'You know, Al,' Kawana pointed out after he regained his composure and observed the stunned expression on Grynard's decidedly pale face, 'all these years we've known each other, I don't believe I've ever heard you utter that word inside an FBI office.'
'That's… that's Lightstone. Goddamned Henry fucking Lightstone,' Grynard sputtered angrily as he hurled the photo onto the desk like a hot coal that burned his hand.
Senior Resident Agent George Kawana slowly got up from his chair and walked to Grynard's desk to reexamine the photo he and his colleagues had already examined with great interest a few hours earlier.
'So that's Henry Lightstone, huh? Your old wildlife agent buddy? We kinda wondered who he might be. Not to mention what he was doing lying around naked and bleeding with that…' Kawana continued, but Grynard no longer listened.
As Senior Resident Agent George Kawana watched in amazement, A1 Grynard lunged out of his chair, ripped open a nearby weapons locker, pulled out a pump shotgun, a vest, and a box of four-ought buck, and ran for the door.
At precisely 6:04 that Tuesday evening, at the very moment the Falcon 900-EX private jet bearing Congressman Regis J. Smallsreed, Sam Tisbury, and Simon Whatley touched down on the main runway of the Rogue Valley International Airport in Medford, Oregon — coming in almost directly over the rapidly accelerating sedan driven one-handed by supervisory FBI Agent A1 Grynard, who shouted into the cell phone held in the other — the woman known as Karla carried a shovel, broom, mop and scrub bucket into the interior enclosure of the Dogsfire Inn where her awesome pet spent her unsupervised hours of the day.
The panther greeted her mistress with a complaining yowl.
'I don't want to hear about it,' Karla muttered as she scooped and swept, then began mopping the concrete floor with an antiseptic solution, very much aware that the panther no longer used the fenced-in area outside her enclosure and adjacent to the Dogsfire Inn to relieve herself.
If anything, the panther's response sounded even more plaintive.
'Look, he's not here. He's out doing his own thing. That's what males do, so you might as well get used to it.'
Evidently unwilling to accept the well-intentioned advice, the huge cat emitted an irritated snarl and lunged into her overhead loft. Moments later, the sound of ripping paper filled the air.
Jesus, Karla thought to herself, next the two of us will start discussing our dating problems like a couple of sexually frustrated teenagers!
She had just resumed her mopping when shredded pieces of paper began to rain down upon her.
'Hey, what are you doing up there?' Karla demanded, but the shower of paper continued unabated, punctuated by occasional frustrated yowls.
Muttering to herself, the resident cage-cleaner knelt and was starting to pick up the pieces of paper sticking to the wet concrete floor when a very familiar image suddenly floated by.
What the…?
As she leaned forward to catch the partially shredded, folded sheet, the identity of the image crystallized in her mind.
Henry?
What the hell?
Having no idea at all why a torn picture of Henry Randolph Lee should flutter down from the loft inhabited by her pet panther, Karla carefully unfolded the wet paper… then blinked in shock when her eyes saw the name beneath his photograph.
Henry Lightstone?
Special Agent Henry Lightstone?
Oh my God.
Stunned and disoriented, it took her several moments to collect her thoughts. Then forgetting all about Sasha, she stumbled to her feet and ran to the phone in her bedroom.
She punched in the number from memory and let the phone ring eight times. Fighting off a growing sense of panic, she tried a second number, and got an answering machine.
'Goddamn it, where are you?' she screamed in frustration as she slammed the handset down.
Realizing that she had to warn them, right now, before it was too late, she reached under her bed, pulled out a sawed-off 12-gauge pump shotgun and a bandoleer of shotgun rounds, and ran for the door.
She was in her truck and fumbling with the key in the ignition when she felt something heavy hit the bed of the vehicle.
What?
She had already reached for the door handle with her left hand and started to come around with the shotgun clenched in her right, when a flash of black in the rearview mirror caught her eye.
A pair of bright yellow eyes with coal black pupils stared back at her calmly.
Sasha? How…?
The image of the open enclosure door filled her mind.
Oh shit!
She hesitated, torn between conflicting emotions.
Goddamn you, Henry Whoever-you-are!
Unwilling to lose the time necessary to return the agitated panther to her enclosure, Karla shook her head in frustration, invited the panther into the cab, and quickly fitted the crucial control collar over the complaining animal's thick neck.
After assuring herself that all three of the small, flexible antennas for the tracking, syringe-activating and drug-injecting systems were extended and clear, and that she now had complete control over the dangerous cat, she started the truck and accelerated out of the inn parking lot with a steely look of determination in her gold- flecked green eyes.
The Sage was puttering down the road on his underpowered motorbike toward the Dogsfire Inn when the familiar truck went roaring by, the panther in the cab yowling through the partially opened window in either recognition or distress — the Sage couldn't tell which — as the swirling currents of the truck's wake covered him with dust, dirt, and other assorted debris.
Shaking his head in dismay, he pulled over to the side of the road to clear his eyes and mouth, then got back on the road at a much-accelerated pace.
When he got to the inn, he found the restaurant wide-open but abandoned.
Puzzled and increasingly apprehensive, the old man progressively worked his way into the back living quarters, where he discovered Sasha's open enclosure, the abandoned scrub bucket and cleaning tools, and the concrete floor littered with wet shreds of paper.
Only when he worked his way into Karla's bedroom did he discover the partially torn, still-wet picture of a very familiar individual lying next to the phone on her bed stand.
Five minutes later, cursing to himself in a manner suggesting a far more interesting background than one might expect of the average, supposedly blind soothsayer, the Sage kicked his aging motorbike into life and roared back down the road in pursuit of Karla and the ever-protective Sasha.
And while all of that transpired, Henry Lightstone and Mike Takahara slowly and carefully worked their way under the truck that Lightstone had abandoned on the outskirts of Loggerhead City.
'Can you see it?' Lightstone whispered.
'Oh, yeah, I can see it all right,' the Bravo Team tech agent muttered.
'Well?'
Takahara ran the powerful beam of his tiny flashlight one more time around the dual-antenna device someone had attached to the transmission of Lightstone's truck with a thick adhesive patch.
'How badly do you want it?' the tech agent finally asked.
'Will it blow up if you pull it off?'
'No, I don't think so.'
'Then I want it,' Lightstone replied grimly.
'Okay, you're the boss.' The tech agent sighed, then reached up with a heavy screwdriver, popped the device loose with one quick motion, and tossed it to the ground next to Lightstone.
