Authors: Ken Goddard
"Anybody with a few screws loose can be dangerous," Moore reminded his chief. "But I don't see these characters as being anything that Charlie Team couldn't handle. If they turn out to be white supremacists, too, which wouldn't surprise me, then they're not going to be real thrilled when they see the team's ethnic diversity. But it would be the same situation if we sent Bravo Team. Personally, I think the kids could handle this one just fine."
Halahan nodded thoughtfully. "We'll hook them up with Boggs, which gives them an experienced agent for moral support, and ideally keeps him too preoccupied baby-sitting to worry much about his congressman. One thing we can be pretty sure about is that Wilbur Boggs isn't about to let a bunch of young agents get into trouble in his district, no matter how badly he wants to use them for something else."
"And even if Boggs does talk them into helping him out a little bit on the side, Charlie Team's going to be a hell of a lot more circumspect in dealing with a congressman as a suspect than Bravo," Moore added with a smile. "Among other things, they'd probably follow procedure and ask permission first. I like it."
"So do I," Halahan agreed. "One last question. Do we send them out as is, or do we make the reassignments?"
"Oh, yeah. Marashenko." Freddy Moore stared out the window as he thought about that. "Damn."
"Bravo Team's got one of the open slots, and she wants it. Or at least she did," Halahan reminded his deputy. "But maybe after that incident with Lightstone this morning —?"
Freddy Moore shook his head. "No dice. I talked with her after the exercise. She's pissed at Lightstone, no question about it, but she'd take a transfer to Bravo Team in a second if we offered."
"She say why?"
"No, but I get the impression it has something to do with status."
"Alpha and Bravo being perceived as the starting teams, and Charlie being the reserve?"
Moore nodded. "Something like that."
"You think she's ready for it?"
The Special Ops deputy chief hesitated, recalling how Marashenko let her emotions get the best of her when Lightstone foiled her plan.
"No, I really don't," he conceded finally, "but she's damned close. If we make the transfer now, the guys in Bravo would give her a bad time, but they'd also bring her along. Three months max, she'd belong there."
"Then let her earn it straight, like anybody else," Halahan decided. "We're going to start Charlie Team on this game, and she's an integral part of that team. End of discussion."
"Fair enough. But we still haven't decided what to do with Bravo."
"What do you think about putting Bravo out on the perimeter on a standby basis . . . without telling anyone — and especially not Boggs or anyone on Charlie Team, because this is supposed to be a confidence-building situation, not the other way around," Halahan suggested. "That way they'd be close in case Charlie Team accidentally knocks over a beehive at that Seventh Seal compound, or Boggs gets them into something a little too complicated with his duck-poaching congressman."
Freddy Moore considered the proposition for a few moments.
"Not a bad idea," he finally admitted. "But what about Bravo Team? Do we tell them what's going on?"
"No way." Halahan shook his head emphatically. "If we do, they'll just start poking around and causing all kinds of grief, especially if they link up with Boggs and he gives them an earful about Smallsreed. We're better off just putting them out there and nailing them down with a project that keeps them busy and distracted."
"So what do we tell them?" Moore asked reasonably. "Those guys will spot a bullshit story a mile off, especially if it looks like we're giving them a paid vacation."
The contemplative look on David Halahan's face suddenly gave way to a satisfied smile.
"Oh-oh," Moore groaned. "Why do I get the feeling Bravo Team's not going to like this?"
"Just off the top of your head," Halahan suggested cheerfully, "where's the last place our friends from the Mexican Mafia in Nogales would expect the federal government to run a sting operation on hot snakes and red-kneed tarantulas?"
The smile that blossomed on Freddy Moore's face easily eclipsed that of his boss, then quickly dissolved into a fit of helpless laughter.
"What about the snakes?" he gasped when he finally could speak again.
"What about them?"
"You think they'll be able to handle the cold okay?" Moore asked as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "I hear it gets damn chilly in Oregon in the winter."
Halahan shrugged. "I don't see why not. As long as the warehouse doesn't get too cold, I assume they — and I imagine the tarantulas, too, for that matter — would just stay kind of sluggish. Unless, of course, the agents running the operation foolishly turned up the heat for their own comfort. In that case I suspect the entire team would need to stay alert pretty much around the clock, watching out for escaping poisonous snakes and very large spiders."
"You really think that'll keep them sufficiently occupied so they don't start poking around and spot Charlie Team?"
"I certainly hope so." Halahan's smile faded, and he tapped at his desk pensively. "Between setting up the warehouse, rigging a communications system, establishing their covers, putting out some ads and feelers, making a few purchases and sales from some of the legitimate dealers, and maintaining a reasonable stock of illicit specimens — which reminds me, do we have any good sources?"
"Well, I know the guys in Newark are sitting on a bunch of hot stuff they pulled out of the back of a shipping container an Australian importer abandoned a few weeks ago. About a hundred specimens total," Moore responded. "Mostly African and South America vipers as I recall. Gaboons, Bushmasters, Puff and Mountain Adders, Fer-de-lances, some Bamboo and Russell's Vipers from China, and I think even a pair of Death Adders and a few Brown, Black, and Tiger Snakes from Australia."
"Are the Australian ones poisonous?"
"Oh yeah, definitely."
"Good. That's exactly the kind of thing these Mexican Mafia characters deal in. Exotic and deadly. How about the spiders? Can we get some of them, too?"
"Come to think of it, I heard Miami's still trying to get the Zoo Association to take that last batch of red-knees they seized off their hands."
"How many did they get?"
"Something in the neighborhood of 750 total."
Halahan blinked. "Seven hundred and fifty red-kneed tarantulas?"
"Naw, only about half of them are the genuine article. The rest are either red-legged, or plain old browns . . . along with a dozen baby caiman crocs as a bonus," Moore added. "You want to hear a heart-wrenching sob story, call Jennifer up and ask her what she thinks about feeding those damned things."
"What in the world do you feed 750 tarantulas and a dozen baby crocodiles?"
"Mice, crickets, and chunks of chicken, according to her. Apparently it's not so much what you feed them as how," Moore explained. "I understand that quick reflexes help tremendously . . . especially with the tarantulas because they fling needle-sharp little hairs into their prey—or at anything they're pissed at. I'm sure Jennifer would be more than happy to give you all the gory details, but I wouldn't call her right before lunch."
"Special Agent Jennifer Granstrom." The Special Operations branch chief's eyes began to gleam. "Don't we owe her for something?"
"The Miami Office has been nice to us occasionally in the past," Moore conceded hesitantly.
"That's what I was thinking." Halahan nodded thoughtfully. "But how in the world would you ship 750 tarantulas from a federal law enforcement office in Miami to a warehouse in Loggerhead City, Oregon, without anyone on the outside knowing what's going on?"
"Beats me." A grin of awareness began to light up Moore's face. "But I'm willing to bet you a steak dinner at the restaurant of your choice that Jennifer either knows how, right off the top of her head, or she'll figure it out in three minutes flat."
"Why don't you give her a call — after lunch," Halahan suggested with a benevolent smile on his face. "Tell her to get the whole batch ready to ship to Oregon, posthaste, along with — what? — all the necessary terrariums, heating elements, and other assorted supplies she's got on hand. Our treat."
"The crocs, too?"
"Oh, hell yes. How can we impress the Mexican Mafia if we don't go all out?"
"David," Freddy Moore's tone bordered on reverent, "remind me every now and then, if you don't mind, to never, ever, piss you off."
"Basic principles of people management." The Special Operations Branch chief shrugged modestly. "If you can't gain the attention of your employees with the standard motivational techniques, try a different approach."
"On second thought, you're not going to need to remind me." Moore shuddered as he tried to imagine several hundred snakes, tarantulas, and crocs all in one warehouse.
"Glad to hear it." David Halahan smiled pleasantly, and then went on. "So you call Jennifer, and then make arrangements with Newark for, oh, say two or three dozen miscellaneous snakes — be sure to include that death adder, and a few of those Australian brown, black, and tiger snakes — along with, say, a two-month supply of mice, crickets, chicken, freezers, holding cages, and the like. I think that should keep everybody on Bravo Team extremely busy, focused, and out of trouble, with the possible exception of —"
"Lightstone?"
Halahan nodded.
"So what are we going to do with him? Ship him down to Nogales to start working on his cover?"
"Not a chance." The Special Ops chief dismissed that option immediately. "I want him there, too, just in case we do run into some problems with Charlie Team or Boggs. Lightstone may be a little difficult to control at times, but he's also pretty damned useful when things turn to shit."
"So . . .?"
"So, while Charlie Team scopes out the militants and everyone else on Bravo Team tries to work out accommodations for seven hundred giant tarantulas, twelve baby crocodiles, and two or three dozen poisonous snakes" — Halahan smiled pleasantly —"I think somebody should take a serious look at our friend the Sage and his Bigfoot souvenir scam, don't you?"
"You know" — Moore paused a moment to savor the Bravo Team's wild-card agent's most likely reaction to his new assignment — "this just might teach those jokers to play fair."
"I doubt it."
"Yeah, me too." Moore nodded in agreement. "But in any case, I think we'd better get them on a plane to Oregon by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. I have a feeling Jennifer's going to have those tarantulas packed up, out the door, and on their way to a certain Loggerhead City warehouse before we have a chance to change our minds."
"Exactly. Which means you'd better get busy putting together a briefing document."
"It will be a pleasure." Freddy Moore smiled in cheerful anticipation.
"Yeah, I'll bet. And in the meantime," Halahan said as he put the stack of exercise evaluations aside, "I'm going to give my old buddy Wilbur Boggs a call. Tell him to break out his big grill and ice chest and stand by, because Special Ops is about to make his life a whole lot more miserable, too."
Chapter Eight
It took federal wildlife agent Wilbur Boggs a good five minutes to regain his senses after the accident.
Two or three minutes after that, he discovered that the force of the impact had broken the leather restraining strap on his shoulder holster, thereby sending his old and reliable government-issued Model 66 .357 revolver (he simply couldn't get used to the new 10mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistols that most of the agents in the Fish and Wildlife Service now carried) into at least twenty feet of cold muddy water . . . along with his binoculars, thermos bottle, lunch box, tackle box, fishing rod, ticket book, portable radio, and his badge case.
He would have discovered all of this earlier if he hadn't spent so much time staring in dismay at the bent and twisted mounts of his outboard motor that had nearly been torn loose from the transom, thereby severely damaging the back of his own boat — which he'd opted to use for his rendezvous with Lou Eliot because he knew Rustman's crew would spot his government-owned boat the moment he dropped it into the water.
Then, and in spite of Lt. Colonel John Rustman's optimistic predictions, it had taken Boggs almost four more hours to free his prop from the yards of tightly wrapped nylon netting and twisted ropes for several reasons.
One, the tightened ropes, twisted mounts, and his severely broken right hand prevented him from raising the outboard out of the water or disconnecting it from the ripped transom.
Two, the impact tore open his supposedly sink-proof tackle box, sending his wrenches and pliers and other potentially useful tools — not to mention his wallet — to the bottom of the lake, leaving him with only a pocketknife and the pair of nail clippers on his key chain.
And three, he had to do everything with his merely throbbing and trembling left hand, and he didn't dare drop the pocketknife overboard because he didn't even want to think about how long it might take him to cut all that rope and netting loose with nail clippers.
Boggs spent the first few minutes leaning over the side of the boat in an ultimately futile effort to cut through the tightened ropes that secured the netting and the boat to whatever anchors Rustman and his cohorts had placed in the bottom of the lake. Finally, he gave that up because he couldn't reach all of the ropes, and holding his head upside down made him feel dizzier than ever. So he cursed John Rustman, Lou Eliot, and especially Regis J. Smallsreed for the fifteen minutes it took him to pull off all of his clothes, put the life vest back on, and then awkwardly lower himself into the icy cold water with his forearms, and his one more or less good hand to try to work the ropes and netting loose from there.
Once in the water, he momentarily considered diving to the murky bottom to search for some of his tools, but some still-rational fragment of his mind warned him that if he did, he'd probably get caught in the netting and drown.
A second distinctively sharp, high-velocity gunshot — that didn't sound at all like a shotgun blast, but did sound exactly like the first one that had catapulted him into action at the end of what he assumed was Smallsreed's first round of shooting — caught his attention. He would have tried to pinpoint the location of that second shot if nothing else, but his head and his hand hurt like hell, and his feet and legs ached already in the icy water, so he decided not to worry about it until later.