Double Blind (16 page)

"I think I can find it," he assured the old man.

"Meet me there at five o'clock this evening," the Sage ordered. "I like to eat early. Easier on the digestion at my age. The woman who runs the place can feed us — your treat, of course. And if you'd like, she can verify the authenticity of the charms, too."

"This woman can recognize a genuine Apache Indian hunting charm when she sees one?"

"Of course she can." The Sage grabbed his white walking stick, slid out of the booth, and peered down at Wintersole through his dark, protective lenses. "She's a witch."

Chapter Fifteen

Special Agents Larry Paxton, Henry Lightstone, and Dwight Stoner stood in the roll-up doorway of the United Airlines terminal at the Rogue Valley International Airport in Medford, Oregon, and stared numbly at the three six-foot-square pallets of plywood shipping crates stacked head high inside the small warehouse.

From their position, some twenty feet away from the pallets, the agents counted a minimum of seventy-two 2'x4'xl' crates, each drilled with numerous small holes, tightly secured with steel bands, and covered on all sides with bright red warnings labels.

From their position in the doorway, Paxton, Lightstone, and Stoner could easily read several of the labels:

DANGEROUS! HAZARDOUS CARGO! LIVE REPTILES! DO NOT DROP!

POISONOUS SNAKES . . . USE EXTREME CAUTION WHEN OPENING!

And the most intriguing label of all:

FRAGILE

"They can't be talking about the crates being fragile." Stoner stepped forward another six inches to get a closer look. "That's three-quarter-inch plywood, and they must've used a couple hundred wood screws in each one. Man, those things look like they were made to ship artillery rounds."

"We should be so lucky," Lightstone grumbled.

"One of you guys happen to be Larry Packer?" an extremely pale uniformed warehouse attendant asked hopefully as he hurried forward with a clipboard in his hand.

"Uh . . ." Paxton started to say.

"They told me that a guy named Larry Packer would be here at one o'clock with a Ryder truck and a couple other guys to sign for this stuff." The attendant hurriedly held out the clipboard and a pen. "It's one o'clock, and that sure looks like a Ryder truck, and there's three of you, so if you'll just sign here."

"Don't you want to see any ID?" Paxton stared down at the shipping bill as if it were his own death sentence. Finally, after closing his eyes and shaking his head sadly for a brief moment, he scribbled his name across the face of the form.

"Mister, you want to know the honest-to-God truth?" the attendant asked as he nearly ripped the clipboard out of Paxton's hand, "I really don't care if your driver's license says 'John Smith, Dishonest Snake Smuggler.' You signed for these things, so they're all yours."

Already looking decidedly less pale, the man quickly tore off the bottom copy and handed it to Paxton.

"By the way," he added almost cheerfully, "you want to know what the pilots said when they landed here, after flying all the way from Portland with those damned things like they were crates full of nitroglycerin?"

"No, I don't think so." Paxton shook his head again. "Probably just make us feel a whole lot worse than we already do."

"I doubt that," Stoner muttered.

Ignoring his huge partner, Paxton turned to the now broadly grinning United Airlines employee. "Uh, seeing as how you probably don't want us to drive our truck inside your hanger here, you want us to just back up to the door so that you folks could . . . ?"

"Hey, don't worry about it. Far as I'm concerned, you can back that truck right up next to those pallets and take all the time you want to load," the warehouse attendant informed them hurriedly. "I'd, uh, be glad to help you guys, but I'm running kinda late. Got a date to meet my, uh, wife for lunch. So go ahead and load up, and then just close the door and shut the gate behind you when you leave. The manager's inside in her office; but to tell you the truth, I really don't think she'll come out until you guys are gone."

The three agents stood at the front of the warehouse and watched the warehouse worker hurry around to the front of the terminal building, hop into a car, and then quickly accelerate out of the parking lot.

"I wonder if he's really got a wife?" Lightstone mused.

"Or if that's really his car?" Stoner added.

"What the hell's the matter with you guys?" Paxton demanded. "You think a guy like that's gonna lie about a lunch date with his wife, then run out and jump into the first car he finds with the keys in the ignition and take off just because he's got a few snakes and spiders in his warehouse?"

"I would have," Stoner said.

"Works for me," Lightstone agreed.

"Well, while you crybabies go in there and start figuring out how you're gonna load them things," Paxton announced, "I'm gonna go get the truck."

The two agents waited patiently right where they were until the Bravo Team leader cautiously backed the Ryder truck about halfway inside the roll-up doorway of the warehouse — still a good ten feet from the pallets.

"That's good!" Stoner called out, and then turned to Lightstone. "No sense in letting him get too close."

"Yeah, no kidding."

Paxton hopped out of the truck and stared at his two subordinate agents.

"Well, you two got this all figured out?" he demanded.

"Yep," Stoner replied.

"Good. I'll stand by the door and make damned sure nobody —" Paxton's words ended abruptly when a huge hand closed around the front of his shirt and lifted his entire 185-pound frame a good foot off the floor.

"Don't look upon this as insubordination, Paxton," Dwight Stoner suggested, glaring into Larry Paxton's widened eyes as he relaxed his massive arm enough to allow his supervisor's shoes to touch the ground. "Look upon it as constructive criticism."

"Not to mention a unique opportunity to demonstrate uncommon leadership," Lightstone added.

"Yeah, that too," Stoner agreed. "And besides," the huge agent muttered ominously as he opened his hand and then smoothed out Paxton's bunched-up shirt, "all we'd have to do is show them a copy of that shipping invoice, and not a jury in the world would ever convict us."

Thirty seconds later, having reached a mutual agreement as to the division of labor on this particular assignment, the three federal agents cautiously approached the stacks of crates together.

"Which ones do you think have the spiders in them?" Stoner whispered when they stood about six feet away from the closest pallet.

"If there really are 750 of the damned things, then my guess would be every one that isn't labeled 'poisonous snake,'" Lightstone suggested. "But don't forget," he added thoughtfully, "we could be talking wildlife-agent sense of humor here."

"Bunch of whiny little crybabies, afraid of a few itty-bitty spiders," Larry Paxton muttered as he gingerly moved to within three feet of the pallet and leaned forward, trying to peek through the numerous quarter-inch holes drilled along the upper edge of one of the top crates on the pile.

"See anything?" Lightstone whispered.

"Not a damned thing," Paxton replied nervously.

"It looks like there's some kind of screening on the inside of some of the boxes covering the air holes," Stoner noted, squatting down to examine the pile from a much safer distance. "I wonder what that means?"

"Means whatever's in this one can't get out through a quarter-inch diameter hole," Paxton proposed hopefully.

"Well, you ought to be able to see something through those holes," Lightstone reasoned. "Why don't you move in closer?"

"Don't rush me, goddamnit!"

"Now that's what I call leadership by example," Dwight Stoner grunted approvingly.

Moving very slowly and cautiously, and keeping his fingers well away from the drilled holes, Paxton placed his hands along the lower sides of the heavy crate he was examining, and ever so gently pulled it about two inches toward him.

Nothing.

"See, I told you little crybabies — " Paxton berated them in a soft voice as he carefully lifted the heavy box off the stack . . . and then screamed "SHIT!" when something thrashed heavily inside, sending both the team leader and the box tumbling backwards.

Larry Paxton landed solidly on his back on the concrete floor, forcing most of the air from his lungs in a loud, explosive gasp — followed by another an instant later when the now wildly thumping crate landed on his chest, causing the wide-eyed team leader to scream "SHIT!!!" again in an even louder, higher-pitched voice.

Shoving the heavy container aside with the last vestiges of air in his lungs, Paxton leaped to his feet and staggered behind Dwight Stoner as the huge agent drew his 10mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol out from under his jacket and aimed it at the crate — which thumped and jerked a couple more times before suddenly becoming silent.

For about five long seconds, only the sound of Larry Paxton's labored breathing filled the warehouse. Nobody spoke a word.

Finally, Henry Lightstone broke the silence.

"I don't know about you guys," he ventured in a hushed voice, "but I sure as hell hope that's not one of the spider boxes."

Chapter Sixteen

Darkness had already fallen when the Sage puttered up the road on his noisy, smoke-belching motorbike. The narrow headlight beam wavered among the surrounding trees as the old man wobbled to a stop next to a pair of wooden benches beneath a brand-new post-mounted wooden sign that said The Dogsfire Inn where First Sergeant Wintersole and the communications specialist of the hunter-killer team awaited him.

"Ah, I see you found the place." The scraggly-bearded old man carefully leaned the motorcycle against a tree, struggled to remove his helmet and backpack, pulled a pair of dark glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on, then unstrapped his white walking stick from the bike frame.

"At the end of the road, beside the creek. An old house with a tree growing out through the roof." Wintersole shrugged. "It wasn't difficult."

"Who's she?"

"This is one of my associates, named Azaria." Wintersole turned to the young woman. "Azaria, the Sage."

"Pleased to meet you." The attractive but decidedly hard-looking young woman offered a muscular hand.

"Oh, uh, yes . . . pleased also." The Sage grasped the young woman's hand briefly. Then he quickly hobbled onto the spacious wooden deck that extended from the inn and attached screened porch to the dirt road on one side and creek on the other. Several dozen glowing yellow light bulbs both within and outside the enclosed porch added to the already eerie atmosphere of the old house.

The communications specialist gave Wintersole a puzzled look, but he simply motioned for her to follow the old man into the huge screened area, then sat down at one of the rustic tables surrounding a circular pit with a bell-like brass chimney over a blazing log fire.

"I like to eat outside," the old man explained as he sat in the chair closest to the fire and leaned his walking stick within easy reach against the table. "Gets a mite chilly sometimes, but a good fire warms my bones better than any modern heating system."

"Fine." Wintersole barely glanced at the fire as he and Azaria joined the old man at the table.

"Things are a little slow around here," the Sage advised as he picked up one of the handwritten menus and held it up to the firelight. "Just the new owner and a young feller doin' the cooking and everything else. But that's okay 'cause the hot chocolate's just as good as ever."

"So how did the search go?" Wintersole inquired openly. "Any luck?"

"Hell yes, I had some luck," the old man retorted. "Fact is, I had to sweet-talk a couple of them Indian folks something fierce to round up these beauties." He turned his backpack upside down, and seven ornately beaded and feathered necklaces dropped onto the wood slab tabletop. "Got three from one old woman who planned to save them for her grandsons, but I guess she decided the money meant more to her. Said the kids don't care about the old ways anymore. Guess that's pretty much the way everywhere." The bearded old man sighed deeply.

"But then, too, some would say that children have never cared about such things," Wintersole suggested as his eyes scanned the enclosed porch and surrounding deck.

The old man's dark glasses reflected the warm glow of the fire as he cocked his head curiously.

"What have we here?" he addressed Wintersole suspiciously. "A hunter and a philosopher?"

"From my perspective, it's difficult to be a hunter for any length of time without becoming philosophical," Wintersole replied. "At least about death. We humans lack serious teeth or claws, so we make weapons. If we didn't, we'd find ourselves at the mercy of those natural predators who come into this world much better armed."

"Such as the government?" The Sage smiled knowingly.

Wintersole blinked, then chuckled in appreciation while covertly nudging his companion's leg with his boot.

"And speaking of claws —" Wintersole's companion held up one of the necklaces to the light.

"Ah yes, young lady, the charms," the Sage responded immediately. "A very good eye you have, too. That's by far the prettiest — and, who knows, perhaps the luckiest," he added cheerfully. "Are you taking that one for yourself?"

The young woman looked over at Wintersole, who shrugged indifferently.

"Actually, I might need some extra luck on this trip." She briefly fingered the four thick, slightly curved claws before slipping the ornate necklace over her head.

"Then you couldn't have chosen better," the Sage congratulated her. "And as long as we're trying to match charms with personalities," he added as he picked up another one of the necklaces and handed it to Wintersole, "I recommend that our philosopher-hunter wear this one."

"Why so?" The team leader barely looked at the necklace he held in his hand.

"Because the claws came from a grizzly."

That comment caused Wintersole to examine the extremely thick claws that had been strung on a simple knotted leather cord more carefully.