Prey (23 page)

"Yeah, but even if that
is
what happened, that was what, six, seven hours ago?" Scoby protested. "Hell, even if Ruebottom
did
follow Henry into Gardiner on his own, and Sonny was right on
his
ass all the way, all Sonny had to do was drive over to the Best Western and tell Alex all about it right there. End of story."

"So then why the hell is Sonny Chareaux acting like he's panicked out of his mind over a routine check-in call?" McNulty demanded.

"According to the wardens in Louisiana, Sonny's supposed to be the least emotional of the three brothers," Carl Scoby reminded. "Far as they know, the only thing he's afraid of is Alex, which, I suppose,
could
explain the situation. But still . . . oh, shit," Scoby suddenly whispered.

"What's the matter?" McNulty demanded.

"What if it isn't routine?"

"I don't follow."

"We've been assuming all along that it has to be a routine check-in because of the timing. But what if it's not? What if Sonny snapped up Ruebottom at the airport, had him stashed away somewhere, and seven hours later finally managed to break him down? So now he knows for sure that Henry's an agent and he's trying to warn Alex before it's too late?"

McNulty continued to stare at his assistant team leader while the room went deathly silent.

"But since Alex and Butch are out in the field with Henry, the only way Sonny can warn Alex is to wait for one of their prearranged check-in calls when the hunt's over," Scoby went on. "Eight o'clock at a certain number. And if he misses that one, go to the next number at ten."

McNulty looked down at his watch again. Twenty-one fifty-two hours. Eight minutes until ten o'clock.

"If that's the situation, we can't let him make that call," Scoby said.

"Yeah, but if it really
is
just a check-in, and Sonny doesn't want to get Alex pissed off, and Ruebottom's sitting on his ass drinking beer in Gardiner, then we don't dare get in his way," Larry Paxton's deep, raspy voice interrupted. "If we screw around with Sonny now, Alex is gonna get suspicious and we're gonna blow Henry right out of the water."

"But, Christ, Larry, who the hell's gonna open up on a patrol unit over a goddamn routine check-in?" Carl Scoby objected.

"Nobody with any brains, but this is Sonny Chareaux we're talking about," Paxton countered. "Far as I'm concerned, the man never did start out with a full deck."

McNulty turned around to face the speakerphone again and spoke quickly. "Larry, who's closer to the airport, you or us?"

"Uh, you are, but not by much."

"You think you and Stoner can delay him from making that call without making him suspicious?"

"We could stop him," Paxton said in his low Southern drawl, "but I don't know about
delaying
him. Way he was acting back at that gas station, I figure anybody who tries to keep him away from that phone around ten o'clock is probably going to start a riot."

"I've
got
to know more about Len Ruebottom and that plane," McNulty said, forcing himself to stay calm. "If Carl's right . . ."He looked over at Scoby. "You got a car?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Get out to the airport,
right now.
Take one of the scrambled radios with you. Soon as you find Mike, and find out what the hell's going on with that plane, get on the air and—"

At that moment, the scrambled packset radio on the table gave out a weak squawk.

Carl Scoby grabbed up the radio and quickly moved over to the window. "Sierra Oscar Two, repeat that last transmission."

"Sierra Oscar Two, this is Sierra Oscar Five," Mike Takahara said, his voice sounding hollow and distant over the small packet speaker. "Where the hell
are
you guys?"

"We had to move. We're over at the Prime Rate."

"Okay, I'll be there in about five or ten—"

"No, no time," Scoby interrupted. "Listen, Paxton and Stoner located Sonny Chareaux in Bozeman."

"Where?"

"In a bar called the Cat's Paw. Right now he's sitting next to a telephone and looking real anxious. We think he's waiting for twenty-two hundred hours to check in with Alex."

"Shit, don't let him do that!"

McNulty came over to the window and took the radio from Scoby. "Mike, this is Paul. What's the matter?"

"They've got Ruebottom for sure, and they're fucking serious," Takahara said. "They wired the damn plane. Took me four hours but I finally got in."

"What?"

"Never mind, it's a long story. I'll fill you in later," Takahara said quickly. "What you need to know right now is that there's blood all over the inside of that plane, and the cabin's torn to shit."

"How much blood?" McNulty demanded.

"Not that much," Takahara said. "Looked like nose and mouth stuff to me. Not enough in any one spot to indicate a serious knife wound or a gunshot. What I think happened is that Len and Sonny got into one hell of a fight inside that plane, and Sonny won."

"Anybody see him leave with Ruebottom?"

"No, but there was an empty bag for a ten-by-twenty painter's tarp and a mostly used roll of duct tape in the cabin. It would have been easy to wrap him up and haul him out of there like a piece of baggage."

"What about the bomb? How did he rig it?"

"First guy who opens the passenger door pulls a nylon cord that shuts a switch and touches off fifteen sticks of engineering-grade dynamite. That should have been plenty, but I guess Sonny wanted to be sure, because he stuck about a dozen five-gallon cans of aviation gas all around the cabin as an accelerator."

"Christ!"

"Yeah, he was probably trying to make it look like some kind of accident. But one way or another, he wasn't planning on leaving us much in the way of evidence."

Paul McNulty looked down at his watch. Twenty-one fifty-six hours. Four minutes until ten. He turned to face the speakerphone.

"Larry—"

"Never mind, I heard it," Paxton said, standing in the phone booth, the phone against one ear and a small, scrambled packset radio against the other. "What do we do?"

"Try to maintain your covers as long as you can," MeNulty ordered. "But whatever you guys do, don't let that bastard make that call!"

Something about a phone call. I think they missed it.

The words had been echoing in the back of Henry Lightstone's mind for the past half hour while he drifted in and out of consciousness. He felt disoriented by the darkness, confused by the intermittent bouncing, and savagely torn by the pain.

It was the terrible odor that hit him first. A feral stench born of matted hair, gamey urine, and perforated intestines, a stench that threatened to completely overwhelm his senses. He moved one of his hands and discovered something that he finally identified as an antler.

It took him a few moments before he remembered being chased by the huge grizzly. Then he remembered the bear's powerful claws slashing through the back of his shirt, and the gunfire.

But he couldn't understand where the antlers had come from until he was able to move his hand another six inches and felt the large, stiff feathers of an eagle. Finally the fragments of his memory began to pull together again.

The eagles, the bull elk, the wounded does, the bear. It was all coming back to him now. The terrifying helicopter, the double-barreled rifles, and the men who wouldn't take the time to kill their own cripples.

Bastards,
he thought.

It took a few more agonizing movements before Lightstone was able to figure out that he was lying in the back of a pickup truck and that someone—presumably Alex and Butch Chareaux—had shoved him in between the bodies of the two bears.

Like one more carcass to be disposed of after the hunt was over, he thought, finding the idea amusing for some incomprehensible reason as his mind started to drift again, reaching out for the darkness and the soothing, painless sanctuary of unconsciousness.

A screen door slammed, and he heard voices.

"Alex, Butch," someone said cheerfully. "It is good to see you both. I was worried—"

"Has Sonny called yet?" Alex Chareaux demanded.

"Sonny? No, I have not heard from him at all today."

"He should be calling here very soon," Chareaux said insistently. "At ten o'clock. It is important that I speak to him."

"It is almost ten now. Come inside. Join me in a glass of wine, and we will wait for his call. Ah," the man said, slapping his hand on the tarpaulin-covered edge of the truck bed, "I see that you
do
have some work for me after all."

"Two grizzlies, a bull elk, and a pair of eagles," Alex Chareaux said, the tension in his voice seeming to ease now that he knew he hadn't missed his brother's call. "They will make nice trophies."

"I can only assume, of course, that you have all the necessary papers?"

"But of course," Alex Chareaux chuckled. "These are for the clients I told you about. The very wealthy ones with the many wealthy friends. So the mounts, they must be superb. They expect nothing less, and they will pay twice your normal rate for your best work."

Taxidermy, Lightstone realized.

"In that case, we will open a special bottle tonight, and we will not look so closely at your papers," the man declared grandly. "Come in now, we will talk. You can put the truck in the warehouse. We will unload it later."

"Back the truck into the warehouse," Alex Chareaux instructed, "and use his hoist to put the carcasses in the cooler. I want to be in the house when Sonny calls."

"What about Lightner?" Butch Chareaux asked.

"Is he awake?"

"I will see," Butch Chareaux untied the rope at the corner of the truck bed next to the driver's side door, pulled back the edge of the tarp, and looked in. He reached in, fumbled around for a few seconds, then turned to his brother and shook his head as he replaced the tarp corner and retied the rope.

"He is alive, but his pulse is weak and he is very cold. I think that, very soon, we will not have to worry about him anymore."

"Then just leave him in the truck," Alex Chareaux ordered, shrugging indifferently. "Once Sonny calls and tells us about the pilot, we will know for sure what to do. If Lightner is already dead by then, we will bury him in the woods."

Silence.

"Something is wrong?"

"I was thinking that maybe we are worried about the wrong people," Butch Chareaux said quietly. "Maybe we should be more concerned about our new clients."

"Why do you say that?"

"I watched Lightner with the bear today," Butch Chareaux shrugged. "He did not act as I had expected."

"Yes?"

"When things went wrong, he faced the bear with courage. He had the opportunity to turn and run, but instead, he went forward and drew its charge to you and the others."

"Perhaps all the more reason to think that he is not the man he claims to be," Alex Chareaux suggested.

"It was strange," Butch Chareaux continued, a distant look in his cold eyes. "But when he stood there out in the open, facing the bear, he reminded me of the time when you were sixteen and you stood up to Beebee Fontaine and killed him with your knife when he caught us stealing his 'gators. Perhaps Henry is just a crazy person like many other people we know. Like us, even?"

"And the others?" Alex Chareaux asked.

"You saw how they reacted when they realized that one of their bullets hit Lightner. They wanted to get away. It was only the lure of the second bear that kept them there. Of the three," Butch Chareaux snorted contemptuously, "I think the woman was more of a man."

"So you think it is too much a risk to take their money?"

"They can make us rich, but I think they would turn on us instantly if they thought it necessary in order to save themselves," Butch Chareaux nodded. "Of this Henry Lightner, I am not so sure."

Alex Chareaux began to say something when a phone stared to ring in the nearby house.

"That must be Sonny," he said. "Take the truck into the warehouse and then come in. I think we will soon know exactly how to deal with our new partner."

Chapter Twenty-One

Thoroughly distracted by the realization that the lives of Len Ruebottom and Henry Lightstone were hanging in the balance, Larry Paxton stepped out of the phone booth, looked to his right at the Cat's Paw parking lot, and started to run across the street between two parked cars.

He never saw the white car to his left that made a quick turn and began to accelerate toward him.

The sudden sound of screeching brakes was the only warning that Paxton had before the bumper of the Ford Taurus caught his left leg and sent him tumbling up and over the front of the hood. The hood ornament tore through his jacket and the small packset radio, gouging against his ribs before it snapped off.

As Paxton continued on in his tumbling path into the vehicle's windshield, the smoking tires finally got a grip on the asphalt and brought the vehicle to a sudden stop that sent the stunned agent rolling backward off the front of the hood and onto the hard, cold asphalt.