Ken Goddard - Prey

"What's the matter?"

"They know! Listen, you've got to help me. They know all about us!"

"Who knows all about us?" Abercombie demanded.

"They… they do. The ones… they…"

"Reston!" Abercombie snapped. "Listen to me!"

"But-"

"Reston, where are you?"

"In my office, M-M-Main Interior," he stuttered. "Forgot my attache case. Nothing in it, but didn't want to leave it there, so I came in. Found it just like that, all over the walls. I'm telling you, they know, so I've got to get out of here quick, before they-"

"Reston, I want you to listen to me very carefully," Lisa Abercombie said. "The only one who knows anything at all about us is Henry Lightner. Nobody else, just him."

"But he… he's just-"

"Lightner is a federal agent," Abercombie explained calmly. "He's the one who came to see you today."

"An agent?"

"That's right."

"But… but he can't be. I mean, I checked. Honest to God.. " The man was almost whimpering now.

"Reston, it's all right," Lisa Abercombie said soothingly. "He doesn't know anything at all about what we're doing, so he can't possibly do anything to harm any of us, as long as no one panics. Do you understand?"

"I… yes, okay, I understand," Wolfe said, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. "Just send the plane out here immediately. I'll wait at National."

Lisa Abercombie looked up and saw Maas slowly shaking his head.

"Reston, we can't send anybody out to get you right now," Abercombie said. "It's too dangerous."

"Oh, yeah. Right. Uh, that's okay. I'll just take a commercial flight to Denver, and then-"

Abercombie saw Maas shake his head again.

"Reston, listen to me. You've got to stay where you are until we can get you some help," Abercombie said, watching as Maas nodded his head slowly in agreement.

"But-"

"Reston, go back to your apartment immediately," Abercombie ordered in her firm "don't-give-me-any-shit" voice. "I'll take a red-eye flight and be there first thing in the morning with our legal team. You and I will go to my apartment and stay there, and Koles will see to it that no one can possibly touch us. All right?"

There was a long pause, and then Wolfe seemed to partially recover his composure.

"Yes, that's good, a good idea," he rasped shakily. "How soon will you be here?"

"I'll have one of the helicopter pilots take me over to Denver Stapleton right now," Abercombie promised. "What you need to do is to have one of the guards call you a cab and then go home right now," she emphasized. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. All right?"

"Yes, okay, tomorrow morning," Wolfe agreed, and Abercombie hung up before the thoroughly unnerved executive director could say anything more.

For a long moment, Lisa Abercombie and Gerd Maas simply stared at each other.

"You understand that they are trying to make him panic and run to us," Maas finally said calmly.

Lisa Abercombie nodded.

"Then you realize, also, what we must do." It was not a question.

Lisa Abercombie nodded again, this time with her lips tightened.

"You call your Committee and advise them of the situation, and then find out who this Henry Allen Lightner really is," Maas directed, his pale eyes gleaming with amusement. "I will deal with Wolfe."

Five minutes after they finished talking with Dr. Reston Wolfe's doorman, the cursing agents were back in the van and heading down Connecticut Avenue in the direction of Eighteenth and "C" Streets.

"What the hell's the matter with this bastard?" Dwight Stoner grumbled as he held on to the armrest to balance himself against Lightstone's frenzied driving.

"I don't know," Larry Paxton growled, "but I'm telling you, if this guy makes us follow him all night, and we have to eat cold, fucking hamburgers instead of Little Joe's barbecue, I'm gonna-"

Before Larry Paxton had a chance to describe in detail his intentions in greater detail, Lightstone brought the van to a tire-screeching stop in front of the "C" Street entrance of the Main Interior building.

Moments later, he and Paxton were in a heated conversation with the federal security guard.

"Hey, look, man, it ain't my job to keep track of all the people who come in and outta here." The guard shook his head emphatically. "All I do is watch the building, you know what I mean?"

Larry Paxton was just about to rip into the self-righteous uniformed guard when the duty sergeant came up to the door.

"Anything I can help you gentlemen with?"

"I'm Special Agent Lightstone, and this is Special Agent Paxton," Lightstone said as he displayed his credentials, not trusting his more volatile partner to speak. "We're looking for Dr. Reston Wolfe. He was apparently dropped off here by a taxi about a half hour ago."

"Wolfe? Oh, yeah, sure. He just left a couple of minutes ago," the uniformed sergeant nodded.

"He say where he was going?" Lightstone asked, looking around quickly at the surrounding buildings.

"Hell, that man don't never say nothing to us peons," the uniformed sergeant shrugged. "All I know is, he went out the westside door and… hey, isn't that him down there? Yeah, there he goes, right there, guy in the blue raincoat heading down Nineteenth Street toward the gardens!" The guard pointed to a hunched figure walking hurriedly down the dark, wet sidewalk.

"Get in the van," Lightstone yelled back at Larry Paxton. "See if you can cut him off." Then Lightstone took off in a sprint.

Lightstone was within fifty yards of Wolfe when the distraught executive director apparently heard the slapping sound of Lightstone's shoes on the wet cement, looked back, then broke into a frantic run out across Constitution Avenue right into oncoming traffic.

The driver of a Mercedes, trying desperately to avoid hitting Wolfe head-on, jammed his brakes hard, sending his car sliding sideways on the wet asphalt, across the main divider, and into the path of a brand-new BMW.

Incredibly, in the midst of the ensuing jumble of swerving vehicles, screeching tires, shattering windshields, and dull crunches of chromed steel and sheet metal, all punctuated by the screams and curses of enraged and frightened drivers, Reston Wolfe somehow managed to stumble across all six lanes of traffic without once being hit.

Running frantically and gasping for breath, Wolfe could hear Lightstone yelling behind him. Through the darkness and rain, Wolfe saw the three agents coming around in the van to his left, and he started to run to his right. But he found himself blocked by the Reflecting Pool. He staggered from the impact of the first bullet as it caught him high in the chest and punctured his right lung.

Lightstone was already yelling "don't shoot!" at Paxton and Stoner and Takahara before he realized that he hadn't heard a gunshot.

Instinctively, Lightstone dove to the ground and rolled to a prone position, his 10mm automatic extended at he searched hopelessly for a target.

Reston Wolfe was still on his feet when the second, third, and fourth bullets ripped through his thoracic cavity, tearing through his heart and both lungs. He died before his limp body touched the ground.

"Goddamn it," Lightstone whispered as he watched the elimination of their one and only link to the men and women who had mercilessly executed Paul McNulty and Carl Scoby. He was still breathing heavily from his run when the area in front of the Reflecting Pool was suddenly crisscrossed by six pairs of headlights.

"Henry Lightstone, this is the FBI. Put your weapon down on the ground, and put your hands up in the air, right now."

Saturday September 25

"I'd really appreciate it, Ed," Henry Lightstone said and then handed the phone to Assistant Special Agent in Charge A1 Grynard, who had a decidedly unpleasant expression on his unshaven face.