Prey

easy, I think.'

'In most species, the female is often considered the most dangerous,' Maas suggested with a slight smile.

'Yes, I have been told that several times,' Kimiko Osan said with a straight face.

'And what about Mr. Chareaux? Has he been cooperative?'

'No, not at all. And because of that, it was necessary to be more explicit with our instructions.'

'So I see,' Maas nodded as he looked at the cut on Kimiko Osan's swollen lower lip. He had already noted the bruising on the knuckles of her lethal right hand.

'It is nothing,' Osan said, holding her hands steady on the steering wheel of the van as she watched another group of travelers pass by.

'Of course,' Maas agreed. 'How badly is he hurt?'

'His internal injuries are of no consequence. He fought against the wrist lock, however, and hit his mouth on a rock when he finally went down. A front tooth was broken.'

'Unavoidable?'

'He was very fast,' she said matter-of-factly. 'I did not see the rock until it was too late.'

'The wrist is broken also?'

'I regret to say, yes.'

'It had been my intention to handle Phase Three myself,' Maas said.

'Yes, I understood that,' Kimiko Osan said quietly, looking down at her lap, 'I realize that I have failed you.'

'Perhaps not,' Maas said as he stared out through the spotless windshield in quiet contemplation. 'As a matter of fact, I think that you may have provided me with a more interesting option.'

Talking in his characteristically low and chilling voice, Gerd Maas outlined his plan for the modification of Phase Three.

'I would be honored to do my part,' Kimiko Osan said quietly, still unable to turn and face the man that she alternately worshiped and feared.

'The timing would be critical,' Maas said, struck by the irony that he would be entrusting his life to this small, slender young woman.

'Yes, of course,' Kimiko Osan nodded, her eyes filled with pride as she finally turned her head and looked into the cold blue eyes of Gerd Mass. 'I will not fail you again.'

At three-fifteen that afternoon, Special Agent Thomas Woeshack turned off the Old Seward Highway onto Tudor Road, turned right into the first driveway, and then drove around to the rear of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's regional office building. There had been an early winter storm, but most of the snow had melted, leaving only sporadic patches of dirty snow and ice that made Marie Pascalaura shiver in spite of her warm coat.

'This is fall?' she said to no one in particular.

'Just wait until you see winter,' Lightstone nodded.

'I've got to run inside for a minute and pick up some of my gear,' Woeshack said to Lightstone. 'Want to come in and say hi to Sally and Jennifer?'

'Sally and Jennifer?' Marie Pascalaura asked, curious.

'Sally's our lead secretary,' Woeshack explained. 'She's the only one around here who knows how to find anybody in the field any time of the day or night. McNulty says that makes her indispensable.'

'And Jennifer?'

'One of the wildlife inspectors. She's very nice, and very pretty,' Woeshack added helpfully.

'I'd like to meet them,' Marie Pascalaura said cheerfully.

'That might not be such a good idea,' Lightstone suggested.

'Oh, really?' Marie said, raising her eyebrows questioningly. 'Don't you want me to be able to find you when you're 'out in the field'?'

'Of course,' Lightstone said solemnly. 'I want you to know exactly who I'm with and what I'm doing at all times. Especially when you're cuddled up in front of a fire in a nice warm blanket while Woeshack and I are freezing our asses off in ten feet of snow trying to arrest some guy for shooting a frozen duck out of season.'

'Ah.'

'And besides,' Lightstone added, ignoring the strange look that he was getting from Woeshack, 'wives and girlfriends are always getting jealous. To tell you the truth, it can get kind of embarrassing.'

'God, you men are hopeless,' Marie Pascalaura said as she got out of the Suburban and followed Thomas Woeshack to the side door of the building.

Fifteen minutes later, Marie Pascalaura, Jennifer Alik, and Sally Napaskiak-who, in spite of being in her mid- sixties and decidedly overweight, happened to be a very attractive woman of Canadian and Native Aleut Eskimo extraction-were chattering away happily in the office of Special Agent in Charge Paul McNulty.

'Uh, I really hate to break this up,' Lightstone said, 'but if we're going to get out to the lake before it gets dark…'

'Oh, all right,' Marie Pascalaura said with a sigh as she got up out of the chair. 'But I still have a lot of questions for Sally and Jennifer.'

'I'll have you all over for dinner,' Sally Napaskiak said as she walked Marie to the door. 'I'll be happy to tell you everything I know about Anchorage.'

'Uh, Sally,' Thomas Woeshack broke in, 'I wonder if you could drop them by their hotel to check in and then take them over to the base? I need to go ahead and get things ready.'

'Yes, of course. Go on, go on.' Sally Napaskiak waved impatiently and then chuckled as the young special agent disappeared down the hallway.

'He is always so on the go,' she said, smiling.

'Have you known him for long?' Marie asked as she and Henry followed the older woman back out into the main office.

'Oh, for all his life,' Napaskiak laughed. 'His mother and I were children together,' she explained as she picked up a set of keys from her desk drawer, grabbed her coat, and then motioned for Henry and Marie to follow her down the hallway to the back parking lot. 'Loo-chook, my friend, is a full-blooded Athabaskan, but she thought that my hair was so pretty because my mother was Caucasian, and she was always saying that she wanted a daughter just like me.

'So,' Sally Napaskiak smiled as she unlocked the doors to the dirt-covered Ford Bronco, 'being the very stubborn person that she is, Loo-chook disobeyed her mother and father, went out and found herself a handsome young Swedish gold miner to marry, and then had five boys. Thomas is the youngest, and my favorite,' Sally confided in a lowered voice. 'Loo-chook says he has hair just like mine.'

They continued to talk as they drove, and Lightstone, sitting in the backseat of the Bronco, his head back and eyes closed, found himself so caught up in the front-seat conversation that he didn't realize where they were when the Bronco came to a slow, sliding stop.

Until, that is, he looked to his right and saw the row of planes.

'What…?'

And then looked to his left: and saw Special Agent Thomas Woeshack loading bags of gear into the back storage compartment of a float- mounted, orange, single- engine Skywagon II Cessna. The plane was tied down in one of the three ten-by-twelve slips that had been cut into the rocky shoreline and lined with thick boards to prevent water erosion.

'Oh, my God!' he whispered.

'Marie, this will be your first true adventure in Alaska,' Sally Napaskiak predicted. 'And all because you have found yourself a very brave fellow for a husband.' She reached back and patted Henry Lightstone's leg.

Marie and Sally opened the doors of the Bronco, leaving a numbed Henry Lightstone to pull himself out of the backseat.

'I usually prefer bigger planes,' Lightstone said mostly to himself as the women started walking toward the floatplane. He grabbed the duffel bags.

'Big plane, small plane, it is all the same thing. Sally Napaskiak waved her hand in a dismissive manner. 'You take off, you fly, you land. What else is there?' she asked, bringing her large hands out in a broad shrug as they stopped about fifteen feet from the plane.