Prey

by William W. Johnstone

  “Well, I’ll try. But I’m awfully tired.”

  Van Brocklen smiled. “Of course you are. And I’ve taken that into consideration. We’ll use four-wheelers.”

  “You can use one of my four-wheelers, Ki,” Will said to the camera-person. “And since you don’t know the country, I’ll ride along on another so’s you won’t get lost. I think I know the spot.”

  Van Brocklen lost his smile. “You’re just a real nice fellow, aren’t you, Mr. Will?”

  “I do try,” the man replied.

  * * *

  The agents surrounding the Radford compound had no choice but to return the fire coming from the house. And under newly rewritten federal guidelines, they were perfectly justified in doing so; no one in their right mind would argue that. Tear gas had done nothing to drive the occupants out, and the agents were fighting for their lives. The firefight was brief but very intense. In a matter of only a few minutes, the house was shot to splinters and bits, and those inside were dead, dying, or badly wounded.

  Tillman Morris, who had been one of the first to join Vic in his last stand, had been shot twice in the chest and was not long for this earth. “Vic was just a-shittin’ ya’ll ... ’bout knowin’ where ... the president is,” he gasped, as a medic worked frantically to keep him alive. “But I betcha I know who did. It was ... it was ...” If Tillman did know, he took that knowledge with him. Tillman closed his eyes and went goose-stepping off into that Great Aryan Nation he had long envisioned.

  The director had never seen a man die violently before. He was a lawyer, not a cop. He trotted off into the darkness to barf. He did not hear an experienced field agent mutter, “Our fearless leader. I hope he pukes on his shoes.”

  The house went up in flames, and no trace was found of Victor Radford. But the sounds of exploding ammo went on all night long, punctuated occasionally by a grenade going off, blowing sparks in all directions and causing little fires to flare up out of the ashes.

  “Vic ain’t dead,” Tom Devers proclaimed from his hospital bed. “He’ll pop up again. You’ll see. Heil Hitler!”

  “Oh, screw you!” one tired FBI man muttered.

  * * *

  Leroy Jim Bob “Bubba” Bordelon maintained a low profile after the attacks on President Hutton and Congressman Madison, and told his group to do the same. “I don’t want them damn feds all over me,” Bubba said. “ ’Sides, I got my hands full keepin’ them damn scientists off my place. They’re camped right at my fence line. Damn crazy people.”

  * * *

  “We must not think of giving up,” Dr. Dekerlegand told the tired and discouraged group as they sat around the dying embers of the camp fire. After pooping out chasing Jacques Cornet earlier in the day, the group had twice gotten lost in the hills and ravines, and several were suffering from cuts and bruises after taking tumbles. They still knew nothing about the attacks on the president and the Speaker or the massive manhunt going on all around them.

  But all that was about to change. Abruptly.

  One National Guard unit leader from South Arkansas, who was about as much at home in the mountains as a polar bear in the Gobi Desert, had seen the dying camp fire of the scientists. He and his men were slowly circling the camp, weapons at the ready, though they were totally, completely, and utterly lost.

  Two of the young assistants had slipped away from the main body and were engaged in a bit of slap and tickle before retiring for the evening. They were trying to be as quiet as possible, but they were young and the gettin’ was really gettin’ good. Their moans and groans weren’t carrying far, just far enough.

  “Sarge, I hear sounds of torture,” a young guardsman radioed. “It’s really bad, too.”

  “All right,” the young squad leader whispered into his walkie-talkie. “On my signal we go in. Don’t fire unless you’re sure of your target. That might be the president of the United States in there.” He felt very hot breath on his neck and frowned. “Goddammit, Jenkins,” he hissed. “You’re too close to me. Back off, man.”

  About fifteen feet away, PFC Jenkins cut his eyes. “You talkin’ to me, Bob?” he whispered.

  The squad leader froze against the ground. If Bob was way over there to his left, who the hell was that breathin’ down his neck?

  Or ... what was it?

  Bob slowly turned his head and looked into the glowing eyes of what had to be the biggest damned leopard in the world. Actually, it was a long-extinct species of jaguar, but to Bob’s mind, now was not the time to be making distinctions.

  The jaguar slowly opened his mouth and yawned. Bob had never seen so many teeth in all his life. Then the jaguar screamed. A split second later Bob screamed, and a half second later he was up and running. He suddenly remembered he had an M16 with a full magazine of live ammunition. Bob stopped, turned, and split the night with gunfire. He didn’t hit anything except warm night air, for the jaguar had jumped to one side and trotted off into cover as soon as Bob screamed.

  The scientists all jumped to their feet at the sound of the animal’s scream—they knew exactly what had screamed—but they didn’t stay on their feet long. The national guardsmen all thought those around the dying camp fire had opened fire on them, since the gunfire was coming from very close to the camp, and they began firing. The young assistant on top of the other young assistant plumbed depths he had never before achieved, and his partner let out a satisfied wail that only added to the confusion.

  By this time, Jacques Cornet was loping along a half a mile away, smiling an animal smile at the fun he’d just had.

  Not too far away, Bubba Bordelon jumped to his feet at the sound of gunfire and grabbed his shotgun. He’d been camped out near his fence line so he could keep an eye on the nutty scientists. He thought the feds were attacking him, and he was going to make a last stand. He stopped at his fence and uncorked a full tube of twelve-gauge shotgun rounds, just as fast as he could pump.

  The guardsmen returned the fire, and the night was ripped apart by wild gunfire that seemed to go on forever, but really lasted only a few seconds.

  “Come out with your hands up!” an eighteen-year-old private yelled toward the camp, his voice very shaky.

  “My God!” Dr. Biegelsack shouted. “What have we done?”

  “And bring the president with you!” Bob shouted, trying to jam home a full magazine with trembling fingers.

  “Oh, shit!” Bubba muttered, and decided to get the hell gone from this area. He beat it back to his house just as fast as he could travel through the night.

  Acting without orders from his squad leader, the radio operator frantically called for a helicopter, telling communications on the other end they had found the president of the United States and were all engaged in a very heavy firefight with an unknown adversary.

  Within ten minutes, a SWAT team from the Arkansas State Police had rappeled in, an assault team from the FBI had done the same, a team of heavily armed and very menacing-looking Navy SEALs was on the ground. A hysterical Dr. Gladys Dortch had gone blundering around in the very dark and moonless night, looking for the recently dug latrine, tripped, and plunged headfirst into the grassy ditch with the two young and very sweaty and naked assistants, who could not find their clothes, gotten all tangled up with the freshly sated flesh, and was screaming in a voice that would crack brass that she had fallen into the clutches of what she assumed to be two of the missing links in the chain of humanity. Meanwhile, the young squad leader was trying to explain what had happened to an unbelieving and totally unsympathetic commanding officer.

  “It is my belief,” the captain of this contingent of National Guard said to Bob, “that your career in the Arkansas National Guard is over.”

  “So who gives a big rat’s ass?” Bob told the CO, who fifty weeks out of the year was the manager of a men’s clothing store. “I’m tellin’ you that I seen a goddamn tiger! And if you don’t believe that, then you can just kiss my ass, you son of a bitch, right up to the cherry red where it ain’t never
been sunburned or blistered!”

  One minute later, the manager of the men’s clothing store and the mechanic at a Ford dealership were duking it out.

  All in all, it was a very confusing night in North Arkansas. And the night was still young.

  Thirty-three

  The woman called Bea was still alive, but unconscious, suffering from a broken nose and jaw and a fractured skull. The sentry Barry had trussed up in the cave was defiant and would give only his name, serial number, and old military rank.

  “Get him out of here!” Van Brocklen said, then turned to face Stormy.

  “It’s all coming back to me now,” Stormy said. “I was so traumatized by everything. You see, I was blindfolded. I didn’t see who it was who rescued me.”

  “Right,” the inspector said, very drily. “I’m sure that’s what happened.”

  Will stood off to one side, smiling.

  Van Brocklen glared at the man. “You find all this amusing, Mr. Will?”

  “Shore do,” the older man replied.

  “You have a very strange sense of humor, sir.”

  “That’s what my wife used to tell me.”

  Van Brocklen shook his head. Twice he had told Will to stay out of the cave. Twice Will had smiled and ignored him.

  “Must be half a million rounds of ammunition stored down here,” a Secret Service man said, walking up. “Cases of everything from grenades to MREs to you name it, it’s here.”

  “They were preparing for war,” an FBI man said.

  “Just make shore you guys are on the right side when it kicks off,” Mr. Will said. “And it’s gonna kick off, bet on that.”

  “Problem is,” Van Brocklen muttered under his breath, “he’s probably right.”

  Only Will heard him. The older man cut his eyes, smiled, and whispered, “You better believe I am, sonny.”

  * * *

  Barry squatted in the timber, trying to decide what best to do. With the help of a few of his four-legged friends of the forest, he had located the underground bunker complex where they told him a man was taken against his will earlier that day. They showed him one of the many entrances and exits, and then vanished into the night.

  Barry finally decided that the best thing for him to do was nothing at all, except alert the FBI and let them handle it. He shape-shifted and began his run through the woods. His friends had also told him where he would find a lot of strangers—told him with no small amount of animal humor in their eyes and position of their ears and tails. Barry knew exactly where his friends meant. Animals, especially wolves, coyotes, dogs, and cats, had a fine sense of humor. But it was awfully difficult for most non-animal lovers to see it. Even many dog and cat owners often failed to recognize it.

  Barry knelt above the bunker entrance he and Stormy had left only hours before and waited. Mr. Will finally came out and stood for a moment, smoking a cigarette.

  “Mr. Will,” Barry whispered. “Tell Van Brocklen I want to see him. Make sure no one else hears you.”

  The older man nodded and stepped back into the darkness of the cave. A moment later, Inspector Van Brocklen stepped out, looking all around him.

  A scratching sound above and behind him turned the FBI man around. He sucked in his breath at the sight before him. The biggest timber wolf he had ever seen stood above him, the yellow eyes glowing in the night. Van Brocklen didn’t know much about wild animals, having been city born and bred, but he had seen enough wildlife documentaries to know better than to reach for a gun. He remained motionless, but his heart was beating so fast he thought it might explode.

  Then, suddenly, the wolf was gone and Barry Cantrell was standing where the wolf had been, smiling at him. “Eight and a half miles due west of here, Inspector, there is a small valley. A tumbledown old house sits in the center of the valley. Part of a native rock fence is still standing. I’m sure Mr. Will knows where it is. That entire area is honeycombed with underground bunkers. President Hutton is being held there. How you get him out is up to you.”

  Van Brocklen’s mouth opened and closed silently a couple of times. He finally found his voice. “How did you . . . I mean . . . you were a wolf! How ... ?”

  But Barry was gone, melting silently into the night.

  * * *

  John Ravenna rented a car at the airport and drove to a motel in the suburbs, not far from Senator Madalaine Bowman’s home in Northern Virginia. After checking in, John stood by his rental car for a moment, parked in front of the motel room, and then shifted into his Other.

  Thirty minutes later, he was standing in his human form in Senator Bowman’s bedroom. He smiled, then shifted. As his Other, he growled once, and Madalaine opened her eyes. Her nose wrinkled at the strong animal smell, and she sat up in bed. She had only a second to form a scream in her throat that never made it past her lips before the huge spotted hyena leaped. Within two minutes’ time, the bedroom walls were splattered with blood and gore. The sounds of bones cracking under the force of powerful jaws filled the death house. Then . . . silence.

  Two more U.S. senators would die that night, under the most horrible of circumstances. Hard-nosed investigators from the Virginia State Police and seasoned agents from the FBI would, to a person, be sickened at the carnage. None of them had ever seen anything like it in their long careers.

  “It would appear,” an FBI spokesperson would later read from a carefully worded statement, “that after the victims were killed, the flesh was torn from the bones by some sort of animal with very powerful jaws, and then . . . eaten.”

  “Motive?” a reporter asked.

  The agent shook her head. “We don’t have one as yet.”

  * * *

  The firefight at the underground bunkers that night in North Arkansas was over very quickly. To a person, those holding President Hutton captive committed suicide rather than be taken alive, but for reasons that would be forever unknown, they spared the life of President Hutton.

  He was treated at the scene by emergency medical services personnel and then flown to Little Rock for surgery on his injured leg.

  A very weary Van Brocklen and Chet Robbins were back at the motel complex a couple of hours before dawn. Both of them wanted no more than a long, hot soapy shower and a few hours sleep. They were stopped by the sight of a wolf peering around the corner of the building at them.

  “That’s him,” Van Brocklen said.

  “I don’t believe it!” Chet said.

  Barry shifted.

  “Son of a bitch!” the Secret Service man whispered, as both men stepped closer to the corner of the building.

  “President Hutton is all right, Barry,” Van Brocklen said.

  “I know. Friends of mine told me.”

  “Friends of yours?” Chet questioned.

  “Please don’t ask who,” Van Brocklen said.

  “What friends?” Chet blurted.

  “Friends in the forest,” Barry replied.

  “You had to ask,” Van Brocklen muttered.

  “If you’re interested, we can wrap this all up tomorrow morning,” Barry said. “Meet me on that side street behind Nellie’s Cafe at nine o’clock. Inspector, I expect you to keep your word about trying to get the government off my back.”

  “I said I’d try, Barry, and I will. I’ll do everything within my power. But don’t expect me to work miracles. I’m just a minor cog in a great big bureaucratic wheel.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Chet started to speak, then closed his mouth. Barry was gone. He shook his head and said, “This is the strangest case I have ever worked.”

  “And it isn’t over yet,” FBI added.

  “You just had to add that, didn’t you?”

  Thirty-four

  “Won’t Inspector Van Brocklen object to my being along?” Stormy asked.

  “Probably,” Barry replied. “But you will at least be able to get film of them taking the man away. That is, if they have proof enough to do that. I really don’t kn
ow what they have.”

  She had watched Barry pack his few belongings and then muscle the camper shell onto the bed of the pickup and bolt it down. He had laid a thin mattress on the bed of the truck for the dogs to lie on.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked, as they sat on the front porch of the house, sipping coffee in the relative coolness of morning.

  “Yes. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m settled in.” He smiled. “And I promise one of the first things I’ll do is get a telephone.”

  “Promises, promises,” she teased him, then her smile faded. “Do you think Inspector Van Brocklen has enough stroke to do any good, Barry?”

  “No. But he’ll try. And while he’s doing that, I might gain a little time.”

  “How about Robert Roche?”

  “He’s the one that worries me more than the government. After what I did to him, he’ll never quit chasing me.” Barry smiled. “But it was worth it.”

  Ki pulled in, and the three of them walked through the house, checking to see if Barry had missed anything. He was leaving his furniture, including the television and satellite dish. When Barry left a location, he broke clean.

  “The president and the Speaker are going to be all right,” Ki brought them up to date. “They’ve both scheduled press conferences for later today.”

  “That will be either a very interesting event,” Barry said, “or a very boring one. What is the mood in town?”

  “Relief that it’s all over,” Ki replied. “But I get the funny feeling that some people around the county know a hell of a lot more than they’re saying.”

  “Sure they do,” Barry said. “And certainly not just in this area. Lots of unrest around the nation. Militia groups springing up all over the place. But the government doesn’t seem all that interested in addressing the problems these millions of people point out. At least the party in power doesn’t seem interested. It’s just the same ol’ political Potomac Two-Step, day after day. When the Republicans point out that government needs to be downsized, programs need to be cut, departments cut back or done away with completely, they’re vilified by democratic left-wing extremists as advocating children starving, old people left to die, et cetera, et cetera. Any thinking person knows all that is a crock of shit. Both parties spend far too much time conducting witch-hunts against the other, instead of addressing the problems facing this nation...”