Prey

Chapter Forty-Six

"All right!"

"Yes, sir. Way to go, FBI!"

The sight of the man in the FBI raid jacket taking out Gunter Aben in two quick shots brought a rousing cheer from Larry Paxton and the Louisiana wildlife sergeant, the only two, apparently, with enough breath or energy to yell.

After verifying that Carine Mueller and Gunter Aben were dead and that no more ICER counterterrorists were in the immediate area, the raid team pulled together into a defensive position and began to treat their wounded.

As they did so, the pulsing alarm and the flashing-red warning lights suddenly went out, leaving the area illuminated only by the pale yellow glow of the battery- powered emergency lights.

"What the hell's going on now?" Larry Paxton demanded, but Henry Lightstone and the others just shrugged, intent only upon finding Alex Chareaux, the infamous Gerd Maas, and whoever else remained of his counterterrorist team.

Then, as the seemingly impatient blue-jacketed figure followed them from the catwalk above, Henry Lightstone, Larry Paxton, Gary Brickard, and the Louisiana sergeant slowly and cautiously moved forward into the mock forest of the mountain cabin simulation area.

They left behind the remaining Louisiana officer-who had caught a 9mm round in the knee from Gunter Aben's last flurry-to stay with his far more severely wounded buddy and to provide rear-guard support.

Spreading out and moving as carefully and quietly as they could through the amazingly lifelike concrete and plastic trees, brush and rock, the four men never saw Kimiko Osan pop out of the concealed trapdoor, and were aware of her presence only when she opened up on Brickard and the Louisiana sergeant with a burst of 5.56mm rounds from her laser-sighted Colt Commando submachine gun.

Both men went down, and Kimiko Osan was running for her next position when a concussive ka-boom! echoed throughout the cavernous simulation area. The impact of the. 44 round sent the small, young, and incredibly fast counterterrorist tumbling to the floor as her laser-sighted weapon clattered away in the semidarkness.

"Nice shot, buddy," Gary Brickard, the veteran gunny sergeant muttered, grateful for the overhead cover as he quickly set his M-16 aside and knelt down beside the groaning Louisiana sergeant-vaguely aware of the pain in his lower hip from the one 9mm round that he hadn't absorbed with his vest-and began to apply a field dressing to the wildlife officer's shattered upper thigh.

Ka-boom!

Ka-boom! Ka-boom!

The first. 44 bullet caught Master Gunnery Sergeant Gary Brickard full in the lower throat just above his vest and smashed him back into the trunk of a concrete tree. The second and third bullets exploded chunks of concrete off of an adjoining tree trunk just above Larry Paxton's rapidly ducking head as Henry Lightstone recovered and sent a half-dozen 10mm rounds up at the blue-jacketed figure, who immediately twisted back behind one of the armored glass panels that had been installed to protect observers from an accidently deflected round.

"What the hell?" Larry Paxton screamed…

Ka-boom! Ka-boom! Ka-booml

… and then dove behind a much larger concrete trunk as Paul Saltmann took advantage of his overhead position to come around to the edge of an armored glass panel and send three more. 44 rounds streaking down at the two scrambling figures.

Dumping the expended casings and pulling a heavy speed-loader out of his jacket pocket as he ran forward to the end of the walkway where it extended out over the middle of the "forested" simulation area, Paul Saltmann quickly reloaded and extended the powerful handgun around the edge of another glass panel in a two-handed grip. He fired two rounds down at the fleeing figure of Gerd Maas, and three more at Henry Lightstone, who was unsuccessfully trying to shoot back up through the armored glass at the silhouette of Paul Saltmann.

The ear protectors that Paul Saltmann wore were more effective than he realized, and it was only the clattering sound of a. 44 brass casing knocked by Dwight Stoner's single crutch that made him spin around and trigger off one more concussive round.

The stunning impact of the. 44 round sent Dwight Stoner staggering backward, knocking the. 45 SIG-Sauer out of his hand and down into the concrete-and-plastic forest as his wrist struck the leading edge of one of the armored glass panels.

Paul Saltmann was certainly aware that the raiding agents were likely to be wearing vests capable of stopping the penetration of his. 44 expanding bullets, and he was skilled enough with his deadly weapon to have gone for a head shot every time. But he also knew that the center of the body was the easiest shot, and that his hand-loaded rounds really did hit like a freight train. The impacts were so devastating that no one had ever gotten back up from one of his shots, anyway.

Thus the fact that Dwight Stoner was still standing after being shot from only twenty feet away shocked Paul Saltmann so thoroughly that for the first time in his professional life, he actually tried to fire a seventh round from a six-shot revolver.

The loud click! of the firing pin striking the base of the empty casing jolted Saltmann back to reality, and his right hand dropped down to his jacket pocket for another speed-loader as he broke open the heavy cylinder of the revolver and dumped the casings…

"Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhh!"

"No!"

… and then both Saltmann and Stoner screamed in rage as the ex-tackle for the Oakland Raiders threw aside his crutch and lunged forward into a bruising heads-up tackle that sent both men crashing through the gap in the armored glass panels and falling to the concrete-treed floor far below.

Lightstone and Paxton saw the two bodies plummet toward the trees, and both men started to run forward when a mechanical figure suddenly swung around one of the massive tree trunks and fired three rounds straight into the middle of Larry Paxton's fire-fighting jacket.

Caught off guard and wincing against the shock he should have felt, Paxton blinked and then looked down at the three bright yellow splotches of paint in the center of his chest.

"Whaaat?"

"Robotic simulators. Ignore them," Lightstone said as they began to move through the concrete trees again, heading toward the clearing where Dwight Stoner and Paul Saltmann lay sprawled facedown.

They had taken only ten steps when the next simulator came around the tree to Paxton's right and fired three more shots.

The first impact left a bright yellow spot on the black agent's muscular upper arm. The second shattered both bones in his forearm, causing him to drop his SIG-Sauer. The third caught him just as he was turning away, so that the bullet went under his vest from the side, tearing into the muscle and fatty tissue of his stomach.

"Shit!" Larry Paxton screamed, rolling away and fumbling for his lost SIG-Sauer as two more simulators popped up behind a nearby bush.

Snarling with rage, Henry Lightstone dropped both simulators with head shots before they could fire off a single round, started toward Paxton, saw three more simulators come around trees and dropped all three in a series of movements that were pure instinct before he managed to roll away behind a protective concrete tree trunk.

Looking down at his jacket, he saw a single yellow paint splotch in the center of his chest.

"Larry, you okay?" he hissed.

"Ain't good, but I'm okay," the shaken agent responded.

"Listen, don't move. These things respond to movement, and they're programmed to go for the center of mass."

"Ah ain't moving nowhere," Larry Paxton promised. "You just get that sucker."

"All right. Stay there, and I'll-"

"Are you enjoying my interesting game, Agent Lightner?" the cold, mocking voice, magnified by the overhead speakers, boomed out through the cavernous simulation area. "The real bullets are loaded randomly. Even I do not know the order in which they will be fired."

"Maas?" Lightstone called out, having no idea of where the man was.

"Yes, of course. I waited for you because I knew you would come."

"I didn't come here to play games, Maas," Lightstone responded as he started to move forward, out of the corner of his eye saw the simulators coming, put 10mm rounds between both sets of mechanical eyes and got behind the next tree trunk without getting any more yellow splotches on his chest.

"Z ehr gut! You improve!" the booming voice chuckled.

"Maas," Lightstone yelled out, "My name is Lightstone. Henry Lightstone. I'm a federal agent, and you're under arrest. Come out with your hands up."

"Ah, but you are wrong, my friend. You cannot arrest me, because I have done nothing wrong that you can prove."

"Maas, this is not a game!"

"Don't be foolish. Of course it is a game. And you must play it, or I will come and kill all of your friends."

"Take him, man. Don't let that jive-ass fuck with you," Larry Paxton whispered shakily, his face streaked with sweat as he carefully tried to get a grip on his recovered SIG-Sauer with his injured left hand.

There was a long pause, and then the booming voice echoed through the public address system once again.

"Perhaps I should make it more interesting, yes?"

Looking out around the side of the cabin, Gerd Maas opened the razor-sharp folding knife that he had taken away from Alex Chareaux and tossed it between the legs of the bound and furiously thrashing Louisiana poacher.

Staring at the white-haired assassin through deeply reddened eyes, Chareaux grabbed the knife with his bound hands, then cut away the rope that tied him to the concrete tree.

Coming up to his feet, Alex Chareaux glared at Maas with a fury that promised death. But Gerd Maas held up the, 22-caliber target pistol in his hand and shook his head.

"The man out there is named Henry Lightstone. He and his friends are the undercover agents who killed your brothers."

Alex Chareaux blinked, then turned to stare out into the darkened concrete-and-plastic forest before turning back to stare at Maas with a hatred that had not diminished at all.

"No, you must deal with him first," Maas said, shaking his head slowly. "Then it can be you and me."

For a brief moment, it appeared as if Alex Chareaux would go straight for Maas anyway. But he looked around at the darkened forest again, grinned madly, then turned and disappeared.

Smiling in anticipation, Gerd Maas reached for the microphone one last time.

"It is Alex, Henry. He comes for you now."

Lightstone saw Alex Chareaux charging through the trees and reacted instinctively, moving forward with the 10mm Smith amp; Wesson in both hands.

The first two shots were paint to his chest; then suddenly Lightstone found himself surrounded by simulators that popped up from behind rocks and bushes and swung around trees. Lightstone kept on moving, turning and firing, sensing the thumps of two more paint balls, then staggering under the impact of a. 357 hollow-point against his vest. An incredibly fast simulator suddenly popped up out of a concealed "trapdoor spider" hole and was stopped by the last two 10mm bullets out of Henry Lightstone's pistol. Then Alex Chareaux lunged out of the trees like a nightmare, the razor-sharp knife slicing at Lightstone's exposed leg.

Gerd Maas stepped out into the clearing with the. 22 target pistol in his hand, waiting to see which of the two would eventually come forward: his prey. He smiled as the two men thrashed and screamed and grunted, fighting for their lives in the simulated darkness.

So absorbed was he that Gerd Maas almost didn't see Dwight Stoner slowly bring his muscular hands to his side and steadily push himself up into a crouched position in the middle of the clearing.

As Gerd Maas watched in fascination, the huge agent somehow managed to get himself into a fully upright, though shaky, position.

From thirty feet away, Gerd Maas could see, and even feel, Stoner's determination as the ex-Oakland Raider started forward, and he smiled as his mind went back to the moment when the mother Kodiak had first begun her determined but inevitably futile charge.

Maas was smiling when, from twenty feet away, he sent the first. 22-caliber bullet into the kneecap of Stoner's already crippled left leg, causing the huge agent to crash to the floor with a hiss of suppressed pain and rage.

Maas was still smiling, his eyes gleaming with the sensory rush, as Dwight Stoner started to pull himself back up, his eyes fixed on the face of the man he fully intended to take apart with his powerful bare hands, if he could ever get close enough.

The second. 22 projectile shattered Stoner's right kneecap, and he crashed to the floor again. The sole sound in the entire chamber was that of Dwight Stoner as he forced himself up onto his hands and knees, only ten feet away now, as he started forward again.

Gerd Maas was lost in the adrenaline rush, and he never noticed the red dot that appeared on his right shoulder as he brought the. 22 target pistol up again to carefully place the third shot… but he certainly felt the impact of the single 5.56mm bullet that tore through his shoulder and caused the target pistol to clatter to the floor.

Reacting with catlike instincts, Maas reached for his belt knife with his left hand. The red dot traveled to his left shoulder, which the second 5.56mm bullet hit, tearing through bone and muscle and sending the knife clattering to the floor, where it lay next to the pistol.

Then Gerd Maas looked up as Henry Lightstone stepped out of the shadows, a stainless-steel Rolex on his wrist and Kimiko Osan's laser-aimed Colt Commando in his bruised and bloody hands.

"You know, Maas," Lightstone said as he walked slowly toward the still-standing ICER leader, "that guy on the floor who was coming after you told me about a game once. It was called bunnies and guppies. Big playing field, shitpot full of rules, no referee."

Then Lightstone smiled pleasantly. "You know what else he said?"

Gerd Maas blinked his pale eyes, but didn't say anything.

"'Last man standing wins.'"

"You can't-" Maas started to say, and then the red dot swung down and two 5.56mm bullets tore through the knees of the ICER counterterrorist, sending him sprawling to the floor within a few inches of Dwight Stoner. The ex-Oakland-Raider-tackle-turned-wildlife-agent looked at the shining red dot that was now focused between Gerd Maas's glassy eyes and smiled.

"Henry, don't do it," the voice of A1 Grynard said behind Henry Lightstone's back, but the red dot never wavered.

"I'm not going to kill him," Lightstone said after a moment. "I'm going to arrest the bastard."

"But I told you… you can't arrest me," the counterterrorist leader rasped. "You can't prove-"

"I can't prove that you killed Paul McNulty or Carl Scoby. And I can't prove that you blew up a bunch of environmentalists, or cut the throat of a little bear cub, or shot an airplane out from under a guy who can't hardly fly to begin with," Lightstone nodded.

"But what I can prove," the coldly smiling agent said huskily as he shifted the red dot of the laser sight to a thin strip where the skin had been gouged out from Maas' rhino-hide boot, "is that you killed a mama Kodiak on a National Wildlife Refuge, and that you killed her illegally, which is going to get you ten years in a federal penitentiary.

"And while you're serving those ten years," Henry Lightstone added as FBI agents moved in to assist Dwight Stoner and take the crippled ICER assault group leader into custody, "if I can ever prove that you so much as plucked a tail feather from a goddamned duck, then I'm going to charge you with that, too."