Prey

Chapter Thirteen

Paul McNulty had been waiting by the phone in his Denver office for almost a half hour when Carl Scoby finally called in to report that he, Larry Paxton, Dwight Stoner, and Mike Takahara were on the last leg of a commercial flight to Bozeman.

"Any word on Ruebottom?" Scoby asked after he'd given McNulty the flight number and expected arrival time.

"Nothing so far," McNulty said. "According to the airport manager, the Lear's still sitting there on the tarmac with the wheels blocked and the doors shut. No sign of Ruebottom anywhere in or around the terminal."

"Anybody take a look inside the plane?"

"Not yet. I just finished talking with the airport manager a few minutes ago. It looks like Len amended his flight plan to give himself an open return flight to Great Falls."

"When did he do that?"

"About twenty minutes after they landed," McNulty replied.

"I thought the plan was for him to drop Henry off and then get the hell out of there."

"It was."

"Shit," Scoby cursed. "You know what it sounds like?"

"Ruebottom's hanging around Bozeman to act as a backup for Henry?"

"Exactly."

"You think Henry would go along with that?"

"Hell, no," Scoby snorted.

"So?"

"So that means he's probably doing it on his own, which also means that he's probably sitting on his ass in some bar in Bozeman right now, drinking a beer, with no idea at all that he's giving everybody else on this detail a goddamn coronary."

"I'd like to believe that," McNulty said. "But if that's the case, why hasn't he reported in?"

"Because he's a goddamn rookie, and we should have known better than to use him on a deal like this," Scoby muttered, irritated at himself because he was the one who had talked McNulty into borrowing the rookie agent-pilot from Halahan.

"Ruebottom's a trained agent, and he's supposed to know how to take care of himself in a situation like this," McNulty argued.

"Yeah, well, he's doing a lousy job of it so far," Scoby grumbled. "What about Henry? You hear from him yet?"

"No, and I'm not expecting to for at least another four or five hours. He's supposed to be out on a hunt with Alex Chareaux right now."

"No way to contact him."

It wasn't a question. Scoby knew how Henry Lightstone operated. Completely on his own. No beepers, no transmitters, no backup. Nothing on his person or in any of his luggage or equipment that could be found by the bad guys and used to break his cover. Nothing but guts, brains, incredibly quick reflexes, and an absolute refusal to lose, which was exactly why they had recruited him in the first place.

"Not until he gets back and calls in," McNulty said.

"Any idea where they're hunting?"

"Henry figured they'd end up somewhere between Gardiner and the northern border of Yellowstone, but he also said that Chareaux was pretty vague about the details."

"So you're saying he could be anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of Gardiner."

"That's about it," McNulty said. "All we know for sure is that he rented the car in Bozeman at eleven forty-five and ended up at the Best Western in Gardiner some time before two in the afternoon."

"You sure he checked in?"

"Yeah. I called the motel and asked to speak to him, and they put me through to his room."

"Anybody answer?"

"No. I had one of the locals do a drive-by. They confirmed that his rental car is still out there in the parking lot."

"So hopefully Henry and Alex met like they were supposed to, then took off immediately on the hunt because they're getting such a late start," Scoby said.

"That's the way I figure it. Otherwise Henry would have called in."

"But either way, that still means he's a sitting duck if those bastards scooped up Ruebottom and broke him," Scoby growled. "You want us to try to pull him out?"

"I don't know how you could," McNulty said. "Tell you the truth, right now I'm more worried about Ruebottom than I am about Henry."

"What about Halahan? You going to fill him in?"

"No. Not until I've got something more to go on."

"Christ, this is just what we need-a blown investigation when every goddamn butt-protecting bureaucrat in D.C. is trying to shut Special Operations down."

"It's bad timing all the way around," McNulty agreed. "The way I see it, the only thing we can do now is to put the team in the area and play it by ear. I told the airport manager at Bozeman to stay away from the Lear until one of you guys gets there. No sense in making people suspicious if we don't have to."

"Understood. What do you want us to do when we land?"

"Find a hotel near the airport and set up a command post," McNulty said. "Bozeman's a pretty small place, so you better figure on at least five or six rental cars. Give yourselves enough variation that they don't pick up on a tail. Put everybody on a twenty-four-hour stand-by, ready to move the moment we hear something."

"What about Mike?"

"Send him over to the airport manager's office. I'll see if I can get the manager to rig him up in some kind of official- looking uniform. Airport maintenance, repairman, something like that. Anything that'll let him move around inside and outside the terminal. With any luck, he ought to be able to get in fairly close to that plane."

"Gotcha," Scoby acknowledged.

"Anything else you can think of?" McNulty asked.

"Call Len's wife?" Scoby suggested hesitantly. "See if he checked in with her?"

"I don't want to do that just yet. No sense scaring the hell out of her if we don't have to."

"Yeah, right," Scoby sighed heavily. "The big question. What do we do if we spot Ruebottom in Bozeman? Get him out, or leave him there in place?"

McNulty didn't hesitate for a moment.

"Until we know more about what happened," he said, "we have to assume that Len's being watched and that he's too hot to approach. If anybody spots him, they shouldn't go anywhere near him. If he's in a motel, don't even call his room. Just put on a loose tag, stay as far back as you can, and get ahold of me right away."

"And if we spot him with one of the Chareaux brothers?"

This time McNulty did hesitate.

"Then he's either spilled everything he knows about Henry or he's still holding out," he said finally. "And in either case, if you spot him out in the open, that means they're staking him out as bait."

"So who do we leave hanging, Len or Henry?"

"I don't know. Call me when you get into Bozeman," McNulty said and hung up.

In the cool, crisp mountain air just northeast of Yellowstone National Park, surrounded by reflecting masses of rocky outcrops and high mountain peaks, and watched over by a pair of golden eagles that soared and swooped among the rising thermal currents, things that were actually quite far away could seem very close indeed.

Like a bull elk, with a seven-point rack and a mean disposition, that had been turned and was now heading their way.

They could hear him clearly, coming fast, being driven away from the shelter of the huge trees by the stomping of heavy boots, and thrown rocks, and two carefully placed shots from a thirteen-year-old 7mm Winchester Model 70 that had seemed to echo throughout the entire valley like a Civil War artillery barrage.

Very close, or still far away, it really didn't matter, because it had already been decided that this one was hers.

"Be ready," Alex Chareaux whispered.

About fifteen feet away, Lisa Abercombie braced herself against the trunk of a forty-foot cedar, set the forearm of her eighteen-thousand-dollar. 375 Rigby rifle over a low-lying branch, and tucked the hand-carved cheek piece in tight against her right cheek and shoulder. She moved her head slightly to bring the field of the adjustable scope into clear view, gently slipped her right index finger in through the trigger guard and over the trigger, thumbed the safety to the "Off" position, and then began to breathe slowly and carefully as she waited.

They could hear the crashing of the brush more distinctly now. He had to be close. Something in the range of twenty yards, Lightstone guessed as he eased the safety to the "Off" position on his twenty-eight-hundred-dollar bolt-action McMillan Signature Alaskan rifle.

He had purchased the. 300 Magnum rifle with some of McNulty's covert funds several months ago. He hadn't really been concerned about the money because he had believed that he was buying exactly the type of weapon that a man like Henry Allen Lightner would have purchased, to bolster both his ego and his image.

But that, of course, was long before Alex Chareaux had described to Lightstone the weapons that his three new clients had brought on their illicit hunt.

Much to Henry Lightstone's amazement, it seemed that the woman's eighteen-thousand-dollar Rigby really wasn't all that big a deal in terms of serious big-game hunting; because, according to Chareaux, the two men had armed themselves with a pair of matched Holland and Holland, African Hunter, side-by-side, double-barreled hunting rifles. Both weapons had been chambered for the incredibly powerful. 416 Rigby big-game round, and each had been purchased for the tidy sum of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

The etching alone on the two weapons-again according to Chareaux, who seemed to know what he was talking about-had apparently cost over ten thousand dollars apiece.

Which, Lightstone realized, made his twenty-eight- hundred-dollar McMillan the equivalent of a K-mart special.

"Where will he come out?" Lisa Abercombie asked as she looked out over the telescopic sight of her rifle, talking to Reston Wolfe, who was standing just behind her and to the right.

Wolfe looked over to Chareaux for guidance.

Chareaux spoke into his packset radio, held the speaker against his ear for a few moments, then extended his hand toward a large boulder at the edge of the tree line. It was about two hundred yards out at eleven o'clock.

"To the right of that boulder, this side of those tall pines," he whispered. "Very soon now. Be ready."

From his position a few yards to the left of Chareaux, Henry Lightstone watched the bull elk burst out of the clearing, swing his wide span of antlers in their direction, and then turn to lunge away just as the concussive roar of the woman's. 375 Rigby echoed through the trees.

But the magnificent animal reacted too late, and the copper-jacketed soft-point bullet slammed into the midpoint of the bull's massive rib cage, the force of the impact and the subsequent hydrostatic shock sending him staggering forward to his knees.

He started to come back up, shaking his huge antlers and bellowing with pain and rage, and Lightstone heard the oiled clack of the Rigby's silk-smooth bolt action as the woman smoothly ejected the spent casing and fed another round into the chamber.

Standing back at a distance, Lightstone found himself thoroughly impressed by the spirit and resilience of Lisa Abercombie, whom he had initially only been able to imagine as scantily clad in a bedroom. He could tell that the Rigby's sharp recoil had severely jarred her arms and shoulder. But as he watched in amazement, the seemingly unfazed woman brought her weapon back up into firing position without hesitation.

That's it, take your time, Lightstone thought to himself. Keep it tight against your shoulder. Gentle pull, nice and easy.

Lisa Abercombie had the cross hairs of the scope centered at the point where the bull's thick neck joined its shoulder and was about to squeeze the trigger once again when the sound of Chareaux's voice held her back.

"No, he is finished," he said, "but watch out for-"

At that moment, a pair of young females burst into the clearing.

Caught by surprise, Abercombie tried to bring the cross hairs back around to bear on the first of the panicked animals, but they were moving too fast and the shot went high and to the right.

Then, before she could eject and reload for a third shot, Dr. Reston Wolfe brought his Holland and Holland double-barreled rifle up to his shoulder and triggered off two quick rounds.

The first of the 410-grain bullets caught the rearmost elk in the hindquarters, sending her tumbling to the ground in a frenzy of dirt clods, kicking legs, and thrashing torso. The second round-nosed slug struck the lead elk across the side of the head, tearing off most of her right ear and sending her stumbling forward for a few steps before she managed to regain her balance.

Then, seriously injured but still on her feet, she continued to run in a staggering gait away from the direction of the terrible noise and pain.

Lightstone shook his head slowly.

When Alex Chareaux had finally gotten around to introducing his three clients to Lightstone, indicating that their names were Reston Walters, Lisa Allen and Morrey Asato, it had been impossible to miss the fact that only the older Japanese man seemed able to remember his last name well enough to respond in a reasonably timely manner.

Which really didn't matter, Lightstone thought, because even though this Reston Walters-or whoever the hell he was-had absolutely nothing to do with their investigation against the Chareaux brothers, he had already decided that he was going to track the man down some day and give him a lecture on hunting ethics if he couldn't talk McNulty into including the arrogant asshole in the indictment.

Lightstone had watched the man he knew as Walters quickly break open the double-barreled weapon and feed two heavy. 416 Rigby cartridges into the side-by-side chambers, which meant that he had two live rounds ready and available that he could use to put both animals out of their misery.

But the pompously arrogant hunter simply stood there, holding the outrageously expensive rifle against his hip, the still-smoking barrels pointed skyward. He shook his head.

"Too small. Not worth bothering about," he commented with an indifferent shrug, apparently having lost all interest in his prey as he reached down to pat Lisa Abercombie on the shoulder, congratulating her on her shot.

For a few long moments, Henry Lightstone watched as the severely injured female on the ground continued to thrash around while her crippled but still mobile companion struggled to put more distance between herself and the hunting party.

Then finally, out of pure revulsion, Lightstone brought the. 300 McMillan up to his shoulder with the intention of finishing off both animals, when Alex Chareaux's voice made him pause.

"No," Chareaux whispered as he came up beside Lightstone. "Not yet."

As Lightstone watched the crippled female elk stumble away, the two male hunters continued to hover around their own female companion, the Oriental offering his congratulations, while the other man-the ever-pompous Walters-made a show of rubbing her almost certainly bruised shoulder. Then, after a couple of minutes, all three of them walked over to Chareaux and Lightstone, their rifles in their hands.

"We'd like to move over toward those rocks," Reston Wolfe said to Chareaux, pointing toward a large pile of boulders about a half mile east of the clearing. "That's where your brothers saw the bear last night, right?"

"Yes, in that area," Chareaux nodded. "Go on ahead. We will check the kills and then be over there with you in a moment."

Chareaux waited until the three had gone about fifty yards. Then he walked over to the tree that Lisa Abercombie had used as a brace and poked around with a stick until he had located all four of the spent casings. After picking them up and slipping them into his jacket pocket, he waited again until the three hunters had disappeared from sight before he brought the small packset radio up to his mouth.

Moments later, a shot rang out from the general area where the buck had first emerged, and the staggering female elk dropped to the ground and lay still. A second shot, moments later, ended the agonized thrashing of the other one.

Lightstone couldn't tell one rifle shot from another, but he figured that the killing slugs would probably turn out to be from an old 7mm Winchester Model 70. The one that Alex Chareaux had given to his youngest brother, Butch, many years ago.

"You disapprove," Chareaux said, slipping the packset radio back into his jacket pocket as he came up beside Lightstone. The way he spoke the words, it was a statement, not a question.

"If I had ever let a cripple run like that when I was a kid, my grandfather would have taken out his razor strop and beaten me half to death," Lightstone said, aware that he was allowing some of his own background to merge into his Henry Allen Lightner persona.

"Yes, mine also. But I must tell you that most of my clients have had no such training. That is why I must be sure that my brother is always there with his rifle."

"But you waited," Lightstone said half-accusingly.

"The animals are there to be hunted. That is why they are put on this earth." Chareaux shrugged. "And besides, one must always be a businessman first," he added as if that explained everything.

Which it probably did to a cutthroat opportunist like Henry Allen Lightner, Lightstone thought, reminding himself to stay in character.

"So what was that last one, a five- or six-hundred-yard shot?" he asked, making a deliberate effort to shift the topic of conversation.

"Perhaps," Chareaux nodded. "Butch is capable of that, certainly."

At that moment, four quickly spaced shots rang out. Both Lightstone and Chareaux turned in time to see the pair of soaring golden eagles tumble through the sky in a burst of feathers before spinning down to the ground.

"I think, perhaps, that we should catch up with our clients," Chareaux said, "before they kill everything in the valley and draw too much attention to our little game."