Authors: Ken Goddard
But as the hunter-killer team leader moved toward the hundreds of slowly moving, bright red and iridescent blue creatures, he began to put it all together.
Snakes and spiders?
Then he stepped on something sticky.
What the hell...?
At that moment, a deep voice with a distinct, South Carolina accent called out from outside the front roll-up door of the warehouse.
"THIS IS SPECIAL AGENT LARRY PAXTON OF THE U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE. WE HAVE THE WAREHOUSE SURROUNDED. THROW YOUR WEAPONS OUTSIDE THE DOOR, AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEADS!"
"BULLSHIT!" Wintersole roared as he spun and emptied the thirty-round magazine waist high across the front wall of the warehouse.
Ordering his troops to maintain their positions, Wintersole calmly knelt on the concrete floor, reloaded his weapon, and waited.
"What do you think?" Larry Paxton asked. With a Smith & Wesson 10mm semiautomatic pistol clenched tight in both hands, he was crouched next to the largest tree he could find among the meager collection surrounding the warehouse parking lot.
"Definitely sounded like a 'no' from here," Bobby LaGrange replied from his prone position next to the adjoining tree. The retired San Diego Police homicide detective aimed the 12-gauge pump shotgun held tight against his shoulder at the main roll-up door of the warehouse.
"Yeah, that's what I thought, too."
Sighing to himself, the Bravo Team leader slowly stood up, positioned himself in a barricade position next to what now — thanks to the barrage of bark-shredding 5.56mm rounds that had come flying in their general direction — seemed like a very small tree, yelled out, "OKAY, IF THAT'S THE WAY YOU FEEL ABOUT IT," and then carefully and deliberately fired two 10mm rounds into the metal wall of the warehouse.
The crash of breaking glass immediately followed the sound of punctured sheet metal . . . and then, some moments later, a high-pitched scream.
"GIVE UP YET?" Paxton called out.
Dead silence.
"I SAID, DO YOU GIVE UP YET?" Larry Paxton repeated.
More silence.
"IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING, THOSE YELLOW-EYED THINGS ON THE FLOOR ARE CROCODILES, THE TARANTULAS HAVE FANGS LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE, AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE DAMNED SNAKES IS POISONOUS . . . ESPECIALLY THE TIGER SNAKES AND THE DEATH ADDERS. AND NO, I AIN'T GOT NO IDEA AT ALL WHAT I'M AIMING AT," Paxton tried hopefully.
No response.
"Give them another shot," Bobby LaGrange suggested sensibly.
Muttering a heartfelt curse, Paxton raised his 10mm semiautomatic again.
Two more rounds punched through the corrugated metal, followed by more breaking glass, another high-pitched scream, and some extremely heated profanity.
Moments later, four M-16 assault rifles sailed through the side door and clattered on the ground.
Wait a minute. How many were there? Five or six?
Henry Lightstone stood at his barricade position behind a nearby tree, trying to remember exactly how many figures he'd seen following him in the woods and then entering the warehouse.
They started out with seven at the training compound. Boggs had one-four under control, and I took out another one — broke his nose and dislocated his shoulder — which leaves five. Right.
"That's only four, Wintersole," Henry Lightstone spoke into his reactivated collar mike. "I want them all, or I'm tossing in a flash-bang."
Following a brief pause, a familiar voice echoed in his earphones.
"Lightstone?"
"Special Agent Henry Lightstone of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to you, First Sergeant," Lightstone replied tersely as he cautiously moved toward the side of the warehouse. "Boggs already told you you're under arrest, and Larry wasn't kidding about those snakes being poisonous, so toss out all your weapons and get your people out here, now!"
After another brief delay, the fifth rifle came flying out the side door, followed by four camouflaged figures with their hands over their heads.
Henry Lightstone took up a barricade position by the side door, holding Woeshack's 10mm Smith & Wesson at the ready, with Bobby LaGrange standing guard with the shotgun, while Stoner, Takahara, Woeshack, and Paxton moved in, collected the M-16s, and took the four young Rangers into custody, quickly handcuffing their wrists behind their back, and laying them face down in the middle of the parking lot.
Then Lightstone backed away from the building, and into the middle of the parking lot to give himself a better view of the front roll-up and side doors with his night-vision goggles while Takahara and Woeshack assumed blocking positions on the back sides of the warehouse.
"Come on, Wintersole, get your ass out here," Lightstone finally spoke softly into his collar mike.
"Why don't you come in and get me, Henry?"
"What's he saying?" Larry Paxton demanded in a hushed voice as he came up beside Lightstone.
Lightstone reached down and shut off the collar mike.
"He wants me to go in there and get him."
"Forget that crap." Dwight Stoner held up one of the flash-bang grenades he'd taken off one of the Rangers. "Let's toss this in and we'll see how fast he comes out."
"Shit, don't do that!" Larry Paxton whispered urgently. "You'll blow out every piece of glass in the damned warehouse, and every snake and spider in there'll get loose!"
"How about we turn the lights on so we can at least see him," Lightstone suggested.
"Can't." Paxton shrugged apologetically. "I had Mike shut off the main and then cut the feed lines coming out of the panel to make sure these guys couldn't turn on any lights and figure out real quick that we weren't in there."
"What about flashlights?"
"We've got six of them," Stoner replied sheepishly. "But they're all in the warehouse."
"Wonderful," Lightstone muttered, then grew silent when he heard Wintersole chuckling in his earphone.
"Come on, Henry. Just you and me. We'll have some fun, see what kind of Ranger you would have made."
"What's he saying now?" Paxton demanded.
"Son of a bitch is getting impatient." Lightstone looked down at the four Rangers sprawled facedown and quiet in the almost pitch-black parking lot. "Hey," he whispered, "what happened to their night-vision goggles?"
"They weren't wearing any," Dwight Stoner replied.
Lightstone quickly knelt and rapidly searched all four of their captives before pulling Paxton and Stoner about twenty feet away.
"The bastard had them take the goggles off before they came out," he informed his teammates in a hushed voice. "Same with the communications gear and the red-lensed flashlights they were carrying. Military thinking. Don't give up any resources that the enemy can use against you. I've got this one set of goggles, but what about our stuff? Don't we have any night-vision gear?"
"Nope, just Mike's spotting scope." Larry Paxton was starting to look thoroughly frustrated now. "Look, how about Dwight and I take the far door and go for the flashlights, while you guys keep him pinned down?"
"No deal." Lightstone shook his head. "This guy's a Ranger first sergeant. You go in there blind, and he'll tear your throats out before you even see him."
"Come on, Henry." Wintersole's voice reverberated in Lightstone's headset again. "Just you and me. If you try to get tricky and bring your friends in too, you know I'll kill them . . . and you'll have to live with the fact that it was your fault for the rest of your life."
"That's it," Lightstone muttered as he ripped the earphones off his head and threw them on the ground.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Larry Paxton demanded.
"I'm going in there and arrest that son of a bitch."
And before the Bravo Team leader could say or do anything else, Henry Lightstone ran toward the warehouse . . . picked up speed as he approached the almost completely closed side door . . . then slammed it open with his shoulder, dived into a forward judo roll as the door swung shut behind him . . . and came up in a semi-sitting position with the Smith & Wesson extended in front of him in a double-handed grip.
The incoming roll threw his night-vision goggles off kilter, and Lightstone quickly readjusted them so he could see clearly.
What he saw made his flesh crawl.
With no starlight to enhance his view in the almost-total darkness of the warehouse, the sensors of the new-generation light-vision goggles picked up only IR and UV fluorescence.
As a result, and thanks to the reflected light from the dozens of terrariums aligned on the shelves along the rear wall of the warehouse, Lightstone could easily see the bright red legs and eyes of the sixty-to-seventy giant red-kneed tarantulas and the iridescent blue eyes of the two snakes which had escaped when Larry Paxton's randomly aimed 10mm bullets shattered their containers.
Between them and the hundreds of slowly moving bright red and iridescent blue legs and eyes in the background, Lightstone might never have seen Wintersole at all . . . had not fifteen or twenty glowing tarantulas effectively outlined his seated form as they slowly walked up, over, and around his body.
Keeping an eye on the two sets of free-roaming iridescent blue snake eyes, one set of which had crossed in front of Wintersole, Lightstone moved slowly forward with the 10mm aimed at the center of the Ranger first sergeant's forehead.
"You're under arrest, Wintersole," he announced softly. "You have the right . . ."
"To remain silent," the Ranger first sergeant finished as he slowly rose to his feet so smoothly that the inquisitive bright red-glowing legs barely hesitated before continuing on their wandering path.
"If you move again without my telling you to do so, I'll drop you . . . right here, right now," Lightstone warned.
Watch the snake, the covert agent reminded himself, well aware that Wintersole was perfectly capable of slinging the reptile at him with his foot, trusting the leather of his combat boot to defeat any bite and knowing that Lightstone, at best, could deflect it with his pistol ... or more likely, his arm. A dangerous tactic, especially if Paxton's random shots had freed one of the Tiger Snakes or Death Adders.
"I don't intend to move, Henry," the Ranger first sergeant spoke softly, apparently indifferent to the tarantula slowly inching its way from the collar of his fatigue jacket to his ear, or the other one under his chin, whose iridescence illuminated Wintersole's face. Even in the hot reddish glow of the slowly moving eyes and legs, the soldier's expression appeared cold.
"She'll do my moving for me."
At that moment, Lightstone became aware of the movement to his left.
But before he could move, or swing around with the Smith & Wesson, or do anything at all, a very familiar voice whispered . . .
"Hello, Henry."
The click of a releasing safety catch told him all he needed to know.
There really had been six, after all.
"Hello, Natasha," he greeted her softly, keeping his eyes and gun on Wintersole. "You moon-lighting now?"
"Always have been, Henry. That's what I like best about the American free-enterprise system. So many wonderful opportunities for a young woman who wishes to move up in this world."
"Especially a treacherous one."
"Oh yes; that, too. It would have been much easier if Halahan had transferred me to Bravo Team, but . . . there are always ways."
"What would have been easier, Natasha?" Lightstone asked in a quiet voice.
"Oh, that's right." The female Special Agent giggled. "You don't know, do you?"
"No, he doesn't," Wintersole reiterated the point as he brought his boot down quickly over the slowly approaching pair of iridescent blue eyes, knelt down, picked up the snake carefully behind its head, and then walked slowly toward Lightstone, holding the pair of blue eyes out in front of him . . . all the while ignoring the 10mm Smith & Wesson still aimed at his forehead.
"It's a very poor exchange, Henry," Wintersole explained the basics as he stopped directly in front of the gun muzzle. "You kill me, she kills you . . . and then she kills them. And she will, too. I understand she's very well trained, and very good with that pistol; not that it will make much difference since she'll have every possible advantage," the hunter-killer team leader added with a cold smile. "My guess is that your friends won't stand a chance. Imagine all of them dead because of you. That's your biggest fear, isn't it, Henry?"
"I won't bargain for my life against theirs, Wintersole, and I won't put this gun down." Lightstone kept his index finger firmly on the trigger of the Smith & Wesson, and the front sight centered just above the Ranger first sergeant's nose to emphasize his point. "If she pulls that trigger, reflex action will set this one off . . . and you'll die. To tell you the truth, way I feel right now, I'd just as soon take you with me."
"I'm sure you would, Henry." Wintersole smiled faintly. "But that won't be necessary. If you come with us, your friends get to live, and you get to see what this is all about. It's either that, or like you said . . ." Wintersole adjusted his grip on the snake's head, closing its mouth tightly between his forefinger and thumb, and then slowly and carefully brushed the scaled head lightly against the exposed knuckles of Lightstone's tightly clenched hands, ". . . we both die. Right here. Right now.
"And, since you brought it up, I wouldn't mind taking you with me, either," he added with a sardonic smile.
Henry Lightstone felt the cool head of the snake against his fingers, then saw the outline of the head in the combined light of the bright red and blue iridescence.
Tiger Snake.
The worst one of the whole batch.
Absolutely deadly.
Of course
, Lightstone thought with an odd sense of detachment.
What else would it be?
Then he blinked in surprise when Wintersole crushed the snake's head with his fingers and let it drop to the floor.
"It's nothing personal, Henry. I'm just doing what I'm getting paid to do."
Wintersole continued to smile, a menacing but ultimately indifferent smile.