'Let's toss this in and we'll see how fast he comes out.'
'Shit, don't do that!' Larry Paxton whispered urgently. 'You'll blow out every piece of glass in the damned warehouse, and every snake and spider in there'll get loose!'
'How about we turn the lights on so we can at least see him,' Lightstone suggested.
'Can't.' Paxton shrugged apologetically. 'I had Mike shut off the main and then cut the feed lines coming out of the panel to make sure these guys couldn't turn on any lights and figure out real quick that we weren't in there.'
'What about flashlights?'
'We've got six of them,' Stoner replied sheepishly. 'But they're all in the warehouse.'
'Wonderful,' Lightstone muttered, then grew silent when he heard Wintersole chuckling in his earphone.
'Come on, Henry. Just you and me. We'll have some fun, see what kind of Ranger you would have made.'
'What's he saying now?' Paxton demanded.
'Son of a bitch is getting impatient.' Lightstone looked down at the four Rangers sprawled facedown and quiet in the almost pitch-black parking lot. 'Hey,' he whispered, 'what happened to their night-vision goggles?'
'They weren't wearing any,' Dwight Stoner replied.
Lightstone quickly knelt and rapidly searched all four of their captives before pulling Paxton and Stoner about twenty feet away.
'The bastard had them take the goggles off before they came out,' he informed his teammates in a hushed voice. 'Same with the communications gear and the red-lensed flashlights they were carrying. Military thinking. Don't give up any resources that the enemy can use against you. I've got this one set of goggles, but what about our stuff? Don't we have any night-vision gear?'
'Nope, just Mike's spotting scope.' Larry Paxton was starting to look thoroughly frustrated now. 'Look, how about Dwight and I take the far door and go for the flashlights, while you guys keep him pinned down?'
'No deal.' Lightstone shook his head. 'This guy's a Ranger first sergeant. You go in there blind, and he'll tear your throats out before you even see him.'
'Come on, Henry.' Wintersole's voice reverberated in Lightstone's headset again. 'Just you and me. If you try to get tricky and bring your friends in too, you know I'll kill them… and you'll have to live with the fact that it was your fault for the rest of your life.'
'That's it,' Lightstone muttered as he ripped the earphones off his head and threw them on the ground.
'Hey, what do you think you're doing?' Larry Paxton demanded.
'I'm going in there and arrest that son of a bitch.'
And before the Bravo Team leader could say or do anything else, Henry Lightstone ran toward the warehouse… picked up speed as he approached the almost completely closed side door… then slammed it open with his shoulder, dived into a forward judo roll as the door swung shut behind him… and came up in a semi-sitting position with the Smith amp; Wesson extended in front of him in a double-handed grip.
The incoming roll threw his night-vision goggles off kilter, and Lightstone quickly readjusted them so he could see clearly.
What he saw made his flesh crawl.
With no starlight to enhance his view in the almost-total darkness of the warehouse, the sensors of the new-generation light-vision goggles picked up only IR and UV fluorescence.
As a result, and thanks to the reflected light from the dozens of terrariums aligned on the shelves along the rear wall of the warehouse, Lightstone could easily see the bright red legs and eyes of the sixty-to-seventy giant red-kneed tarantulas and the iridescent blue eyes of the two snakes which had escaped when Larry Paxton's randomly aimed 10mm bullets shattered their containers.
Between them and the hundreds of slowly moving bright red and iridescent blue legs and eyes in the background, Lightstone might never have seen Wintersole at all… had not fifteen or twenty glowing tarantulas effectively outlined his seated form as they slowly walked up, over, and around his body.
Keeping an eye on the two sets of free-roaming iridescent blue snake eyes, one set of which had crossed in front of Wintersole, Lightstone moved slowly forward with the 10mm aimed at the center of the Ranger first sergeant's forehead.
'You're under arrest, Wintersole,' he announced softly. 'You have the right…'
'To remain silent,' the Ranger first sergeant finished as he slowly rose to his feet so smoothly that the inquisitive bright red-glowing legs barely hesitated before continuing on their wandering path.
'If you move again without my telling you to do so, I'll drop you
… right here, right now,' Lightstone warned.
Watch the snake, the covert agent reminded himself, well aware that Wintersole was perfectly capable of slinging the reptile at him with his foot, trusting the leather of his combat boot to defeat any bite and knowing that Lightstone, at best, could deflect it with his pistol… or more likely, his arm. A dangerous tactic, especially if Paxton's random shots had freed one of the Tiger Snakes or Death Adders.
'I don't intend to move, Henry,' the Ranger first sergeant spoke softly, apparently indifferent to the tarantula slowly inching its way from the collar of his fatigue jacket to his ear, or the other one under his chin, whose iridescence illuminated Wintersole's face. Even in the hot reddish glow of the slowly moving eyes and legs, the soldier's expression appeared cold.
'She'll do my moving for me.'
At that moment, Lightstone became aware of the movement to his left.
But before he could move, or swing around with the Smith amp; Wesson, or do anything at all, a very familiar voice whispered…
'Hello, Henry.'
The click of a releasing safety catch told him all he needed to know.
There really had been six, after all.
'Hello, Natasha,' he greeted her softly, keeping his eyes and gun on Wintersole. 'You moon-lighting now?'
'Always have been, Henry. That's what I like best about the American free-enterprise system. So many wonderful opportunities for a young woman who wishes to move up in this world.'
'Especially a treacherous one.'
'Oh yes; that, too. It would have been much easier if Halahan had transferred me to Bravo Team, but… there are always ways.'
'What would have been easier, Natasha?' Lightstone asked in a quiet voice.
'Oh, that's right.' The female Special Agent giggled. 'You don't know, do you?'
'No, he doesn't,' Wintersole reiterated the point as he brought his boot down quickly over the slowly approaching pair of iridescent blue eyes, knelt down, picked up the snake carefully behind its head, and then walked slowly toward Lightstone, holding the pair of blue eyes out in front of him… all the while ignoring the 10mm Smith amp; Wesson still aimed at his forehead.
'It's a very poor exchange, Henry,' Wintersole explained the basics as he stopped directly in front of the gun muzzle. 'You kill me, she kills you… and then she kills them. And she will, too. I understand she's very well trained, and very good with that pistol; not that it will make much difference since she'll have every possible advantage,' the hunter-killer team leader added with a cold smile. 'My guess is that your friends won't stand a chance. Imagine all of them dead because of you. That's your biggest fear, isn't it, Henry?'
'I won't bargain for my life against theirs, Wintersole, and I won't put this gun down.' Lightstone kept his index finger firmly on the trigger of the Smith amp; Wesson, and the front sight centered just above the Ranger first sergeant's nose to emphasize his point. 'If she pulls that trigger, reflex action will set this one off… and you'll die. To tell you the truth, way I feel right now, I'd just as soon take you with me.'
'I'm sure you would, Henry.' Wintersole smiled faintly. 'But that won't be necessary. If you come with us, your friends get to live, and you get to see what this is all about. It's either that, or like you said…' Wintersole adjusted his grip on the snake's head, closing its mouth tightly between his forefinger and thumb, and then slowly and carefully brushed the scaled head lightly against the exposed knuckles of Lightstone's tightly clenched hands, '… we both die. Right here. Right now.
'And, since you brought it up, I wouldn't mind taking you with me, either,' he added with a sardonic
