Ken Goddard - Double blind

Henry Lightstone observed his superior critically.

"Paxton," he finally said, "did anybody ever tell you that you've got a lousy bedside manner for a raid team leader?"

"All I want you guys to do is be careful, and don't do anything completely off-the-wall crazy," the lanky supervising agent warned in a prayerful whisper. "That's all I ask. Just be careful."

At precisely 7:20 A.M. on that beautiful Sunday morning, three camouflaged boats cautiously approached an isolated dock on the southern shore of Loggerhead Lake from three directions — one coming in straight from the north, while the other two hugged the shoreline in an easterly and westerly flanking move.

About a hundred yards out from the dock and a nearby cabin, the straight-in driver cut his engines and allowed the pressure of the water to bring the flat-bottomed jet boat to a gentle, bobbing stop.

For five long minutes, Lt. Colonel John Rustman scanned the dock, the cabin, a black Lincoln Town Car parked next to the cabin, and the surrounding trees with his binoculars.

Nothing.

"Tango-one, talk to me, by the numbers," he ordered in a raspy whisper.

The responses from First Sergeant Aran Wintersole's hunter-killer team crackled in Rustman's ear receiver in a crisp, professional cadence:

"Tango-one-seven. In position. No targets, no movement. Out."

The east flank.

"One-six. In position. No targets, no movement. Out."

The west flank.

"One-four and one-five. In position. No targets, no movement. Out."

The cabin.

"One-two and one-three. In position. One target, driver's seat. White male, wire-framed glasses, twenty-five to thirty, brown and brown. No visible armament."

The Town Car.

"One-one. Situation is controlled. Out."

The last voice cold and metallic, even through the scrambling filters.

Wintersole.

Lt. Colonel John Rustman smiled.

"Ten-four, stand by," he ordered tersely. He set the binoculars aside and observed the trembling man sitting in the passenger seat beside him.

Congressional district office manager Simon Whatley's composure had improved dramatically over the past half hour. He no longer looked like he could throw up or have a nervous breakdown at any moment.

"I hope, for your sake, that boy is alone and knows nothing at all about what's in that trunk." Rustman spoke in a voice that conveyed absolutely nothing in the way of compassion or understanding.

Simon Whatley was furious at Rustman for placing him in such a horribly compromising position, and at himself for his cowardliness. His pants were soaked with urine, and he knew that Rustman knew the source of the pungent odor as well as he did. The realization that Rustman had been laughing at him during the entire twenty-minute boat trip infuriated the veteran political staffer even more.

Even so, another three or four seconds passed before Whatley could trust his voice to get him beyond the fury, the nausea, and the terror. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force those horrible images out of his mind.

Lou Eliot's lifeless body disappearing beneath the water.

The dark-hooded figure.

And those eyes. Those terribly cold, strange, and frightening eyes.

Wintersole.

Just the thought of the man's name almost made Simon Whatley lose control of his bladder again.

"You don't have to worry about Bennington. As far as we're concerned, he's just a delivery boy," he finally forced out the words, desperate to put every ounce of authority he possessed into them as he turned to face his fellow conspirator. "I told him to stay in the car and wait for me, and that's exactly what he'll do. He knows nothing about the money, and, in any case, he doesn't have the code to open the briefcase." Whatley hesitated, then went on. "But I want an explanation, Rustman. Right now. No, let me put it more clearly. I demand an explanation. What could you possibly have been thinking of, killing one of your own men like that?"

Rustman gazed dispassionately into the terrified eyes of a man who now represented a potential threat to his freedom, if not his life. For a brief moment, Simon Whatley feared that he might have pushed it too far.

But finally the military officer shrugged.

"I had no choice. Eliot compromised the operation."

Simon Whatley recoiled in shock.

"What do you mean, compromised?"

"He knew exactly where that federal wildlife agent got caught in the nets — along the southeastern shoreline, at the four o'clock position," Rustman replied in an unnervingly calm and emotionless voice.

"So?"

"So I was the only one in the blind who heard the vector heading on Boggs from the sentry, and I deliberately faced north the entire time I took the call. Yet as soon as I told everyone in the blind that Boggs was in the area, Eliot immediately put his glasses on the four-o'clock vector. He knew right where to look."

"But…"

"He knew exactly where Boggs would be because he'd made arrangements to meet the bastard along the southeast shoreline while the congressman was shooting," Rustman explained patiently. "Which is precisely what he would have done if I hadn't changed his schedule at the last minute."

Simon Whatley shook his head in confusion.

"You lost me, Rustman. Why would Lou Eliot want to meet with a federal agent, much less somebody like Boggs? He hated Boggs. Hell, he hated the entire federal government, for that matter. Everybody knew that."

"True, but not everybody knew why," the retired military officer responded. "I'd be willing to bet even you don't know that a little over twenty years ago, Eliot's father was forced to sell this land — in fact, this entire shoreline we're looking at right now — to my father when he couldn't come up with the money to comply with some very specific cleanup regs enacted by our very favorite congressman."

Simon Whatley gasped.

"Smallsreed didn't tell you about that, did he?" Rustman smiled. "Ever stop to wonder what else he might not be telling you?"

Whatley ignored the baiting comment.

"Cleanup regs? Twenty years ago?" he countered skeptically. "You're kidding."

"Afraid not. Check your historical files. Assuming that Smallsreed was stupid enough to keep files on something like that, which I seriously doubt."

"You're damned right I'll check," the congressional district office manager muttered threateningly, but Rustman ignored him.

"Anyway, the place was going to hell. The blinds were falling apart, the wheat fields and cornfields hadn't been planted in years, the shoreline was turning into a dump, and the lake was one big oil slick… which meant hunting got progressively worse each year, because all the clucks went somewhere else."

Rustman's eyes swept the clean waters and lush shores of Loggerhead Lake.

"Back then, my family owned half the shoreline. With the help of Smallsreed and a few of his helpful contributors who liked to shoot on weekends, my father… acquired the rest, and began to turn it around. When Eliot's father finally drank himself to death, I talked my father into hiring Lou to help us bring the ducks back. When my father died ten years ago, I made Lou my foreman."

"To make up for what your father did?"

Rustman shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. I needed somebody I could trust to keep an eye on the place until I put in my twenty and got transferred to the reserves. Lou and I grew up on this lake together. We used to play soldier around that old cabin" — Rustman gestured toward the cabin near where the black Town Car sat parked, waiting — "so it seemed like the right thing to do. But as it turned out, he thought I was rubbing his nose in it."

"So you think he intended to get back at you and your father — and the congressman — ?"