Ken Goddard - Double blind

"So these things aren't real explosives?" A look of relief crossed Henry Lightstone's tanned face.

"Depends on your definition of 'real,'" Mike Takahara responded. "There's certainly enough of a charge in an MTEAR-42 to give that little truck of yours a good bounce, and all that red smoke pouring out of the engine compartment probably wouldn't have done much for your nerves, especially if you didn't know what it meant. But it wouldn't spread pieces of you and your truck over a couple of acres.. assuming, of course, that what you saw wasn't a modified MTEAR," the tech agent added after a moment.

"What would they modify it with?" Thomas Woeshack asked.

Mike Takahara shrugged. "I don't know. Probably a standard detonator and a half pound of C-4."

Another long moment of silence ensued.

"Is there any way to tell if the one I saw had been modified?" Lightstone asked.

"One good way, if you don't mind the obvious drawbacks." The tech agent grinned wryly. "Just drive your truck over to the warehouse, and I'll take a look… after maybe an hour or two."

"Ah."

Yet another moment of silence filled the elegantly furnished room, this one finally interrupted by Larry Paxton's barely audible voice.

"It's a game. It's gotta be a game."

"What?" Lightstone and the other three agents all turned to stare at the Bravo Team supervisor.

"Think about it," Paxton insisted. "First, there's the obvious factor: Charlie Team isn't ready to work anything serious yet. They know it, Halahan knows it, and we certainly proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. So how likely is it that Halahan would send a rookie team that isn't ready out on something serious — not just somewhere in Oregon, but in the exact same Jasper County, Oregon, we're assigned to — without putting us on standby just in case they run into some kind of trouble?"

"Not very likely." Lightstone admitted, and the other three agents nodded in agreement.

"Okay, so stay with me on this," Paxton went on patiently. "We know that Halahan and Moore went to a lot of work to set up that series of training exercises for Charlie Team — using us as the crash dummies — and what did we do?"

"We won." Dwight Stoner smiled pleasantly.

"But we cheated," Thomas Woeshack added.

"Okay, we won and we cheated," Mike Takahara compromised. "Both fair and square, more or less."

"Yeah, but wait a minute." Henry Lightstone didn't look at all convinced. "Do you really think Halahan would go to all the effort to set up something — a game, exercise, whatever — this complicated, just because he's pissed at us?"

"Hey, look at the assignment he gave us," Larry Paxton argued. "You tell me that the brilliant idea of shipping us thirty deadly poisonous snakes, a dozen crocodiles, and 750 giant spiders didn't come from the twisted mind of a supervisor bent on revenge."

"That is pretty convincing, Henry," Dwight Stoner conceded.

"Damned right it is. And keep in mind, not only did we seriously piss off Halahan and Moore, but we also embarrassed the hell out of Charlie Team in the process," Larry Paxton went on, "which specifically includes that little wildcat, Marashenko, who, if you ask me, is definitely the type to hold a serious grudge."

"'Destroyed their team spirit, set them back at least a month in their training,' was the way Halahan put it," Mike Takahara reminded them.

"Right." Larry Paxton looked around at his agent team. "So what better way of rebuilding that team spirit, and putting them right back on track…?"

"… than by setting Charlie Team up in a position to embarrass the shit out of us?" Thomas Woeshack finished.

"Exactly. See, even Woeshack recognizes a case of pure treachery when he sees it." Larry Paxton smiled approvingly at the young agent. "Halahan puts us in a godforsaken warehouse in the middle of Oregon with seventy-two shipping crates from hell, knowing we'll be too busy watching out for our own asses to look around and see what's going on

…

"… and then works it out so that Henry makes contact with that blind soothsayer…" Dwight Stoner added.

"… who links him up to some crazy woman post-office worker who's really a fortune-telling witch in disguise. Wow, that really is devious planning." Thomas Woeshack's eyes widened in amazement.

"And speaking of curious events, that reminds me," Larry Paxton interrupted after briefly staring at Woeshack in dismay, "just what did happen to your arm, Henry?"

"Uh… nothing, just a little scratch."

"You're trying to tell us you bandaged your whole damned arm because you got a little scratch? Come on, give me a break." Stoner glared at Lightstone skeptically and reached for his arm. "Let me see that thing."

"Hey, wait… AGGHHH!" Henry Lightstone's eyes bulged as Stoner trapped his wrist in an inescapable grip and yanked up one side of the taped bandage loose, ripping out several hundred of his fellow agent's forearm hairs in the process.

"Jesus Christ, Henry," Stoner whispered reverently as he and the others stared at the exposed wounds.

"You trying to tell us a woman did that?" Larry Paxton demanded, his eyes widening with disbelief as he inspected the deep, encrusted wounds on Lightstone's forearm.

"No, her cat did," Lightstone muttered as he hurriedly pressed the taped bandage — now covered with dozens of pulled hairs — back in place.

"Must be one hell of a cat," Mike Takahara offered dubiously.

"She's pretty good-sized," Lightstone acknowledged as he glared at his fellow agents.

"You know," Larry Paxton remarked thoughtfully to Stoner, "something about this whole deal just doesn't smell right."

"I know what you mean." The huge agent nodded. Then, before Henry could react, the huge agent reached behind Lightstone and yanked up his shirt, pinning the lanky agent's long, muscular arms over his head and exposing his bare back.

"Bingo." Stoner smiled and turned his futilely struggling partner so the other agents in the room could see the evidence.

"Now those look like they were done by a woman," Larry Paxton announced approvingly. "'Less, of course, you'd like to try to convince us that the lady's cat climbed all over your body and tore it up like that," the Bravo Team leader added with a pleasant smile on his face when Stoner returned Lightstone to his place on the floor, released his arms, and handed him a cold bottle of beer.

"I was lucky to survive the night," Henry muttered as he struggled to straighten his shirt, "and that's the unvarnished truth."

"You all do realize what this means, don't you?" Mike Takahara asked.

"Henry spent the last two days getting laid while the rest of us froze our nuts off in that warehouse collecting a lifetime supply of nightmares?" Dwight Stoner suggested.

"Well, yeah; that, too," the tech agent agreed, "but don't you think Bobby must be involved in Halahan's scam, too?"

Larry Paxton's brows furrowed. "How do you figure that?" he demanded.

"Simple." Takahara smiled. "Halahan needs a twist on Henry, some way to control or direct his movements. So he finds out where Bobby and Susan live, knowing that if Henry ever gets reasonably close, he'll track them down first chance he gets. Then our dear Machiavellian Special Ops chief works out a deal with Bobby for… what? What would it take to get an ex-homicide detective with a warped sense of humor like LaGrange in on this deal?"

All eyes turned to Henry Lightstone.

"Not much," Lightstone conceded, a thoughtful expression appearing on his face as he finished tucking in his shirt. "Bobby and I pulled some serious shit on a few people when we worked together in San Diego. He really gets into that sort of thing."

"Like that time you floated your drunk supervisor — the one who couldn't swim and was deathly afraid of sharks — in San Diego Bay in an open coffin in the middle of the night, and then woke him up with a string of firecrackers?" Larry Paxton reminded in a mildly threatening voice.