Wildfire (20 page)

Lightstone nodded. "So basically, you and Larry got the old 'do you understand the definition of covert' lecture again. Only now Halahan's got a new angle to twist us with—which means he probably
is
pissed, but not necessarily at us."

"That's about it."

"It always amazes me that cops and agents actually want to become supervisors. You'd think they'd know better," Lightstone said, shaking his head.

"Which reminds me," Mike Takahara said, getting up from the bench, "I'd better get back to the hotel, see if Halahan's bounced Larry as the acting team leader yet."

"So who else has he got left?"

"I imagine you, for one."

"Tell him he'd be a whole lot better off with Paxton," Lightstone advised as he stood up and stretched lazily.

"Yeah, I think he's already figured that out." The tech agent smiled. And then, after a moment: "Is this pretty much what it was like working for the San Diego Police Department?"

"No, it was worse at the PD," Lightstone admitted. "At least in the federal government they let you move to a different state when things start going downhill."

"Speaking of moving out of state," Mike Takahara said as they both started walking toward the elevators, "Rico sends his regards."

"Oh yeah?"

"He also said to tell you that as far as he's concerned, Bravo Team is a public menace, and that if any of us—and he mentioned you specifically—ever sets foot in Boston again, he's going to charge us with every unsolved homicide in their files, just so he can stand back and see who tries to kill us first."

"Good old Rico, hell of a guy." Lightstone smiled.

"Warped sense of humor, huh?"

"Who, Rico? No, not really." Lightstone shook his head. "Actually, he doesn't have much of a sense of humor at all. He just has one hell of a lot of unsolved homicides in his files."

Realizing that he was late for his appointment with Deputy U.S. Attorney Theresa Fletcher, and after making a quick detour to pick up a sandwich and a can of soda from the courthouse cafeteria, Henry Lightstone hurried over to the U.S. Attorney's office. In doing so, he decided to take a shortcut to make use of one of the small basement rest room facilities used mostly by the courthouse custodial staff.

He was just washing his hands when he heard an angry voice beyond the door, apparently using one of the pair of public phones in the little cubicle that was outside and just to the left of the rest-room door. As Lightstone began to dry his hands with a couple of paper towels, he heard:

"...
More aggressiveness from your office, I'm going to file another freedom of information request for every case that you have ever tried! That's right! Who the hell do I think I am? I'll tell you what, lady ..." The irate talker dropped his voice down to a rough whisper just as Henry Lightstone stepped outside the door of the rest room. ". . . you just remember that you heard the word
Wildfire
from me today! You got that? Wildfire!"

Clearly startled by the sudden appearance of the federal wildlife agent, the young man's eyes bulged wide open. Then, before Lightstone could get out of the way, the young man slammed the handset back into the receiver, mumbled a brief, "Excuse me," and then quickly shouldered his way past the agent and disappeared around the corner.

When Henry Lightstone finally managed to arrive at Theresa Fletcher's office, he discovered, to his surprise, that the normally congenial deputy U.S. Attorney was in a foul mood.

"You're late!" she snapped.

Lightstone felt the blood start to rush to his face, but then he quickly brought himself back under control.

"Yes, I
know
I'm late, and I apologize," he said calmly, looking the prosecutor straight in the eye. "I was talking with one of our agents and—"

"Never mind, Henry, I'm the one who should apologize," the short and stocky federal prosecutor said quickly, shaking her head and waving her hand to interrupt his explanation. "I'm sorry, I was just on the phone having a very unpleasant conversation with one of those wonderful courthouse watchdog groups, and I haven't managed to calm down yet."

"What do they want you to do, give Maas and Chareaux a kiss on the cheek and let them walk out the door?"

"No, that was yesterday's caller. This one today apparently isn't going to be happy unless I rig up a gallows right behind the prosecutor's table."

"Really?" Lightstone chuckled. "That's a switch."

"Best I can tell, this one's from one of those ultra-green, ultra-radical environmental-activist-type groups that would much prefer to see a lot more trees and wildlife on this planet and a whole lot less humans. Like maybe ninety-nine percent less."

"Sounds like a
real
good idea to me." Lightstone smiled. "In fact, I can think of a couple dozen people they could start with right off the bat. Where do I sign up?

Theresa Fletcher's face broke out into a wide grin.

"Yes, you and me both." She nodded as she began to lay out her lunch. "Only thing is, these people are apparently pretty selective on who they want living on their 'cleansed' planet. Oh, apparently there won't be any need for us prosecutor or law-enforcement types, because everybody's going to be pretty congenial and easygoing about most things. So I guess you don't need to worry about trying to sign up, even if I knew where to tell you to go, which I don't."

"You mean they don't even have some kind of corporate headquarters mailing address?"

"Apparently not. Or at least none that we've been able to find so far. Just an address and phone number for a one-lawyer legal firm out in Reston. And as far as we can tell, the only two legal words
he
knows are 'no comment.'"

"Great, just what we need," Lightstone commented as he began to cautiously inspect his cafeteria sandwich. "A few more fruitcakes to make life interesting."

"Based on the phone calls we've been getting so far, they're certainly capable of at least that," Fletcher said. "At first, we just assumed they were one of those ultra-radical environmental organizations that pop up every now and then—and then quickly disappear when their backers run out of money or patience. But this one seems to be a lot more organized. Or at least organized enough to drive our office absolutely crazy the last couple of months. Letter drives, petitions, FOLA requests, 'friend of the court' briefs, the whole works. And all of it absolutely legal, so we don't have any choice but to respond."

"Any idea what they're after?" Lightstone asked, remembering the angry youth by the phone and wondering if that call might somehow be related. Although he couldn't imagine anyone being stupid enough to make an abusive phone call to a deputy U.S. attorney from a phone inside a federal courthouse. Even the crack dealers were smarter than that.

"You, for one thing."

Henry Lightstone looked up from his partially unwrapped sandwich with a puzzled expression on his face. He immediately forgot about the angry young man on the phone.

"Me?"

"That's right," Theresa Fletcher mumbled through a bite of chicken sandwich. "The impression we get is that they want to find out everything they can about you, your fellow agents, your agency, and the name and address of every industrial bad guy who—as they so quaintly put it—'has ever plucked a feather off the ass of a duck.'"

"What?"

"Apparently your very words—or a close approximation thereof—when you arrested Maas and Chareaux at Whitehorse Cabin." The prosecuting attorney smiled. "Which, as best we can tell from the correspondence and phone calls we've been getting from these idiots, has apparently given you the dubious distinction of being one of their current heroes."

Henry Lightstone had an absolutely dumbfounded look on his face.

"I take it this comes as something of a surprise?" Theresa Fletcher's dark eyes were gleaming with amusement.

"I —I guess I don't understand," Lightstone said, shaking his head. "I mean, I remember saying something like that when we were taking Maas into custody, but I
know
I didn't put it in my report, and it sure didn't come out in testimony. So how would some ultra-radical environmentalist group, or whatever the hell they are, know about something like that?"

"As far as I'm aware, the only place those words show up in the entire case file is in Special Agent Stoner's investigative report. When I asked him about it at pretrial, he just shrugged and said he liked the comment—something about you finally understanding what it's like to be a wildlife officer instead of a cop—otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to include it." Fletcher hesitated a moment, and then said: "I take it you haven't read Stoner's report."

Lightstone shook his head. "No, as a matter of practice, we try not to read each other's reports. Just write 'em and file 'em. Makes it easier to keep things straight in our heads as to what each of us actually saw or heard or did."

"That's a good idea. But then if it wasn't one of your agents who released the information—and I can assure you it wasn't anyone in my office, because they know I'd fire them on the spot—the only other likely source would be the discovery copies given to the defense."

"Which doesn't make any sense either," Lightstone said. "Why would Bascomb want some ultra-radical environmental group that he couldn't control involved with his clients?"

"He wouldn't," Theresa Fletcher said emphatically. "Jason Bascomb is much too self-absorbed and theatrical to allow any outside group, controllable or not, to be involved with one of his cases. Unless, of course, he was controlling the situation himself, which is always a possibility," she added thoughtfully.

Then, apparently deciding that enough time had been wasted on matters of little relevance, the deputy U.S. attorney smoothly changed the topic.

"And speaking of my favorite adversary," she said after swallowing another bite of her sandwich, "you handled Jason's cross-examination extremely well this morning. He's considered one of the top criminal trial attorneys in the business, and I think you may now have a sense of why."

"He's a pretty decent actor, for one thing." Lightstone nodded.

"He majored in law and minored in Shakespearean theater, which is an interesting combination when you stop to think about it." Fletcher smiled. "Jason can be absolutely devastating in front of a jury when he gets his emotions fully engaged in the process."

"What was this today, half speed?"

"The way he was letting me ask questions, and you answer, I'd say he was barely idling." The prosecuting attorney shrugged. "But in any case, the judge wasn't buying any of it, and there wasn't anyone else to play to except his clients. My guess is that he's probably saving it all up for the full trial."

"I can hardly wait." Henry Lightstone sighed.

"You and me both. Oh, by the way, I'm sorry about letting him sneak that Clint Eastwood zinger in on you like that. My fault. I should have seen it coming."

"That's okay, I don't see that he accomplished anything, other than making me look like some kind of gun-slinging cowboy." Lightstone shrugged. "And he was right. Outside of the range, most cops never do fire their duty weapons."

"Oh, he accomplished something, all right," Fletcher said with a resigned smile, "Bascomb always lays his groundwork for some purpose, you can count on that. It's just a question of what he's going after."

"Yeah, one of my agent partners warned me about that. Any ideas on his strategy?"

"Well, I can't imagine that he's all that worried about trying to affect the trial. That's pretty cut-and-dried. The only logical assumption is that he's trying to create a useful court record. For what purpose I haven't the slightest idea. But one thing is obvious: whoever is funding the defense effort on behalf of those three is apparently willing to spend a small fortune to have a top legal gun like Bascomb create a book on your special operations team. And if that's what they want, there's not much we can do to prevent it."

"Just out of curiosity, what do they pay a guy like that?"

"You mean for this hearing?"

"Uh huh."

"I don't know, maybe a four hundred dollars an hour, billable at about ten to twelve hours per day."

"Jesus!"

"Tends to create a bit of what you might call penal envy among his fellow sharks, not to mention us government salaried types." Theresa Fletcher smiled mischievously.

"Yeah, I'll bet." Lightstone grinned. "Any idea who might be paying the bills?"

"Not a clue."

Lightstone thought about all that for a few moments, the expression on his face turning serious. Then he said: "So we aren't going to pull it off, are we?"

"Doesn't look like it." The deputy U.S. attorney shook her head. "The way things stand right now, there isn't a chance in the world that we're going to be able to convict any of those three on murder charges. We can't identify Parker as being one of the shooters on the island. We can't prove that Alex Chareaux was involved in the assault on Len Ruebottom. And the only really solid thing we have on Maas is an 'attempt-to-commit' on Stoner. And you know what
his
defense is going to be, don't you?"

"No, what?"

"One, that he was hired by the United States government to train a counter-terrorist team, which is pretty much the case, depending on how you look at it. And we can count on Bascomb to play that angle up big. Two, that he had no idea that his team was being misused by Wolfe and Abercombie, which is a crock, but difficult to disprove. Three, that he was never involved in any of the actual field operations; which is almost certainly not true, but I'm not sure we can prove that either, unless you can testify that he was the white-haired guy on the ground who put those bullets in the engine of Woeshack's plane."

Lightstone raised his hands palm up in a hopeless gesture.

"We can link him on the ground with that mother grizzly and her cubs, right about the time all that shooting started," he said, "which puts him within a few hundred yards of where McNulty and Butch Chareaux were killed. But I can't testify that he was the one who shot us down, even though I'm pretty sure it was him. Had to be."