Ken Goddard - Double blind

By the time he helped Wintersole get the bound and gagged Donato, LiBrandi, and Marashenko — who, as far as Lightstone was concerned, outdid themselves struggling, kicking, and otherwise fighting their captors — transferred to the hand-dug, belowground, Vietnam-era "tiger" cages where Brigade members now proudly guarded their new prisoners… and then checked the night-exercise area, where the last of the students made valiant efforts to attain their assigned objective… the east horizon had begun to lighten perceptibly.

Which would be a problem, Lightstone realized, as he and Wintersole walked back to the shed housing the crusty old bastard Lightstone thought was Wilbur Boggs, because darkness played a crucial role in his plan, plus he had no desire to beat up a fellow agent.

He tried to disregard the idea that Wintersole might test him with a ringer… or worse, just make him torture someone out of a warped sense of amusement.

"How's he doing?" Lightstone asked as he entered the shed ahead of the hunter-killer recon team leader, hoping at least to eliminate the first possibility.

"He passed out," the obviously exhausted young Ranger replied. "It's your turn now."

Henry Lightstone walked over to the figure slumped in the chair, lifted up the bruised head, casually peeled back the badly swollen and bleeding upper lip, then smiled when he discovered the two missing upper front teeth.

Wilbur Boggs opened one eye, gave Lightstone a wide, bloody, and gap-toothed smile, then drifted away again.

Okay, Boggs, I seriously doubt any of the Chosen Brigade volunteered to sacrifice their front teeth just to play a role for some maniac Army Ranger first sergeant, so you're probably the man Charlie Team's been looking for… which means one more problem resolved, Henry Lightstone thought. Now all I have to do is figure out how to identify myself to you and keep the rest of Charlie Team from saying anything while I'm wearing this damned microphone.

He sensed Wintersole and the young Army Ranger coming up beside him.

"What time is it?" Lightstone asked, contemplating the slumped form of Wilbur Boggs.

Wintersole glanced at his wristwatch.

"Oh-four-forty hours."

"You in a real big hurry to get that information?"

"The sooner the better," the hunter-killer recon team leader replied. "Why?"

"I don't think this guy can stay conscious any longer, much less talk, no matter what we do to him, and I'm about half-asleep myself. So what do you say we tuck him away for a few hours while we all get some rest and regroup?"

Wintersole hesitated, and appeared ready to order Lightstone to begin his interrogation anyway, when the younger Army Ranger spoke up.

"We're all getting a little ragged, First Sergeant. And we still need to get all of that, uh, hardware rigged and tested by this evening."

Wintersole nodded his head slowly.

"And besides," Lightstone added, "I think I know how to get this guy to tell us anything we want to know."

"Lots of luck on that," the young Ranger commented.

"What do you have in mind?" Wintersole's pale gray eyes expressed far more interest than usual.

"You familiar with the expression 'psychological warfare'?"

Wintersole nodded.

Yeah, I'll just bet you are. Lightstone allowed himself a few moments to watch Wilbur Boggs's ragged breathing settle into a steady rhythm before he turned his attention to the man who — for whatever reason — clearly represented the greatest threat to Charlie and Bravo Teams.

"Good. Then I'll let you guess what I plan to do once I find myself a nice, big, poisonous snake."

According to the paperwork filed with the FAA, the brand-new Falcon 900-EX that took off from Washington Dulles International Airport at 3:00 Eastern Standard time that Tuesday afternoon was one of three such aircraft owned by an international conglomerate of oil executives who leased the luxuriously appointed jets to clients on a trip-by-trip basis… and usually on very short notice.

Which explained the availability of planes, pilots, maintenance and ground crews on a twenty-four-hour call-out basis.

In point of fact, however, Samuel Tisbury, the Chairman and CEO of Cyanosphere VIII, as well as the number two man in the industrial conspiracy known as ICER, owned, operated, and piloted the very expensive three-engine jet. And, in a testimony to Tisbury's incredible wealth and infamous lack of patience, the ground and maintenance crews managed to completely reconfigure the plane internally, fuel and flight-check it a good half hour before Tisbury and his companions arrived at the private hangar.

The Falcon was still climbing — rising high over the Appalachian Mountains, on a basically straight-line course for the Rogue Valley International Airport in Medford, Oregon, with Tisbury and a copilot at the controls, an extremely attractive flight attendant solicitously attending Regis J. Smallsreed and the backup pilot in the forward cabin, and an extremely professional paramedic monitoring a deeply sedated Simon Whatley in the rear cabin — when Larry Paxton notified Special Ops Chief David Halahan that they hadn't heard from Special Agent Henry Lightstone or any of the agents of Charlie Team in the last fifteen hours.

The plane had leveled off at its cruising altitude of twenty-seven thousand feet, and was passing over Columbus, Ohio, when Lightstone decided that he'd slept enough for one morning — make that afternoon, he corrected himself, as he glanced down at his watch and discovered that it was already 1:15 — and then proceeded to stand up, slowly and carefully, so as not to wake any of the loudly snoring members of the Chosen Brigade, most of whom sprawled belly up in their military-issue sleeping bags strewn over the dirt floor of the low-ceilinged cave.

The reserve pilot had just taken over the controls above Kansas City, Missouri, so Sam Tisbury could join Regis J. Smallsreed for an exquisitely prepared dinner in the forward cabin, when Lightstone — moving carefully through the rocky outcropping above the Chosen Brigade's training facility theoretically in search of a particular variety of snake supposedly prone to sunning itself on rocky outcroppings at this time of year- spotted Wintersole and three of his men carefully setting the last of their high-explosive packets in and around an old and decrepit horse barn mostly filled with sacks of homegrown chicken manure that the Brigade men never quite found the time to spread in the fields as they promised the women they would.

However, in spite of its odorous contents, the Brigade leadership felt the building would make a perfect trial site for Federal Wildlife Agent Wilbur Boggs and his fellow Special Agents from Charlie Team, to say nothing of the entire federal government as a whole in absentia.

The plane was approaching the Rocky Mountains, and climbing again to escape some mild turbulence — to the delight of Congressman Regis J. Smallsreed, who helpfully placed a steadying hand directly across the flight attendant's ample chest as she leaned forward to refill his and Tisbury's wineglasses — as Henry Lightstone watched the first sergeant carefully lock a small transmitter in the SAFE position, then hand it to the young Army Ranger with the cast on his hand.

As the plane passed directly over Salt Lake City, Utah, and began its initial descent, Lightstone retrieved his new cellular phone from one of his cache sites and called Mike Takahara to tell the tech agent what he wanted… which, in turn, enabled Bravo Team leader Larry Paxton finally to contact Halahan and advise the increasingly anxious and frustrated Special Ops chief as to the current status of Special Agents Henry Lightstone, Wilbur Boggs, and all of the members of Charlie Team.