Prey (20 page)

"We'll let it run until ten o'clock. That's about," McNulty checked his watch, "five and a half hours from now."

"Ten
p.m
.,
check," Scoby said as he marked the time down in his case notebook, "and after that?"

"If we don't hear from Len or Henry by ten o'clock," McNulty said, his voice taking on a cold chill, "the five of us are going to drive down to Gardiner and have a nice heart-to-heart talk with Alex Chareaux. And in the meantime, let's just hope that Mike's gotten something useful out of that goddamn plane."

Chapter Seventeen

"It's almost twenty to eight. We're going to be late," Butch Chareaux whispered to his brother, who nodded his head solemnly.

"Yes, I know," Alex Chareaux said as he continued to watch the bizarre ritual being carried out before his disbelieving eyes with a mixture of disgust and helpless frustration. "But they are the clients. There is nothing that we can do."

"But Lightner—" Butch Chareaux started to protest, but his brother waved him off.

"Lightner is no longer a problem," Alex Chareaux said firmly. "It is simply a matter of timing now. Before this night is gone, one way or the other, it will all be resolved."

Timing.

From the moment that Reston Wolfe had called to demand a change in their scheduled hunt, time had been a key factor in Alex Chareaux's planning, and a crucial element in providing a suitable demonstration for Wolfe and his incredibly wealthy new clients.

But now time had become the enemy because it had taken them much longer than Chareaux had anticipated to "find" the smaller female grizzly and set the scene so that Dr. Morito Asai could have his kill. Mostly because he and his brothers had overestimated the bear's weight when they had switched over from the maintenance doses of phenobar- bital to the controlling dose of the far more powerful but shorter-acting secobarbital.

As a result, it had been necessary for Butch Chareaux to spend almost half an hour poking and prodding the nearly unconscious bear—first with the barrel of his Model 70 Winchester and finally with an electric cattle prod—before he was able to get her out of the hidden cage. And even then it had taken another five minutes of increasingly powerful jolts from the prod before Butch Chareaux was finally able to force the terrified young bear up onto her weak and trembling legs, and then drive her through the forest into the fatal path of Dr. Morito Asai's one-hundred-and-twenty- five-thousand-dollar double-barreled rifle.

But having learned their lesson from the previous shooting incident involving their supposed new partner, Butch Chareaux was careful to stay
behind
the frantically stumbling bear and to duck down at the proper moment. And Alex Chareaux had been equally careful to place his trigger-happy clients in positions that gave them a clear field of fire with their expensive, high-powered weapons.

So as a result, the second grizzly kill had been quick and easy and relatively uneventful.

Which meant that they still should have had plenty of time to load the bull elk, the eagles, the two bears, Lightner,
and
their hunters into the two camouflaged pickup trucks, drive out onto the paved road, and get to the small town of Fishtail and the previously designated phone booth by eight o'clock that evening. Exactly as the three brothers had planned it all out in their Bozeman motel room after having received the unexpected call from Dr. Reston Wolfe less than ten hours ago.

But it wasn't working out that way.

And it could all be traced back to Reston Wolfe's damnable arrogance, Alex Chareaux decided.

Chareaux was irritated because Wolfe, in his predictably insolent and patronizing manner, had offered him and his brothers the possibility of riches beyond their wildest dreams. But in doing so, he had placed them in a position of having to face the necessity—and the inherent dangers—of taking on a partner like Henry Allen Lightner.

So in what little time that remained before Henry Allen Lightner would be landing at Bozeman Airport, Chareaux and his brothers had been forced to come up with a makeshift plan that just
might
enable them, within the space of eight short hours, to determine the true nature of their proposed new partner. But in setting up the quick demonstration hunt for Wolfe, and in laying out their carefully orchestrated timetable to reveal any flaws in the supposed background of Lightner, Alex Chareaux had failed to anticipate yet another critical factor that would bring his entire operation to a stumbling halt.

In this case, it was the ancient cultural traditions of Dr. Morito Asai.

"No, must take the gallbladders first. Very important," Asai had argued insistently when Butch Chareaux started to back the winch-mounted pickup truck up against the huge carcass of the male grizzly.

And then, before Alex or Butch Chareaux could do anything to stop him, Dr. Morito Asai had proceeded to sit himself down in front of the slain bear and cut into its belly with an incredibly sharp knife that looked like a miniature version of the samurai's traditional
katana
sword.

"What is he
doing?"
Butch Chareaux had demanded in a choked and disbelieving voice, but his brother had simply pulled him aside and told him to shut up, because their new clients had agreed to spend fifty thousand dollars a week on their illegal hunts, with a minimum guarantee of fifty weeks. And if earning two and a half million dollars meant that they would be forced to stand by while their insane clients cut open the stomachs of their bears and removed their gallbladders, then that was the way it would have to be.

"But the smell," Butch Chareaux had groaned, watching in dismay as the diminutive hunter reached into the grizzly's abdominal cavity with his bare arms and removed a bloody organ about the size of an Idaho potato. With the tip of the sharp blade, Asai cut a small slit in the gallbladder.

Working slowly and carefully so as not to spill the precious fluid, Asai poured a bit of the dark bile over a small, cup-sized bowl of rice. Then, after quickly placing the gallbladder in a self-sealing plastic bag, he proceeded to eat the soaked rice with a pair of chopsticks that he produced from the inner pocket of his hunting jacket.

Polite as always, Asai had offered to share this delicacy with his companions, but Reston Wolfe and Lisa Abercombie hurriedly declined, and the two Chareaux brothers simply pretended that they didn't understand.

Instead, they had continued to load their clients' expensive hunting gear back into the short-bed pickup with the camper shell. They used the sleeping bags and Henry Lightstone's limp body to cushion the two incredibly expensive Holland and Holland rifles until the weapons could be broken down, cleaned, and returned to the twenty-two-hundred-dollar mahogany cases that had been left in the helicopter.

Then, muttering to himself in words that he had first learned at the knee of his Cajun grandfather, Butch Chareaux helped his brother winch the larger bear into the back of the larger pickup truck. Dragging the half-ton animal up next to the carcass of the bull elk, he grunted as the smell of blood and severed intestines began to fill air.

They stood then in the twilight next to the camper shell, waiting for Dr. Asai to complete his ritual with the second bear.

"If we miss Sonny's call, what will we do with Henry?" Butch Chareaux asked as they watched Asai set the fresh bowl of rice down next to the smaller bear.

"If we miss the eight-o'clock call, Sonny knows to call again at ten. We will know then." Alex Chareaux shrugged with feigned indifference, not wanting Butch to know how badly he wanted to hear from their brother. How badly he wanted to
know,
one way or the other, before it was too late.

"But we have to be at Jacall's by ten. Do we take him there with us?"

"If necessary, we will take him to Jacall's and dispose of him there," Alex Chareaux told him, relieved to see that Dr. Asai was finally finished with the second bear.

"But the risk?"

"There are always risks, my brother." Alex Chareaux shrugged once more as he began walking toward the already overloaded pickup. "Come. If we hurry, perhaps we can still get to Fishtail by ten."

Chapter Eighteen

Command Sergeant Major Clarence MacDonald had spent the better part of his thirty-two years in the United States Army helping to train Green Beret teams to reconnoiter, stalk, and kill their enemies with weapons that ranged from bare hands, rocks, wire, knives, and silenced firearms to far more sophisticated laser-guided rockets and miniaturized nuclear ordnance.

The men who graduated from his courses were considered to be some of the most skillful, creative, and deadly soldiers that the world had ever known, and they had been demonstrating the effectiveness of their training in remote battlefields throughout the world for the past two decades.

But aside from the British Army's Special Air Service Squadrons in general, and perhaps three or four Special Forces teams that he could remember specifically, MacDonald was convinced that he had never addressed a group of individuals whose expertise in weaponry, tactics, communications, reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, logistics, demolitions, guerrilla warfare, and hand-to-hand combat had come even close to that of the ICER assault group that sat before him in this underground conference room.

And for perhaps the first time in as far back as he could remember, MacDonald was standing before a man whose lethal skills in one-on-one combat situations were rumored to match, or possibly to even exceed, his own. As MacDonald gazed calmly into the pale eyes of Assault Group Leader Gerd Maas, however, he felt only professional curiosity, and even pleasant anticipation. In truth, he was looking forward to finding out for himself if the eye-opening reports and evaluations on Gerd Maas had any basis in reality.

At precisely 1930 hours, MacDonald stepped up to the raised podium that faced twenty-four padded theater chairs arranged on an upwardly sloping six-by-four grid. He stared out across the brightly lit room at the members of the assault group, all of whom were dressed in mountain-camouflaged military fatigues.

MacDonald noted immediately that one member of the Japanese contingent, Dr. Morito Asai, was missing.

"Gentlemen,
and
ladies," he added in deference to the three woman who comprised one quarter of the ICER assault group, "it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Whitehorse Cabin Training Center. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Clarence MacDonald, and as some of you are aware, I am privileged to hold the rank of command sergeant major in the United States Army."

MacDonald scanned the eleven alert faces.

"Some of you I know from previous training sessions. The rest of you are familiar to me only by the information in your personnel files. But I want to begin this session by making certain that one thing is absolutely clear. I am not here as your training sergeant, but rather, as your host."

MacDonald paused for effect.

"It is clear that the United States Government has gone to a great deal of effort to recruit and equip a top-notch counterterrorist team. Why this team has been established, and who your targets will be, has not been revealed to me. And I would emphasize the fact that such information is not of any concern or interest to the Whitehorse Cabin training staff.

"According to your records," MacDonald went on, "each one of you possesses an incredible amount of training and practical experience, both as a field operative and as an instructor. It is also apparent that you are well versed in general field operations, and that you each make the effort to maintain a high level of proficiency in your own area of expertise. Therefore, in my view," MacDonald said in his quiet but firm voice, "it would be a waste of time to provide a training course for you in the classical sense. Instead, we intend to make ourselves available to do three specific things.

"First of all," MacDonald raised a single callused finger, "we will provide you with the resources necessary for each of you to maintain and enhance your own personal skills.

"Second"—he raised a second finger—"we will provide a series of simulated exercises that will enhance your ability to function as a team against a wide range of tactical situations.

"And finally," MacDonald said as he brought up the third finger, "we will provide individualized instruction with respect to specific weapons, techniques or tactics to meet the individual needs of you and your team leaders."

MacDonald paused momentarily to note that Gerd Maas was staring at him expressionlessly.

"To my far right is Master Gunnery Sergeant Gary Brickard. Sergeant Brickard will be your range master. He is also in charge of this facility in my absence. His special area of expertise is simulated combat situations, utilizing multimedia displays and robotics."

MacDonald scanned the eleven faces of his audience once more, noting that even Maas seemed to be intrigued by the idea of robotics.

"Sergeant Brickard and I have a great deal of experience in using live-fire exercises to teach rapid-strike entries and small-squad tactics. Our goal will be to provide all of you with appropriate simulations that force you to extend your capabilities to their maximum effectiveness while working in conjunction with other members of your team.

"In effect, we intend to keep your skills honed to a state of readiness that will allow you to respond to a tactical situation at a moment's notice."