Prey sahl-1

by Ken Goddard

  "Look, I'll make it real easy. You walk away today, reschedule for some other time, and I'll cover the entire cost of your hunt."

  "What?"

  "I'm talking everything," Wolfe said confidently. "The mount, the delivery, the whole ball of wax. All you have to do is come back another day."

  Incredible, Lightstone thought, finding it difficult to believe his ears. Ten weeks of delicate undercover work was about to go down the drain, all because some rich asshole couldn't wait another day to bag his illegal bear.

  "No deal." He shook his head.

  "Look-"

  "No, you look," Lightstone said firmly. "I really don't give a shit about the money. I've got more goddamn money than I know what to do with. But what I don't have is time to waste on bullshit. I've been working on this deal with Alex for months now, and every time we try to get together something goes wrong."

  "That's not my-" Wolfe tried to interrupt, but Lightstone ignored him.

  "So now I'm finally here," he said firmly, "and I've got a pilot waiting on stand-by, and what I want is my goddamned bear. You and your friends want to go along on this little shebang, it's fine by me-" he shrugged "-but I want my bear."

  "But we have a time factor also. You know that, Alex," Wolfe persisted, turning to Chareaux to make his argument.

  "Henry," Alex Chareaux said quietly, "perhaps we can talk outside."

  "Yeah, sure," Lightstone nodded. He followed Chareaux out the door, leaving Reston Wolfe alone and fuming in the motel room. Wolfe had already had to confess to Lisa Abercombie that Gerd Maas wouldn't be coming on this hunt after all, and it wasn't clear that the mercurial woman would still be waiting for him at the restaurant when he finally managed to get this latest problem resolved.

  "More money than you know what to do with?" Chareaux asked with curious amusement when they were well clear of the door.

  "No such thing." Lightstone said brusquely as they continued walking; he was working hard now to stay in character. "I'm doing okay, but I'm not fucking rich. The guy just got my goat."

  "Yes, I understand. Listen, my friend, I apologize for allowing you to become involved in my problem," Chareaux said as they stopped beside the rented Bronco. "And I will not go back on my word in any case, you know that. But I want you also to understand that this man represents- how do you say? — very big business to me."

  "Alex, if money's really the problem-"

  "No, of course not." Chareaux shook his head. "I do not mean it in that way. I am told by your references that you always pay well, and anyway, I would not play such games with you."

  "I want that bear, Alex," Lightstone said quietly, being careful now because he knew he was walking right on the edge of entrapment. "Boone and Crockett. You promised me that."

  "Yes, I understand. And you will have your record trophy," Chareaux said. "But I must explain to you now that I did not tell the entire truth back there."

  "Oh?"

  "I said that my brothers and I have located two trophy animals, but that is not actually the case. We have located two animals, yes, but only one of record size. The other is the smaller one I told you about this morning. The woman and the Oriental man would not know the difference, I think, but neither of you would be satisfied with her."

  "So now you've got one record bear promised to two trophy hunters. Sounds to me like you have yourself a real problem," Lightstone commented.

  "Actually, it is far more complicated than that, because the other two wish to hunt also," Chareaux said. "But yes, you are exactly right. And it is even worse because this man has asked me to arrange a great many hunts for him in the future, and he is very careless about his money."

  "In other words, he's a fat cat that you really don't want to lose, because if you play him right, you're going to skin him alive without his ever knowing it."

  "You are a businessman, too. You understand these things."

  "Alex, I know all about taking advantage of business opportunities," Lightstone said. "And I really sympathize, but-"

  "So that is why I am willing to make you a very special offer," Chareaux interrupted."One that will appeal to you as a businessman."

  Lightstone blinked. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

  "There is another bear. It is huge, this one. So big and so aggressive that we have not yet dared to get close enough to make accurate estimates."

  "You're offering me a bigger bear than the one I'm supposed to get today?"

  "Yes."

  "So what's the catch?" Lightstone asked, fully aware that Chareaux was playing Henry Allen Lightner's strings like a virtuoso.

  "This one is still in the park," Chareaux explained simply. "He will not come out."

  "Meaning that we'd have to go after him?" Lightstone asked, stunned; he hadn't expected this at all.

  "Yes, exactly," Chareaux nodded. "Of course I don't have to explain to you that the risks involved in such a hunt would be far greater."

  "You mean from other animals that might take us by surprise?"

  "I mean park rangers, as well as the state wardens and the federal wildlife agents. Because even if it were the season for these bears now, which it is not, this hunt would be completely illegal. If we were caught in the park, we would have no way to explain ourselves."

  Lightstone forced himself to hesitate, reminding himself that he was Henry Allen Lightner and that Lightner was still very much afraid of being nabbed by the feds.

  "How far into the park would we have to go?" he asked. He was still hesitant for a number of reasons, including the unknown whereabouts of Special Agent-Pilot Len Ruebottom.

  "A mile, perhaps. Maybe more, maybe less," Chareaux said. "This one is more difficult to predict because he has claimed a much larger territory than most. He also likes to move around at night, so he will not be easy to locate. We would have to take him at night."

  "At night?"

  "There is no other way," Chareaux said. "We would wait until very late this evening, and then go in on foot. Just you and I and Sonny. We know roughly where he is right now, so perhaps we would not have too much difficulty."

  "A mile or so hike through the woods, at midnight, I assume with no lights, watching out for the park rangers, agents and wardens, to hunt down a bear that scares you and Sonny? You don't call that difficult?"

  "We would use night-vision equipment, of course, and protected radios," Chareaux said, "but even so, we would be limited in our options. For example, you would have only one shot, or perhaps two at the most, because the people in the park would be alerted immediately by the noise."

  "That's right," Lightstone concurred.

  "One shot, unexpected, would be just an echo in the night," Chareaux went on. "But two, some time apart…" He left the rest unspoken.

  "If I had any common sense, I'd say no, right now."

  "Yes, of course you would, as I would," Chareaux nodded understanding. "But isn't it true that we are always drawn to the things we fear? The true man who fears the sharks will continue to dive. He who fears the heights will continue to climb. Who are we to change what has always been?"

  "So what all this comes down to is that you want me to give up my nice easy hunt for one that's a hell of a lot more risky, just to keep your rich buddy in there happy. Is that about it?"

  "That is it exactly," Chareaux agreed. "That is why I make the offer to you. This other one-" he gestured with his head back toward the motel "-I think he is not so much interested in the challenge of the hunt as he is impressing the woman. I have seen it many times before. It is in his eyes… although I think not so much in hers," he added with a smile. "For him, the risks of this special hunt would be much too great."

  "I think I know why I'm willing to take the chance," Lightstone said after a moment. "But what about you? I'm paying you good money, but I'm not paying you that much."

  "I value you as a customer, and you do not insult me by questioning my word." Chareaux shrugged. "Beyond that, I have caused you difficulty and I would ow
e you that much in any case. But even so," he added, "there is yet one more condition."

  "What's that?" Lightstone asked suspiciously.

  "If I have to send one of my brothers out into the park to find your bear, and have the other stay close to the ones we have already located, then I will have no one to assist me in helping my rich fool of a client to impress his woman."

  "Yeah, so?"

  "So in exchange for a more dangerous amusement later this evening, for which I charge you nothing because he will pay," Chareaux nodded back toward the motel again, "I would ask you to be my assistant now."

  "You want me to work for you?"

  "I think it would not be so much work as perhaps pleasure," Chareaux said. "After all, I am told that your aim is true. You are healthy and strong, the woman is sexy and beautiful, and it is clear that my foolish client has already made her angry for some reason. Who is to say that she would not be more impressed by you than by him?"

  "What exactly would I have to do?" Lightstone asked, trying to convince himself that the woman had nothing to do with this.

  "Carry a heavy pack. Help my brother to drive the animals. Be there with your rifle if a shot is missed and any of them are in danger. Assist me in cleaning and transporting their trophies. Be available as a distraction if the need should arise." Chareaux shrugged again. "It is not so much."

  Only everything that I need to put you away, Lightstone thought, wondering if he was pushing his Henry Allen Lightner role too far.

  "It is up to you," Chareaux said. "If you are agreeable, I can go ask him right now."

  Lightstone hesitated for one last time, determined to make it look right, because he would never again have a chance like this with Alex Chareaux. Especially not if "transporting their trophies" meant what he thought it meant-that he would be allowed to help deliver the illegally killed animals to the Chareauxs' illegal taxidermist.

  Wait until McNulty hears about this, he thought.

  "I'm agreeable," he finally said. "Go ahead and ask."

  Chapter Twelve

  Henry Lightstone watched the door to Room 102 close behind Alex Chareaux's back.

  Then, for a few long moments, he just stood there, alone in the parking lot, and thought very seriously about getting back into the Bronco and simply fading away.

  He figured that he had five minutes for sure, maybe fifteen at the outside. For that length of time, the fade would still be a viable option. All he had to do was to toss the rifle case and duffel bags in the back of the rented vehicle, get into the front seat, start up the engine, drive right on out of the parking lot, turn left at the intersection, and that would be it.

  No more Chareaux brothers, and no more Henry Allen Lightner. Just Marie, and whatever else he could find to amuse himself with until MeNulty came up with another suitable project for the wild-card member of his respected covert team.

  Just like the old times.

  Hey, man, heard you did the Fade on ol' Papa-Q last night.

  Yeah, that's the way it went. One minute I'm right in there, all set to do the deed, and the next minute, wham, I'm gone. Just like that. Never even saw it coming.]ust up and walked away.

  The gut always knows, man. You gotta listen to it. That Papa-Q's a stone freak from way back. You just let him slide for a while. We'll take him down another day.

  The Fade.

  That was what they called it when he was buying narcotics in back alleys from crack-crazed freaks. The sudden, unconscious decision to walk away from the deal at the last second because some gut-level instinct didn't like what it saw, or sensed, or heard.

  Henry Lightstone was perfectly aware that he was working a wildlife case that had little if anything to do with dope, but that didn't matter, because he knew that Alex Chareaux and Papa-Q were kindred souls… amoral creatures who would think nothing of killing a man for the simple pleasure of watching him die.

  The Fade. He knew that he could do it. All he had to do was to turn around and walk away. He could do that, and nobody on the Special Operations team-not Paxton, or Stoner, or Scoby, or Takahara, not even MeNulty-would ever second-guess his decision, because they understood that it wasn't a question of giving in to fear.

  Covert operators, or at least the good ones, knew, understood, and respected fear for what it was: an ancient early warning system that kept the Stone Age hunters alert and wary and alive in situations where most sophisticated thought processes were simply too slow. In effect, a mental trip wire that might just give that hunter a second chance to survive if he was alert, and cautious, and paid careful attention to his instincts.

  But it wasn't fear alone that was making Henry Lightstone consider the Fade. And it wasn't the unexpected appearance of Alex Chareaux's three new clients, who had certainly added a dangerous complication to his carefully worked-out game plan. It was the sudden realization that the pace of the entire operation had accelerated to the point where he no longer had any control over its direction or its timing.

  When the door to Alex Chareaux's motel room finally opened fifteen minutes later, Lightstone was still standing there, trying to convince himself that he was ready to face just about anything.

  Which, as it turned out, wasn't true at all. Nothing had even remotely prepared Henry Lightstone for the sudden rhythmic thunder of rotor blades as the glistening helicopter swooped down over the Best Western parking lot and then came around in a tight, tail-sweeping turn to hover in a dust-swirling position over the nearby field.

  "Tell me, Henry," Chareaux said as he leaned over and patted Lightstone's shoulder, "is this not an incredible surprise?"

  "What?" Lightstone rasped, trying not to move his head lest he lose what little equilibrium he had somehow managed to retain. He was trying to decide if tingling arms and legs, clammy skin, and a rapid pulse meant that he was about to faint, or about to be airsick.

  "Here, you need your headset on, so we can talk," Chareaux said, reaching up and removing Lightstone's headset from the overhead clip, then helping him adjust the cord and earphones around his throbbing head.

  "I said, are you not surprised by all of this?" Chareaux repeated, keying the switch for the cabin intercom on the headset cord as he spoke into the small mouthpiece speaker.

  "Yeah, that's the word for it, Alex, no doubt about it," Lightstone nodded weakly.

  "Here, we must use this intercom switch if we wish to talk among ourselves," Chareaux said, showing Lightstone how to go back and forth between the helicopter's cabin and pilot intercom systems.

  Lightstone wanted Chareaux to take his cheerful little surprises, and the headset that was already starting to hurt his ears, and his goddamned intercom switches, and stuff them right up there along with his "special hunt." But he couldn't say so because, he figured, it would probably start a fight.

  He could blame McNulty and Scoby right off for this, Lightstone told himself, since there had been absolutely nothing in any of the team's extensive intelligence reports to suggest that the Chareaux brothers had ever used any transportation equipment more sophisticated than a four-wheel-drive Jeep.

  The background report on Alex Chareaux's illegal guiding operation had been over three hundred pages long. And among other things, it had listed in great detail the methods that Chareaux and his brothers had used during the past three years to take at least twenty-three subjects on a total of eighty-seven illegal hunts.

  The information had also included the date and duration of each hunt, the state and county where the hunts took place, the number of species wounded or taken, types and calibers of weapons used, the makes and models of the suspect vehicles, license-plate numbers, types of clothing worn, game tags used or altered, access routes, meeting points, contacts with game wardens, and details of previous hunts discussed over evening camp fires.

  Everything that an investigating wildlife officer could possibly want, except for current photographs of Butch and Sonny Chareaux, and the name and location of the taxidermist that the Chareauxs used for m
ounting their clients' illegal trophies, which was why McNulty had sent Lightstone in on the Chareaux brothers in the first place.

  The thing was, Lightstone told himself, if there had been as much as a single instance in which the Chareaux brothers had even talked about using a helicopter in one of their illegal hunts, there would have been at least a half dozen cross-indexed references to that fact in the report.

  But there had been no mention of helicopters. That was one thing he'd specifically looked for in the index because he was deathly afraid of helicopters. He couldn't imagine McNulty-or Scoby, who functioned as intelligence officer for the Special Operations Unit and had spent three months working up the information on the Chareaux brothers- being that careless.

  "In case anybody back there is interested," the pilot spoke over the intercom, "we're just crossing over into Custer National Forest now."

  There was something about the whole situation that nagged at the edge of Lightstone's subconscious. It just didn't read right. He had been working on the assumption that the hunt would have to take place within easy hiking distance of one of the few roads in or around Gardiner. There was no other way for five hunters to get far enough out in the woods on a Sunday afternoon to hunt successfully and then get back to Gardiner by nightfall.

  Except, of course, by helicopter.

  The helicopter in question was a brand-new Bell Ranger, with plenty of room for the pilot, the copilot, and five passengers with backpacks and rifle cases. According to the copilot, who seemed to know what he was talking about, the aircraft had cost somebody the better part of seven million dollars. Suddenly it dawned on Lightstone that Alex Chareaux's new clients owned the seven-million-dollar helicopter and that it was one hell of an expensive piece of equipment to be used with the likes of Alex and Sonny and Butch Chareaux.

  "Are we anywhere near the battlefield?" Lisa Abercombie spoke into her headset speaker, starting to get caught up in the excitement of the hunt.

  "You mean Little Bighorn?" the pilot asked, glancing back at Abercombie, who was strapped into one of the center seats just behind the copilot.