Double blind sahl-3

by Ken Goddard

  The old man jerked back in surprise, then leaned forward and lifted his dark glasses to appraise his uninvited guest with squinted, bloodshot eyes.

  Casual clothes: old flannel shirt, old jeans and — the Sage looked under the table — worn boots. Close-cropped grayish brown hair, muscular hands, large military-style watch with a Velcro cover, no rings or other obvious jewelry. But what really got him were the eyes: flat, gray, cold as a winter sky. And there was something funny about them, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. They so unnerved him, he stood and leaned over the table to stare at the stranger's belt buckle — a miniaturized brass replica of the Liberty Bell — then sat back down, returned his dark glasses to their familiar position on his deeply sunburned nose, and continued his evaluation.

  "Yes?" the Sage finally asked, when it became apparent the man with the chilling eyes and the disconcertingly relaxed and confident expression on his smoothly shaven face felt perfectly content to be examined in detail.

  "I understand you sell Indian jewelry?"

  "I might," the Sage acknowledged.

  "Might?"

  "And might not. It depends."

  "On what?"

  "What you want. What I've got. Who you are. Who I am. Where I'll be. Because nothing is ever as it seems," the old man rattled off the familiar litany until he sensed it only amused the man sitting across the table.

  "Where would you like to start?" Wintersole asked easily.

  "I always start at the end," the old man retorted tersely. "It's much easier to predict the future that way."

  "And you predict the future?"

  "Of course I do."

  "I see."

  "No, you don't see. I do," the Sage corrected him, hitting his ever-present white walking stick against the wall of the booth for emphasis. "If you did, you wouldn't ask me these questions." Then he set the walking stick back against the wall and chuckled to himself as he sipped his rapidly cooling cocoa.

  Wintersole's strange eyes flickered curiously. "In that case, what do I want?"

  The Sage reflected on that for a moment.

  "You are a hunter," he finally announced. "Not from around here."

  "A reasonable assumption."

  "You haven't had much luck hunting lately."

  "Luck can always be improved," Wintersole acknowledged.

  "Which means you need an Apache Indian hunting charm."

  "Ah."

  "The old way. Guaranteed to bring your prey to you," the old man promised.

  "I suppose that could be useful," Wintersole allowed. "Just what, exactly, are we talking about here? I've never seen an Apache Indian hunting charm."

  The Sage leaned forward. "Bear-claw necklace," he whispered hoarsely, "to match your spirit."

  Wintersole's right eyebrow rose.

  "You think I have a bear spirit?"

  "Yes, of course you do. It's obvious to anyone who cares to look."

  "Are we talking the genuine article here? Bear claws from a real bear?" Wintersole's slightly bemused smile never wavered.

  The Sage appeared offended by the implication.

  "The mothers of young warriors made these charms to ward off evil spirits during their son's first hunt," he explained patiently. "No Indian woman would send her son out into the wilderness with a fake. That would have been unthinkable."

  Wintersole stared at him skeptically.

  "Many of these charms have been passed on from generation to generation, treasured by the sons and grandsons of their spiritual ancestors," the Sage rushed on in an obvious attempt to dispel his potential customer's skepticism. "Which, of course, is why they're so difficult to obtain."

  "But assuming that one of these genuine Apache hunting charms might actually become available," Wintersole played out more line, "how much could someone expect to pay… someone with a bear spirit, such as myself?"

  "Money is not the issue here," the old man replied. "A seer has no real use for money."

  "Other than perhaps to pay for his hot chocolate?" the hunter-killer team leader suggested dryly.

  "I do accept a minimal finder's fee," the old man conceded self-righteously, "but only for the purpose of enabling my physical self to ward off the winter chill."

  "Which would bring the grand total for one of these genuine bear-claw necklaces to — ?"

  "Two hundred and ten dollars," the Sage replied. "I would keep the ten to pay for my hot chocolate."

  "Of course you would," Wintersole nodded agreeably. "And if that same person wanted to buy an additional six charms?"

  The Sage cocked his head curiously.

  "There are seven of us," Wintersole explained. "We work together, and hunt together, and I'm sure that we all could use some good luck. And as you already mentioned," he went on when the old man remained speechless, "money is certainly not the issue here."

  The Sage lifted up the dark glasses again to peer intently into the stranger's expressionless gray eyes for a brief moment. Then he nodded in satisfaction.

  "I think you are the darkness," he whispered, his dry lips curling faintly upward in a knowing smile, "but I am not altogether certain."

  Wintersole recoiled imperceptibly.

  "What makes you think that?" He looked curiously detached.

  The old man shrugged. "What causes me to see the things I see is not important. What's important is that I do see, and that I will find the charms that you and your friends will certainly need." He hesitated for a moment, then went on. "I believe I could talk the tribe into a price of one thousand dollars total for the seven necklaces, if they are to be found — which is by no means certain," he warned.

  "That sounds like a very fair price."

  "In that case," the Sage added thoughtfully, "my fee would be fifty dollars."

  "For more hot chocolate to soothe the spirit?"

  The old man didn't miss the sarcasm in Wintersole's voice.

  "It's been a cold winter, and the spirit cannot always warm the body," he explained, staring down at his thin hands.

  "And what about the taxes?"

  The old man brought his grizzled head up sharply.

  "What about them?" he demanded.

  "Surely you don't begrudge the government their fair share of your, uh, spiritual efforts?"

  "I believe very strongly in the separation of church and state, especially when they're both working together to stick their hands in my pockets," the Sage retorted furiously, his graveled voice raising in pitch. Then he glared at the stranger suspiciously. "You wouldn't be one of them damned sneaky federal government tax agents, would you?"

  Wintersole smiled. "I don't think they'd want somebody like me in their government," he emphasized the word "their," and the old man picked up on it immediately.

  "You don't like them federal government types, either?"

  "Let's just say that we have our differences."

  "Ah." The Sage nodded his head knowingly. "So it's a good thing you're a man of peace, or you might not take kindly to their evil ways. Is that it?"

  "Who said I'm peaceful?" Wintersole countered coldly. "You are right when you said I'm a hunter. But I didn't say what my favorite prey is."

  The Sage stared once more into Wintersole's eerie gray eyes.

  "You know, sonny," the old man smiled in a conspiratorial manner, "maybe I misjudged you."

  "Really? How so?"

  "Maybe you ain't so dark as I thought you was."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing." The Sage chuckled to himself. "Just something us seers think about when we're not busy helping folks with their problems."

  "Speaking of problems," Wintersole returned to his topic of interest, "how soon do you think those necklaces might be available? My friends and I want to begin hunting as soon as possible."

  The old man shrugged. "It's possible that I could have them for you as early as this evening, but if I did," he added emphatically, sweeping the small restaurant with one of his sun-wrinkled ha
nds, "I sure as hell wouldn't bring them here."

  "No, of course you wouldn't," his companion readily agreed. "Where would you want to meet?"

  "There's an old inn built around a great big tree down by Loggerhead Creek, at the end of Brandywine Road, that's pretty much the local community center, a restaurant, and post office. Called the Dogsfire Inn. You know it?"

  Wintersole drew in his breath slightly.

  "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 amp; 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.