Ken Goddard - Double blind

Five minutes later, Bravo Team's wild-card agent hurried back into the restaurant with a FedEx package in his hand and sat down at the table just as Danny came out of the kitchen with a steaming tray balanced on his shoulder.

"That was close," the woman commented, looking down at her watch. "Only fifteen seconds to spare."

"Figured I'd better do something worthwhile to earn my keep around here," Lightstone explained, handing her the package as the cook set the tray on a nearby table.

"Don't tell me you're angling for a job with the post office?" The woman's eyes narrowed slightly as she glanced at the package before she set it aside.

Lightstone laughed. "Not hardly. I don't think I'd make a very good federal employee."

"Oh really? Why's that?"

"The federal government and I don't exactly see eye to eye on a lot of things," Lightstone told her truthfully. "Fact of the matter is, until I met you, I kinda figured they were all just a bunch of lay-about good-for-nothings pigging out at the government trough. You know the type. Too lazy to go out and get a real job."

"As opposed to your standard, skinny, hardworking, good-for-nothing male who just happens to be — how did you put it — 'between' real jobs?" Karla smiled.

"Exactly," Lightstone nodded agreeably. "Man has to know his place in this world."

"Actually," the slender young woman studied him thoughtfully, "I bet you'd be a perfect candidate to give some of those higher-ups in Washington a few well-deserved coronaries."

"That's been mentioned before," Lightstone admitted.

"Yeah, I'll bet it has." Karla chuckled, making no attempt to restrain her good-natured sarcasm. Then she smiled in gratitude when the cook placed a steaming plate of scrambled eggs with minced China peas and sliced mushrooms, and one of toast, on the table in front of her.

"Danny, you are a gem. Remind me not to ever let the federal government steal you away from here."

"Yes, ma'am, that I am… and no, ma'am, there ain't no chance of that ever happening." The young cook smiled cheerfully. "Added the mushrooms for a little variety." He gestured toward the contentedly sleeping panther. "Figured y'all might need your strength this fine morning."

The cook then deliberately glanced down at Lightstone's bandaged forearm, shook his head, smirked, placed a second steaming plate in front of the covert agent, and walked back into the kitchen humming a cheerful Cajun tune, seemingly oblivious to the glares the two diners aimed in his direction.

"Why the hell didn't you think of something like this in the first place?" Larry Paxton asked reasonably after he examined Mike Takahara's latest construction project.

"Lack of perspective," the team's tech agent replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"A couple days ago, I wouldn't have thought that building something this elaborate just to drill a four-inch-diameter hole into the side of a shipping crate would have been worth the effort."

"Chasing little baby poisonous snakes around a frozen warehouse for eight hours straight tends to give you a whole different perspective on a lot of things," the Bravo Team leader commented grimly.

"Amen to that."

"Yeah, no shit," Dwight Stoner agreed as he and the other three agents watched the first red-kneed giant tarantula step cautiously into the twelve-inch segment of four-inch-diameter clear plastic tubing that now connected one of the wooden crates to ten feet of flexible black irrigation pipe and the feeding tube of one of the special terrarium tops.

As the covert agents watched, fourteen more giant tarantulas followed each other into the thin, opaque, corrugated plastic pipe.

"Well, it looks like this contraption just might work," Paxton commented with a decided edge of skepticism in his voice.

They waited patiently — for one minute, a second, and then a third — for the tarantulas to drop into the terrarium.

Nothing.

"Now what the hell's going on?" Paxton finally demanded.

"They're not going into the terrarium," Mike Takahara observed.

"I can see that," Larry Paxton retorted as he knelt down by the terrarium and turned his head sideways to try to see inside the black corrugated pipe. "What I want to know is why."

"I don't know, maybe they're afraid of strange new environments," the Tech Agent suggested as he gently tapped the thin, flexible four-inch-diameter pipe. They heard the whisper sound of scurrying feet within the tube, but not a single tarantula ventured into the terrarium.

"Bullshit," Paxton muttered. "Spiders are the primary reason everybody else is afraid of strange new environments."

"Maybe they don't see it that way," Thomas Woeshack offered.

"Hit it harder," Stoner suggested.

Takahara cautiously shook the flexible pipe, causing considerable more scurrying but no giant spider appearances. The terrarium remained empty.

"No, no, not like that. Like this." Paxton grabbed the pipe and gave it a hard shake.

"Wait, Larry, don't…!" Mike Takahara tried to warn his boss, but it was too late.

To the horror of all four agents, the ten-foot length of thin, corrugated black pipe pulled loose at both ends.

"Oh SHIT!"

Larry Paxton and Dwight Stoner instinctively lunged for an end of the pipe. Without stopping to think, they lifted the ends off the floor and quickly covered the four-inch opening with their free hands.

The enormity of their error struck the two agents simultaneously as they both looked down at their exposed hands, and then back up at each other. But Stoner — whose reflexes had been honed by twelve years of diving for loose footballs — reacted first.

Reaching out, the huge agent yanked Paxton's hand away from the end of the pipe, slapped it around the pipe end he was holding, used his overwhelming strength to bring the two open ends of the pipe in his supervisor's resisting hands together, and then quickly stepped back.

Larry Paxton was still staring at the closed loop of four-inch-diameter corrugated pipe in his hands — his eyes bulging with shock as the sound of rapidly moving giant tarantulas caused him to clamp the two pipe ends tightly together — when someone knocked loudly on the warehouse door.

Immediately, four sets of eyes focused on the door.

"Who that hell is that?" Dwight Stoner whispered.

"Can't be Henry," Woeshack reminded them. "He said he and Bobby were going to stay away from here for a while."

"I don't care who it is, I want somebody to get me some…" Larry Paxton started to yell, but then fell silent as Stoner quickly brought his forefinger up to his mouth.

As Paxton remained frozen in place by the frantic scurrying inside the ten-foot closed loop of pipe, Stoner drew his semiautomatic pistol from his concealed shoulder holster. Taking a protected barricade position against one of the warehouse pillars, he directed Woeshack to the far side of the rental car and nodded to Mike Takahara to open the door.

Paxton, Stoner, and Woeshack all tensed as they watched the team's tech agent cautiously approach the door, pull back the curtain on the small window, then open the door and go outside.

Four minutes later, Takahara returned with a FedEx envelope and a single piece of paper in his hand.

"You know," he announced thoughtfully as he approached Larry Paxton, who had a decidedly dangerous expression in his dark eyes, "the next time we set up a covert operation, we probably ought to pose as FedEx agents. Save everybody a whole lot of time and effort… not to mention a certain amount of grief," he added, glancing meaningfully down at the loop of plastic pipe in his supervisor's shaking hands.

"I… don't… care. Get… me… some… goddamned

… duct tape… right… now," Larry Paxton ordered through clenched teeth.