The driver shrugged. 'I deliver wherever it says on the address, and pick up just about anywhere in town… even the local girly-joint if they've got something to go.' The driver smiled as he accepted the clipboard and handed the package to Lightstone.
'So you guys deliver at the industrial complex out on the west side of town?' Lightstone asked as an idea suddenly occurred to him.
'Sure do. In fact, that's where I'm headed now.'
'You have time to pick up another package for delivery out there?'
'Always time to pick up new business. But it won't get there until tomorrow.'
'Why not?'
'It has to go through one of the central routing points first.'
'You mean you guys would actually fly a package all the way to Memphis or San Francisco, fly it back to Medford, and then truck it all the way back to Loggerhead City?'
'You bet.' The driver smiled again. 'That's what you pay for — twenty-four-hour guaranteed service. Not necessarily efficient service, but definitely guaranteed.'
'What if I offered you a hundred dollars for a one-hour guaranteed delivery?'
'A hundred dollars?' The driver gasped. 'Are you serious?'
'I am as long as the package gets there before ten this morning.'
'Well, I don't know…'
'Listen,' Lightstone quickly pulled out his wallet, 'if it makes you feel better, send another empty package the long way around through Memphis, full fare… just as long as the first one gets to the warehouse by ten this morning.' He handed the driver a hundred-dollar bill and a ten-dollar bill. 'Deal?'
The driver looked at the money, hesitated once more, then directed Lightstone to follow him out to his truck.
Five minutes later, Bravo Team's wild-card agent hurried back into the restaurant with a FedEx package in his hand and sat down at the table just as Danny came out of the kitchen with a steaming tray balanced on his shoulder.
'That was close,' the woman commented, looking down at her watch. 'Only fifteen seconds to spare.'
'Figured I'd better do something worthwhile to earn my keep around here,' Lightstone explained, handing her the package as the cook set the tray on a nearby table.
'Don't tell me you're angling for a job with the post office?' The woman's eyes narrowed slightly as she glanced at the package before she set it aside.
Lightstone laughed. 'Not hardly. I don't think I'd make a very good federal employee.'
'Oh really? Why's that?'
'The federal government and I don't exactly see eye to eye on a lot of things,' Lightstone told her truthfully. 'Fact of the matter is, until I met you, I kinda figured they were all just a bunch of lay-about good-for-nothings pigging out at the government trough. You know the type. Too lazy to go out and get a real job.'
'As opposed to your standard, skinny, hardworking, good-for-nothing male who just happens to be — how did you put it — 'between' real jobs?' Karla smiled.
'Exactly,' Lightstone nodded agreeably. 'Man has to know his place in this world.'
'Actually,' the slender young woman studied him thoughtfully, 'I bet you'd be a perfect candidate to give some of those higher-ups in Washington a few well-deserved coronaries.'
'That's been mentioned before,' Lightstone admitted.
'Yeah, I'll bet it has.' Karla chuckled, making no attempt to restrain her good-natured sarcasm. Then she smiled in gratitude when the cook placed a steaming plate of scrambled eggs with minced China peas and sliced mushrooms, and one of toast, on the table in front of her.
'Danny, you are a gem. Remind me not to ever let the federal government steal you away from here.'
'Yes, ma'am, that I am… and no, ma'am, there ain't no chance of that ever happening.' The young cook smiled cheerfully. 'Added the mushrooms for a little variety.' He gestured toward the contentedly sleeping panther. 'Figured y'all might need your strength this fine morning.'
The cook then deliberately glanced down at Lightstone's bandaged forearm, shook his head, smirked, placed a second steaming plate in front of the covert agent, and walked back into the kitchen humming a cheerful Cajun tune, seemingly oblivious to the glares the two diners aimed in his direction.
Chapter Thirty-three
'Why the hell didn't you think of something like this in the first place?' Larry Paxton asked reasonably after he examined Mike Takahara's latest construction project.
'Lack of perspective,' the team's tech agent replied.
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'A couple days ago, I wouldn't have thought that building something this elaborate just to drill a four-inch- diameter hole into the side of a shipping crate would have been worth the effort.'
'Chasing little baby poisonous snakes around a frozen warehouse for eight hours straight tends to give you a whole different perspective on a lot of things,' the Bravo Team leader commented grimly.
'Amen to that.'
'Yeah, no shit,' Dwight Stoner agreed as he and the other three agents watched the first red-kneed giant tarantula step cautiously into the twelve-inch segment of four-inch-diameter clear plastic tubing that now connected one of the wooden crates to ten feet of flexible black irrigation pipe and the feeding tube of one of the special terrarium tops.
As the covert agents watched, fourteen more giant tarantulas followed each other into the thin, opaque, corrugated plastic pipe.
'Well, it looks like this contraption just might work,' Paxton commented with a decided edge of skepticism in his voice.
They waited patiently — for one minute, a second, and then a third — for the tarantulas to drop into the terrarium.
Nothing.
'Now what the hell's going on?' Paxton finally demanded.
'They're not going into the terrarium,' Mike Takahara observed.
'I can see that,' Larry Paxton retorted as he knelt down by the terrarium and turned his head sideways to try to see inside the black corrugated pipe. 'What I want to know is why.'
'I don't know, maybe they're afraid of strange new environments,' the Tech Agent suggested as he gently tapped the thin, flexible four-inch-diameter pipe. They heard the whisper sound of scurrying feet within the tube, but not a single tarantula ventured into the terrarium.
'Bullshit,' Paxton muttered. 'Spiders are the primary reason everybody else is afraid of strange new environments.'
'Maybe they don't see it that way,' Thomas Woeshack offered.
'Hit it harder,' Stoner suggested.
Takahara cautiously shook the flexible pipe, causing considerable more scurrying but no giant spider appearances. The terrarium remained empty.
'No, no, not like that. Like this.' Paxton grabbed the pipe and gave it a hard shake.
'Wait, Larry, don't…!' Mike Takahara tried to warn his boss, but it was too late.
To the horror of all four agents, the ten-foot length of thin, corrugated black pipe pulled loose at both ends.
'Oh SHIT!'
Larry Paxton and Dwight Stoner instinctively lunged for an end of the pipe. Without stopping to think, they lifted the ends off the floor and quickly covered the four-inch opening with their free hands.
The enormity of their error struck the two agents simultaneously as they both looked down at their exposed hands, and then back up at each other. But Stoner — whose reflexes had been honed by twelve years of diving for
