Prey

cooperation we get from your head honchos.'

'John Marsh, Chief of our Law Enforcement Division, promised me that he'd be on a plane heading this way within six hours. And if he can pull it off, he'll have the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service with him.'

'They know who you are?'

'Marsh knows my name, but we've never met,' Lightstone shrugged.

'What about the big guy?'

'The way I understand it,' Lightstone said, 'all he knows is that he authorized Marsh and MeNulty to run a wild-card agent completely outside the parameters of the federal government's personnel rules and regulations.'

'And seeing as how your entire operation has apparently gone headfirst right down the toilet, I assume that means both their asses are hanging out a mile?' Balloch guessed.

'Yeah, I imagine so,' Lightstone nodded.

'So let me see if I understand this right,' Balloch said as he settled back in the overstuffed chair and massaged a throbbing temple. 'What you're trying to tell me is that the only people who can vouch for you being a real, honest-to- God federal agent-as opposed to someone who probably ought to be locked up for his own good-are these two basket cases here?' He gestured with his head over at the sprawled bodies of the two men.

Dwight Stoner was stretched out on Balloch's living room couch with his badly swollen leg tightly strapped into a temporary cloth brace. Larry Paxton lay semicomatose in the other chair, his left arm in a sling, his left leg tightly bandaged, his head back and eyes closed. He looked exactly like someone who had been shot out of the air, crashed his airplane into an alligator-infested swamp, then escaped an exploding barn with a three-hundred-and- ten-pound human anchor on the end of his one good arm. All within the past forty-eight hours.

'Outside of Snoopy-uh, Mike Takahara, the tech agent we haven't been able to contact-and maybe Scoby, if he's still alive, yeah, that's about it.'

'Okay,' Balloch nodded after a minute of quiet contemplation. 'I can probably guarantee you twenty-four hours on my say-so, just 'cause I'm getting old and slow and grouchy, and nobody really wants to screw with me too much if they can avoid it. But after that, somebody like my lieutenant is liable to start counting on his fingers and wondering how come we've got only two bodies in the freezer instead of four. What'd you say the FBI guy's name was?'

'A1 Grynard. Assistant special agent in charge of their Anchorage office.'

'What's he like?'

'Old, slow, grouchy and curious as hell about anything that even looks halfway suspicious,' Lightstone said. 'You two ought to get along just fine.'

A pained expression appeared in Pete Balloch's eyes. 'And you figure this guy's probably going to be down here checking up on all this?' he asked.

'Yeah, I'd bet money on it.'

'Why?'

'Because as soon as he gets the word that Stoner and Paxton are dead, he's gonna think I'm the one who's responsible,' Lightstone said.

'Oh.'

'Ain't gonna blame him none, either,' Larry Paxton muttered through his badly split lips. 'Ah'm just about convinced of that mahself.'

'Yeah, no shit,' Dwight Stoner agreed from his sprawled position on the couch. 'We shoulda hired Kleinfelter instead. Guy like that woulda caused us a whole lot less trouble.'

'As it is, this A1 Grynard is already half convinced that I killed McNulty,' Lightstone added, 'because he found out Paul had me booked for buying illegal walrus ivory up in Anchorage when I was supposed to be buying dope. Told me not to leave town until he got everything straightened out.'

'When was that?' Balloch asked.

Lightstone looked at his watch. 'About twenty-four hours ago.'

'He get everything straightened out?'

'I don't know, I didn't ask. Too busy trying to sneak out of town.'

The veteran San Diego County sheriff's sergeant stared at Lightstone. 'Jesus, I'm glad you work for somebody else. I'd hate like hell to be your supervisor.' He paused. 'So what're you guys going to do now?'

'First thing we've gotta do is find Mike before Alex does,' Lightstone said.

'You really believe that these Chareaux assholes are going to try to take out a six-man federal-agent team, just because they got busted for illegal hunting?' Balloch asked in a disbelieving voice.

'It sure looks that way, except that it's brother, singular, now,' Lightstone corrected. 'Butch and Sonny are dead. But good old Alex, the one who's still running around out there, is the real freak. Likes to cut people up and watch them die. We know he's good for at least two Louisiana game wardens. Probably a whole lot more we don't know about.'

'So you figure that if this Alex thinks you guys are out of the picture, then he- Hey, wait a minute.' Pete Balloch's head suddenly came up. 'How come only two names on the wire, instead of three?' the veteran homicide sergeant demanded suspiciously.

'Because I want him to think I'm still out there, or to at least wonder about it for a while,' Lightstone said matter-of-factly.

'You want this asshole coming after you?'

'Not especially,' Lightstone shrugged. 'But Paul's dead, and if Mike and Carl are too, and he believes he got all three of us, then he's just going to take off. This way, if he thinks I'm the only one left, then maybe he'll leave his commando girlfriend at home and come after me himself.'

Sergeant Peter Balloch blinked and then stared curiously at his longtime friend.

'You call that a plan?' he finally asked.

'You got a better one?'

'Yeah, I sure do,' Balloch nodded. 'Put out an APB and then sit back and let a couple hundred thousand cops hunt this bastard down.'

Lightstone shook his head. 'He'd just run off to Louisiana and hide out in the swamps for a few years, wait until everything cooled off, and then come back for me when I'm not paying attention. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for a guy like Alex the rest of my life.'

'So what are you going to do? Sit around like a piece of mangled bait, wait for him-and maybe his buddies with the dynamite and the H amp;K-to show up, and then take them all on by yourself?'

'Not exactly.' Lightstone smiled as he glanced over at Stoner and Paxton. 'I've got a couple of ghosts here to help out.'

'No offense,' Balloch said dubiously as he looked at the three nearly crippled agents, 'but right now, you three guys don't look like you could defend yourselves from a couple of pissed-off Girl Scouts.'

'If we find Mike or Carl, we'll be fine,' Lightstone shrugged. 'Besides, we've got some backup on the way. Eskimo kid named Woeshack. One of our rookie agent- pilots who can't fly worth a shit.'

'That the guy you said crashed the plane up in Alaska?'

'Uh-huh.'

'So what the hell is he going to do, outside of getting you all killed?'

'He's going to be our pilot,' Lightstone smiled. 'As soon as he manages to steal another plane.'

'Ah.'

Then, before Sergeant Pete Balloch could say anything more, the phone rang next to his hand.

'Yeah?' Balloch answered, and his voice dropped an octave as he said: 'Ah, shit. Are they sure? When?' A long pause. 'What about the other guy?' A longer pause. 'Yeah, okay, thanks.' He sighed as he put down the phone.

'Scoby?' Lightstone asked quietly.

'He's dead,' Balloch nodded. 'Some of your guys found him this morning. Six rounds in his vest and one in the head, execution style.'

All three agents were silent until Lightstone finally said: 'What about Mike?'

'No answer at his place, no sign of forced entry, and the neighbors haven't seen anything.' Balloch shrugged. 'The guys out there are willing to help, but they don't want to bust in and look around unless we can fax them a