Double blind

Chapter Fifty-three

The first fifty yards were the worst because Henry Lightstone knew he remained well within the hundred-percent kill range of a trained Army Ranger armed with an M-16 assault rifle. He scrambled on his hands and knees at several points, then threw himself sideways on two separate occasions, to escape the seemingly endless, short bursts of 5.56mm rounds coming at him from all directions, shearing off fragments of bark, branches, and rock that flew into his face and tore at his clothing as the projectiles whipped past his head.

Somewhere in the background, he thought he heard the sound of 12gauge shotgun and high-velocity pistol rounds, but he was much too busy trying to stay ahead of the shadowy figures working very hard both to keep up and to circle around in an effort to cut him off to worry about such things.

But as he got deeper into the woods and the thick pine and fir trees became more plentiful, the short bursts of 5.56mm rounds came further apart, and nowhere near as close, which gave him hope… and he continued to run, now driven by the sounds of boots scattering small rocks and crunching lightly on the thick carpet of dried pine needles, forcing himself to ignore his aching legs and burning lungs.

At one point, he heard a feminine voice start to ask something — but Wintersole immediately cut her off with an order to maintain radio silence.

Halfway to his goal, Lightstone paused to rest, taking in deep breaths to fill his lungs and replenish the oxygen debt in his rapidly fatiguing muscles. As he did so, he could hear the muted sounds of other heavy breathing in his earphones.

That's why he didn't want them talking with each other, Lightstone realized. I can hear them… which means they can hear me, too. Shaking his head in frustration, he quickly flipped off the microphone switch.

But as he did so, the first of the oncoming figures appeared in his night-vision goggles and immediately sent him off running again.

As he ran, Lightstone stayed on the winding path because he'd only traveled the route once before and figured this offered the least chance of spraining an ankle on a loose rock or unseen branch. He briefly considered circling back and trying to catch one of the trailing soldiers by surprise to acquire one of the M-16s, but immediately abandoned the idea, knowing that if he stopped — or did anything at all instead of run — he wouldn't stand the slightest chance against the team of professional soldiers who trained together, leapfrogging, surrounding, and killing multiple armed targets with Swiss-watch-like precision.

Instead, he continued to run, stopping only briefly every few minutes to check his compass and gather his remaining reserves… until, finally, he emerged from the tall stand of old-growth trees, crossed a shallow stream, and sprinted up a long incline to the edge of an open field.

He paused briefly at the top of the slope, looked back, saw two of the dark green figures materialize at the edge of the forest, and then, with the last remnants of his strength, staggered toward the darkened warehouse.

First Sergeant Aran Wintersole lay prone at the top of incline with the barrel of his M-16 assault rifle extended, waiting until the two members of his fire team signaled that they were in their proper flanking positions. Then he directed the figure lying next to him to set the crosshairs of her target scope on the slightly open side door of the warehouse nearest their location.

She did, and shook her head.

"I'm getting a diffuse heat source, but no movement," she whispered while continuing to scan the front of the warehouse with her IR-heat-sensing target locator.

"Wait a minute," she corrected herself. "I've got heat and movement. Looks like it's coming from the gap between the siding and the floor."

"How many?" Wintersole demanded.

"Two… no three, at least three targets. Definitely three."

"Where?"

"Far front corner of the warehouse, opposite side from the open door, in close to the main roll-up door," the communications specialist reported confidently.

Using hand signals, Wintersole quickly informed one-two, his heavy-weapons specialist, of the location of the three targets inside the warehouse, and ordered the corporal and his team to take the near door and go in hot while he and his team stayed outside to pick off the expected runners.

Once the Ranger first sergeant verified that everyone was in place, he signaled "Go!" with his raised right hand.

As Wintersole watched with professional calm, the Rangers took the door without hesitation. The roar of automatic weapons fire filled the night air as the lunging and rolling soldiers sent overlapping streams of 5.56mm rounds into the front and side corrugated metal walls of the building.

Then came the distinctive sound of full magazines replacing empty ones.

And then dead silence, broken only by a softly whispered, "Oh shit."

Another distinctly feminine and near-panicked voice whispered, "Help, I'm stuck."

"One-two, give me a sit-rep!" Wintersole immediately ordered.

Another period of silence.

"We've got a… a situation… in here, First Sergeant," the team's heavy-weapons specialist whispered in a shaken voice.

"Get us out of here, First Sergeant," the feminine voice pleaded.

"One-two to one-one, request permission to withdraw," the heavy-weapons specialist whispered.

"Negative, one-two. Hold your position," Wintersole ordered. "Do you have Lightstone?"

Another long pause, then a soft, "I don't know, First Sergeant."

First Sergeant Aran Wintersole blinked in disbelief.

"Then go look and see, Corporal," the hunter-killer team leader ordered in a slow, very clear, and definitely threatening manner.

A much longer pause followed this time.

"We can't, First Sergeant."

The unimaginable words from arguably the toughest member of his Ranger hunter-killer recon team brought the combat-hardened first sergeant immediately to his feet. He charged toward the partially closed side door of the warehouse, reflexively thumbing the selector switch of his M-16 to full auto as he did so.

Once at the side door, Wintersole paused, M-16 at the ready position, and motioned to one-seven on the other side of the door opposite him. Without hesitation, the young soldier dived in through the doorway, sending a stream of 5.56mm rounds streaking over the heads of the other hunter-killer team members and punching through the far side wall of the warehouse… then rolled to the floor, automatically ejecting the empty magazine as he reached back for a full one with his left hand.

The instant he heard one-seven hit the floor, Wintersole slammed the door aside with his shoulder and lunged through the doorway, finger tightening on the trigger of his M-16, ready to kill the first thing that moved… and then stood, stunned and uncomprehending, as he stared at the incredible scene before him.

"Oh my God…" one-seven whispered, but Wintersole ignored him, feeling a very unfamiliar fear-induced chill run through him when he saw the hundreds of slowly moving eyes and legs glowing in varying combinations of bright red and iridescent blue in the bright green viewfinder of his night-vision goggles… and then the six, much larger bright eyes glowing in the far corner of the warehouse by the roll-up door.

But as the hunter-killer team leader moved toward the hundreds of slowly moving, bright red and iridescent blue creatures, he began to put it all together.

Snakes and spiders?

Then he stepped on something sticky.

What the hell…?

At that moment, a deep voice with a distinct, South Carolina accent called out from outside the front roll-up door of the warehouse.

"THIS IS SPECIAL AGENT LARRY PAXTON OF THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE. WE HAVE THE WAREHOUSE SURROUNDED. THROW YOUR WEAPONS OUTSIDE THE DOOR, AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEADS!"

"BULLSHIT!" Wintersole roared as he spun and emptied the thirty-round magazine waist high across the front wall of the warehouse.

Ordering his troops to maintain their positions, Wintersole calmly knelt on the concrete floor, reloaded his weapon, and waited.

"What do you think?" Larry Paxton asked. With a Smith amp; Wesson 10mm semiautomatic pistol clenched tight in both hands, he was crouched next to the largest tree he could find among the meager collection surrounding the warehouse parking lot.

"Definitely sounded like a 'no' from here," Bobby LaGrange replied from his prone position next to the adjoining tree. The retired San Diego Police homicide detective aimed the 12-gauge pump shotgun held tight against his shoulder at the main roll-up door of the warehouse.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too."

Sighing to himself, the Bravo Team leader slowly stood up, positioned himself in a barricade position next to what now — thanks to the barrage of bark-shredding 5.56mm rounds that had come flying in their general direction — seemed like a very small tree, yelled out, "OKAY, IF THAT'S THE WAY YOU FEEL ABOUT IT," and then carefully and deliberately fired two 10mm rounds into the metal wall of the warehouse.

The crash of breaking glass immediately followed the sound of punctured sheet metal… and then, some moments later, a high-pitched scream.

"GIVE UP YET?" Paxton called out.

Dead silence.

"I SAID, DO YOU GIVE UP YET?" Larry Paxton repeated.

More silence.

"IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING, THOSE YELLOW-EYED THINGS ON THE FLOOR ARE CROCODILES, THE TARANTULAS HAVE FANGS LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE, AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE DAMNED SNAKES IS POISONOUS… ESPECIALLY THE TIGER SNAKES AND THE DEATH ADDERS. AND NO, I AIN'T GOT NO IDEA AT ALL

WHAT I'M AIMING AT," Paxton tried hopefully.

No response.

"Give them another shot," Bobby LaGrange suggested sensibly.

Muttering a heartfelt curse, Paxton raised his 10mm semiautomatic again.

Two more rounds punched through the corrugated metal, followed by more breaking glass, another high-pitched scream, and some extremely heated profanity.

Moments later, four M-16 assault rifles sailed through the side door and clattered on the ground.

Wait a minute. How many were there? Five or six?

Henry Lightstone stood at his barricade position behind a nearby tree, trying to remember exactly how many figures he'd seen following him in the woods and then entering the warehouse.

They started out with seven at the training compound. Boggs had one-four under control, and I took out another one — broke his nose and dislocated his shoulder — which leaves five. Right.

"That's only four, Wintersole," Henry Lightstone spoke into his reactivated collar mike. "I want them all, or I'm tossing in a flash-bang."

Following a brief pause, a familiar voice echoed in his earphones.

"Lightstone?"

"Special Agent Henry Lightstone of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to you, First Sergeant," Lightstone replied tersely as he cautiously moved toward the side of the warehouse. "Boggs already told you you're under arrest, and Larry wasn't kidding about those snakes being poisonous, so toss out all your weapons and get your people out here, now!"

After another brief delay, the fifth rifle came flying out the side door, followed by four camouflaged figures with their hands over their heads.

Henry Lightstone took up a barricade position by the side door, holding Woeshack's 10mm Smith amp; Wesson at the ready, with Bobby LaGrange standing guard with the shotgun, while Stoner, Takahara, Woeshack, and Paxton moved in, collected the M-16s, and took the four young Rangers into custody, quickly handcuffing their wrists behind their back, and laying them face down in the middle of the parking lot.

Then Lightstone backed away from the building, and into the middle of the parking lot to give himself a better view of the front roll-up and side doors with his night-vision goggles while Takahara and Woeshack assumed blocking positions on the back sides of the warehouse.

"Come on, Wintersole, get your ass out here," Lightstone finally spoke softly into his collar mike.

"Why don't you come in and get me, Henry?"

"What's he saying?" Larry Paxton demanded in a hushed voice as he came up beside Lightstone.

Lightstone reached down and shut off the collar mike.

"He wants me to go in there and get him."

"Forget that crap." Dwight Stoner held up one of the flash-bang grenades he'd taken off one of the Rangers. "Let's toss this in and we'll see how fast he comes out."

"Shit, don't do that!" Larry Paxton whispered urgently. "You'll blow out every piece of glass in the damned warehouse, and every snake and spider in there'll get loose!"

"How about we turn the lights on so we can at least see him," Lightstone suggested.

"Can't." Paxton shrugged apologetically. "I had Mike shut off the main and then cut the feed lines coming out of the panel to make sure these guys couldn't turn on any lights and figure out real quick that we weren't in there."

"What about flashlights?"

"We've got six of them," Stoner replied sheepishly. "But they're all in the warehouse."

"Wonderful," Lightstone muttered, then grew silent when he heard Wintersole chuckling in his earphone.

"Come on, Henry. Just you and me. We'll have some fun, see what kind of Ranger you would have made."

"What's he saying now?" Paxton demanded.

"Son of a bitch is getting impatient." Lightstone looked down at the four Rangers sprawled facedown and quiet in the almost pitch-black parking lot. "Hey," he whispered, "what happened to their night-vision goggles?"

"They weren't wearing any," Dwight Stoner replied.

Lightstone quickly knelt and rapidly searched all four of their captives before pulling Paxton and Stoner about twenty feet away.

"The bastard had them take the goggles off before they came out," he informed his teammates in a hushed voice. "Same with the communications gear and the red-lensed flashlights they were carrying. Military thinking. Don't give up any resources that the enemy can use against you. I've got this one set of goggles, but what about our stuff? Don't we have any night-vision gear?"

"Nope, just Mike's spotting scope." Larry Paxton was starting to look thoroughly frustrated now. "Look, how about Dwight and I take the far door and go for the flashlights, while you guys keep him pinned down?"

"No deal." Lightstone shook his head. "This guy's a Ranger first sergeant. You go in there blind, and he'll tear your throats out before you even see him."

"Come on, Henry." Wintersole's voice reverberated in Lightstone's headset again. "Just you and me. If you try to get tricky and bring your friends in too, you know I'll kill them… and you'll have to live with the fact that it was your fault for the rest of your life."

"That's it," Lightstone muttered as he ripped the earphones off his head and threw them on the ground.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Larry Paxton demanded.

"I'm going in there and arrest that son of a bitch."

And before the Bravo Team leader could say or do anything else, Henry Lightstone ran toward the warehouse… picked up speed as he approached the almost completely closed side door… then slammed it open with his shoulder, dived into a forward judo roll as the door swung shut behind him… and came up in a semi-sitting position with the Smith amp; Wesson extended in front of him in a double-handed grip.

The incoming roll threw his night-vision goggles off kilter, and Lightstone quickly readjusted them so he could see clearly.

What he saw made his flesh crawl.

With no starlight to enhance his view in the almost-total darkness of the warehouse, the sensors of the new-generation light-vision goggles picked up only IR and UV fluorescence.

As a result, and thanks to the reflected light from the dozens of terrariums aligned on the shelves along the rear wall of the warehouse, Lightstone could easily see the bright red legs and eyes of the sixty-to-seventy giant red-kneed tarantulas and the iridescent blue eyes of the two snakes which had escaped when Larry Paxton's randomly aimed 10mm bullets shattered their containers.

Between them and the hundreds of slowly moving bright red and iridescent blue legs and eyes in the background, Lightstone might never have seen Wintersole at all… had not fifteen or twenty glowing tarantulas effectively outlined his seated form as they slowly walked up, over, and around his body.

Keeping an eye on the two sets of free-roaming iridescent blue snake eyes, one set of which had crossed in front of Wintersole, Lightstone moved slowly forward with the 10mm aimed at the center of the Ranger first sergeant's forehead.

"You're under arrest, Wintersole," he announced softly. "You have the right…"

"To remain silent," the Ranger first sergeant finished as he slowly rose to his feet so smoothly that the inquisitive bright red-glowing legs barely hesitated before continuing on their wandering path.

"If you move again without my telling you to do so, I'll drop you

… right here, right now," Lightstone warned.

Watch the snake, the covert agent reminded himself, well aware that Wintersole was perfectly capable of slinging the reptile at him with his foot, trusting the leather of his combat boot to defeat any bite and knowing that Lightstone, at best, could deflect it with his pistol… or more likely, his arm. A dangerous tactic, especially if Paxton's random shots had freed one of the Tiger Snakes or Death Adders.

"I don't intend to move, Henry," the Ranger first sergeant spoke softly, apparently indifferent to the tarantula slowly inching its way from the collar of his fatigue jacket to his ear, or the other one under his chin, whose iridescence illuminated Wintersole's face. Even in the hot reddish glow of the slowly moving eyes and legs, the soldier's expression appeared cold.

"She'll do my moving for me."

At that moment, Lightstone became aware of the movement to his left.

But before he could move, or swing around with the Smith amp; Wesson, or do anything at all, a very familiar voice whispered…

"Hello, Henry."

The click of a releasing safety catch told him all he needed to know.

There really had been six, after all.

"Hello, Natasha," he greeted her softly, keeping his eyes and gun on Wintersole. "You moon-lighting now?"

"Always have been, Henry. That's what I like best about the American free-enterprise system. So many wonderful opportunities for a young woman who wishes to move up in this world."

"Especially a treacherous one."

"Oh yes; that, too. It would have been much easier if Halahan had transferred me to Bravo Team, but… there are always ways."

"What would have been easier, Natasha?" Lightstone asked in a quiet voice.

"Oh, that's right." The female Special Agent giggled. "You don't know, do you?"

"No, he doesn't," Wintersole reiterated the point as he brought his boot down quickly over the slowly approaching pair of iridescent blue eyes, knelt down, picked up the snake carefully behind its head, and then walked slowly toward Lightstone, holding the pair of blue eyes out in front of him… all the while ignoring the 10mm Smith amp; Wesson still aimed at his forehead.

"It's a very poor exchange, Henry," Wintersole explained the basics as he stopped directly in front of the gun muzzle. "You kill me, she kills you… and then she kills them. And she will, too. I understand she's very well trained, and very good with that pistol; not that it will make much difference since she'll have every possible advantage," the hunter-killer team leader added with a cold smile. "My guess is that your friends won't stand a chance. Imagine all of them dead because of you. That's your biggest fear, isn't it, Henry?"

"I won't bargain for my life against theirs, Wintersole, and I won't put this gun down." Lightstone kept his index finger firmly on the trigger of the Smith amp; Wesson, and the front sight centered just above the Ranger first sergeant's nose to emphasize his point. "If she pulls that trigger, reflex action will set this one off… and you'll die. To tell you the truth, way I feel right now, I'd just as soon take you with me."

"I'm sure you would, Henry." Wintersole smiled faintly. "But that won't be necessary. If you come with us, your friends get to live, and you get to see what this is all about. It's either that, or like you said…" Wintersole adjusted his grip on the snake's head, closing its mouth tightly between his forefinger and thumb, and then slowly and carefully brushed the scaled head lightly against the exposed knuckles of Lightstone's tightly clenched hands, "… we both die. Right here. Right now.

"And, since you brought it up, I wouldn't mind taking you with me, either," he added with a sardonic smile.

Henry Lightstone felt the cool head of the snake against his fingers, then saw the outline of the head in the combined light of the bright red and blue iridescence.

Tiger Snake.

The worst one of the whole batch.

Absolutely deadly.

Of course, Lightstone thought with an odd sense of detachment. What else would it be?

Then he blinked in surprise when Wintersole crushed the snake's head with his fingers and let it drop to the floor.

"It's nothing personal, Henry. I'm just doing what I'm getting paid to do."

Wintersole continued to smile, a menacing but ultimately indifferent smile.

"So which will it be, Henry? You're the one who has to choose. And you have to choose right now."

Two minutes later, Henry Lightstone walked slowly out of the warehouse with his hands over his head.

"LARRY, BACK EVERYBODY OFF!" he called out. "WAY BACK. I'M GOING TO GO…"

Then he stopped dead still.

"LARRY?"

"BOBBY?"

No answer.

"If your friends are playing games…" Wintersole hissed in Lightstone's ear.

"If they are, it's a new game to me," Lightstone informed his captor calmly, scanning the area with the night-vision goggles. As far as he could see, the entire parking lot, the adjacent warehouses, and all the surrounding sparse woodlands appeared empty.

No handcuffed Rangers.

No Bravo Team.

No Bobby LaGrange.

Nobody.

"This isn't…" Natasha Marashenko never completed that statement because Wintersole cut her off.

"Get going, now!" he ordered her urgently.

They had just reached the edge of the clearing where the land sloped down to the increasingly dense stands of evergreens, when a bright searchlight suddenly illuminated the area from the side of the adjacent ware-house and a voice bellowed out over a bullhorn.

"FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP!"

Cursing, First Sergeant Aran Wintersole spun, sent four 10mm hollow-tipped bullets streaking in the direction of the searchlight — which immediately exploded in a glaring flash, then flared out, plunging the entire area into pitch-darkness again. Turning back, the hunter-killer recon team leader threw a surprised Lightstone aside and rolled down the incline, then came back up into a zigzagging sprint toward the trees as gunfire erupted from all sides.

Natasha Marashenko had already started to run before Wintersole destroyed the searchlight and was halfway down the incline when she tripped on an exposed root. She tumbled to the ground, screaming in surprise and anger, and was scrambling back up when the bullets began whipping over her head… which slowed her down enough that she was still a good six feet away from the first big tree when Lightstone caught her from behind in a running tackle.

The impact sent the Smith amp; Wesson flying; but instead of trying to twist loose and scramble for it, Natasha Marashenko swung her elbow back and caught Henry Lightstone square in the face, destroying his night-vision goggles and causing blood to pour from his nose.

Stunned, blinded, and enraged, Lightstone lunged and grabbed Marashenko by the waist of her tight jeans, spun her around, drove a crippling elbow into her thigh, tried for an arm bar, lost it, and had to cover to protect when the female agent jackhammered a series of potentially lethal elbow and hand strikes at his face and neck.

Then, before he realized what had happened, she was off him and hobbling toward the forest.

Ignoring the bullets smacking into trees above his head, Henry Lightstone dived forward, twisted behind a large tree for shelter, came back up to his feet, and was taking off after her again when he suddenly found himself flying through the air and landing hard on his back.

"Let her go, you idiot!" a familiar voice snarled in his ear.

But the adrenaline still surging through Henry Lightstone's bloodstream caused him to fling her aside and try to get back up again.

This time, when he landed hard on his back — knocking a goodly amount of air out of his lungs in the process — and tried to get back up again, she pinned his left arm behind his back and wrapped her right arm around his throat in the first move of a carotid chokehold.

"What the hell…!" he gasped, and reached up with his right hand to deflect the choke… then almost screamed when the huge cat came tearing through the brush and lunged at him, the impact sending both him and his assailant tumbling backwards into the dirt.

Henry Lightstone had a brief instant to realize that he lay on top of the sensuous body of a very strong woman who still had one of his arms pinned and her arm pulled tight around his throat… with a panther firmly planted on his chest, digging her painfully sharp claws into his heaving chest muscles while nuzzling his face with her thick-whiskered nose, and rumbling in apparent amusement or contentment… before another familiar voice yelled out above him.

"FBI, YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!"

A subliminal sense of awareness totally unrelated to the shouted order suddenly caused Henry Lightstone to jerk his head upward and stare past the head of the panther who also stared into the dark sky at… what?

He blinked, tried to focus, gave up, and looked helplessly over his shoulder at the grinning dirty face now visible in the flashlight beams.

"Under arrest?" he echoed. "Me?"

"Uh-huh," the woman known as Karla acknowledged, while Sasha rumbled in agreement and several blue-jeaned figures wearing FBI raid jackets and carrying sound-suppressed, night-scoped assault rifles moved slowly and cautiously past him into the woods, and a number of other blue-jeaned figures gathered around them at a safe distance.

"You're an FBI agent." Lightstone said it more out of wonder than anything else.

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Karla chuckled in his ear. "We'll make a federal agent out of you yet."

"And so am I, sonny. Been retired for a lotta years, but they brought me back special just for this case… so there," the skinny, bearded, and supposedly blind old soothsayer otherwise known as the Sage announced with a wide grin as he proudly displayed his FBI raid jacket and badge.

"Dear God," whispered Lightstone as he looked around at the other familiar faces — Larry Paxton, Mike Takahara, Dwight Stoner, Thomas Woeshack, Bobby LaGrange, and Danny-the-Cook in an FBI raid jacket — who all wisely kept their distance from the glaring, but seemingly contented panther.

"And just in case you wondered, sport," Karla spoke softly in his ear, "Danny's one of our tech agents, in addition to being a half-decent cook."

"You swear in this damned cat, too?" Lightstone inquired, glaring into the adoring bright yellow eyes, and wincing when her claws dug deeper into his chest.

"I'd be happy to, but I don't think she'd take the demotion."

"Ah."

"Okay, Karla, I think you and Sasha can let him go now." FBI Supervisory Agent A1 Grynard let out an exaggerated sigh as he joined the group, looking down at the female members of his unconventional FBI covert agent team disapprovingly as he re-holstered his sidearm.

"Umm, no, I can't," Karla announced after a moment.

"Why not?"

"Because you just arrested him."

"But that was just for show… to keep them running," the FBI supervisory agent — who now radiated the aura of a man sorely put upon — reminded her less than patiently.

"I know, but who cares? I got him, and we won." The dirty-faced female grinned, much to her supervisor's visible dismay.

"You know, Grynard, you FBI folks run one hell of an undercover investigation when you put your minds to it," Larry Paxton commented as he gingerly brushed off some of the fetid debris adhering to Grynard's dark blue FBI raid jacket. "Supposedly blind old-fart soothsayers who ride around on motorbikes, witches who run government post offices, Cajun cooks, real live panthers, exploding sacks of chicken shit. Don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it."

"I was not responsible for the chicken shit," the supervisory FBI agent muttered darkly.

"Right, which was why I was thinking maybe we could just transfer Henry directly over to you guys, seeing as how…" Larry Paxton smiled hopefully.

"Actually, I kinda liked the way two female agents in a row stomped the shit out of Henry," Dwight Stoner interrupted before the incredulous FBI supervisor could respond in some manner that he might later regret.

"Yeah, speaking of which," Lightstone remarked, looking up from his sprawled and — digging panther claws aside — relatively comfortable position, "how come you guys held back so long, and then just let them… oh."

"The light dawns." Karla smiled.

"It's about time," Mike Takahara commented.

"From the FBI's standpoint," A1 Grynard explained, trying his best to maintain his dignity and composure in spite of his splattered and odorous jacket, "the Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal was a classic example of a basically inept and disorganized militant group ripe for manipulation by a more serious antigovernment organization. Jim — the Sage — Karla and Danny were keeping a loose eye on them as well as a couple of other groups in southern Oregon, when Wintersole and his team showed up and started nosing around… which put us on alert."

"And then a bunch of our Special Ops agents wandered into the picture, followed by Bobby LaGrange and me, and things started to get confusing?" Lightstone easily completed the sequence.

"Yeah, to put it mildly," Grynard replied sarcastically. "Only nobody knew who you were because it took so long to get any decent surveillance photos," he added, glaring down at Karla.

"Hey, you try to run a post office and a restaurant in between taking covert pictures of every federal undercover agent who wanders through the door." The female FBI agent shrugged. "And besides," she added with a mischievous grin on her dirt-smeared face, "he wouldn't go to sleep so I could take his picture. Sasha kept waking him up."

The huge panther purred agreeably at the mention of her name.

"I don't want to hear about it," A1 Grynard repeated.

"Yeah, me neither," the Sage agreed.

"As I was saying, seeing as how this is supposed to be a real, honest-to-God FBI investigation, the plan was — and still is — to track Wintersole back to what we assume are the main players in this little put-the-federal-government-on-trial scenario," the FBI agent supervisor made no attempt to control his sarcasm.

"But then, Mr. White Knight" — Grynard pointed at Lightstone — "you almost screw everything up when you decide to come to the rescue of a covert FBI agent perfectly capable of protecting herself…"

"Yeah, so I noticed," Lightstone grumbled, rubbing his neck.

"… not to mention also being protected by her two cover agents and a goddamned panther, and break the arm of one of Wintersole's men, which distracts Wintersole who, for some unaccountable reason, decides to drag you into their game. And then, of course, after everything goes to shit at the compound and it looks like Wintersole and this Marashenko — whoever the hell she is, in addition to being one of your agents — just might try to link up with somebody higher up in the organization to tell them what went wrong, you," — Grynard glared down at Lightstone — "manage to end up in the way… again."

"He's not real smart in that department," Karla conceded as she rubbed the carotid-choke-inducing edge of her wrist against Henry Lightstone's exposed throat, "but he is kind of cute."

"Wait a minute," Lightstone protested. "It was you guys… and these two in particular," he added, referring to Karla and Sasha, "who deliberately let Wintersole and Marashenko get away, in the middle of the woods, and in the middle of the night, I might add. So just how in the hell do you intend to follow them anywhere?"

"Actually, Henry," Mike Takahara glanced down at his still confused partner, "I think Danny's planning to track your Army Ranger pal electronically."

"What?"

"Come on, Henry, use that cat brain for a minute or two," Karla smiled pleasantly as she adjusted herself more comfortably under her captive, and then lightly fingered the center medallion of the cougar-claw necklace around his neck. "How do you think we kept track of you?"