Authors: Ken Goddard
"Don't worry, she can't get in here." She nibbled his earlobe.
The sound of shredding wood grew louder and the yowling more insistent as the door rattled on its hinges.
"Are you sure?" The look and feel of her warm and smooth body wrapping around his made it difficult for him to think clearly.
"Trust me. It'll take her a while," she murmured, pressing her soft warm lips against his.
Chapter Twenty-nine
By eleven o'clock that Thursday evening, Wildlife Special Agents Mark LiBrandi and Gus Donato of Charlie Team figured they had their surveillance system down pat.
It's simply a matter of timing, Donato explained to LiBrandi as they drove into the parking lot of the Creekside Bar. Go in, find the closest thing available to a dark corner table, let the waitress take her own sweet time getting there, order a pair of drafts, put a few wrinkled one-dollar bills on the table — enough to cover the two beers plus a minimal tip, to discourage any further interest on her part — milk the beers as long as possible, then order a couple of coffees at the precise moment her patience finally runs out.
With any luck at all, they could stretch that whole process out for at least an hour — ideally an hour and a half — thereby maintaining their surveillance for a reasonable time at each bar in town without undue risk to their covers, their covert per-diem limits, their sobriety, or their waistlines.
"Hope that Sally gal isn't on duty tonight," Donato remarked as they approached the entrance. "I think she's getting kinda sweet on you. Must've come by our table at least a half dozen times the other night."
"Maybe you tipped her too much?" LiBrandi suggested.
"Fifty cents on a couple watered-down two-seventy-five beers?"
"No, you're probably right," the young covert agent conceded. "She must be hot for my bod."
"Well, try to keep it in your pants tonight. I don't think I can stand more than one cheap beer at this place, and I don't even want to think about their coffee."
As it turned out, Sally was off on Mondays and Thursdays. And while several of the easily recognizable regulars slumped in the cheap, Naugahyde®-covered booths or hovered around the pool table, the booth in the darkened far corner of the bar was available. Accordingly, the pair of agents ordered their beers, took their turns at the pool table, tried to ignore the necking couple in the adjoining booth, engaged in a few casual conversations that never quite worked around to the local militia groups, and finally ordered two cups of the bar's predictably bitter coffee at twelve-fifteen.
Ten minutes later, having dumped a good three-quarters of their coffee in the fake potted fern behind their booth, Donato and LiBrandi departed, trying to decide whether to finish the evening at the Gopher's Hole — a seedy sports bar with no apparent relationship to any kind of mammal, much less a gopher, but which offered an impressive collection of Confederate battle flags and other Civil War memorabilia — or go all out and splurge at the more upscale Gunrack Saloon, locally known for its decent beer and equally impressive collection of deer antlers.
Busy arguing the investigative merits of the two local watering holes as they walked toward their rental car, the young and inexperienced covert agents failed to notice that the necking couple had followed them into the parking lot.
A few minutes after one in the morning, Henry Lightstone slowly and carefully worked himself out of bed for the second time that night.
It was much easier this time because the panther had retreated to her tree loft, and — judging from the audible snoring — slept soundly. He and the woman had finally managed to distract the big cat by retreating to the shower. While Lightstone held his bandaged arm high above the spray of water, the woman quickly rinsed off then ran dripping to open the partially shredded door. The panther leaped into the bathroom, padded to the shower, stuck her head around the curtain, and stared bleakly at Henry Lightstone through the spray for a few moments. Then she pulled her head back out, shook off the water, and exited the bathroom with a shrug of feline indifference that left Lightstone feeling inexplicably disappointed.
And getting out of bed was also easier because Karla had fallen into a deep sleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow.
Henry Lightstone could have duplicated that trick without the least difficulty, but he needed to do something very important before he allowed himself the luxury of a good night's sleep.
It took him a few minutes to locate his clothes and put on everything except his shoes. Then he slowly worked his way through the adjoining tree-room, down the hallway, and into a small room he'd identified earlier as the postmistress's office.
He didn't dare risk a light, but rather felt his way carefully in the dark until he located the old dial phone on the standard-issue metal desk. It had been so long since he'd used a dial phone, he had to open one of the window shades to let in some moonlight so he could see well enough to dial the number of the motel that Bravo Team had chosen as a home base.
"Holiday Inn."
"Larry Packer's room, please."
"One moment."
Lightstone heard the distant phone ring eight times before the operator came back on the line.
"I'm sorry, sir, your party doesn't answer. Would you like to leave a message?"
Yes, I would, Lightstone thought, but I wouldn't know where to start.
"Could you try Dwight Stanley's room, please?"
"Just a moment."
This time the operator cut in after only seven rings.
"Neither of your parties answer, sir. Would you care to leave a message?"
"No, that's all right."
Henry Lightstone pulled his watch out of his jeans pocket, then frowned at the 0132 digital display. Under normal circumstances, members of the covert team still could be out at this time of night, either working on some phase of the operation, or eating a late dinner.
But nothing about this entire operation has been normal so far
, he reminded himself as he glanced down at his bandaged forearm.
He felt tempted to call Halahan or Moore, figuring a 4:30 A.M. wake- up call was the least the two Special Ops branch supervisors deserved for the red-kneed spider business. But he also realized that local post office managers often checked the phone records of the small rural locations, to discourage personal use of official phones by the resident postmasters. The last thing he needed right now was the woman getting called in to explain a 1:30 A.M. phone call to an unlisted number on the East Coast.
Nor could he use the cell phone because even if those real or fake soldiers didn't monitor calls in the middle of the night, he'd left it in the saddle bag of his motorcycle, and he couldn't get it because Karla had activated an alarm system after locking the outside doors and shutting off the lights in the restaurant. It was always possible that some of the windows weren't alarmed, but that would be difficult to determine in the darkness, and a triggered alarm would be equally difficult to explain.
Using the little available moonlight, it took Lightstone another five minutes to confirm his suspicion that an old-time wildlife officer and resident agent like Wilbur Boggs wouldn't list his home phone in the directory. The local office number for the Division of Law Enforcement, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was listed, but not knowing anything about local arrangements, or the backgrounds of any other employees who might have access to the answering machine there besides Boggs and his secretary, he decided to save that option until things became a bit more desperate.
Ditto for the local FBI, DEA, and sheriff's offices. While Lightstone didn't question a local federal agent or sheriff deputy's ability to relay a carefully worded message, such a request — especially at one-thirty in the morning — would almost certainly require a personal display of his credentials or, at the very least, more of an explanation than he was willing or able to provide at that moment.
Which only left one more option, and a very interesting question.
If these military — or militant, that's always a possibility in this area of the country, he reminded himself — characters could tag a supposedly alert team of covert federal agents to what Lightstone assumed was Charlie Team's operational warehouse, what were the chances that this group had also tagged all of Bravo Team to Bobby LaGrange's ranch?
The more he thought about that, the less he liked it.
The phone rang three times before a very familiar voice answered in an equally familiar, grumpy manner.
"You never did like getting called out at one-thirty in the morning, did you?"
"What?"
"Without mentioning my name," Henry Lightstone directed carefully, "do you know who this is?"
The wild-card agent could easily visualize his ex-partner snapping wide-awake.
"Yeah, you sound vaguely familiar. What's up?" LaGrange's voice carried a discernible — and dangerous — edge.
"We may have a problem." Lightstone briefly described the sequence of events starting from the confrontation at the restaurant and ending with his purchase of the motorcycle.
"Christ," the ex-homicide detective whispered. "Do they know about it?"
"No, not yet."
"You want me to make contact with them?"
"No, too dangerous. You were the link to the old coot with the genuine Apache Indian hunting charms," Lightstone reminded him. "If everything else connects, we could easily be on a party line right now."
"Yeah, right." Bobby LaGrange fell silent for a few moments. "Shit."
"Exactly," Henry Lightstone responded, knowing what kind of thoughts raced through his ex-partner's mind. "Can you two camp out somewhere?"
A pause.
"Yes."
In the background, Henry Lightstone heard a drawer opening, then the familiar sound of a semiautomatic pistol slide slowly being drawn back.
That's right, buddy
, he thought approvingly,
Susan's number one, no matter what.
"Then you'd better do it, just to be safe. What about Justin?"
"He's with his . . . relatives for the rest of the week."
"Can you keep him there?"
"Sure, no problem. What about you?"
"I'm staying put. If I've got a tag, there's no point complicating things at your end."
"Yeah, right," LaGrange acknowledged. "Are you secure?"
Translation: do you want help? Just say so. I'll get Susan tucked away somewhere safe, and then be there with the cavalry ASAP.
Lightstone smiled.
Good old Bobby. Hell of a partner.
"I'm fine, but I'm out of contact with everyone else right now, so if Larry calls, tell him what's going on, and that I'll connect up with them sometime tomorrow morning."
"Will do. Anything else?" Bobby's question came out a little faster than usual.
In a hurry to get Susan out of there. Good thinking.
"Still got your beeper?"
"Yeah, somewhere. I'll find it."
"Okay, get going. I'll be in touch."
Lightstone was in the process of hanging up the phone when he sensed a presence in the doorway.
He turned around slowly, trying to decide what he could say, and then saw — to his immense relief — what, under any other circumstances, would have absolutely terrified him: a pair of glowing yellow eyes hovering at about waist height.
"Christ, you scared the hell out of me, Sasha," he whispered.
The panther responded with a deep-throated growl that sounded more like a cough.
It occurred to Lightstone that he'd never been alone with the fearsome animal for any significant period of time before, and that the panther might consider his presence in the woman's office an unacceptable transgression.
But then the big cat made another noise that sounded both familiar and demanding.
"What do you want? Something to drink?" Lightstone hazarded a guess.
The panther immediately turned, walked down the hallway, and waited patiently for a disbelieving Henry Lightstone to open the secured door to the restaurant's kitchen.
"We could both get into serious trouble for this," he whispered as the cat proceeded to rub the side of her head against the edge of the commercial refrigerator. "But you don't care, do you?"
Apparently deciding an answer to such a dumb question constituted a waste of a perfectly good growl, the panther sat silently and waited patiently for Lightstone to open the refrigerator, find an already-opened half gallon of milk, and locate a bowl.
He poured about a half pint of milk into the bowl, put it down on the vinyl floor, and stared expectantly at the panther. She stared right back at him, unmoving.
"You want more?"
He poured another half pint or so in the bowl and got exactly the same response.
"Christ, what are you, picky or —?"
At that moment, it occurred to Henry Lightstone that a hundred-pound panther probably wasn't all that much different from an eight-pound Manx . . . especially in terms of self-serving attitude.
Accordingly, he opened the refrigerator, rooted around until he found a quart of cream, glared at the panther once more, dumped the milk into the nearby sink, and replaced it with the cream.
He barely managed to get the bowl on the floor before the panther butted him aside and began lapping happily at the cream.
Muttering to himself, Lightstone returned the milk and cream to the refrigerator, noticed a partial loaf of pumpernickel and a plastic-wrapped plate of sliced turkey on one of the upper shelves, and realized he was hungry.
Five minutes later, as he chewed a first large bite of the thickly stacked turkey sandwich, something else occurred to him.
The letter.
It took him another two minutes to find his way past the public rest room to the door of the back room of the tiny post office, which the woman apparently had forgotten to lock.
Fortunately, enough moonlight came in through a skylight to illuminate the area.
Lightstone found two envelopes in box number fifteen, a manila one about an inch thick, and a second plain mailing one — identical, as best he could tell, to the envelope Karla had sold the man with the strange eyes — that felt like it contained a single, folded piece of paper. The addresses on the envelopes, each obviously written by a different individual, were both block-printed. And even more interesting, Lightstone realized, both individuals used the adjacent Dogsfire Inn Post Office Box Number Fourteen as a return address.