much.'
'You mean seriously doesn't like you?'
Lightstone nodded his head.
'So what you're telling me is all of this rogue-Army-Ranger-hunter-killer-team-for-hire business is finally starting to make some sense?'
'Actually, I think it's starting to make a great deal of sense.' Henry Lightstone wore a thoughtful look on his face. 'Tisbury's an extremely rich and powerful man from an even richer and more influential family. And I'm pretty sure he blames me for the deaths of his father, son, and daughter. But if that's what this whole deal is all about, then I think he just screwed up big-time.'
'Sounds like it couldn't have happened to a nicer person,' she remarked as they watched Wilbur Boggs — from his sitting position on the aircraft float — lean out and grab Simon Whatley's frantically waving left hand, slap one end of a set of handcuffs around the wrist, pull Whatley's arm around the float strut, then close the second cuff around the right wrist of a red-faced and sputtering Regis J. Smallsreed, leaving the congressman and his bagman dangling in the fetid water on either side of the main float strut.
'Him and Rustman both,' Lightstone agreed. 'In fact — '
'Hold it a second.' Karla held up her hand and listened intently to the voice in her earphones for almost two minutes.
'Okay, we copy. Good job, Danny. Thanks.' She terminated the exchange and then turned to Lightstone. 'The Hostage Rescue Team found Wintersole and Marashenko a few minutes ago, about five miles north of here,' she reported in a peculiarly quiet voice.
Lightstone noticed the unusual inflection immediately.
'Found? You mean alive?'
She shook her head. 'No, they were both very dead.'
It took Lightstone a couple of seconds.
'Not by us, I take it?'
She shook her head again, this time more slowly. 'Apparently somebody put a single bullet through each of their foreheads, at point-blank range. Danny could see powder burns on both wounds.'
Henry Lightstone blinked in disbelief.
'That's not…' he started to say it wasn't possible, but then he hesitated. 'Were they tied up?'
'No. According to Danny, their hands were free and both of them were armed with M-16s. They found them lying on their backs in the middle of a small clearing barely big enough for our chopper to land.'
'So they were executed… presumably by the same people sent in to pick them up,' Lightstone murmured softly as he stared across the water at Sam Tisbury. 'That's interesting.'
'If you say so.' She shuddered as if suddenly very cold… but her mood improved almost immediately when she replaced the Mini-14 in the blind's gun rack. 'Oh well, look on the bright side' — she smiled — 'at least they didn't show up here.'
'We'd have had our hands full if they had, no doubt about it.' Lightstone placed his rifle in the rack next to hers, then stared across the water again.
'You sound disappointed.'
'What, that we didn't get to take on a vindictive Army Ranger first sergeant, fully armed, in his playground, with the element of surprise on his side?' Lightstone smiled. 'Are you crazy?'
'Don't give me that bullshit, Henry Lightstone.' She cocked her head and studied him thoughtfully. 'When you get right down to it, Wintersole was just another bully, and you couldn't wait to confront him, could you? In fact, I'm really amazed you didn't throw a fit and insist on being part of the search team.'
Lightstone couldn't keep from smiling.
'If you must know,' he replied as he once again considered the sensuous features of the beautiful young woman in the early light, 'Wintersole and I had our confrontation. In the warehouse. I guess from his perspective — and mine, to some degree — he was just a professional trying to do his job. And long as I kept him away from the people I cared about…' Lightstone shrugged. 'I don't know, I guess I just didn't see him as all that evil. Malicious, and scary, and dangerous as hell, sure, but not evil. So I figured let the FBI Hostage Rescue Team — or whoever,' he added thoughtfully, 'hunt him down. The more interesting people — the truly evil ones, if you will — are right here. And in my own way, I got to confront them, too.'
Lightstone remained quiet for a while, then added, 'Larry and A1 were right. Once that female Ranger told us virtually everything that happened out here the day Wintersole executed Boggs's informant — and we won't discuss how Sasha just happened to brush by her shoulder when she wouldn't talk and Grynard turned his back for a moment,' he added with a brief smile — 'somebody had to go after Rustman and Smallsreed. And who better than us? I'm just glad they found Wintersole's body, so we won't have to spend the next few months looking over our shoulders and wondering where the hell he is.'
'What do you mean 'they'?' she demanded indignantly. 'Who do you think put the transmitter on him in the first place?'
'Well, okay, you, Danny, and that crazy-old-fart retired agent Sage, whoever he is.'
'You mean Dad?'
Henry Lightstone blinked in shock.
'What?'
Karla shrugged. 'Figured I'd better tell you before Grynard did.. just in case you're concerned about my background,' she added with a cheerful smile. 'However, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Mom claims that Dad's more of the sleight-of-hand, carny-barker type. All of the serious witchcraft runs in her side of the family, and only gets passed on to the daughters.'
'Dear God,' Lightstone whispered.
He remained silent for a few moments, still trying to capture that elusive thought, listening to the sounds of the rapidly approaching FBI and Fish and Wildlife Service boats, and watching Grynard and Boggs handcuff and search Rustman and Tisbury before going back to retrieve a grateful Simon Whatley while leaving a furious Regis J. Smallsreed handcuffed to the float strut and dangling in the cold water.
He gave himself over to the thought so completely he didn't realize the beautiful covert FBI agent was studying him carefully until she spoke.
'You don't really believe it, do you?' she finally asked. 'You don't think that all of the evil ones are here.'
Her certainty caused Lightstone to recall how he had looked up with Sasha into the dark sky and saw nothing… but knew that something truly evil and threatening was there.
'No,' he conceded quietly, 'I really don't believe they're all here.'
She reached out for his hand and the two of them stood in the bobbing blind, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
'So tell me,' he finally said, 'setting aside the problems of your crazy-old-fart father and reassuring mother for the moment, what made you so sure that Wintersole would keep wearing that bear-claw-necklace transmitter?'
'Actually, I think we can thank Sasha for that.' Karla smiled back at him. 'Nothing quite like a little adrenaline surge to make the typical macho male deeply superstitious.'
Lightstone glanced down at the cougar-claw necklace he still wore around his own neck.
'That goes for you too, sport,' she replied with a mischievous grin. 'However, in your case, I think there may have been some rampant hormones involved in the process.'
Henry Lightstone nodded sheepishly. 'I guess I have to plead no contest on that one.'
'Bet your ass,' she nodded. 'And speaking of pleading, you think Rustman or Whatley will testify against Smallsreed? He's the one Grynard really wants.'
'What do you think?'
'Well, unlike our dear departed Sergeant Wintersole and very possibly Lieutenant Colonel Rustman, Mr. Simon Whatley and the Honorable Regis J. Smallsreed don't strike me as guys who would back each other up to the death,' she said, rubbing the small of Lightstone's back. 'I think it's probably more a question of who gives the other up first with the best supporting evidence. What was that you called them when they went into the water?'
'The congressman and the bagman.' Henry Lightstone smiled at the memory of Charlie Team agents Donato and LiBrandi struggling helplessly in the bottom of the Glynco septic tank. 'Hell of a pair from day one.'
