Prey

me.'

'But-'

'Find Lightstone and Chareaux, and dispose of them immediately,' Bloom repeated. 'It's the only thing you can do.'

The phone disconnected with a loud click.

'Goddamn you, Albert, you spineless bastard!' Abercombie screamed, her face ashen with fury as she slammed the phone down on her desk and stormed out into the hallway.

'Where's Maas?' she yelled at the first person she saw. She followed the aide's stammered directions until she burst into the central conference room on the lower level to find Maas, Gunter Aben, Carine Mueller, and Kimiko Osan standing around the sprawled, dirty, and blood-splattered body of Alex Chareaux.

He was lying facedown on the floor, his wrists hooked together with nylon ties behind his back. Around his neck, a long chain was fastened, the end of which was held by Carine Mueller. Abercombie could see that Chareaux's eyes were blackened and swollen and that blood was dripping from his mouth, nose, and ears.

As she came forward, Abercombie also noted that Gunter Aben had what appeared to be a recently bandaged cut on his left forearm, and that Kimiko Osan had a similar wound across her left cheek. Of the four, only Gerd Maas seemed to be amused by the situation.

'Thank God you found him,' Lisa Abercombie said fervently as she stepped into the loose circle formed by the four ICER team members, and then leaped backward in shock as Alex Chareaux suddenly brought his knees up to his chest, rolled, came up fast, growled in the depths of his throat, and lunged at her with his teeth bared like a wild beast… only to be hammered back to the floor with the butt of the shotgun in Gunter Aben's gloved hands.

'For God's sake, what did you bring him here for?' Abercombie demanded, shaken by the insane fury that she had seen in the Cajun poacher's reddened eyes. 'Kill him right now, and then go out there and find Lightstone.'

'Not yet,' Gerd Maas said coldly. 'It is better to use him.'

'What do you mean, use him?' Abercombie's dark eyes widened in disbelief. 'The Committee is getting ready to shut us down, right now, if we don't find this Lightstone bastard.'

'There is no need to go after Lightstone,' Maas smiled, his pale eyes gleaming with amusement. 'He will come to us.'

'Maas, listen to me-' Lisa Abercombie started to plead, and then the excited voice of Dr. Morito Asai caught everyone's attention.

'We have a problem!' he yelled from the doorway leading to the conference room.

'What is it?' Abercombie yelled back.

'Park service people. They say they have an emergency situation. They must land. Injured people.'

'For God's sake, no! Tell them they can't land here!'

'I will try, but-'

'Jesus Christ!' Abercombie cursed as she looked around wildly and saw Gerd Maas-with a wide grin on his face now-step forward and pull Alex Chareaux to his feet.

'Hey, where are you going with him?' Abercombie demanded, but Maas ignored her as he and the remains of his ICER assault group started walking toward the connecting hallway to the main training areas, dragging Alex Chareaux along as they went.

Still cursing and mumbling to herself, Abercombie ran to the command-and-control room and grabbed the microphone out of the hands of the radio-room technician.

'What's their call sign?' she demanded.

'Uh, Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra,' the technician stammered.

'Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra, this is Whitehorse Cabin,' Abercombie spoke into the microphone. 'Do you read me?'

'Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra, that's a roger,' the static-filled voice acknowledged.

'Two-Five-Poppa-Sierra, Whitehorse Cabin is a restricted area. You cannot land here.'

'Uh, roger that,' the pilot responded. 'Be advised we have an emergency situation. The Park Service is fighting a brush fire in the southeast sector. I'm transporting three badly injured smoke jumpers to Gardiner, and I'm losing oil pressure. I have to put down, and these guys are in bad shape. We need help from your medical staff.'

Abercombie looked up at the helicopter camera monitor that showed a white helicopter with a red cross on the side setting down onto the helipad in a swirl of dirt and leaves. Dark smoke was coming out of one of the engine exhausts. The side door slid open, and men in fire-fighting uniforms jumped out onto the asphalt pad, crouching down to avoid the swirling blades as they pulled the first stretcher out.

Abercombie turned to the technician. 'Close and lock the emergency doors,' she ordered.

'But they-' the technician started to protest, only to wither under Lisa Abercombie's rage as she screamed, 'Do what I tell you, and do it now!'

The technician reached for the five levers that controlled the two upper-level and three lower-level emergency exit doors to the underground facility.

'What's the matter with you? Hurry up and close those doors!' Lisa Abercombie yelled when nothing happened. The technician began to tug frantically on the individual levers.

'I can't! They're stuck. Somebody must have locked them open!'

'What?' Abercombie screamed as she watched the second and third stretcher being unloaded.

'Call MacDonald,' Asai advised. 'He will know what to do.'

'Sergeant MacDonald, call the command-and-control room immediately,' the technician spoke hurriedly into the intercom mike. 'Repeat. Sergeant Clarence MacDonald. Call the command-and-control room immediately.'

Abercombie and the technician waited expectantly, but there was no answer.

'For Christ's sake, I'm going to the training area to get Maas,' Lisa Abercombie snarled, and then started for the door when the first shots rang out in the underground training facility.

The first stretcher team was waved through by Command Sergeant Major Clarence MacDonald and Master Gunnery Sergeant Gary Brickard, both dressed in full combat gear and armed with M-16 assault rifles.

As soon as they were inside, Paxton rolled off the stretcher. The carriers, both officers of the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game, let the stretcher drop. All three men, armed with shoulder-holstered pistols and wearing Kevlar vests under their fire-fighting jackets, took up defensive positions. Gunter Aben took one look and cut loose with a stream of 9mm submachine gun bullets that caught one of the Louisiana officers across the chest and throat. Aben immediately twisted away then and disappeared as a burst of 5.56mm ball ammo from MacDonald's M-16 and three evenly spaced hollow-point rounds from Paxton's SIG-Sauer shredded wood and plasterboard around his head.

The second stretcher team, consisting of Lightstone and Takahara as the bearers of a stretcher loaded with assault rifles, shotguns, stun grenades, ammo pouches, and first-aid gear, hit the floor to avoid the first flurry of gunshots. They disappeared then down the sloping helipad access tunnel, followed by MacDonald and Brickard and the Louisiana sergeant as the third stretcher team-consisting of the four remaining Louisiana officers and Stoner- moved into defensive positions and immediately went to the aid of the injured officer.

By the time they got to the end of the tunnel and were positioned to cover the swinging access doors to the conference room and the stairwell, MacDonald was already forming a plan.

As Brickard, Lightstone, Takahara, the Louisiana sergeant, and three of his officers crouched against the angled walls, their weapons out and ready, watching for the first sign of movement at either of the doors, MacDonald nodded at Lightstone.

'I'm Clarence MacDonald,' the veteran combat soldier said, and then motioned with his head. 'The gunny over there is Gary Brickard. You Lightstone?'

'Yeah,' Lightstone nodded as he continued to scan the opposite corridor.

'Anybody else on the way?'

'Eventually there'll probably be a couple hundred FBI agents surrounding the park,' Lightstone replied, 'but right now, we're it. How many of them are there?'

'Seven,' MacDonald said, 'and they're all damn good.'

'Which one's the white-haired asshole with the rhino-skin boots?' Lightstone asked.

'That's Maas,' Brickard said. 'He's the one you really gotta watch out for,' the gunny sergeant advised. 'Man's got reflexes like a cat. You see him, you better put him down fast.'

'What about Chareaux?' the Louisiana sergeant asked quickly.