'Sounds like a government pilot to me,' Stoner observed. 'But isn't he also the guy that buzzed those bastards who were shooting at you, and then hauled your ass out of the plane after he dumped it into the trees?'
'That's Woeshack all right,' Lightstone nodded.
'Sounds like good covert agent material to me,' Stoner said.
'Yeah, I know.' Lightstone smiled as Larry Paxton received clearance from the tower and began to roll the twin-engine airplane down the runway. 'I've been thinking the same thing myself.'
Senior Electronics Specialist Ed Rhodes stood inside the small Ashland Airport terminal building and watched through the window until the twin props of the Cessna Golden Eagle stopped turning, the door opened, and one by one, the four men made their way down the stairs.
Sighing in relief as the last man stepped down onto the asphalt, Rhodes walked outside and strolled across the tie-down area. Two of the men were standing around on crutches, while the other two were busy removing from the small plane what luggage they had.
'Hey, buddy, you aren't going to believe the LEMIS messages we got just after you called,' the bearded scientist said as he came up behind Takahara and slapped him on the shoulder. 'For a minute there, I thought-'
Then Rhodes blinked in shock when Mike Takahara turned around and showed his badly damaged face. 'Jesus! What the hell happened to you?'
'Long story,' Takahara shrugged. 'Tell you all about it after we've had a couple of beers. These are the guys I told you about. Ed Rhodes, meet Henry Lightstone, Larry Paxton, and Dwight Stoner.'
Rhodes tried to hide his shock when he looked at the badly bruised and swollen faces of the three men as he shook hands.
'Did you say Stoner and Paxton?'
'That's right,' Takahara nodded.
'Uh, did anybody mention to you guys that you're supposed to be dead?' the scientist asked. 'Though I don't recall seeing anything in either of the messages about an agent named Lightstone.'
'Henry's one of our deep-cover agents in Special Ops,' Takahara explained. 'In fact, the only people so far who actually know he's a Fish and Wildlife agent are the director, the chief, a U.S. Attorney, the four of us, and now you.'
'I see,' Rhodes nodded thoughtfully. 'Uh, you want to be introduced by some other name when we take you through the lab?'
'How about Lightner? Henry Allen Lightner,' Lightstone said.
'Henry Lightner it is,' Rhodes said easily. 'Man, you guys must be into something heavy.'
'Well, we're hoping that the people who caused us all this grief will continue to think that Mike and Larry and Dwight are dead,' Lightstone explained carefully. 'For the moment, they may think I'm still alive, which we're planning to use to our advantage.'
'That's an interesting twist,' Rhodes said.
'Yeah, we think so. Is that going to cause any problems if I give you some evidence using the name Lightner?'
'No, no reason why it should.' The bearded scientist shook his head as he led the three men over to the white government-plated Suburban. 'We get a lot of evidence in from agents and game wardens working undercover, so we're used to keeping our mouths shut about what we see and hear. Whatever name they give us is what we put down on the chain.'
'Good,' Lightstone nodded approvingly.
'I guess the thing is,' Rhodes added, his jaw tightening as he unlocked the back doors of the Suburban and began to stow away their luggage, 'everybody at the lab knew Paul and Carl pretty well. So as far as we're concerned,' he added as he closed the doors, 'it really doesn't matter who or what you guys are. All we want to know is how we can help.'
'Fair enough,' Lightstone nodded, 'because help's exactly what we came here for.'
During the five minutes it took Rhodes to drive them to the new four-and-a-half-million-dollar wildlife crime laboratory securely nestled in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon, it became obvious to Lightstone, Paxton, and Stoner that they had an interesting new ally in the bearded scientist.
'The boss is out of town, but he told me you guys could have anything here you want, including his desk,' Rhodes said as he led them into an amazingly clean and shiny evidence-control area of the lab, where a lab technician and another scientist were working around a bar-code scanning computer disassembling packages of evidence.
'This is Tim, one of our lab techs, who's helping Joe log in some evidence for Serology,' Rhodes said. 'Henry, Mike, Larry, and Dwight, from Special Ops. You guys about done there?'
'Yeah, just got some stuff in from the Army Crime Lab over in Georgia,' Joe Biggs, the serologist, said and then looked at Lightstone more closely. 'Hey, aren't you that guy who was involved in the bear case we got from Yellowstone a few months ago?'
'That's right,' Lightstone nodded cautiously. 'How'd you know that?'
'They sent us some photos taken at the hospital. Somebody had the bright idea of trying to match the claw marks on your arms and shoulder against one of the bears claws to tie you to the scene.'
'Were you able to do it?' Lightstone asked, curious.
'Naw. That's the kind of thing these guys get from watching too much television. What we were able to do, though, was work up the blood on your clothes. Basically proved that you were covered with bear blood, which I guess you already knew,' the serologist smiled. 'Then we used our computerized DNA system to match up the stains on your clothes with the two bears in that guy's truck. No big deal, but it might help corroborate your testimony if it ever goes to trial.'
'Don't count on it,' Lightstone said grimly. 'That case is just about over with.'
'Yeah, that's what I heard,' the serologist said, sounding vaguely disappointed. 'Oh well, guess I'd better get back at it.'
'Okay, Henry,' Rhodes said, waiting until Tim and Joe left with their evidence and closed the door, 'so what have you got for us?'
'This,' Lightstone said as he handed the forensic scientist a small plastic bag containing the strip of hide he'd removed from the claw of the mother Kodiak.
Rhodes held the plastic bag up to the light and began to write notes in a new case folder as Lightstone explained the significance of the collected material, verified the seal on the package, and then signed the chain-of- custody forms.
'Not sure how much we're going to be able to tell you on something that small,' Rhodes said as he reached for a nearby phone, 'but we'll give it a try. Hey, Margaret? This is Ed. Yeah, listen, can you come down to Evidence and Property? Yeah, right now. I've got something interesting for you.'
Two minutes later, after listening to Ed Rhodes' concise summary of the information Lightstone had provided, the white-coated mammalogist disappeared down the long hallway in the direction of her lab section with the evidence in hand.
'Want to see the rest of the lab while we're waiting?' Rhodes asked.
'Sure,' Lightstone said agreeably.
'Okay, why don't we first go see what Joe's doing,' Rhodes suggested as he led the four agents down the narrow hallway and into the main door on the right. 'Then I'll take you around to morphology, criminalistics, the photo-video lab, graphic arts, and save the best part of the lab for last.'
'Electronics and computers, the critical stuff,' Mike Takahara nodded with a cheerful smile as Paxton and Stoner rolled their eyes.
'Christ, is this place all ours?' Lightstone asked in disbelief as they entered the modern serology lab, where he could see at least a dozen white-coated figures working in and around the red oak cabinets and black epoxy countertops.
'Yours, and about seven thousand other state and federal wildlife officers, not to mention a hundred and thirteen countries that signed the CITES treaty,' Rhodes said. 'Only lab of its kind in the world. Here we basically look at blood and tissue samples, and try to figure out what species is involved.' Rhodes led them over to the serologist he had introduced earlier. 'Maybe Joe here can explain what he's working on.'
