Prey

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Monday September 13th

Henry Lightstone and Marie Pascalaura ended up with almost an hour and a half to kill before their long-awaited flight to Anchorage. They had been sitting quietly next to each other in the main concourse of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, holding hands and lost in their own daydreams, when Lightstone suddenly felt a momentary wave of fear that seemed terrifying familiar.

Jarred by the sensation, but too self-controlled to give in to panic, he remained absolutely still in his seat.

"Henry, are you all right?" Marie asked in a calm and quiet voice. She had been startled by the sudden tension in Henry's arm. Her hand slid gently over to his wrist, casually feeling for his pulse. He started to tell her that he was fine, that there was nothing to worry about.

"Henry? What is it?"

"I don't know," he said softly, forcing himself to relax as his trained eyes began to scan the crowded concourse once again, searching for the one object, or entity, or thing that had jarred him to attention. He checked his watch, noting that it was eleven twenty-five, West Coast Time, and that they had forty-five minutes before it would be time to board another plane for the third time that morning.

Forty-five minutes, he nodded in satisfaction. Plenty of time to get up and stretched his stiffened leg muscles, pick up a local newspaper, grab a cup of coffee, find a rest room, and spot a killer.

Still willing himself to relax, Lightstone closed his eyes for a brief moment, taking in and releasing a deep breath. Then he forced himself to turn his head slowly and scan the immediate terminal area for one more time, continuing to search for the out-of-place element-a person, an article, whatever it was-that had jarred his mental alarms.

There were a lot of factors to be considered, Lightstone reminded himself. The real bad ones were rarely stupid enough to try to take someone out in a public place. Especially if that someone was likely to be armed. Far better to run the tail, maintain a reasonable distance, and watch for the opportune moment.

"Listen," he said quietly, "don't look around, but I think there may be somebody here in the concourse watching us."

Marie Pascalaura's eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment, but she was alert and thoughtful enough not to move her head.

"Watching us? Why?"

"I don't know," Lightstone shrugged easily. "It happens occasionally. Somebody you worked on a few years back spots you in a public place, wants to make sure it really is you, and then maybe sticks around just to see what you're doing."

That was one of the built-in hazards of working covert investigations, Lightstone thought as he continued to scan every adult male in the SEA-TAC main concourse, searching for a face out of his past. A face to justify that ever-present edge of self-serving paranoia that you never quite escaped when you worked undercover.

"I thought you said you didn't have to worry about that sort of thing anymore," Marie Pascalaura said softly.

"I didn't think I did. The U.S. of A. is a hell of a lot bigger than San Diego County."

"Oh."

Presumably a familiar face, Lightstone told himself reassuringly. Male, most likely, because through his entire law-enforcement career, he could remember working only two women sufficiently aggressive and dangerous to worry about. So figure twenty-five to forty, with a vindictive personality. And considering his current occupation, maybe even a hunter. Which would make it male, white, middle-aged, tough, and deadly.

Wonderful, Lightstone thought as he continued to scan the sea of faces moving back and forth beneath the large, internally illuminated blue sign that directed people to the "C", "D" and "N" terminals.

"Are we in danger?" Marie Pascalaura asked, trying not to react to the goose bumps crawling on her arms and the cold chill starting to travel down the back of her neck.

"No, I don't think so." Lightstone shook his head. "An airport's too public, too many witnesses."

"Too many witnesses for what?" she whispered, but Lightstone ignored her as he continued his scan of the concourse.

Then it occurred to her. "Do you have your gun with you?" she whispered.

"No."

"Where is it?"

"Packed away in one of the suitcases."

"Oh, great."

"It doesn't matter." Lightstone shrugged with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Nobody's going to be stupid enough to try something with a gun in a major airport like this."

"So what are we supposed to do, just sit here and wait for this character to show his face?" she asked after a long minute went by.

"Until I can get a better idea of who or what and where, that's exactly what we're going to do," Lightstone said emphatically.

Which wasn't going to be easy, he thought to himself, because the huge main concourse of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was literally teeming with groups of energetic and self-assertive white males of every age and description.

Lightstone's trained eyes had been categorizing them with almost monotonous ease during the half hour that he and Marie had been sitting there daydreaming. He'd done it mostly out of habit and amusement, because he'd been mildly bored then, even though he thoroughly enjoyed sitting next to Marie's warm body and holding her hand.

But he wasn't bored now.

"This is crazy," Marie Pascalaura said quietly.

"Yeah, I know," Lightstone nodded as he absentmindedly stroked a relaxed hand along his girlfriend's tensed arm, vaguely aware that they had switched roles: he was starting to relax, while she was becoming increasingly nervous and uneasy.

Eventually his eyes returned to the group of four men and one woman waiting in line to pass through one of the metal detectors that led into the "C" concourse, where he and Marie would be catching their Alaska Airlines flight. He realized that they were the ones who had caught his attention when he first felt that warning tug from his subconscious. He'd ignored them at first, because he was absolutely certain that he'd never seen any of them before. But this was the third time now that his attention had been drawn back to them. Two members of the group, the woman and one of the men, were Oriental-possibly Japanese, he guessed-and three were Caucasian, one of whom looked vaguely European, although Lightstone wasn't sure why he thought so. All of them were casually dressed in jeans and short- sleeved shirts. And all were carrying traveling bags that would easily fit in the overhead rack or under the seat in front.

"Do you see anybody?"

"I'm not sure," Lightstone said. "Maybe."

He watched the group more closely as it moved forward in the long line. As far as Lightstone could tell, the only visual element that set these five apart from all the other nameless entities wandering around the airport terminal was a pair of hiking boots worn by one of the white males.

From a distance of about twenty feet, the boots looked like they were made of a dark-gray leather with a rough, grainy texture that seemed vaguely familiar.

"Listen," he said quietly, "I'm going to get up and walk around for a couple of minutes."

"Why?"

"Just to move around a little bit, see what happens."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Good as any," Lightstone shrugged as his eyes continued to scan the concourse.

"Mind if I come with you?"

Marie Pascalaura was not a timid or fearful woman. But she knew Henry Lightstone well enough by now to be thoroughly unnerved by the idea that someone or something in the concourse had spooked her certifiably crazy and seemingly fearless special-agent lover.

"Probably better if you didn't." Lightstone shook his head. "You'll be a lot safer sitting right here, where I can keep an eye on you."

"But what about you?"

"I'll be fine, too. I just want to check something out."

Bothered and encouraged at the same time by the fact that there was something oddly familiar about those boots, Lightstone got up and walked over to a nearby row of newspaper boxes. There he fed a quarter and a dime into the slots, pulled out a paper, folded it under his arm, and began walking in a circuitous route that ultimately took him past the group of four men and a woman waiting in line.

After pausing to look at an oddly twisted piece of sculpture, he wandered back to his seat with a relaxed smile on his face.

"Ceratotherium simum," he said to Marie as he settled back into his chair, feeling more relaxed now.

"Cera what?"

"Ceratotherium simum," Lightstone repeated. "That's the scientific name for white rhino."

"You think that we're being watched by a white rhino?" Marie Pascalaura asked suspiciously.

"No, not watched. More like we just happened to cross paths." Lightstone winked. "No big deal."

"I see," Marie nodded skeptically.

Probably a felony because the boots looked brand new, Lightstone told himself, vaguely proud of his knowledge of wildlife parts and products. But even so, he wasn't about to arrest someone for wearing a pair of rhino-hide boots. Not today anyway, he smiled, watching casually as the group shuffled up to the baggage-screening area. They stood just under the split-view overhead TV monitor that showed the two X-ray scanner screens and the flow of people through the two rectangular metal detectors.

Then, as Lightstone blinked in surprise, two of the men in the group did something completely unexpected.

Walking around to the side of the hand-carry X-ray unit, they casually displayed small, black-leather badge cases to the security officer standing in front of the walk-through metal detector. Then, as Lightstone continued to watch, all five of them walked around the side of the X-ray machine, past the metal scanner, and proceeded to the desk of the "C"-concourse duty officer, where they presented their three-page forms.

"Well, I'll be damned," Lightstone whispered.

"What is it?" Marie Pascalaura asked.

"I think I just figured out what it was that jarred my antennas. The five people I pointed out to you are cops."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive that at least two of them are," Lightstone nodded. The other three members of a group took the yellow and pink copies of their forms back, then picked up their bags and started walking down toward the "C" concourse.

"I'm pretty sure the other three are carrying concealed weapons, but I'm not sure that they're any kind of law- enforcement officers," Lightstone added.

"How do you know that?"

"They were careful to walk around the metal detector, as if they didn't want to set it off. But then they didn't show the security guards any badges. That's the first thing you've got to do when you try to bypass the screening system," he explained. "Otherwise, everybody gets real upset."

"Who would they let on an airplane carrying a gun except a cop?" Marie asked curiously.

"I don't know," Lightstone shrugged. "Maybe drug dealers, snitches, CIA agents, terrorists, people like that."

Marie Pascalaura stared at him for another long moment. "Anybody ever tell you that you've got a warped imagination?" she finally asked.

"Just about every supervisor I ever had," Lightstone admitted.

"Are you sure you're mentally fit to get married?"

Henry Lightstone blinked in surprise and then smiled. "You mean you changed your mind?"

"Not necessarily," Marie Pascalaura hedged as she stood up and reached for her carry-on bag. "Let's see if anybody starts shooting at us before we get on that plane. We probably ought to worry about getting married after we get to Anchorage."

"I just talked to the pilot," Shoshin Watanabe said as he watched the attractive woman on the other side of the security check stretch to give her boyfriend a long, lingering kiss. "The plane is refueled and ready to go."

"How much time?" Gerd Maas grunted as he dropped his carry-on bag next to his expensive rhino-skin boots. He stared out through the window at the approaching private jet that they would be boarding. The pilot had received special permission to pick up passengers at the Horizon gate while the plane was being refueled for the long flight.

Standing beside his team leader, Shoshin Watanabe continued to watch Marie Pascalaura and Henry Lightstone as they picked up their carry-on bags and walked to the end of the security check-in line. Typical Americans, he thought. No sense of shame when it came to fondling each other in public.

Then he looked down at his watch and smiled. "In about four minutes," he said, "it will all begin."