by Ken Goddard
Several pairs of watery eyes had blinked, and the room had suddenly grown still.
"We have become a second-rate economic power," Abercombie had continued, "and are certainly heading toward third if we don't do something about these damnable environmental terrorists who are crippling our critical industries."
The subdued applause had suggested that, her point made, she should quickly conclude so that the professionals in the room could get back to business.
But Lisa Abercombie had come too far to stop now.
"And if we are going to do something, instead of just clipping our goddamned coupons," she had said, her eyes filled with rage, "we damn well better do it right now, while those coupons are still worth something!"
The room had gone deathly silent again.
And then, to the shock of every man present, Lisa Abercombie had described not only what could be done, and how, but also why she was the woman who should be allowed to pull it off.
All she needed were money and contacts-and the authority to use them as she willed. She would take all the risks and get the job done. Those coupons would continue to reflect the wealth and authority of the Northeastern conservative power structure.
With that, Lisa Abercombie had excused herself from the meeting, leaving phone numbers where she could be reached during the next seventy-two hours.
The debates that followed were tense and emotional. Dozens of private meetings held in electronically swept rooms were dominated by arguments. Decisions were made and reversed in an atmosphere of chaos.
Three days later, Lisa Abercombie had found herself on the seventh floor of the Main Interior Building in Washington, D.C., being sworn in to the newly created position of special executive assistant to the most deputy assistant undersecretary for internal affairs of the Department of Interior.
The position had not required the approval of Congress. It was one of those vague Washington titles that would basically allow her to maintain anonymity within the department. This was considered crucial to Lisa Abercombie's secret, but now official, mission: to establish a fully operational covert entity within the executive branch of the federal government.
The entity would be called the International Commission for Environmental Restoration. The suitably vague name, strung of popular D.C. buzz words, had been concocted by Lisa Abercombie herself, who particularly liked the resulting acronym.
ICER.
Suddenly aware that she could lose it all, right now, here on this platform, Lisa Abercombie's eyes flashed with rage as she swung her head around and glared at Wolfe.
"Reston, this is insane!" she hissed. "I want you to stop this before someone gets killed."
Her words were insistent, but Wolfe could sense the underlying excitement that had already drawn her attention back to the distant mango tree and the Bengal.
This is what you asked for, boss lady, he told himself, forgetting his own fear for a moment. You wanted to see what it means to be a real, honest-to-God risk-taker, someone who really puts it all on the line. And now you know.
He wanted to tell her that, but he didn't dare, because Lisa Abercombie might fire him on the spot. He wasn't willing to risk that much. Not when all the power and influence he had ever dreamed of were within reach.
"There's nothing we can do," he said instead.
"You can go down and kill that damn thing before it finds Maas," she retorted, her hands trembling as she stared through her binoculars at the huge feline head. "We can't afford to lose him. Not now. Take Tom's rifle and-"
"No dice. The rifle stays up here with me," Tom Frank interrupted. "That was the agreement. As long as that cat's on the ground, this rifle stays where it is."
"I know what we agreed to, but the circumstances have changed," Abercombie tried to argue, unable to turn her eyes away from the huge cat. "That creature is going to come up here after us. Look at him. You can see it in his eyes."
"They tell me he can't climb very well," Frank argued in a voice that lacked conviction.
"Who told you they can't climb very well?" Lisa Abercombie demanded. "You bought this thing from a traveling circus one week ago. What the hell do you know about Bengal tigers?"
"If he tries to get up in this tree, I'll drop him," Tom Frank said in what he hoped was a calm and reassuring voice. He was thinking about the fifteen thousand dollars he had been guaranteed to set up this bizarre confrontation. Fifteen thousand would get him out of trouble with the IRS this year. But he knew he'd never see a cent of it if he failed to live up to his end of the contract.
Tom Frank had been running his Texas hunting ranch for almost eleven years now, and he figured that at one time or another, he had faced down just about every kind of dangerous animal there was. Or at least that was what he told anyone willing to listen to one of his whiskey-enhanced stories.
But Tom Frank had to silently admit that he had never before released a creature like this on his ranch. And despite his genuine expertise with the high-powered. 416 Weatherby Magnum, he wasn't at all sure that he'd be able to stop the huge male Bengal with the one shot he'd be lucky to get off. Part of the deal that he and Gerd Maas had agreed to was that he would keep his bolt-action rifle unloaded during the entire event. The only rounds he would be allowed for the Weatherby would be three copper-tipped cartridges in elastic loops over the right breast pocket of his shirt.
Before they had climbed the ladder, Maas had actually checked the magazine of the rifle to make sure it was empty, and had patted him down for extra rounds, "just to be sure that all is clearly understood," the tall, white-bearded Maas had whispered in his guttural German accent, winking cheerfully as he did so.
Three goddamned rounds, Frank swore silently. As if the amount of ammunition he carried really mattered. He knew full well that if the Bengal decided to charge the platform, it wouldn't matter whether he had three rounds or a hundred and three.
There wouldn't be any chance for a brain shot. He'd have to go for the neck to paralyze, or for the shoulder for a breakdown shot. And in either case, the cat would be climbing fast, so the best he'd be able to do would be to point-shoot and pray.
One shot to put it down. And if he missed, the cat would be on them. Unless he broke his contract and fed all three of the Magnum rounds into the Weatherby's magazine and chamber right now.
The trouble was, Tom Frank was far more afraid of Gerd Maas than he was of the Bengal.
"Doctor Asai," Lisa Abercombie pleaded, but Dr. Morito Asai just grunted, focusing his binoculars on the Bengal's fearsome eyes.
Asai was the only one on the platform who would willingly allow himself to be drawn into the depths of the Bengal's scornful hatred. He was the product of sixteen generations of Japanese samurai. He alone truly understood the forces that drove Gerd Maas to seek out and confront death in such a terrifying manner.
Then the cat began to move. It was crouched down and approaching them slowly. Tom Frank was already reaching up toward his shirt pocket when the yellow eyes suddenly turned away.
"Oh, my God!" Lisa Abercombie breathed, feeling the icy chill travel up her spine as she watched Gerd Maas step out of the woods less than fifty yards from the Bengal.
Tom Frank blinked in disbelief.
"Where the hell's his rifle?" Frank whispered as Maas took two more steps to clear the last of the overhanging branches.
"No gun," Dr. Morito Asai said softly, smiling in anticipation as he held his binoculars tight against his high cheekbones. "His reputation is well earned. He has just bow, knife, one arrow."
"One arrow?" Frank sputtered in disbelief as he, Wolfe, and Lisa Abercombie fumbled for their binoculars. "Christ Almighty, that bastard's trying to commit suicide!" He started to reach for the Weatherby, but found Dr. Asai standing in his way.
"No gun." Asai shook his head firmly. "No gun, or we no pay. Very important."
"Screw your money and screw your suicidal contract," Frank snarled. He began to go around the slender Oriental but staggered backward as Dr. Asai stop
ped him with a casual wrist block. Then, in a motion too quick to follow, Asai quick-handed the Weatherby up and over the platform's wooden ledge, letting it drop twenty-two feet to the ground.
The Bengal reacted instantly to the sound, shifting to face the platform, tense and alert. Its yellow eyes took in the swirl of dust surrounding the fallen weapon, then shifted upward to the four pale faces high in the tree. Growling low in its throat, the huge cat took three smooth, gliding steps toward the tree, then blinked and snarled as though it suddenly understood that there was no immediate threat from that direction. The threat was on the ground.
The Bengal slowly swung its massive head to face the single creature standing alone and upright in the clearing. It opened its fearsomely toothed jaws in a loud, menacing roar that promised a quick and horrible death as soon as the upright creature turned to run.
Instead, Gerd Maas simply smiled.
Enraged by the fearlessness that the cat's primitive brain correctly interpreted as threatening, the Bengal launched itself into a full, snarling charge, teeth bared and claws fully extended.
Gerd Maas stepped forward into the charge, extending his bow and drawing back against its eighty-pound pull with his right hand to bring the shaft of the arrow tight against his cheek. He was still smiling. He waited with inhuman control until the charging cat was less than twenty feet away and coming down on its front paws to prepare for the last fully extended leap that would put it onto its prey.
Then, as the Bengal brought its rear legs under its body and lunged upward, its snarling jaws open in a feral rage, Gerd Maas let out a pent-up scream and released the broadhead arrow, sending the blurry shaft right into the huge cat's open mouth. The tiger's momentum was not broken. Maas used the bow in his left hand to deflect the Bengal's slashing right forepaw. He clenched his sheath knife in his right hand, and with its sharp, scalloped edge, cut across the tendons of the cat's extended paw.
Then, still reacting to his carefully honed survival instincts, Gerd Maas completed his roll to his left and crouched down, the bloodied knife extended and ready.
The Bengal lay sprawled chest-down, its massive head turned to the side, its eyes still glaring their hatred. Its fearsome paws were thrust forward, twitching in the blood-splattered dirt.
The razor-sharp edges of the wide broadhead had severed the cat's spine just below the base of the skull. The bloodied triangular blade and five inches of the blood-streaked titanium shaft were visible now, sticking out from the back of the Bengal's neck like a gruesome mast.
Smiling gently, Gerd Maas-an man with an international reputation for hunting, killing, and satisfying his craving for the ever-addictive sensation of facing death-knelt down in front of the still-trembling Bengal and laid a firm, steady hand against the cat's broad, sweat-soaked head. He waited, silent, intent, contemplative, until the last traces of the cat's unyielding courage finally dissipated.
Fully sated then, Maas stood up, recovered his bow and knife, and began to walk slowly back to the platform tree. He knew that when he got there, a numbed and shaken but thoroughly alive Lisa Abercombie would tell him that he had been selected as the assault group leader of Operation Counter Wrench.
And because the money involved would enable him-for many years to come-to satisfy his fearful compulsion to confront death, Gerd Maas would make every effort to act as though he cared.
Chapter Four
Sunday June 2nd
The Chareaux brothers had been trying to line up the kill for almost two weeks now. But it was the seventh game of the NBA Western Conference Finals, so he'd been emphatic that they understand about Sunday.
Any other day, any other Sunday for that matter, no problem. All they had to do was to get a fix on the target, give him a call, and he'd be out the door with hiking boots, cammo and survival gear, a twenty-eight-hundred-dollar bolt-action McMillan Signature Alaskan rifle, a Zeiss 3-9x variable scope, and fifty rounds of. 300 Winchester Magnum jacketed soft points all packed and ready to go.
But not this Sunday.
Marie might be a problem, though. She had spent the last two months working overtime and trading shifts to get five days off in a row. He was supposed to take her to the Helena National Forest for a long-promised backpacking trip along the continental divide.
So it was all a matter of timing now-no matter whether she managed to get off early from her last shift of the week or worked late and called after the final buzzer.
After it would be nice, he thought as he waved his hand over the steaming Belgian waffle iron and then raised the lid and forked the golden-brown almond waffle to the plate. Very nice indeed, but hardly likely, he reminded himself as he poured thick, hot blueberry sauce over the steaming waffle. He'd discovered that having an emergency-room nurse for a girlfriend was just about as bad as being a homicide cop, especially when it came to making plans for days off.
Timed to perfection, the perking coffeepot rumbled one last time and then fell silent.
Henry Lightstone wasn't the least bit surprised to hear the phone ring just as the referee lofted the ball for the tip-off. The jarring sound caught him with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand and a forkful of waffle in the other, forcing him at last to make a decision. Basketball or Marie. One or the other, and he was probably going to have to decide right now. He stared into his coffee cup. It should have been an easy decision, because Marie Pascalaura was the best thing that had happened to him in years. The incredibly sensuous emergency-room nurse of Hispanic and American Indian descent preferred long hikes, tent-and-shovel camping, and slow dancing over almost everything-except sex.
And most important-despite her career-she wasn't the least bit concerned about the guns.
"Hello," he mumbled through his mouthful of waffle, forcing his voice to remain casual as he watched Drexler steal a bad pass from Scott.
"Henry Lightner, please?"
The voice, instead of warm and lively, was jarringly cold, whispery- hoarse, and all too familiar.
"Yeah, this is Lightner. Who is this?" he asked, trying to stall for time.
"Henry, surely we know each other too well for such games? I call you today to tell you the most important thing-that it is time to go. My brothers and I have found him."
The voice had shifted in tone, now vaguely French, decidedly Cajun, and discreetly mocking.
"Hello, Alex." Lightstone responded cautiously, because Alex Chareaux was known to be a coldhearted kill-freak who had lulled more than one victim to a horribly slow death. His pressed-linen suits, his slickly combed long black hair, his gentle phrases, and his silk-smooth Cajun charm belied his favorite passion: traditional French-Indian combat. The confrontation required each combatant to clutch a razor-sharp frog knife in one hand and the opposing end of a large white handkerchief in the other, while they fought to stay alive without letting go. The femoral artery, right at the point where the groin and upper leg intersect, was the target of choice, because-as a Louisiana warden had once explained to Lightstone-you could stand there and watch the life fade from a man's eyes while the spurting arterial blood turned the clothes of the two adversaries a bright red.
It was said by those who had experienced the horror of watching Alex Chareaux fight that the fiery glaze in his dark, reddened eyes was a permanent result of staring at too many piles of blood-soaked white linen burning hot and bright in the midnight darkness of the humid Terrebonne swamps.
But the incredible part of the Chareauxs' reputation was that Alex Chareaux was considered by far the most civilized of the three Chareaux brothers.
Henry Lightstone had decided long ago that he wouldn't mind at all if he never met the other two. He felt mildly disturbed by the realization that he had never really severed his long, depressing association with psychopathic freaks, even though it was over ten months since he'd worked his last homicide case. Lightstone shook his head slowly and then hit the record button. All that Special Agent Henry Lightstone could really do now was to play his character and
see how it flowed. Alex Chareaux was an exceedingly dangerous individual who, more than anything, loved to play with things before he watched them die. It was very important to listen carefully to what he said.
"Henry, I know. This was supposed to be a special day for you," the whispery-hoarse voice chuckled sympathetically, "but who among us can ever say how fate will play her hand, no? My brothers, they searched all the night and all the day looking for that one special creature who would best satisfy your needs. I know today is your Sunday, but when he appeared, it was as though fate herself had smiled on us all. What could I do?"
There was a silent pause.
"Henry," he went on quietly, "if you do not want him now, I will understand. He is yours first, as we agreed, but we have other clients who would be happy to take your place. You understand, surely, that there are not so many like this one that we can just let him go."
"What's he like?" Lightstone whispered, unable to help himself because he was fully in character now, and this was what he got paid for. And besides, Alex was right. Henry Allen Lightner, wealthy businessman, sportsman, and safari hunter par excellence, had been waiting for this one for a very long time.
"I am telling you straight, Henry. He is Boone and Crockett, without question. So obvious, it will not even be necessary that they make the measurements."
"Wow," Lightstone whispered.
"He is an amazing creature, Henry," Chareaux went on. "Huge and terrifying. Even Sonny, I think, is a little afraid of him. When you see him, you will understand."
"Where?" Exactly the question Henry Allen Lightner should be asking, because he would be salivating. Lightstone knew the man all too well. He had created him, and lived him for six months: an ex-jock from San Diego State University with a bachelor's degree in marketing, a decent stake of family money, and a kickback friendly attitude that masked the true disposition of a game-player who was willing to go for the jugular to make a deal. Lightner had moved to Montana and made his fortune in record time. But deep down inside, he was an aggressive, greedy, and dedicated killer. A man who would pay almost anything to fill up all the empty spaces on the basement walls of his secret trophy room.
