Wildfire (53 page)

"Wouldn't surprise me any," Lightstone said, "but he'd better watch out for that damn cannon."

"Oh, oh, there he goes," Paxton said, watching the twin-engine plane begin to accelerate down the runway before Woeshack could get the Cessna back around into a blocking position.

"Shit, the bastard's going to get away," Lightstone muttered, glaring helplessly as the twin-engined plane began to rise off the airstrip.

"Uh, maybe not," Paxton said quietly, pointing down in the direction of the coastline where three darkly painted helicopters were coming in fast in a single line approach. "Looks to me like the cavalry just arrived."

He brought the binoculars up again. "Yep, metallic signs on the side that say 'FBI' and everything. Definitely the cavalry."

Even as Paxton spoke, the three helicopters broke ranks and swarmed down in the direction of the runway. One of the Blackhawks made a run right over the top of the slowly climbing twin-prop plane, temporarily forcing it to lower its rate of climb, and then looped around again for another pass as the smaller command helicopter and the other Blackhawk circled the airstrip.

Then Stoner came over the air, the relief evident in his voice even though they'd turned the radio speaker way down. "Hey, guys, we're getting out of here and heading back your way."

"Ten-four." Lightstone spoke softly into the radio, his eyes making yet another search of the surrounding area as he and Paxton watched the assault helicopter force the twin-engined plane to maintain an extremely low angle of climb out over the water.

"Hey, Stoner," Lightstone added after a moment, "why don't you guys take a couple loops around this hill when you get here. Maas and Chareaux disappeared on us. Can't find them anywhere up here on top."

"Ten-four, be there in one."

"Oh, oh, I think that FBI chopper pilot just ran out of patience," Paxton whispered.

As Lightstone turned his attention back to the air battle, the Blackhawk helicopter suddenly broke out of its side-by-side following pattern and looped around into a broadside position with respect to the low-flying plane. The distant rattling sound of machine-gun fire reached the agents as the vertical stabilizer portion of the small plane's tail section seemed to come apart in shreds. Responding to the assault like a suddenly stunned pelican, the twin-engined plane began a gradual descent toward the water. Moments later, as the three helicopters moved into a wide circling pattern, the plane belly-landed into the ocean with a huge splash.

"All
right."
Lightstone grinned. Then he looked up and noticed the rapid approach of the small Cessna.

"We'd better head back down the hill, see if we can help them spot these assholes," Lightstone said.

"Right. You take the point, I'll get Woeshack and Stoner oriented," Paxton said, stuffing the 10mm semiautomatic into his sling and picking up the radio.

As Henry Lightstone began moving cautiously out across the open ground, heading toward the narrow winding steps that led down to the open tomb, Paxton followed a few yards back and brought the radio up to the side of his mouth. "Hey, Stoner," he said in a hoarse whisper, "you guys see anything up here?"

"Negative, but we're coming around to make a full loop," the deep-voiced agent replied.

As the Cessna started to bank around the small stone Hermitage buildings, Henry Lightstone went down the narrow steps, glanced to his left to confirm that the mossy wooden gate was still in place, and then started moving in the direction of the tall crucifix figure to his right.

Paxton was halfway down the steps, having to watch the placement of his large feet, when the Cessna came into sight around the bell tower.

Paxton was starting to bring his right hand up to wave when Stoner screamed into the radio: "Larry, look out!"

Startled by Stoner's screamed warning, Paxton missed one of the tiny stone steps, stumbled forward, and then flung his plaster-casted left arm up in a futile effort to regain his balance, sending his pistol and the radio flying just as Gerd Maas rose to a standing position—far to Paxton's left—with a camouflage-painted bow in his hand, and sent a broadhead shaft streaking straight toward the center of the acting team leader's chest.

By the time that Paxton realized what was happening, the broadhead arrow had punched all the way through his plaster-covered forearm and lodged into his sternum at the juncture of his second right rib, effectively pinning the cast to his chest.

Paxton's agonized scream was drowned out by the roar of the circling Cessna.

Distracted and partially deafened by the circling plane, Henry Lightstone never saw or heard Alex Chareaux come running out of the tomb. But then he realized that his inner senses were screaming for attention, and he started to turn to his right in an instinctive move to protect his back.

But in spite of the subconscious warning, the primary thing that saved Henry Lightstone's life in that brief moment was the fact that Chareaux was completely focused on the spot where he intended to drive his knife blade home, and he never saw the small Cat Island turtle that was trying desperately to get out of his way.

Intending to drive off his right foot and send the knife blade plunging into Lightstone's right kidney with one savage thrust, Chareaux's foot twisted off the slippery turtle shell, and he gasped in shock as he stumbled forward off balance with the knife.

At that moment, and as Henry Lightstone was still coming around into a defensive stance, a burst of pistol rounds behind his back ripped into the nose cowling of the low-flying small plane. Lightstone continued turning to his right, blinked in disbelief when he observed Paxton thrashing around on the ground with an arrow shaft sticking out of his arm and chest. Then he saw the flashing knife blade out of the corner of his right eye.

Lightstone had only an instant to set his feet, drop his pistol, and deflect the thrusting knife hand, before rolling backward into a combined wrist-lock and leg-thrusting judo throw. Then he and Chareaux were tumbling down the hill, furiously striking and clawing and gouging at each other's vital points, completely oblivious of the shuddering Cessna overhead that was desperately trying to gain altitude before it finally surrendered to gravity and nose-dived down into the barren hillside less than fifty yards away.

Breaking loose from Chareaux and coming up to his feet—completely obvious of anything other than his determination to survive and to kill Alex Chareaux with his bare hands—Lightstone lunged forward with his right foot, slammed the heel of his right hand into the underside of Chareaux's jaw, continued his turn until he was in tight with his back to the Cajun poacher, drove his right elbow sharply into Chareaux's lower chest, breaking three of his ribs; and then twisted around sharply with a
ki-yi
scream and a back-fisted strike that smashed the Cajun's nose in a spray of blood.

Stunned but hardly incapacitated, Chareaux held on to Lightstone's shirt, and then retaliated by first slamming his forehead into the agent's face, splitting the skin over Lightstone's left eye, and then slashing down at his femoral artery—a move that Lightstone barely deflected in time with his open hand, causing the sharp blade to slice across his open palm.

As he twisted back into a crouched defensive stance, pressing the palm of his left hand into his hip to stem the bleeding, Lightstone saw— for the first time—the crumbled and burning Cessna.

Eyes widening in rage, Lightstone lunged forward again, using his slashed left hand to block Chareaux's savage attempt to gouge out his eyes. Then, moving in close, he thrust the extended fingers of his right hand deep into the Cajun's exposed stomach, clenched his right hand into a tight fist and drove it into Chareaux's already broken rib cage, then hammered the cursing Cajun to the ground with a spinning roundhouse kick that nearly dislocated his jaw.

As he scrabbled around blindly on his hands and knees, Chareaux's fingers brushed across the handle of his knife. Grasping at the weapon, he staggered to his feet with a feral snarl, his reddened eyes glaring furiously.

Meeting Chareaux's rage with an expression of cold determination, Henry Lightstone casually stepped back into a loose defensive stance, the palm of his freely bleeding left hand now pressed against his tensed thigh, as he prepared himself to block the knife thrust—from whichever direction it came—and then take Chareaux out with a killing blow to his throat.

"That is enough!" Gerd Maas yelled out from his position about halfway between the two combatants and the burning plane.
"Herr
Lightstone is mine now!"

"No, he is not! He is mine! He killed my brothers!" Chareaux screamed through his horribly split and bleeding lips, ignoring Maas as he slowly moved toward his hated adversary.

Keeping an eye on Chareaux and ignoring the bow in the German counterterrorist's hand, Lightstone yelled out: "Wait your turn, Maas! When I'm finished with him, you're next!"

Gerd Maas smiled and shook his head. "No, you are injured. I wait no longer." Then, in a quieter voice that was just barely audible to Chareaux over the crackling noises from the burning plane, he added: "And besides,
Herr
Lightstone didn't kill your brother. I did. And unlike McNulty, he truly
did
die like a terrified pig."

Chareaux never hesitated. Twisting around furiously, he started to send the deadly fighting knife spinning into Gerd Maas's exposed abdomen, and then gasped in shock when the broadhead arrow punctured his sternum with a loud thunk, and sliced through his heart.

Chareaux was still falling when Lightstone started toward his dropped pistol. But then he hesitated when Gerd Maas yelled out: "Stop, or I kill your friend!"

Looking up, Henry Lighthouse saw that Maas had the hunting bow drawn back again, only this time the broadhead arrow was aimed at Larry Paxton, who had managed to come up to a kneeling position. Lightstone glanced back once more at the 10mm semiautomatic that was only a dozen feet away, and Maas shook his head.

"No,
Herr
Lightstone," he said in his barely audible voice. "You cannot possibly get to it in time. And if you try, your friend will surely die."

Lightstone stood there and glared at the German counter-terrorist.

"Give it up, Maas. An FBI SWAT team will be here in a few minutes. And they're not going to worry about that bow, or the two of us, for that matter. They're either going to take you in or put you down."

"No, I don't think they will be here so fast." Maas smiled as he took a few steps closer, bringing the bow down but keeping the lethal shaft notched and ready. "They are very busy, I think, trying to locate
Herr
Riser and his amusing rifle."

"Herr
Riser?"

"My new employer." Maas smiled.

"Ah. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, Maas, but the last I saw, the FBI was fishing your new employer out of the bay. And when they get back up here, I don't think they're going to be all that interested in negotiating over a couple of agent hostages."

"But why should I negotiate?" the white-haired counter-terrorist asked, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "It is you that I want, and you are here already."

Henry Lightstone cocked his head for a moment and then smiled in sudden understanding.

"Okay, Maas, if it's a little one-on-one you're after, open fields, flashing banners, the whole works, that's fine with me." Lightstone made a show of looking around. "But it looks like one of us forgot to bring the horse and lance outfits. So how are we going to do it? Knives, rocks, bare hands?"

"The knives, I think," Maas said thoughtfully, ignoring the agent's deliberately taunting words. "A more noble way for you to die,
ja?
But first, you will disassemble your pistol."

"You're going to let me pick up that gun?" Lightstone asked skeptically.

"
Ja
, but slowly, by the barrel, with your right hand. Empty and disassemble with your left."

"My left hand is cut," Lightstone reminded him.

"But not so bad, I think." Maas smiled. "Do it anyway, or I put this arrow through your friend's heart, right now, just like Chareaux. Only this time I will be sure not to hit his cast. You understand?"

Nodding in agreement and keeping his left hand pressed tight against his hip, Lightstone stepped forward and slowly picked up the 10mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic by the slide with his bruised and swollen right hand. Working slowly and methodically with his painful and bloody—but only superficially cut—left hand, he released the magazine, racked the round out of the chamber, disassembled the slide and barrel, and then dropped the pieces to the ground.

"And now your friend's weapon too—in that exact same manner, if you please,
Herr
Lightstone."

Lightstone walked over to where Paxton was sitting, wobbly, on his heels, his eyes glassy but still glaring with rage. He'd managed to pull the broadhead out of his sternum, and his shirt was now starting to soak through with blood.

"There's a round in the chamber and nine in the mag," Paxton said softly as he continued to keep his eyes fixed on the German counter-terrorist. "Put the bastard down, Henry. That's a direct order."

Lightstone smiled as he reached down and carefully picked up Paxton's stainless steel Smith & Wesson by the barrel with his right hand.

"Sorry, buddy, but supervisors aren't allowed to give direct orders when they've sitting on their butts with arrows sticking through the middle of their arm casts," he said as he went through the same painful process of slowly emptying and disassembling Paxton's pistol, and then dropping the pieces to the ground, taking care to keep his hands in open view. "One of those new rules. Read it somewhere in my federal employee's manual."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Lightstone—you've never even opened that damned manual," Paxton muttered.

"Soon as you're done complaining, how about lending me that handkerchief," Lightstone said, and then waited patiently for Paxton to remove the sweat-stained handkerchief from around his neck. Holding one end of the cloth rectangle in his teeth, Lightstone awkwardly double-looped it around the palm of his left hand, tied it as tight as he could with his right, and then tightly clenched his hand around the cloth in an effort to slow the bleeding that had already soaked the left side of his jeans.