Prey (18 page)

MeNulty didn't have to explain the significance of his statement. Everyone on the team knew that Martha McNulty's older brother had recently retired as commander of the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Unit. The McNulty household had been a social gathering point for many of LAPD's finest when Paul McNulty was senior resident agent of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Long Beach office.

And having served more meals to more special agents, game wardens, cops, narcs, and SWAT team members than she cared to think about, Martha McNulty often claimed that she could walk into a room and pick out the covert operators almost immediately. Something about the set of their shoulders, and their eyes, and the way they moved.

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," Scoby suggested cautiously.

"No, it doesn't," McNulty agreed. "But Martha remembered that the guy had personal checks from a couple of our neighbors on his clipboard, so this morning I went around and talked to the people in our cul-de-sac. Seems that he made his pitch to three houses before us, but nobody after us."

"Okay, but—"

"And before I forget," McNulty interrupted, "tell Larry that I made similar arrangements for Dasha and the kids. They're getting on a plane for Jamaica tomorrow morning. Going to stay with the grandparents for a couple of weeks. I told her it was a surprise from Larry, to make up for him being gone all the time."

"What the hell's
that
all about?"

"Same guy showed up at Dasha's place Saturday afternoon. Same description and same pattern. Three houses before, none after."

"Jesus," Scoby whispered after a long moment. "What the hell did we trip over?"

"I don't know," McNulty said. "Maybe nothing.
Hopefully
nothing. For all I know, this may be nothing more than a routine sweep. Update on our security clearances. Something like that."

"You think the Chareauxs might be involved in all this?"

"First thing I thought of, but I don't see how," McNulty answered. "If they're looking at us as a team, it's got to be one of two things. It's either the specific individuals that we're targeting, or the fact that we're a covert team, and therefore represent a potential threat."

"To somebody with a guilty conscience?"

"Presumably."

"And since everything's pretty much shut down right now
except
for the Chareaux operation—"

"That kinda narrows it down, doesn't it," MeNulty muttered sarcastically.

"You check in with John?" Scoby asked, referring to John Marsh, chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Law Enforcement Division.

"First thing I did," MeNulty said. "As far as he knows, there's nothing going on. They've been getting a lot of questions from the Hill about field operations in general during the last couple of weeks, but he figures it's probably just some posturing over the budget."

"What about Internal Affairs?"

"He doesn't think so," MeNulty told him. "Unless the chief himself is a primary suspect, the IA boys have to check in with him first before they start any kind of serious investigation of anybody in the division. Outside of the Haitian counsel flap, which is just about wrapped up anyway, he hasn't heard a word about any of us for the last couple of months. Far as he knows, we're all clean, and he mentioned that he'd like us to stay that way for a while."

"So why the FBI probe?"

"The only thing he can figure is that maybe it's a couple of high-level game-players with nothing better to do than rummage around the department, looking for some dirty laundry before they make a run on somebody else's turf."

"That's happened before."

"Yeah, no shit," MeNulty muttered. "And with any luck, that's
all
this is. But I want to be damn sure before I stop looking over my shoulder."

"Okay, so how do you want us to . . . hold it," Scoby whispered, the tone of his voice suddenly taking on a tense urgency as everyone in the motel room heard the distinctive sound of a key being forced into the outer door lock of room two-ten.

Chapter Fifteen

Alex Chareaux had been right after all, Henry Lightstone decided. The bear
was
a monster.

As best he could judge from his vantage point, it was bigger than any grizzly he had ever seen, including the stuffed mounts that had been prominently displayed behind glass in the lobby of the Anchorage Hilton.

Lightstone was hopeful that the bear wouldn't be all that active for the next half hour or so. Not with a tranquilizer- dart dose of sodium secobarbital still swimming through its bloodstream.

But then, too, Lightstone reminded himself, all of that just might change if somebody with more guts than brains decided to do something
really
stupid.

Like ricocheting a navel orange-size rock off a huge male grizzly bear's thick skull.

After bracing himself against the protective bulk of a fifty-foot Douglas fir and checking with his thumb to make absolutely certain the safety of his rifle was in the forward "off" position, Lightstone used his right hand to remove the small packset radio from his jacket pocket.

Then he looked over at Butch Chareaux, who was standing about thirty yards back and to his right, his old weatherbeaten 7mm Winchester rifle held up in the ready position. Lightstone waited until Chareaux waved his hand to indicate that he was all set before he keyed the radio mike.

"Okay," he whispered. "I've got him in sight."

"Describe your position," Alex Chareaux demanded, his voice sounding clear and very close through the expensive digital radio.

Lightstone looked out around the big Douglas fir, made an estimate of the distance, and decided that he was much too close by at least a factor of three.

"I'm about twenty yards away from the bear right now," he said quietly into the radio's external microphone. "I figure that puts me just about due south of your position, maybe a hundred and fifty yards at the outside. There're a couple of pretty steep gullies with a lot of rocks and trees between us, but the way he's positioned right now, we ought to be able to keep him running straight in your direction."

"What is he doing now?"

"Sitting on his ass, rocking his head back and forth like it weighs a couple hundred pounds, making some kind of weird grunting noises. Acts like he's got one hell of a hangover," Lightstone said uneasily.

"The drugs should start to wear off soon now," Chareaux acknowledged. "Does he know that you and Butch are there?"

"I think so, but it's kinda hard to tell," Lightstone said, ready to drop the radio and bring the heavy-barreled .300 McMillan up to his shoulder the moment the huge bear made the slightest move in his direction.

"He will still be confused by the drugs for a while, so he should not be too difficult to move," Chareaux said. "You know what to do then, do you not?"

"Pretty much. I just hope to hell somebody gave a copy of the script to the bear, too."

"It is just as I promised you, Henry—" Chareaux said reassuringly "—an adventure unlike anything that you've ever had before."

"Okay, Alex, just tell me when," Lightstone said.

Alex Chareaux looked around to confirm that his three hunters were in position, with Reston Wolfe in the center, braced against a fallen oak; Lisa Abercombie about fifteen yards to Wolfe's left; and Dr. Morito Asai an equal distance to his right. All three were facing the area where Chareaux had predicted the bear would most likely appear.

"We're ready here," Chareaux whispered into his radio. "Do it now."

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Henry Lightstone propped the beautifully finished McMillan up against the tree with his left hand and then slowly knelt down and picked up a pair of rocks that were sitting by his boots, each of which was about the size of a large navel orange.

Then, after slipping one of the rocks into his jacket pocket and holding the other in his gloved hand, he slowly stood up and looked over at Butch Chareaux, who gave him a thumbs-up sign.

Okay, McNulty,
Lightstone thought to himself,
I hope to hell you and Scoby and that maniac Stoner are going to appreciate this.

After picking up his rifle and holding it tightly in his left hand, Lightstone took in one last deep breath and stepped away from the tree, nervously aware that the bear was staring groggily in his direction.

Sliding his boots forward in slow, easy steps, Lightstone moved closer to the huge animal, until his right foot crunched down on a small twig.

The sound seemed to focus the bear's attention, resulting in a low, guttural
"Woof!"
as it slowly brought its huge furry body around to a position where it could watch the approaching upright figure without having to lift its head.

Lightstone froze. Now that he was out in the open and fully exposed to a sudden charge, the huge grizzly looked a least twice as big as it had from behind the protective bulk of the fifty-foot Douglas fir. It seemed to be increasingly aware of its surroundings, as though the sound of the snapping twig had activated some sort of survival mechanism that was helping it to counteract the dwindling effects of the secobarbital.

For a long moment, Henry Lightstone and the bear remained in their respective positions, each staring silently at the other.

Then, in an act of pure madness, Lightstone lunged forward in a headlong charge toward the squatting bear, yelling as loud as he could as he heaved the rock at the large cluster of pinecones hanging just above the bear's head.

Lightstone had previously decided to aim for the pinecones—instead of for the bear's head as Butch Chareaux had advised—because he hoped that the noise of the falling cones might confuse and scare the huge animal, rather than making it madder than hell.

But Lightstone hadn't counted on the grizzly suddenly bringing its head up in an instinctive response to the sound of his voice. Thus, instead of sending a shower of pinecones tumbling down over the bear's broad head, the orange-sized rock caught the unsuspecting grizzly right square in the center of its much-too-sensitive nose.

Still running forward and now less than a dozen yards away, Lightstone had already started to pull the second rock out of his jacket pocket when the huge bear roared in pain and fury, and then suddenly rose up on its oddly short and stubby legs to its full, terrifying height of over nine feet, with its four-inch claws fully extended and savage mouth wide open.

Lightstone took less than a half second to realize that he had made a horrible and possibly fatal mistake before his survival instincts took over.

Screaming as loudly as he could once again, he heaved the second rock at the still-dangling clump of pinecones next to the grizzly's head and then frantically swung the heavy barrel of the McMillan around as the impact of the rock sent pinecones spinning away from the tree in all directions.

One of the sharp-edged cones caught the huge bear across the eye. The big creature slashed awkwardly at it with a massive paw. The rapid-acting barbiturate was clearly still affecting the grizzly's motor reactions and coordination; but from Henry Lightstone's stunned perspective, the animal's incredible strength seemed untouched.

Suddenly the huge bear turned its attention back to the puny creature that was now less than a dozen feet away. Furiously intent on ripping this new adversary to bloody shreds with its incredibly powerful claws, the bear lurched forward on unsteady legs, claws outreached and teeth bared. The sticklike object in the human's hand suddenly exploded with a horrendously
loud
noise as a high-velocity slug streaked past the bear's right ear.

Lightstone hadn't had time to bring the rifle up to his shoulder, and the recoil of the detonated .300 Magnum round almost tore the powerful weapon out of his hands. But more important, the shock effect of the concussive explosion so close to the bear's face gave Lightstone the opportunity to do the one thing that he figured just might save his life.

Which was to run like hell.

Lightstone made a desperate lunge for the nearby trees, but the only thing that truly saved him in those first few seconds was the fact that the bear had turned its head away from the muzzle blast and the eye-stinging spray of burning gunpowder.

Thus by the time the grizzly blinked its eyes clear and realized what had happened, Lightstone had already disappeared into the surrounding woods in a fully panicked sprint.

Running faster than he had ever run in his life, Lightstone managed to put about twenty yards between himself and the clearing at his back when he heard the unmistakable sounds of the bear tearing its way through the brush and trees in hot pursuit.

Lightstone hadn't thought that he could run any faster, but the fearsome roars and grunts of the infuriated bear, the crash of dried brush being trampled and uprooted, and the splintering sounds of tree limbs being ripped from their trunks provided the incentive his shaky legs needed.

The next thirty seconds of Henry Lightstone's life flew by in a blur of slippery pine needles, thorny vines, entangling branches, and torn clothing as he scrambled up the rocky slope of the gully and over what seemed to be hundreds of exposed and interwoven tree roots.

Somewhere in the middle of those seemingly endless thirty seconds, Lightstone managed to work the bolt action of the McMillan, driving and locking another .300 Magnum round into the chamber of the powerful rifle, whose beautifully finished stock was now gouged and scratched and muddy from numerous impacts against rocks and trees and anything else that had stood in Lightstone's frenzied path. But he'd held on to the rifle as a last-ditch desperation option even though he wasn't at all sure that with one shot he could kill an animal the size of the enraged grizzly.