Ken Goddard - Prey

Suddenly the entire thing crystallized in Henry Lightstone's mind. Reston Wolfe and the woman, Lisa something, dressed in brand-new camouflage clothing and armed with incredibly expensive rifles, and the bear chasing him…

Can you hear me?

I'm going to try to move your arm.

Holding his head in her lap, knowing it was her because he could smell her perfume over the smell of the blood. His and the bear's.

Jesus!

"Joe," Lightstone asked in a voice as calm and quiet as he could manage under the circumstances, "do you have any idea of where the Army Crime Lab got those clothes?"

"Kinda thought you might want to know that," the forensic serologist chuckled. "Got a pencil?"

It was eleven-fifteen that evening when the phone in Paul Saltmann's carefully locked and secured underground room rang softly.

"Saltmann," he rasped sleepily, and then became wide awake as he listened to the familiar voice describe exactly what it was that it wanted done.

"Yes sir, Mr. Bloom," the curly-haired weight lifter and intelligence specialist finally said when the voice finished. "I understand completely. You can count on me."

Sunday September 26th

Lisa Abercombie was furious.

"They can't do that!" she screamed into the phone.

"My dear, they not only can do it, they will do it if you don't find Chareaux and this Agent Lightstone immediately," Albert Bloom warned.

"But-"

"Lisa, listen to me. The FBI is beginning to probe into areas that we do not want examined. And if they ever manage to discover what you and Wolfe have done, there will be nothing we can do to protect you. Nothing."

The words "you and Wolfe" jarred at Lisa Abercombie's soul, but she forced herself to ignore their lethal implications.

"Albert, that's not fair," she protested in a raspy voice, finding it difficult to believe that she was actually using those words. "You provided the Chareaux brothers with the best legal team in D.C."

"Yes, but they had absolutely no connection to any of us," Bloom reminded. "You do, and we cannot allow it to go beyond you. Not something this big. You, of all people, should understand that."

"Albert, you have to tell them-" Abercombie started in, but her mentor and lover would have none of it.

"Lisa, listen to me," Bloom said in a calm, cold voice. "I can't tell them anything right now. They are telling me."

"But-"

"Find Lightstone and Chareaux, and dispose of them immediately," Bloom repeated. "It's the only thing you can do."

The phone disconnected with a loud click.

"Goddamn you, Albert, you spineless bastard!" Abercombie screamed, her face ashen with fury as she slammed the phone down on her desk and stormed out into the hallway.

"Where's Maas?" she yelled at the first person she saw. She followed the aide's stammered directions until she burst into the central conference room on the lower level to find Maas, Gunter Aben, Carine Mueller, and Kimiko Osan standing around the sprawled, dirty, and blood-splattered body of Alex Chareaux.

He was lying facedown on the floor, his wrists hooked together with nylon ties behind his back. Around his neck, a long chain was fastened, the end of which was held by Carine Mueller. Abercombie could see that Chareaux's eyes were blackened and swollen and that blood was dripping from his mouth, nose, and ears.

As she came forward, Abercombie also noted that Gunter Aben had what appeared to be a recently bandaged cut on his left forearm, and that Kimiko Osan had a similar wound across her left cheek. Of the four, only Gerd Maas seemed to be amused by the situation.

"Thank God you found him," Lisa Abercombie said fervently as she stepped into the loose circle formed by the four ICER team members, and then leaped backward in shock as Alex Chareaux suddenly brought his knees up to his chest, rolled, came up fast, growled in the depths of his throat, and lunged at her with his teeth bared like a wild beast… only to be hammered back to the floor with the butt of the shotgun in Gunter Aben's gloved hands.

"For God's sake, what did you bring him here for?" Abercombie demanded, shaken by the insane fury that she had seen in the Cajun poacher's reddened eyes. "Kill him right now, and then go out there and find Lightstone."

"Not yet," Gerd Maas said coldly. "It is better to use him."

"What do you mean, use him?" Abercombie's dark eyes widened in disbelief. "The Committee is getting ready to shut us down, right now, if we don't find this Lightstone bastard."

"There is no need to go after Lightstone," Maas smiled, his pale eyes gleaming with amusement. "He will come to us."

"Maas, listen to me-" Lisa Abercombie started to plead, and then the excited voice of Dr. Morito Asai caught everyone's attention.

"We have a problem!" he yelled from the doorway leading to the conference room.

"What is it?" Abercombie yelled back.

"Park service people. They say they have an emergency situation. They must land. Injured people."

"For God's sake, no! Tell them they can't land here!"

"I will try, but-"

"Jesus Christ!" Abercombie cursed as she looked around wildly and saw Gerd Maas-with a wide grin on his face now-step forward and pull Alex Chareaux to his feet.

"Hey, where are you going with him?" Abercombie demanded, but Maas ignored her as he and the remains of his ICER assault group started walking toward the connecting hallway to the main training areas, dragging Alex Chareaux along as they went.

Still cursing and mumbling to herself, Abercombie ran to the command-and-control room and grabbed the microphone out of the hands of the radio-room technician.

"What's their call sign?" she demanded.

"Uh, Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra," the technician stammered.

"Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra, this is Whitehorse Cabin," Abercombie spoke into the microphone. "Do you read me?"

"Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra, that's a roger," the static-filled voice acknowledged.

"Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra, Whitehorse Cabin is a restricted area. You cannot land here."

"Uh, roger that," the pilot responded. "Be advised we have an emergency situation. The Park Service is fighting a brush fire in the southeast sector. I'm transporting three badly injured smoke jumpers to Gardiner, and I'm losing oil pressure. I have to put down, and these guys are in bad shape. We need help from your medical staff."

Abercombie looked up at the helicopter camera monitor that showed a white helicopter with a red cross on the side setting down onto the helipad in a swirl of dirt and leaves. Dark smoke was coming out of one of the engine exhausts. The side door slid open, and men in fire-fighting uniforms jumped out onto the asphalt pad, crouching down to avoid the swirling blades as they pulled the first stretcher out.

Abercombie turned to the technician. "Close and lock the emergency doors," she ordered.

"But they-" the technician started to protest, only to wither under Lisa Abercombie's rage as she screamed, "Do what I tell you, and do it now!"

The technician reached for the five levers that controlled the two upper-level and three lower-level emergency exit doors to the underground facility.

"What's the matter with you? Hurry up and close those doors!" Lisa Abercombie yelled when nothing happened. The technician began to tug frantically on the individual levers.

"I can't! They're stuck. Somebody must have locked them open!"

"What?" Abercombie screamed as she watched the second and third stretcher being unloaded.

"Call MacDonald," Asai advised. "He will know what to do."

"Sergeant MacDonald, call the command-and-control room immediately," the technician spoke hurriedly into the intercom mike. "Repeat. Sergeant Clarence MacDonald. Call the command-and-control room immediately."