Prey

Chapter Twenty

Carl Scoby was still on the phone taking notes when he heard footsteps and then a knock on the door of his newly acquired Prime Rate motel room.

"Hold it a second. I've got company."

Rising slowly from the chair, a loaded and ready to fire. 45 SIG-Sauer automatic in his hand, Scoby-deputy supervisor of Paul McNulty's Special Operations team and the covert agent who invariably looked an awful lot like a cop-walked cautiously to the door and looked through the peephole.

Then, smiling in visible relief, he slipped the SIG-Sauer back into his shoulder holster. He quickly unlatched the chain bolt and opened the door.

"Thank God you're here," Scoby said, stepping aside as Paul MeNulty walked into the room carrying a suitcase and a field duffel bag. As MeNulty set the suitcase and bag next to the far bed, Carl Scoby closed and relocked the door behind him.

"What's going on?" MeNulty asked, alerted by the stress in his partner's voice. MeNulty had worked with Carl Scoby for over twelve years and had long considered him the most unflappable member of his covert team.

"I'm not sure," Scoby replied honestly, "but whatever it is, I don't like it. Hold on a second."

Scoby walked over to the small motel table, sat down and picked up the phone.

"It's MeNulty. He just walked in. Yeah, I think you should. Maybe it'll make some sense to him."

"Who is it?" MeNulty asked as he came over and sat down across from Scoby.

"Larry. He and Stoner spotted Sonny Chareaux in Bozeman a little over an hour ago. They've been tracking him all over the city ever since, just a second. Let me see if I can figure out how to switch this thing over to the speakerphone," Scoby said as he picked up the complex- looking telephone receiver.

"When did Mike get back?" MeNulty asked, noticing that the motel phone had been replaced with one of Mike Takahara's outwardly crude but highly sophisticated communications rigs.

"He hasn't. That's another part of the problem."

MeNulty blinked in surprise.

"'You mean he's still out at the airport with that goddamn plane?"

"We think he's still out there," Scoby corrected, gesturing with his head at the silent packset radio lying on the table. "But he hasn't responded to any of our radio calls, and we can't get anybody to answer at the airport manager's office."

"Christ! How long has he been out there?"

Scoby looked at his watch. "A little over four hours."

"It shouldn't have taken him that long," MeNulty said, shaking his head. "All he had to do was to borrow a maintenance uniform, walk out to the tarmac, look around a little bit, and then pop the door on the plane."

"Yeah, I know," Scoby nodded. "I was getting ready to have Stoner and Paxton cruise by, see if they could find out what he's doing. But then they called in saying that they'd spotted Sonny. I'll let Larry tell you about that." Scoby pushed the small recessed button marked "SP" and then set the com-rig back down on the table so that the speaker faced both him and McNulty. "Larry, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Larry Paxton acknowledged, his normally bass voice sounding even more deep and gravelly over the open speakerphone.

"Larry, I've got Paul sitting here next to me. You want to walk him through the situation with Sonny?"

"Yeah, no problem. Tell you the truth, Boss, we're not real sure what we have out here, other than one hell of a confused mess," Larry Paxton said. "What happened is that Stoner and I were out cruising Bozeman when we spotted Sonny as a gas station on Kagy Boulevard, parked next to an outside phone booth."

"How do you spell that?" McNulty asked as he set his ever-present notebook out on the table.

"K-a-g-y." It's one of the main cross streets at the south end of town."

"Any sign of Alex or Butch?"

"No, we didn't see either of them."

"Don't those three usually stick together on a hunt?" McNulty looked up at Scoby.

"As far as we know, that's the way they've always worked," Carl Scoby nodded.

"Larry, about what time did you spot Sonny?" McNulty asked, turning back to face the speakerphone.

"A little over two hours ago." Paxton paused to check his diary. "Make that nineteen thirty-nine hours exactly."

"What's he driving?"

"At the time, he was driving an old Chevy pickup. Red, short bed, no cover on the back. Montana plates. I gave Carl the description and the license number. But listen, before you start taking too many notes, you need to know that things have changed one hell of a lot since then."

"Okay, I'll hold off with the questions until you're finished," McNulty acknowledged. "Go ahead."

"Anyway, when we spotted him, it looked like he was waiting for a call, so we camped out across the street and staked him out. For about twenty minutes, he just sat there. Then, at exactly nineteen fifty-nine hours, he got out of the truck, went into the phone booth, and tried to make a phone call."

"You said tried?"

"Yeah. It looked like the phone was out of order. One thing for sure, it wasn't giving Sonny his money back. He must have put three or four quarters in the damn thing before he finally figured out it wasn't going to work."

"Brilliant," McNulty chuckled.

"Yeah, no shit. So while we're sitting there watching," Paxton went on, "and after he finishes pounding on the thing, all of a sudden he rips the handset right off the goddamn box. Then he runs back to his truck, takes off down the street and starts driving around like a fucking maniac, looking for another telephone booth."

"Got to be a check-in call," McNulty interpreted. "Sonny was supposed to check in with somebody-presumably Alex-at exactly eight o'clock."

"That's the way we read it," Paxton agreed. "So after about ten minutes, while we're trying to keep up with him without being spotted, he finally finds another phone booth at another gas station. Only trouble is, there's already somebody in this one."

McNulty looked over at Carl Scoby with a smile.

"Just wait, it gets better… or worse, depending on your point of view," Scoby said cryptically.

"Yeah, ain't that the truth?" Larry Paxton agreed. "So anyway, while Stoner and I are getting ourselves settled in across the street, Sonny jumps out of his truck, runs over to the phone booth, pounds on the door, and then yanks the poor son of a bitch right out of the booth when he doesn't move fast enough. They get in a hassle right off, but we figure Chareaux probably outweighed the guy by a good thirty pounds, which doesn't even begin to count his shit-ass disposition. So it doesn't take too long until the guy's laid out on the ground and Sonny's in the phone booth, only it just isn't his day, because he must have used up all his quarters at the other phone."

"Incredible," McNulty shook his head.

"Yeah," Paxton agreed. "Anyway, the next thing we know, Sonny's back on top of this guy and going through his pockets, and this time they really get into a hassle, except that Sonny must have been absolutely freaked about making that phone call, because he pulled out that fucking stainless-steel. 357 Ruger pistol of his and stuck it right in the guy's face. Which pretty much stopped the fight, but it didn't do Sonny any good, because the guy didn't have any more quarters either."

"So now we've got him on reckless driving, assault, carrying a concealed weapon, and attempted armed robbery, all on account of a simple check-in call," Scoby summarized.

"Right," Larry Paxton's voice echoed out through the small speaker, "which brings us right up to the point where the cop shows up."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," McNulty swore.

"Carl's been claiming that Stoner and I probably just went out to a bar, had a couple of beers, and then made up all this shit," Paxton chuckled, "but I told him no way. Neither one of us has got that kind of imagination."

"Did they take him in?" McNulty asked, thinking that if Sonny Chareaux was now in custody, there just might be a way to find out if he knew anything about Len Ruebottom. Especially if the guy in the phone booth was willing to press charges.

"No, not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly? What the hell happened?"

"Well, when Sonny looked up and saw those red and blue lights, he did just about what you'd expect a good ol' coon- ass swamp boy from Terrebonne Parish to do, which was to crank off six rounds right through the cop's windshield."

"He shot at the cop?"

"That's right. And then, while the cop is trying to figure how he can hide under the seat and drive and scream into his radio mike all at the same time, Sonny takes off for the hills."

"On foot?"

"Oh, yeah. Left his truck sitting at the gas station with empty. 357 casings scattered all over the place."

"Any idea where he is now?" McNulty asked hopefully.

"We got lucky," Paxton said. "We were checking out the bars and spotted him in a place called the Cat's Paw. He's sitting in the back, about six feet away from the public phone. And from the look on his face, he's planning to rip the head off of anybody who tries to get near the thing. I'm right across the street from there now. Stoner's inside, keeping an eye on him."

"Has he made any calls yet?"

"No, we don't think so," Paxton said. "He went to the phone once, but we think he was just making sure he was going to get a dial tone this time. Probably… uh, hold it a second."

There was a long pause. Then Paxton was back on the phone.

"That was Stoner," he said. "Sonny's still sitting in the back of the bar, only now he's got a pile of quarters, a set of car keys, and a piece of paper laying out on the table. He also said that Sonny keeps looking at his watch about every thirty seconds, like he's afraid he's gonna forget what time it is.

McNulty looked down at his stainless-steel Rolex watch.

"It's ten minutes to ten," he said. "Sonny was supposed to check in at eight o'clock, but he screwed up, so now he's waiting until ten o'clock to try again."

"That makes sense," Scoby said. "If he's trying to call Alex while they're on a hunt, you can pretty well figure that they've got alternate check-in times and phone numbers all worked out."

"Yeah, Stoner said he'll get the phone numbers for us if we want."

"How the hell's he going to do that?" MeNulty demanded.

"Take a guess."

MeNulty hesitated. "You really think he can do it?"

"Sonny Chareaux's a big, mean boy," Paxton chuckled, "but I'll put my money on Stoner any day."

"I think he'd better hold off until we have a better idea of what's going on," Carl Scoby advised. "We could really screw things up for Henry if Alex starts thinking that there's something strange going on in Bozeman."

"Yeah, I agree," MeNulty nodded. "Larry, what about those keys? You think he's going to go back for his truck?"

"No, I don't," Paxton said. "I don't think those are his truck keys. We listened in on the local police advisory, which reported he'd left his keys in the truck."

"How far away from the Cat's Paw is his truck?" MeNulty asked.

"Other end of town. Long way to hike."

"So he probably has another vehicle stashed somewhere," MeNulty calculated, looking at the map of Bozeman that Scoby had spread out across the table.

"It's probably one of those in the lot next to the bar, but that's one hell of a big parking lot. Must be at least thirty or forty vehicles in there right now. And about half of them are pickups."

"You know what I'm thinking, don't you?"

"If Alex had everybody holed up in a motel anywhere near Bozeman, then this idiot wouldn't be running around trying to find a phone?" Larry Paxton suggested.

"That's right," MeNulty nodded. "So I figure they're either camped out in the woods or sleeping in their cars."

"Which is also consistent with their standard operating procedure," Scoby added.

"That part is, but what about this business of them splitting up? Presumably Henry's out on a hunt right now with Alex and Butch, but why would Alex leave Sonny in Bozeman?"

"To follow Henry into Gardiner, make sure he didn't have any backup. Those guys are sure as hell paranoid enough to do that," Scoby said.

"But Henry didn't have a backup, unless Ruebottom decided to tag along, so there wouldn't have been anything for Sonny Chareaux to see, right?" McNulty asked.

"No way Henry'd let Ruebottom do something like that," Larry Paxton's deep voice echoed in the room. "No fucking way. He gets pissed off every time Stoner and I try to give him some cover on a buy."

"We keep coming back to that point," McNulty said. "The thing is, maybe Ruebottom did it anyway, and stayed far enough back that Henry never saw him. That would explain why you guys can't find him around here. Ruebottom's supposed to be a sharp pilot. Far as any of us know, he could have aced the surveillance course at Glynco. Maybe he's sitting in Gardiner right now drinking a beer and waiting for Henry to show up at the motel so he can get out ahead of him and meet him back at the airport."

"He's doing something like that, next In-Service I'm gonna take his fucking head off," Larry Paxton growled.

"Yeah, but even if that is what happened, that was what, six, seven hours ago?" Scoby protested. "Hell, even if Ruebottom did follow Henry into Gardiner on his own, and Sonny was right on his ass all the way, all Sonny had to do was drive over to the Best Western and tell Alex all about it right there. End of story."

"So then why the hell is Sonny Chareaux acting like he's panicked out of his mind over a routine check-in call?" McNulty demanded.

"According to the wardens in Louisiana, Sonny's supposed to be the least emotional of the three brothers," Carl Scoby reminded. "Far as they know, the only thing he's afraid of is Alex, which, I suppose, could explain the situation. But still… oh, shit," Scoby suddenly whispered.

"What's the matter?" McNulty demanded.

"What if it isn't routine?"

"I don't follow."

"We've been assuming all along that it has to be a routine check-in because of the timing. But what if it's not? What if Sonny snapped up Ruebottom at the airport, had him stashed away somewhere, and seven hours later finally managed to break him down? So now he knows for sure that Henry's an agent and he's trying to warn Alex before it's too late?"

McNulty continued to stare at his assistant team leader while the room went deathly silent.

"But since Alex and Butch are out in the field with Henry, the only way Sonny can warn Alex is to wait for one of their prearranged check-in calls when the hunt's over," Scoby went on. "Eight o'clock at a certain number. And if he misses that one, go to the next number at ten."

McNulty looked down at his watch again. Twenty-one fifty-two hours. Eight minutes until ten o'clock.

"If that's the situation, we can't let him make that call," Scoby said.

"Yeah, but if it really is just a check-in, and Sonny doesn't want to get Alex pissed off, and Ruebottom's sitting on his ass drinking beer in Gardiner, then we don't dare get in his way," Larry Paxton's deep, raspy voice interrupted. "If we screw around with Sonny now, Alex is gonna get suspicious and we're gonna blow Henry right out of the water."

"But, Christ, Larry, who the hell's gonna open up on a patrol unit over a goddamn routine check-in?" Carl Scoby objected.

"Nobody with any brains, but this is Sonny Chareaux we're talking about," Paxton countered. "Far as I'm concerned, the man never did start out with a full deck."

McNulty turned around to face the speakerphone again and spoke quickly. "Larry, who's closer to the airport, you or us?"

"Uh, you are, but not by much."

"You think you and Stoner can delay him from making that call without making him suspicious?"

"We could stop him," Paxton said in his low Southern drawl, "but I don't know about delaying him. Way he was acting back at that gas station, I figure anybody who tries to keep him away from that phone around ten o'clock is probably going to start a riot."

"I've got to know more about Len Ruebottom and that plane," McNulty said, forcing himself to stay calm. "If Carl's right…"He looked over at Scoby. "You got a car?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Get out to the airport, right now. Take one of the scrambled radios with you. Soon as you find Mike, and find out what the hell's going on with that plane, get on the air and-"

At that moment, the scrambled packset radio on the table gave out a weak squawk.

Carl Scoby grabbed up the radio and quickly moved over to the window. "Sierra Oscar Two, repeat that last transmission."

"Sierra Oscar Two, this is Sierra Oscar Five," Mike Takahara said, his voice sounding hollow and distant over the small packet speaker. "Where the hell are you guys?"

"We had to move. We're over at the Prime Rate."

"Okay, I'll be there in about five or ten-"

"No, no time," Scoby interrupted. "Listen, Paxton and Stoner located Sonny Chareaux in Bozeman."

"Where?"

"In a bar called the Cat's Paw. Right now he's sitting next to a telephone and looking real anxious. We think he's waiting for twenty-two hundred hours to check in with Alex."

"Shit, don't let him do that!"

McNulty came over to the window and took the radio from Scoby. "Mike, this is Paul. What's the matter?"

"They've got Ruebottom for sure, and they're fucking serious," Takahara said. "They wired the damn plane. Took me four hours but I finally got in."

"What?"

"Never mind, it's a long story. I'll fill you in later," Takahara said quickly. "What you need to know right now is that there's blood all over the inside of that plane, and the cabin's torn to shit."

"How much blood?" McNulty demanded.

"Not that much," Takahara said. "Looked like nose and mouth stuff to me. Not enough in any one spot to indicate a serious knife wound or a gunshot. What I think happened is that Len and Sonny got into one hell of a fight inside that plane, and Sonny won."

"Anybody see him leave with Ruebottom?"

"No, but there was an empty bag for a ten-by-twenty painter's tarp and a mostly used roll of duct tape in the cabin. It would have been easy to wrap him up and haul him out of there like a piece of baggage."

"What about the bomb? How did he rig it?"

"First guy who opens the passenger door pulls a nylon cord that shuts a switch and touches off fifteen sticks of engineering-grade dynamite. That should have been plenty, but I guess Sonny wanted to be sure, because he stuck about a dozen five-gallon cans of aviation gas all around the cabin as an accelerator."

"Christ!"

"Yeah, he was probably trying to make it look like some kind of accident. But one way or another, he wasn't planning on leaving us much in the way of evidence."

Paul McNulty looked down at his watch. Twenty-one fifty-six hours. Four minutes until ten. He turned to face the speakerphone.

"Larry-"

"Never mind, I heard it," Paxton said, standing in the phone booth, the phone against one ear and a small, scrambled packset radio against the other. "What do we do?"

"Try to maintain your covers as long as you can," MeNulty ordered. "But whatever you guys do, don't let that bastard make that call!"

Something about a phone call. I think they missed it.

The words had been echoing in the back of Henry Lightstone's mind for the past half hour while he drifted in and out of consciousness. He felt disoriented by the darkness, confused by the intermittent bouncing, and savagely torn by the pain.

It was the terrible odor that hit him first. A feral stench born of matted hair, gamey urine, and perforated intestines, a stench that threatened to completely overwhelm his senses. He moved one of his hands and discovered something that he finally identified as an antler.

It took him a few moments before he remembered being chased by the huge grizzly. Then he remembered the bear's powerful claws slashing through the back of his shirt, and the gunfire.

But he couldn't understand where the antlers had come from until he was able to move his hand another six inches and felt the large, stiff feathers of an eagle. Finally the fragments of his memory began to pull together again.

The eagles, the bull elk, the wounded does, the bear. It was all coming back to him now. The terrifying helicopter, the double-barreled rifles, and the men who wouldn't take the time to kill their own cripples.

Bastards, he thought.

It took a few more agonizing movements before Lightstone was able to figure out that he was lying in the back of a pickup truck and that someone-presumably Alex and Butch Chareaux-had shoved him in between the bodies of the two bears.

Like one more carcass to be disposed of after the hunt was over, he thought, finding the idea amusing for some incomprehensible reason as his mind started to drift again, reaching out for the darkness and the soothing, painless sanctuary of unconsciousness.

A screen door slammed, and he heard voices.

"Alex, Butch," someone said cheerfully. "It is good to see you both. I was worried-"

"Has Sonny called yet?" Alex Chareaux demanded.

"Sonny? No, I have not heard from him at all today."

"He should be calling here very soon," Chareaux said insistently. "At ten o'clock. It is important that I speak to him."

"It is almost ten now. Come inside. Join me in a glass of wine, and we will wait for his call. Ah," the man said, slapping his hand on the tarpaulin-covered edge of the truck bed, "I see that you do have some work for me after all."

"Two grizzlies, a bull elk, and a pair of eagles," Alex Chareaux said, the tension in his voice seeming to ease now that he knew he hadn't missed his brother's call. "They will make nice trophies."

"I can only assume, of course, that you have all the necessary papers?"

"But of course," Alex Chareaux chuckled. "These are for the clients I told you about. The very wealthy ones with the many wealthy friends. So the mounts, they must be superb. They expect nothing less, and they will pay twice your normal rate for your best work."

Taxidermy, Lightstone realized.

"In that case, we will open a special bottle tonight, and we will not look so closely at your papers," the man declared grandly. "Come in now, we will talk. You can put the truck in the warehouse. We will unload it later."

"Back the truck into the warehouse," Alex Chareaux instructed, "and use his hoist to put the carcasses in the cooler. I want to be in the house when Sonny calls."

"What about Lightner?" Butch Chareaux asked.

"Is he awake?"

"I will see," Butch Chareaux untied the rope at the corner of the truck bed next to the driver's side door, pulled back the edge of the tarp, and looked in. He reached in, fumbled around for a few seconds, then turned to his brother and shook his head as he replaced the tarp corner and retied the rope.

"He is alive, but his pulse is weak and he is very cold. I think that, very soon, we will not have to worry about him anymore."

"Then just leave him in the truck," Alex Chareaux ordered, shrugging indifferently. "Once Sonny calls and tells us about the pilot, we will know for sure what to do. If Lightner is already dead by then, we will bury him in the woods."

Silence.

"Something is wrong?"

"I was thinking that maybe we are worried about the wrong people," Butch Chareaux said quietly. "Maybe we should be more concerned about our new clients."

"Why do you say that?"

"I watched Lightner with the bear today," Butch Chareaux shrugged. "He did not act as I had expected."

"Yes?"

"When things went wrong, he faced the bear with courage. He had the opportunity to turn and run, but instead, he went forward and drew its charge to you and the others."

"Perhaps all the more reason to think that he is not the man he claims to be," Alex Chareaux suggested.

"It was strange," Butch Chareaux continued, a distant look in his cold eyes. "But when he stood there out in the open, facing the bear, he reminded me of the time when you were sixteen and you stood up to Beebee Fontaine and killed him with your knife when he caught us stealing his 'gators. Perhaps Henry is just a crazy person like many other people we know. Like us, even?"

"And the others?" Alex Chareaux asked.

"You saw how they reacted when they realized that one of their bullets hit Lightner. They wanted to get away. It was only the lure of the second bear that kept them there. Of the three," Butch Chareaux snorted contemptuously, "I think the woman was more of a man."

"So you think it is too much a risk to take their money?"

"They can make us rich, but I think they would turn on us instantly if they thought it necessary in order to save themselves," Butch Chareaux nodded. "Of this Henry Lightner, I am not so sure."

Alex Chareaux began to say something when a phone stared to ring in the nearby house.

"That must be Sonny," he said. "Take the truck into the warehouse and then come in. I think we will soon know exactly how to deal with our new partner."