Prey

Chapter Seventeen

"It's almost twenty to eight. We're going to be late," Butch Chareaux whispered to his brother, who nodded his head solemnly.

"Yes, I know," Alex Chareaux said as he continued to watch the bizarre ritual being carried out before his disbelieving eyes with a mixture of disgust and helpless frustration. "But they are the clients. There is nothing that we can do."

"But Lightner-" Butch Chareaux started to protest, but his brother waved him off.

"Lightner is no longer a problem," Alex Chareaux said firmly. "It is simply a matter of timing now. Before this night is gone, one way or the other, it will all be resolved."

Timing.

From the moment that Reston Wolfe had called to demand a change in their scheduled hunt, time had been a key factor in Alex Chareaux's planning, and a crucial element in providing a suitable demonstration for Wolfe and his incredibly wealthy new clients.

But now time had become the enemy because it had taken them much longer than Chareaux had anticipated to "find" the smaller female grizzly and set the scene so that Dr. Morito Asai could have his kill. Mostly because he and his brothers had overestimated the bear's weight when they had switched over from the maintenance doses of phenobar- bital to the controlling dose of the far more powerful but shorter-acting secobarbital.

As a result, it had been necessary for Butch Chareaux to spend almost half an hour poking and prodding the nearly unconscious bear-first with the barrel of his Model 70 Winchester and finally with an electric cattle prod-before he was able to get her out of the hidden cage. And even then it had taken another five minutes of increasingly powerful jolts from the prod before Butch Chareaux was finally able to force the terrified young bear up onto her weak and trembling legs, and then drive her through the forest into the fatal path of Dr. Morito Asai's one-hundred-and-twenty- five-thousand-dollar double-barreled rifle.

But having learned their lesson from the previous shooting incident involving their supposed new partner, Butch Chareaux was careful to stay behind the frantically stumbling bear and to duck down at the proper moment. And Alex Chareaux had been equally careful to place his trigger-happy clients in positions that gave them a clear field of fire with their expensive, high-powered weapons.

So as a result, the second grizzly kill had been quick and easy and relatively uneventful.

Which meant that they still should have had plenty of time to load the bull elk, the eagles, the two bears, Lightner, and their hunters into the two camouflaged pickup trucks, drive out onto the paved road, and get to the small town of Fishtail and the previously designated phone booth by eight o'clock that evening. Exactly as the three brothers had planned it all out in their Bozeman motel room after having received the unexpected call from Dr. Reston Wolfe less than ten hours ago.

But it wasn't working out that way.

And it could all be traced back to Reston Wolfe's damnable arrogance, Alex Chareaux decided.

Chareaux was irritated because Wolfe, in his predictably insolent and patronizing manner, had offered him and his brothers the possibility of riches beyond their wildest dreams. But in doing so, he had placed them in a position of having to face the necessity-and the inherent dangers-of taking on a partner like Henry Allen Lightner.

So in what little time that remained before Henry Allen Lightner would be landing at Bozeman Airport, Chareaux and his brothers had been forced to come up with a makeshift plan that just might enable them, within the space of eight short hours, to determine the true nature of their proposed new partner. But in setting up the quick demonstration hunt for Wolfe, and in laying out their carefully orchestrated timetable to reveal any flaws in the supposed background of Lightner, Alex Chareaux had failed to anticipate yet another critical factor that would bring his entire operation to a stumbling halt.

In this case, it was the ancient cultural traditions of Dr. Morito Asai.

"No, must take the gallbladders first. Very important," Asai had argued insistently when Butch Chareaux started to back the winch-mounted pickup truck up against the huge carcass of the male grizzly.

And then, before Alex or Butch Chareaux could do anything to stop him, Dr. Morito Asai had proceeded to sit himself down in front of the slain bear and cut into its belly with an incredibly sharp knife that looked like a miniature version of the samurai's traditional katana sword.

"What is he doing?" Butch Chareaux had demanded in a choked and disbelieving voice, but his brother had simply pulled him aside and told him to shut up, because their new clients had agreed to spend fifty thousand dollars a week on their illegal hunts, with a minimum guarantee of fifty weeks. And if earning two and a half million dollars meant that they would be forced to stand by while their insane clients cut open the stomachs of their bears and removed their gallbladders, then that was the way it would have to be.

"But the smell," Butch Chareaux had groaned, watching in dismay as the diminutive hunter reached into the grizzly's abdominal cavity with his bare arms and removed a bloody organ about the size of an Idaho potato. With the tip of the sharp blade, Asai cut a small slit in the gallbladder.

Working slowly and carefully so as not to spill the precious fluid, Asai poured a bit of the dark bile over a small, cup-sized bowl of rice. Then, after quickly placing the gallbladder in a self-sealing plastic bag, he proceeded to eat the soaked rice with a pair of chopsticks that he produced from the inner pocket of his hunting jacket.

Polite as always, Asai had offered to share this delicacy with his companions, but Reston Wolfe and Lisa Abercombie hurriedly declined, and the two Chareaux brothers simply pretended that they didn't understand.

Instead, they had continued to load their clients' expensive hunting gear back into the short-bed pickup with the camper shell. They used the sleeping bags and Henry Lightstone's limp body to cushion the two incredibly expensive Holland and Holland rifles until the weapons could be broken down, cleaned, and returned to the twenty-two-hundred-dollar mahogany cases that had been left in the helicopter.

Then, muttering to himself in words that he had first learned at the knee of his Cajun grandfather, Butch Chareaux helped his brother winch the larger bear into the back of the larger pickup truck. Dragging the half-ton animal up next to the carcass of the bull elk, he grunted as the smell of blood and severed intestines began to fill air.

They stood then in the twilight next to the camper shell, waiting for Dr. Asai to complete his ritual with the second bear.

"If we miss Sonny's call, what will we do with Henry?" Butch Chareaux asked as they watched Asai set the fresh bowl of rice down next to the smaller bear.

"If we miss the eight-o'clock call, Sonny knows to call again at ten. We will know then." Alex Chareaux shrugged with feigned indifference, not wanting Butch to know how badly he wanted to hear from their brother. How badly he wanted to know, one way or the other, before it was too late.

"But we have to be at Jacall's by ten. Do we take him there with us?"

"If necessary, we will take him to Jacall's and dispose of him there," Alex Chareaux told him, relieved to see that Dr. Asai was finally finished with the second bear.

"But the risk?"

"There are always risks, my brother." Alex Chareaux shrugged once more as he began walking toward the already overloaded pickup. "Come. If we hurry, perhaps we can still get to Fishtail by ten."