legs, but indicated that he is perfectly capable of continuing on with the mission. I sent him down to assist Gunter and Felix.'
'My God, what about the scene?' Wolfe asked, numbed and horrified by the thought that Operation Counter Wrench could possibly start to come apart now.
'We were able to cause their plane to crash, which gave us time to retrieve Bolin and clean up.'
'And the other, ah… bodies?'
'They were left in place, precisely as we planned.'
'Then we're okay?' Wolfe whispered, hardly daring to hope.
'Yes, I believe so,' Maas replied. 'The survivors of the crash saw our plane, but we were able to land quickly on Tustumena Lake, dispose of the plane and Bolin, then leave in the backup plane without being observed.'
'How deep is the water?'
'Approximately three hundred meters, and the water is very cold and murky. He will not be found.'
'What about the investigation?'
'The FBI is on the scene, as we expected. They will be intrigued by the physical evidence, and confused by the statements of the survivors. In the end, they will have no choice but to believe that the Chareaux brothers are seeking their revenge on these federal agents.'
'Then all we have to do is wait until it's over,' Wolfe said, almost limp with nervous relief.
'No,' Maas said coldly. 'First we go and kill the last three, as planned. Then we wait for it to be over.'
Chapter Thirty-Seven
'Jennifer?'
'Yes?' the voice mumbled sleepily.
'This is Henry Lightstone. Sorry to call you this late, but I need to ask you a question about airplane cargo inspections.'
'Ah, yes sir, go ahead,' the young wildlife inspector said, blinking herself awake.
'The question is, would you normally inspect the cargo shipments coming into Anchorage on Alaska Flight Ninety- nine, the one that lands at eleven-fifty this evening?'
'Uh, no sir, not normally. That flight comes in through SEA-TAC, so there usually aren't any foreign import declarations. Those would have been checked at Seattle.'
'But you would inspect occasionally if you thought there was something illegal in one of the shipments?'
'Oh, yes, certainly, especially if we got some kind of tip.'
'Such as a single passenger trying to bring three untagged trophy grizzlies in from British Columbia, listing Anchorage as his final destination?'
'We would definitely search on something like that,' Jennifer Alik said emphatically. 'Of course it would help if that tip came from a reliable source.'
'Then I guess the next question is, do you think I'm reliable enough?'
'Yes sir, of course,' the young wildlife inspector laughed. 'Do you have any idea of when this passenger might be coming in?'
Lightstone looked at his watch. 'Far as I know, in about an hour and twenty minutes.'
'Tonight?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'Okay,' Jennifer Alik sighed. 'I'll be there, but it'll take me a couple of minutes to get dressed.'
'Ah, listen,' Lightstone said, 'I'm staying here at the Captain Cook. Do you think you could pick me up on the way?'
Making full use of her connections with the operations staff at the Anchorage airport, it took Jennifer Alik less than twenty minutes to get Lightstone's bag checked onto Flight 394 and then return to her small, shared office at Alaska Air Cargo, where Henry Lightstone was waiting.
'Any problems?' he asked as she handed him the ticket packet with the red 'Checked Firearms' tag stapled to the front.
'I had to verify that the gun in the locked case was unloaded,' the cheerfully smiling wildlife inspector nodded. 'McNulty's been saying some nice things about you the last couple of weeks, so I assumed it was.'
'Yep, all safe and sound,' Lightstone nodded, wishing that he had the heart to tell her about MeNulty, and wishing also that he could have carried the new 10mm Smith amp; Wesson semiautomatic pistol-the one he'd checked out of the Anchorage property room-with him on the plane. But he knew that it wasn't beyond A1 Grynad to have his agents monitoring the issuance of weapons passes by the airlines. And there was no way to avoid having to show his real credentials if he tried to go through the checkpoint armed.
Something about that whole weapons check-through procedure was tugging at the back of Lightstone's brain, but he didn't know why, and then Jennifer Alik interrupted his thoughts before he could figure it out.
'Anything else I can help you with?' the young Eskimo woman asked.
'Well, for the next twenty minutes or so,' Lightstone said, 'why don't you show me how you really would have inspected a shipment from Flight Ninety-nine had that tip come from a more reliable source.'
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thursday September 15th
At exactly one o'clock that Thursday morning, Special Agent Henry Lightstone went through the motions of suddenly remembering that he had a flight to catch. The assistant manager at the Alaska Cargo office-who was apparently willing to do just about anything for Jennifer Alik-stepped in and offered to drive him out on his baggage cart to the loading ramp for Alaska Flight 394.
Entering the plane via the emergency access stairway, Lightstone managed to bypass the surveillance teams that FBI Agent A1 Grynard had placed at the security checkpoints.
Eight hours and twenty minutes later, at precisely 10:20 a.m., after passing through one time zone, and two more security checks without incident, Lightstone approached the Budget rental-car counter at San Diego International Airport. He signed for a small sedan in the name of Henry Allen Lightner, using one of his undercover credit cards that he hadn't gotten around to canceling.
Forty-five minutes later, Lightstone entered the Federal Building on 'C' street, took the elevator up to the seventh floor, and walked into Dwight Stoner's office… completely unaware that he had been followed all the way from the Budget parking lot.
'Henry Lightstone. I'm here to see Dwight Stoner,' he said, holding out his badge and credentials for inspection by the young blond receptionist.
'I'm sorry, sir,' the young woman smiled apologetically, 'but Agent Stoner left the office a little while ago. Was he expecting you?'
'Uh, no, not really. Do you know when he'll be back?'
'No, I don't. He received a call from an informant, and then he left right away.'
'An informant?' Lightstone blinked. 'Are you sure?'
'Well, uh, yes, I guess so. I mean-'
'When exactly did he get the call?'
'Oh, uh, earlier this morning,' the receptionist said, looking flustered.
'I mean, what time?' Lightstone said impatiently.
'Oh, sure, let's see here,' she said as she turned back the top page in her telephone memo book. 'Yes, here it is. The call came in at exactly nine forty-six, a little over an hour ago.'
'Did you happen to get the name of the informant?' Lightstone asked as he tried to read the barely legible script upside down.
'No, I didn't. She wouldn't give me her name. I asked her twice, but she said that-'
