Ken Goddard - Chimera

“Impressive,” he commented. “I didn’t realize they were making computers that tough these days.”

“Neither did I,” Reston said, frowning. “I’ll take a sledge hammer to it later, and then run the parts through a metal shredder.”

Bulatt’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion for a moment, but then it came to him.

“They went too far — with my laptop — didn’t they?” he said, smiling hopefully.

“Much too far,” Reston acknowledged.

“Meaning?”

“Credit card and cell phone records; definitely forbidden territory for those two. Not to mention hacking into a local mainframe when they decided your computer was too small and too slow; which is why I don’t want any evidence hanging around for an IG investigator to poke at. I’ve got a replacement laptop for you in my office.”

“Which — if I was fourteen, and knew what I was doing — I’d probably open up and check for worms, transmitters and baby spider eggs right off the bat, correct?”

“You’re starting to catch on,” Reston said approvingly.

“I’ll have Mike check it out, just to be on the safe side,” Bulatt promised.

“So how did they approach it?” Achara asked, unable to contain herself any longer.

“That’s the amazing thing,” Reston said, “every now and then these kids still manage to surprise me. Their general approaches to probes and database links are still pretty unsophisticated; but they have this odd ability to make huge logic leaps at the most illogical moments. It’s probably a generational thing; but I would have started with the registration number for Hateley’s Gulfstream, and worked outwards in linear searches from there.”

“They didn’t?”

“No, they went straight into a seven-dimensional array with jet-fuel accounts and Gulfstream maintenance firm records in the first two positions, cross-linked to credit cards, cell phone calls, hotel bookings, national newspaper articles and CITES permits, and then ran the entire matrix through a Boolean logic deep-search with Hateley as the common factor. In effect, they ran forty-two comprehensive searches simultaneously, all of which were cross-linked. They should have set up a logic tree right away, anchored their roots, and covered their tracks better, but they were probably in a hurry to show their stuff; and I had the transmitter set for one second bursts every half hour, to keep them from picking up on the RAM usage, so I was always playing catch-up. But I was still able to follow their trail, clean up the log files and — ”

Bulatt saw that Achara was listening intently.

“Did you actually understand any single part of what she just said?” Bulatt asked Achara, interrupting Reston’s summary.

“Sure.” Achara shrugged, nodding her head. Bulatt looked around and discovered that Renwick and Hager were also nodding their heads.

“Oh.”

Bulatt decided that his head was definitely starting to hurt. “Uh, could we skip the technical details and go straight to the ‘oh my god’ part, assuming there is one,” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Reston said, motioning to Hager who reached over and thumbed a remote device. A glowing Powerpoint™ slide suddenly appeared on the far white wall, showing the faces of four men, all of whom appeared to be in their mid-fifties.

“And just who would these fellows be?” Bulatt asked.

“Starting from upper left hand corner and working clockwise, Michael Hateley, Dr. Stuart Jackson Caldreaux, Max Kingman, and Sam Fogarty,” Reston said. “The internationally-traveling CEO hunters we’ve been looking for.”

Bulatt blinked. “You’re joking.”

“No, actually, I’m not,” Reston said seriously. “I hate to admit it, but the kids pulled it off. You are looking at four extremely wealthy CEOs of relatively small corporations that profit handsomely from operating as subsidiaries to the much bigger war industry conglomerates. Interestingly enough, they all own Gulfstream G-fives that have a habit of landing at the same airports on the same days with amazing regularity. They also purchase national and international hunting licenses and file for trophy-import permits on a regular basis.”

“I assume there’s more?” Bulatt asked.

“A great deal more,” Reston said as she reached into a cardboard box beside her chair and pulled out four stacks of paper that someone had marked HATELEY, CALDREAUX, KINGMAN and FOGARTY on the top pages with a thick black marker, and placed them down on the table. Each stack was held together with a steel spring clip at the upper left edge, and appeared to be at least a half-inch thick

“This is what we know about them so far, in undigested form. I have a link analysis running now, but I thought you’d like to see the raw data.”

“I’ll be damned.” Bulatt said, shaking his head in amazement as he picked up the set labeled HATELEY and began to flip through the pages. Achara, Renwick and Hager picked up the other three. “Did the kids happen to trip across any hunting violations while they were at it?”

“I’m still running branched searches for additional information, and I haven’t had time to read most of what’s in those reports; but I do know that all four of these characters have had run-ins with state wardens, as well as with our federal agents. Mostly misdemeanor stuff, and mostly when they were a lot younger,” Reston said, glancing down at her hand-written notes. “Caldreaux was charged with a couple of Lacey Act violations nine years ago that his lawyers managed to get dismissed; but, as far as we know right now, that was the only time any of them have been charged with a felony.”

“Learned their lessons early in life,” Bulatt commented. “What about club memberships or private hunting areas?”

“All four have been members of several local, national and international hunt clubs; but, interestingly enough, they all cancelled their club memberships a little over eight years ago.”

“Why would they do that? It doesn’t make sense,” Bulatt said. “The main reason guys like these hunt is to brag about their trophies. If they dropped their memberships, who would they brag to?”

“Each other,” Achara whispered.

“What?” Bulatt turned to stare curiously at his beautiful associate.

“They must have set up their own club, so they could brag and compete with each other,” she said, staring at the four photographs with an expression on her face that was part loathing and part amazement. “After all, who else can they trust not to give them up at the first sign of law enforcement pressure?”

“Their own club, to hunt things like Clouded Leopards in Thailand; which presumably means smuggling their trophies back home, so they can show off their illegal kills to each other,” Bulatt said, nodding his head thoughtfully. Then he turned to Reston.

“You said these guys get together regularly?”

“Yes, they do. In fact, the last time was just a few days ago: in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Hateley has his primary residence. The timing corresponds with what appears to be a once-a-year meeting at one of their three home towns. And since none of them purchased a meal with their credit cards that night, we can reasonably assume they got together for dinner; probably at Hateley’s home.”

“Find the rest of that Clouded Leopard at Hateley’s place, and Juliana will be able to match it to the tissue from the bullet,” Renwick reminded. “She’s working up the statistical data now.”

“Getting hold of that two-four-three Magnum rifle would be nice too, while you’re at it,” Hager added.

“Unfortunately, a seizure like that is going to require a search warrant, and getting together for dinner once a year is not a violation of federal law,” Bulatt reminded. “In point of fact — or at least as far as we know for sure — none of these men have ever committed a serious crime against wildlife, much less murder.”