by Ken Goddard
"Karate, mah ass," the cut, bruised, battered, and seriously wounded agent grinned through his broken teeth.
"Where-?" Lightstone started to ask, looking around quickly as he crawled over and retrieved the stainless-steel automatic from the lap of the now-dead black belt. Then he remembered what the curly haired body-builder with the submachine gun had yelled:
Come on, let's blow this place!
"How the hell did you get here?" Dwight Stoner rasped through his swollen and bleeding lips as he stared up at Paxton.
"Thought you candy-asses might need help," Larry Paxton shrugged, wincing from the pain as he moved his left shoulder cautiously, "so I dragged my ass out of the swamp and-"
Then, in the light from the far open door, Lightstone saw the wires running to sticks of dynamite that had been taped to three of the ten-gallon gas cans sitting next to the tractor.
"This place is wired! Get out of here, now!" Lightstone yelled, and then frantically helped Paxton pull and drag their partner out of the barn and across the grass until, suddenly, the monstrous explosion behind their back sent the agents tumbling to the ground in a shower of shattered wood, broken tools, flaming gas cans, and the bloody remains of Sonny Chareaux and Kiro Nakamura.
"Okay, Lieutenant, here's what we've got so far," Sergeant Peter Balloch, senior homicide investigator for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, said as he spoke into the phone. "You got the recorder on?"
The tired voice at the other end of the line muttered something affirmative.
"Okay," Balloch sighed, "at approximately eleven twenty-five hours, this date, a Mrs. Wanda Perkins reported what she believed was a gunshot fired in the vicinity of her next-door neighbor's home. According to the informant, the neighbors were on vacation and the house was supposed to be vacant. A two-man car was dispatched to check it out. However, before the patrol got to the scene, the informant called back to say that she had just heard numerous gunshots-some of which she thought came from an automatic weapon, because they sounded like what she watched on TV-in or around her neighbor's barn. According to dispatch, she was still on the line when they heard one hell of an explosion in the background that basically blew the neighbor's barn all over the fucking neighborhood.
"What? Yes, Lieutenant, of course I know you're recording this. I asked you to, remember?" Balloch said, rolling his eyes skyward as he asked himself for perhaps the five hundredth time how the man had ever managed to pass the lieutenant's exam.
"Anyway," Balloch went on quickly before he said something on tape that he might actually regret, "when our guys arrived, they found four bodies. One of them has been positively identified as Sonny Chareaux. C-H-A-R-E-A-U-X. There should be some kind of warrant on file for him out of Louisiana."
Balloch paused as the man on the other end of the line apparently said something.
"Yes, I think that would be a real nice idea to call Louisiana and let them know," Balloch said, wondering if there was any chance that one of the captains might listen to the tape some day.
"Anyway," the homicide sergeant went on, "at least two of the other bodies have been tentatively identified as Dwight Stoner and Larry Paxton, federal agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Yeah, right. As far as suspects go, we've got witnesses who saw two Caucasians-one male, short, curly blond hair, armed with an automatic rifle of some kind, and one female with shoulder-length blond hair-take off in a silver van, no plate, in one direction. Yeah, right. And one Caucasian male, six feet plus, running away on foot in the opposite direction. Yeah, go ahead and put it out on the wire. I'll keep you posted if we pick up anything else."
Shaking his head sadly, Homicide Sergeant Peter Balloch hung up and then looked over at the man who was sitting in his favorite lounge chair.
"That about what you guys want?" he asked.
"I think so, buddy," Henry Lightstone nodded. "How long do you think you can keep it running?"
"The way that asshole handles things, probably not very long," Balloch said. "Probably depends on how much cooperation we get from your head honchos."
"John Marsh, Chief of our Law Enforcement Division, promised me that he'd be on a plane heading this way within six hours. And if he can pull it off, he'll have the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service with him."
"They know who you are?"
"Marsh knows my name, but we've never met," Lightstone shrugged.
"What about the big guy?"
"The way I understand it," Lightstone said, "all he knows is that he authorized Marsh and MeNulty to run a wild-card agent completely outside the parameters of the federal government's personnel rules and regulations."
"And seeing as how your entire operation has apparently gone headfirst right down the toilet, I assume that means both their asses are hanging out a mile?" Balloch guessed.
"Yeah, I imagine so," Lightstone nodded.
"So let me see if I understand this right," Balloch said as he settled back in the overstuffed chair and massaged a throbbing temple. "What you're trying to tell me is that the only people who can vouch for you being a real, honest-to- God federal agent-as opposed to someone who probably ought to be locked up for his own good-are these two basket cases here?" He gestured with his head over at the sprawled bodies of the two men.
Dwight Stoner was stretched out on Balloch's living room couch with his badly swollen leg tightly strapped into a temporary cloth brace. Larry Paxton lay semicomatose in the other chair, his left arm in a sling, his left leg tightly bandaged, his head back and eyes closed. He looked exactly like someone who had been shot out of the air, crashed his airplane into an alligator-infested swamp, then escaped an exploding barn with a three-hundred-and-ten-pound human anchor on the end of his one good arm. All within the past forty-eight hours.
"Outside of Snoopy-uh, Mike Takahara, the tech agent we haven't been able to contact-and maybe Scoby, if he's still alive, yeah, that's about it."
"Okay," Balloch nodded after a minute of quiet contemplation. "I can probably guarantee you twenty-four hours on my say-so, just 'cause I'm getting old and slow and grouchy, and nobody really wants to screw with me too much if they can avoid it. But after that, somebody like my lieutenant is liable to start counting on his fingers and wondering how come we've got only two bodies in the freezer instead of four. What'd you say the FBI guy's name was?"
"A1 Grynard. Assistant special agent in charge of their Anchorage office."
"What's he like?"
"Old, slow, grouchy and curious as hell about anything that even looks halfway suspicious," Lightstone said. "You two ought to get along just fine."
A pained expression appeared in Pete Balloch's eyes. "And you figure this guy's probably going to be down here checking up on all this?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'd bet money on it."
"Why?"
"Because as soon as he gets the word that Stoner and Paxton are dead, he's gonna think I'm the one who's responsible," Lightstone said.
"Oh."
"Ain't gonna blame him none, either," Larry Paxton muttered through his badly split lips. "Ah'm just about convinced of that mahself."
"Yeah, no shit," Dwight Stoner agreed from his sprawled position on the couch. "We shoulda hired Kleinfelter instead. Guy like that woulda caused us a whole lot less trouble."
"As it is, this A1 Grynard is already half convinced that I killed McNulty," Lightstone added, "because he found out Paul had me booked for buying illegal walrus ivory up in Anchorage when I was supposed to be buying dope. Told me not to leave town until he got everything straightened out."
"When was that?" Balloch asked.
Lightstone looked at his watch. "About twenty-four hours ago."
"He get everything straightened out?"
"I don't know, I didn't ask. Too busy trying to sneak out of town."
The veteran San Diego County sheriff's sergeant stared at Lightstone. "Jesus, I'm glad you work for somebody else. I'd hate like hell to be your supervisor." He paused. "So what're you
guys going to do now?"
"First thing we've gotta do is find Mike before Alex does," Lightstone said.
"You really believe that these Chareaux assholes are going to try to take out a six-man federal-agent team, just because they got busted for illegal hunting?" Balloch asked in a disbelieving voice.
"It sure looks that way, except that it's brother, singular, now," Lightstone corrected. "Butch and Sonny are dead. But good old Alex, the one who's still running around out there, is the real freak. Likes to cut people up and watch them die. We know he's good for at least two Louisiana game wardens. Probably a whole lot more we don't know about."
"So you figure that if this Alex thinks you guys are out of the picture, then he- Hey, wait a minute." Pete Balloch's head suddenly came up. "How come only two names on the wire, instead of three?" the veteran homicide sergeant demanded suspiciously.
"Because I want him to think I'm still out there, or to at least wonder about it for a while," Lightstone said matter-of-factly.
"You want this asshole coming after you?"
"Not especially," Lightstone shrugged. "But Paul's dead, and if Mike and Carl are too, and he believes he got all three of us, then he's just going to take off. This way, if he thinks I'm the only one left, then maybe he'll leave his commando girlfriend at home and come after me himself."
Sergeant Peter Balloch blinked and then stared curiously at his longtime friend.
"You call that a plan?" he finally asked.
"You got a better one?"
"Yeah, I sure do," Balloch nodded. "Put out an APB and then sit back and let a couple hundred thousand cops hunt this bastard down."
Lightstone shook his head. "He'd just run off to Louisiana and hide out in the swamps for a few years, wait until everything cooled off, and then come back for me when I'm not paying attention. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for a guy like Alex the rest of my life."
"So what are you going to do? Sit around like a piece of mangled bait, wait for him-and maybe his buddies with the dynamite and the H amp;K-to show up, and then take them all on by yourself?"
"Not exactly." Lightstone smiled as he glanced over at Stoner and Paxton. "I've got a couple of ghosts here to help out."
"No offense," Balloch said dubiously as he looked at the three nearly crippled agents, "but right now, you three guys don't look like you could defend yourselves from a couple of pissed-off Girl Scouts."
"If we find Mike or Carl, we'll be fine," Lightstone shrugged. "Besides, we've got some backup on the way. Eskimo kid named Woeshack. One of our rookie agent- pilots who can't fly worth a shit."
"That the guy you said crashed the plane up in Alaska?"
"Uh-huh."
"So what the hell is he going to do, outside of getting you all killed?"
"He's going to be our pilot," Lightstone smiled. "As soon as he manages to steal another plane."
"Ah."
Then, before Sergeant Pete Balloch could say anything more, the phone rang next to his hand.
"Yeah?" Balloch answered, and his voice dropped an octave as he said: "Ah, shit. Are they sure? When?" A long pause. "What about the other guy?" A longer pause. "Yeah, okay, thanks." He sighed as he put down the phone.
"Scoby?" Lightstone asked quietly.
"He's dead," Balloch nodded. "Some of your guys found him this morning. Six rounds in his vest and one in the head, execution style."
All three agents were silent until Lightstone finally said: "What about Mike?"
"No answer at his place, no sign of forced entry, and the neighbors haven't seen anything." Balloch shrugged. "The guys out there are willing to help, but they don't want to bust in and look around unless we can fax them a warrant."
"Tell them not to worry about it, we're heading that way anyway." Henry Lightstone shook his head as he slowly pulled himself to a standing position. He watched as a shaky Larry Paxton helped Stoner up onto one foot, then handed him the set of crutches. "Snoopy likes to cheat when he busts into computers, so I don't think he'll mind too much if we don't bother to get a warrant."
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When the Washoe County sheriff, Sergeant Clinton Hardwell, took one look at the cut, bruised, and swollen faces of the three men who had hobbled off the Southwest Airlines plane, he immediately asked to see some identification.
"Sorry about that," Hardwell apologized as he returned the badge cases to the agents, "but, honest to God, you guys don't look like any federal raid team I've ever seen before."
"New Washington Office concept," Lightstone said as he and the plainclothed sergeant started walking slowly toward the baggage claim area, giving Paxton and Stoner a chance to keep up on their crutches. "Anybody sees us coming, they're not going to be expecting us to kick in the door."
"Yeah, I guess not," the homicide sergeant nodded as he glanced down at Dwight Stoner's horribly swollen knee and then at Larry Paxton's tightly bandaged leg.
After passing the first set of slot machines, the agents took a right turn to the baggage claim area. Their bags were waiting for them, stacked in a neat row next to the stainless- steel carousel and a uniformed sheriff's deputy.
"Uh, listen, you think you guys might be able to stick around a while and give us a hand, in case we run into any trouble?" Lightstone asked as he and Hardwell picked up the bags. They walked through a sliding glass door out into the blazing heat of Reno, Nevada.
"Buddy, let me tell you something," the deeply tanned homicide sergeant said as three of his detectives helped Stoner and Paxton into the back of two of the unmarked detective units. "Pete Balloch vouched for you, and he and I go back a long way, so I really don't care who you guys are, or who you're going after. But I can tell you one thing for sure-" he pointedly looked around at all three agents "-I wouldn't miss this operation for the world."
Just as the Washoe County homicide sergeant had described, the Japanese-style house that Special Agent Mike Takahara had recently purchased in Spanish Springs Valley-a rural development about fifteen miles north of downtown Reno-looked pretty much like all of the other widely scattered ranch-style homes in the quiet and peaceful hillside area.
From their concealed position about a hundred yards down the road, Henry Lightstone listened to the hissing sound of empty tape for another five seconds and then put the cellular phone down on the seat as Hardwell continued to scan the windows with his powerful binoculars.
"Nothing?" the homicide sergeant asked as he lowered the binoculars and looked over at Lightstone.
"No." Lightstone shook his head.
"You sure you got the right number?"
"Yeah, absolutely sure."
"Maybe he forgot to check his machine?" Hardwell shrugged.
"Not Snoopy," Lightstone said as he stared out across the sand-and-sagebrush landscape at the closed garage door. "Guy's a communications freak. Damn near religious about that sort of thing."
"Maybe he's found himself a girlfriend," the homicide sergeant suggested. "They could be down in the basement, where it's cooler."
"Yeah, that's always a possibility," Lightstone conceded, "but it doesn't sound like him. You sure your guys saw a red Four-Runner in that garage?"
"Pretty sure that's what they said," Hardwell nodded. "I'll find out. Need to check in with those guys anyway."
"Yeah, where the hell are they?" Lightstone asked, looking around as he realized that he hadn't seen any other vehicles with the distinctive police radio antennas in the area.
"Up in the hills, where they've got a better view," Hardwell said, glancing toward the upper slope. "The way Pete described these characters, I figured we ought to maintain some distance until you guys got here."
"Yeah, probably a good idea," Lightstone said absentmindedly.
Reaching over to the dash-mounted console, Hardwell unhooked the coiled cord mike and brought it up to his mouth. "Delta Seventeen and Delta Twenty-two, request confirmation you spotted a red Four-Runner in the subject's garage."
"If it'
s like our place," Hardwell said as he put the mike down on the seat next to his leg, "it's hard to hear the phone in the basement."
"I don't know," Lightstone said uneasily. "Last place this guy had, he put a phone in the john and one at both ends of his workbench so he wouldn't have to get up."
"Oh."
Two of Hardwell's detectives cautiously approached the house from the blind garage side, shotguns out and ready, while Larry Paxton and Dwight Stoner slowly worked their way down the road on their crutches.
"Couple of characters like that, I'm surprised we haven't heard from every housewife in the neighborhood," Hardwell commented dryly. He started to say something else, but then realized that he hadn't received any response from his surveillance team.
"Delta Seventeen and Delta Twenty-two, check in," Hardwell repeated into the mike in an irritated voice.
Silence.
Lightstone and Hardwell looked at each other briefly, and then Hardwell brought the microphone up to his mouth again.
"Delta Fifteen."
"Fifteen, go."
"Did you spot Kenny or Jim on your way in?"
"Negative."
"Shit," the Washoe County homicide sergeant cursed.
"You give them authorization to follow if anybody left the house?" Lightstone asked, watching Larry Paxton readjust the miniaturized radio speaker in his ear as the two injured agents began to move at a faster pace toward the house.
"Standard procedure is that one guy follows while the other stays in place and calls for backup," Hardwell replied in a distracted voice. "Dispatch, this is Delta Three. Any call-ins from Delta Seventeen or Twenty-two during the past hour?"
"Negative, Delta Three," the dispatcher's raspy voice came out over the car speaker. "No radio contact."
"Delta Fifteen," Hardwell ordered, "break off, get up the hill and check on those two."
"Ten-four, on my way," the detective acknowledged.
"Delta Twenty and Twenty-one, move in on that garage window, tell me what you see," Hardwell directed his other two investigators. Then he and Lightstone watched as one of the shotgun-armed detectives knelt down to provide a cover while the second casually dressed investigator ran forward in a low crouch to the garage, flattened himself upright against the cream-colored stucco, and quickly peered in through the side window.
