loose footballs — reacted first.
Reaching out, the huge agent yanked Paxton's hand away from the end of the pipe, slapped it around the pipe end he was holding, used his overwhelming strength to bring the two open ends of the pipe in his supervisor's resisting hands together, and then quickly stepped back.
Larry Paxton was still staring at the closed loop of four-inch-diameter corrugated pipe in his hands — his eyes bulging with shock as the sound of rapidly moving giant tarantulas caused him to clamp the two pipe ends tightly together — when someone knocked loudly on the warehouse door.
Immediately, four sets of eyes focused on the door.
'Who that hell is that?' Dwight Stoner whispered.
'Can't be Henry,' Woeshack reminded them. 'He said he and Bobby were going to stay away from here for a while.'
'I don't care who it is, I want somebody to get me some…' Larry Paxton started to yell, but then fell silent as Stoner quickly brought his forefinger up to his mouth.
As Paxton remained frozen in place by the frantic scurrying inside the ten-foot closed loop of pipe, Stoner drew his semiautomatic pistol from his concealed shoulder holster. Taking a protected barricade position against one of the warehouse pillars, he directed Woeshack to the far side of the rental car and nodded to Mike Takahara to open the door.
Paxton, Stoner, and Woeshack all tensed as they watched the team's tech agent cautiously approach the door, pull back the curtain on the small window, then open the door and go outside.
Four minutes later, Takahara returned with a FedEx envelope and a single piece of paper in his hand.
'You know,' he announced thoughtfully as he approached Larry Paxton, who had a decidedly dangerous expression in his dark eyes, 'the next time we set up a covert operation, we probably ought to pose as FedEx agents. Save everybody a whole lot of time and effort… not to mention a certain amount of grief,' he added, glancing meaningfully down at the loop of plastic pipe in his supervisor's shaking hands.
'I… don't… care. Get… me… some… goddamned
… duct tape… right… now,' Larry Paxton ordered through clenched teeth.
'Who's it from, Jennifer again?' Dwight Stoner asked, ignoring his team leader's furious glare. 'What did she do, suddenly remember another piece of crucial information she forgot to tell us?'
'No, this one's from Henry.' Mike Takahara handed the paper to Stoner to read while he rummaged through a nearby storage box.
'Oh yeah, what's he doing now?' Thomas Woeshack asked as he tried to read the paper over Stoner's muscular arm.
'I'm not really sure,' Takahara confessed as he retrieved a roll of duct tape and began to examine the ends of the corrugated pipe clenched in Larry Paxton's shaking hands, 'but if I read that note correctly, I'd say he's trying to tell us that we've got a serious problem on our hands.'
Chapter Thirty-four
At a little after one that Friday afternoon, Larry Paxton, Dwight Stoner, Mike Takahara, and Thomas Woeshack stood in the hallway as the assistant manager opened the door to a three-bedroom suite located at the far end of the top floor of their hotel.
'I think you'll find our executive suites to your liking, Mr. Stanley,' the assistant manager assured Dwight Stoner as he motioned for the four men to enter the suite, then followed with the luggage cart.
'Actually, I kind of liked our old rooms,' Stoner remarked wistfully as he examined the luxurious furnishings, not at all surprised to discover a set of upright wooden chairs of some indeterminate European vintage instead of the less formal overstuffed chairs that had decorated their previous, more comfortable but much less elegant rooms. 'Unfortunately, though, our corporate director has developed more refined tastes in his declining years.'
'Damned right he has,' Larry Paxton muttered under his breath.
'I beg your pardon?' the assistant manager turned to Paxton.
'I said I can't wait to see how the boss likes these rooms,' the covert team leader replied cheerfully.
'Ah, yes. Well, I think he'll be pleased. And your suite, of course, connects through this doorway.' The hotel executive banged his knuckles lightly on a dead-bolted door. 'Almost an exact duplicate, and just as nice, really.'
'I'm sure we'll all be very happy here. Think you could rustle up a half dozen barbecued beef sandwiches and some chips from that little slow-cook place down the street?' Dwight Stoner asked. He slipped four twenties to the assistant manager, who scanned, folded, and pocketed the money in an admirable show of one-handed dexterity.
'Would a half hour be soon enough?'
'Perfect.' Stoner nodded agreeably as he gently guided the young man toward the door.
They waited until the assistant manager's footsteps died away. Then, while Stoner and Woeshack searched the adjoining suite and Paxton watched out the window, Mike Takahara reached for the phone, punched in a local number, and spoke into the mouthpiece.
'Room 1012, top floor, end of the hallway to your right.'
Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
Mike Takahara checked the peephole, opened the door, stepped aside to let Henry Lightstone enter, then bolted the door behind him.
'You clear?' Larry Paxton asked as Lightstone pulled a bottle of cold beer out of the open ice chest, briefly examined the high-backed wooden chairs, and then sat down on the floor with his back against the wall.
'Far as I know.' Lightstone took a deep, satisfying swallow of the cold beer, then looked around. 'I see we're spending Halahan's money with our normal indifference to government rules and regulations.'
'You have any idea how hard it was to find two adjoining rooms at the end of a hallway in this place?' Paxton asked irritably. 'Considering all the shit we've gone through on this operation so far, the government auditors can kiss my ragged butt.'
'Spoken like a true bureaucrat.' Lightstone nodded approvingly as he turned his attention to the team's tech agent. 'Did you check the place out anyway, just to be sure?'
'Absolutely.' Mike Takahara nodded. 'Telephones, lamps, outlets, switches, and electrical lines are all clear. Nothing in the overhead that I can spot. The walls are solid, the room below us is occupied by a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, and I disconnected the radio and TV. Add what I hope was a random move on our part to the picture, and we're as clean as we're ever going to get in a public hotel… unless, of course, we've got a seriously professional technical type on our ass, in which case all bets are off,' he added thoughtfully.
'I'll settle for that.' Lightstone accepted the tech agent's assessment of the situation. 'Sorry if I sounded overly paranoid in the message, but the last twenty-four hours have been pretty bizarre.' His eyes swept the room again. 'You guys got anything to eat around here?'
'Sandwiches are on their way,' Stoner informed him, but studied Lightstone's bandaged forearm. 'What the hell happened to your arm?'
'Never mind his arm. We'll get to all that later.' Larry Paxton surveyed the team with a no-nonsense look in his eyes. 'First thing I want to know is what the hell's going on with Charlie Team.'
Between sips of beer, Henry Lightstone described his initial contact with the two apparent soldiers at the Dogsfire Inn and the subsequent military-like surveillance of Charlie Team at the restaurant, leaving out only his personal involvement with the cat woman.
He paused when someone knocked at the door, waited for Stoner and Takahara to collect the sandwiches from the well-tipped assistant manager, and finished with a description of the devices he'd found under his truck.
For a long moment, the five Special Agents looked at each other.
Mike Takahara broke the silence.
'Can you draw me a rough sketch of that second device?' He tossed Lightstone a pencil and pad of paper.
