In the taxi, he told himself as he slowly shuffled his way out of the plane. Read them in the taxi on the way to the hotel. Check in, shower, change clothes, whip out a quick summary, and go to Smallsreed's office.
He glanced down at his watch again, noting it was almost exactly eight o'clock in the morning, D.C. time, and quickly calculated the relevant time/risk factors associated with his scheduled appearance before Regis J. Smallsreed, Sam Tisbury, and the shadow-man,
Smallsreed didn't expect him to arrive at the private office at the Longworth House Office Building until eleven. Thus, even taking the heavy rain and the notoriously congested DC metro area commute into account, the senior congressional staffer felt certain that he would be in his hotel room by nine-thirty A.M. at the very latest.
It would take him one hour to shower, shave, change clothes, glance through the drop-box messages one last time, write a quick summary, and then take the elevator down to the lobby, where a very solicitous concierge and doorman would personally escort him to a waiting taxi with an open umbrella and a cheerful smile.
Add another ten-minute taxi ride — fifteen at the very most — to reach the front steps of the Longworth House Office Building, followed by a pleasant five-minute walk through the halls of power… and Whatley would stand in Smallsreed's office, sipping a cup of coffee and chatting with the senior members of Smallsreed's staff, with a good fifteen minutes to spare.
Plenty of time.
Accordingly, when Simon Whatley removed the three thinnest drop-box message envelopes from his briefcase and carefully placed them in his jacket pocket, he didn't think anything at all about handing his overcoat, suit bag, and briefcase — containing his wallet, keys, airline tickets, Congressional Office Building pass, and the thick envelope with the hunter-killer recon team's surveillance photos of their intended targets — to the taxicab driver, who placed them all in the trunk of the vehicle before shutting Whatley's door.
It was ironic, then, as the cab approached the Dulles Access Road junction with the Washington Beltway in the drizzling rain fifteen minutes later, that just as the finally relaxed congressional district office manager started to reach into his jacket pocket for the messages from Lt. Colonel John Rustman's hunter-killer recon team, a daydreaming commuter suddenly realized where he was, slammed on his brakes, and swerved sharply to the right in a desperate attempt to make his exit… thereby initiating a chain reaction that sent Whatley's cab spinning out of control into the off-ramp divider.
The highly professional and experienced paramedics who responded to the multiple-car accident at the intersection of the Dulles Access Road and the Washington Beltway, wasted no precious time worrying about the individual identities of the bodies lying or hanging in the twisted wreckage that comprised three distinctly separate cars and a cab.
They quickly and methodically extracted all of the survivors from their vehicles before any of the spilled gasoline ignited; provided immediate first-aid treatment for airway obstruction, bleeding and shock; transported the victims to the nearest hospital as quickly as possible; and then got back on the air to take the next priority call.
On rainy days, that last task ranked almost as highly as the other three. At last count, and according to the harried dispatchers who repeatedly put calls out for any available emergency-response team, nine accident calls awaited response, four of which involved serious injuries.
All in all, a typical rainy day in metropolitan Washington, D.C.
Accordingly — and very much unlike the Jasper County, Oregon, paramedics who actually took time to try to identify Wilbur Boggs — the team that transported Simon Whatley and the cab driver to nearby Fairfax County Hospital in northern Virginia simply rolled the two unconscious victims out of the back of the ambulance and into the waiting hands of the emergency-room medical team; tossed a pair of plastic bags — one of which contained Whatley's shoes, coat, jacket, tie, and the three drop- box messages — on the curb; secured two freshly made-up gurneys into the back of the ambulance; signed a clipboard-mounted form; then vanished into the dreary, rainy morning with lights flashing and sirens wailing.
Simon Whatley's briefcase, containing, among many other things, his wallet, keys, airline tickets, Congressional Office Building pass, and an envelope bearing the surveillance photos taken by First Sergeant Aran Wintersole's hunter-killer team, remained in the trunk of the demolished cab which, at that very moment, was being towed to a local storage yard several miles from the crash site.
Like Wilbur Boggs before him, Simon Whatley quickly disappeared into the bowels of an overwhelmed emergency-medical-treatment system.
Chapter Forty-five
At precisely 0600 hours on a fairly typically cold and drizzly Monday morning in southern Oregon, Special Agent Henry Lightstone (AKA Henry Randolph Lee) stepped out from under the protective overhang of the Dogsfire Inn, quickly levered his motorcycle into the back of a dark green-painted pickup truck, secured the tailgate, and got into the passenger side of the vehicle driven by a decidedly determined-looking young man wearing a cast on his wrist.
The two men greeted each other in a carefully neutral manner, each fully aware that they must set aside any lingering personal matters for another day.
Moments later, the truck backed out of the driveway and disappeared into the surrounding mist-enshrouded trees.
As it did, an equally determined-looking young woman whose goldflecked green eyes clearly mirrored the conflicting emotions running through her mind, slowly closed the blinds and retreated into the dimly lighted bedroom with the ever-faithful panther close at her side.
Two hours later, at 0800 hours Pacific standard time, in an open-sided barn with leaky gutters that served as a training facility for the Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal, First Sergeant Aran Wintersole stepped onto an array of surplus wrestling mats and introduced martial-arts instructor Henry Randolph Lee to his first four students.
At that precise moment, three time zones and twenty-six hundred miles away, on an equally cold and drizzly Monday morning in Washington, DC, Regis J. Smallsreed impatiently buzzed his chief of staff and demanded to know why the hell Simon Whatley wasn't in his office, where he was supposed to be.
Approximately two dozen increasingly frantic phone calls later, the staff chief informed Smallsreed via the intercom (with some degree of apprehension, because every member of Smallsreed's staff knew to stay the hell out of the congressman's luxuriously appointed private office between the hours of ten and noon unless the President and Congress had declared war on some country actually capable of putting up a decent fight), and cautiously advised his
mercurial boss that Whatley had apparently vanished.
Yes sir, the staff chief confirmed, according to Whatley's people, Whatley got on the plane in Medford last night; but no sir, according to the hotel manager, he had not checked into his reserved room yet. Perhaps, sir, given the tight scheduling of the flights, Whatley got held over in either Portland or San Francisco; but no sir, he hadn't called or left a message to that effect, as far as anyone knew.
Already in a foul humor because a lucrative piece of legislation seemed almost certain to lose by a single goddamned vote he couldn't scare up anywhere in this new, godforsaken Congress, Smallsreed was in no mood to hear such a report from anyone, let alone his obsequious chief of staff, whom he often compared, unfavorably, to a drooling bird dog who couldn't find his way back to the blind if harbor buoys marked the path.
Accordingly, the now thoroughly irritated congressman repeated his order.
"Find Whatley — wherever he is, and whatever he's doing — and get him here, now."
At precisely 12:01 that Monday afternoon, Smallsreed's understandably nervous chief of staff asked the man catering the luncheon to hand Smallsreed a sealed note which basically said, in standard bureaucratic weasel words: We have no idea where Whatley is, but we're working on it.
At 12:55, Smallsreed's extremely apprehensive chief of staff bribed the same man (who came to pick up the remains of the luncheon) to deliver a second sealed note which basically said, in that same tail-covering verbiage: Nobody has any idea where Whatley is, but everyone in the entire office is working on it.
Regis J. Smallsreed waited impatiently until the white-uniformed attendant cleaned up the catered lunch and departed, closing the door to the private office behind him.
"The son of a bitch crapped out on us," he announced to his two companions.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Aldridge Hammond, the powerful chairman of the ICER committee, and the only man in the world that Congressman Regis J. Smallsreed truly feared, demanded from his shadowy corner of the room.