“Not Marcus?”
“No, I’m sure not; Marcus is never there when we arrive. He only shows up when the hunt actually begins.”
“Shit,” Bulatt muttered.
“Is something wrong?” A look of panic flashed across Fogarty’s face.
Bulatt looked up, and saw Stoner hovering in the doorway, picked up and shut off the tape recorder, and then stood up out of the chair. “You stay here, sport,” he said to Fogarty, gesturing with his head at the doorway, “I’ll right back.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Lightstone said flatly.
Bulatt and Achara were in the trophy room with Lightstone and Takahara, arguing back and forth. They’d been at it for almost five minutes.
“We can do it,” Achara insisted. “I’m telling you, we can.”
“I was referring to you, not Ged,” Lightstone said, glaring at Achara. “We already know he’s a nut case; but we thought you might have a little more common sense.”
“You just don’t think I can do it because I’m a woman! Go ahead, admit it!” Achara glared back at Lightstone.
“I tend to agree with Henry,” Bulatt said, ignoring Achara’s angry accusations. “But, the thing is, I just don’t know how else we can play it. According to Fogarty, this guy Emerson — presumably the main perpetrator we’re after — doesn’t show until everything’s in motion. Probably hangs out on the perimeter monitoring the environment. We’ve got to get him engaged in the hunt before you guys show up; or he’ll rabbit on us and go to ground, and then we’ll never find him.”
“It really is a woman thing, isn’t it?” Achara demanded, refusing to back down.
“If you two go in there cold like that, you’re going to get yourselves killed,” Lightstone said to Bulatt. “They’re not going to believe she’s Fogarty’s daughter, and when the shit hits the fan, there’s no way we’ll be able to get there in time to back you up; assuming we can even find you in the first place. The Wenatchee National Forest is a hell of a place to be looking for two people on the run in the middle of a snow storm. And don’t forget, we’re talking at least one expert long-range shooter here. You won’t even know you’re in the cross-hairs until your head suddenly explodes.”
“Thanks for the cheerful image; I’ll try to remember to keep my head down,” Bulatt said sarcastically.
“I can rig you up with an emergency GPS satellite transmitter that you can activate to call for help,” Takahara said, “but if this Quince character is up on his technology, which he probably is, he’ll be scanning for active transmitters. Once you turn it on, the game’s going to be up. They can use the signal to find you just as easily as we can, and they’ll have a big head start.”
“Why won’t they believe I’m his daughter? Did you see what she looks like? She’s got to be at least half Thai. Do you really think these goons can tell the difference?” Achara demanded.
Lightstone sighed and turned back to Achara. “You do look the part, I’ll concede that; but have you ever shot an arrow from a bow before?” he asked calmly.
“No, I haven’t. What difference does that make?”
“The difference is that Fogarty’s daughter is widely-known in the Northwest to be skilled with a bow; and it’s not going to take those assholes very long to figure out that you — ” Lightstone stared to add, and then stopped when Achara whirled away, stomped over to the corner of the trophy room, picked up Sam Fogarty’s spear, and sent it flying across the room. The long obsidian spear-point slammed solidly into a mounted bull African elephant head staring out mournfully from the far wall.
All three special agents stared wordlessly at the six-foot spear shaft vibrating almost exactly mid-distance between elephant’s glassy eyes.
“Who says I have to use a goddamned bow and arrow?” Achara demanded. “Is that some kind of sexist thing? I can’t hunt with a spear like the guys?”
“Could you do that?” Bulatt asked Lightstone.
“No, not likely,” he admitted. “I’m not even sure I could come close to the center of the wall, much less the frigging elephant.”
“Me neither,” Bulatt said. “And I’m starting to think we might be able to pull it off; especially if Mike can rig us a couple of emergency beacons that they can’t spot until we turn them on.”
“No problem with the transmitter,” Takahara said, “but we’re going to have to hustle to get you two outfitted with some cold-weather gear and camping equipment — and then out to McAllister Field — by nine tomorrow morning.”
“Can you do it?”
Takahara nodded. “There’s a U.S. Military Training Center just outside of Yakima. They ought to have plenty of cold weather gear on hand. I’ll give them a call; see what we can work out.” The Tech Agent hurried out of the room.
“Her father is going to be seriously pissed at both of us if she gets hurt,” Lightstone reminded. “We won’t even discuss the ‘if she gets killed’ part. If that happens, he’ll hunt us both down to the ends of the earth.”
“My father is an understanding man, and he knows me well,” Achara said as she walked over to the elephant head, yanked the spear out, and then walked back to the two special agents with a look of defiant determination on her face. “And I’ll tell you one thing for certain: he does not expect me to be a coward in the face of our enemies.”
Bulatt met her gaze for a long moment, sighed, and then walked back into the living room where Stoner was gazing thoughtfully down at the cowered Fogarty.
“Okay, sport,” Bulatt said, staring solemnly at Fogarty as he sat back down in the chair, “here’s how you’re going to play it.”
CHAPTER 35
Sam Fogarty’s Living Room
“Listen to me, Michael, I know what you’re thinking,” Sam Fogarty snarled into the phone. “If I can’t hunt, that just means one more for the taking; but you three are not going to cheat me out of my mammoth! That is not going to happen!”
There were in Fogarty’s expensively furnished living room; Bulatt, Lightstone, Stoner and Takahara sitting in chairs facing Fogarty on the couch as the sweating CEO made his pitch to the acknowledged leader of their private hunting club. Achara was back in the den, sending Carolyn Fogarty’s homemade arrows across the room into the wall-mounted target with varying results, and what the agents all assumed was colorful Thai cussing. There were now several arrowhead holes in the surrounding rosewood paneling that had been smuggled into the country from one of the last such trees clear-cut from a Brazilian Rainforest.
Fogarty winced visibly as another loud ‘THUNK’ and muttered curse signaled the latest damage to his likely irreplaceable paneling, and then listened for a few seconds to the voice on the other end of the line.
“I know what we all agreed to eight years ago,” Fogarty interrupted. “But this is a different situation entirely. There will never be another ‘first hunt of extinct species’ like this again, no matter what kind of creatures these scientists manage to come up with next, and I will not simply ‘sit this one out’ because of an untimely accident.”
Fogarty listened again for a few more seconds.
“That’s not true at all. I’m sure Carolyn is perfectly capable of keeping up with the two of you. In fact, if anything, I expect her to be way out ahead. After all, she’s thirty years younger than any of us, and works out regularly. With any luck, she’ll be the one who makes the first kill.”
Another pause.
“I’m going to send her with the spears, of course; and also that bow I told you all about — the one she hand-carved with that obsidian knife, and then hand-chipped the arrowheads. What? How the hell do I know if the cavemen hunted mammoths with bows and arrows? For all I know, they launched boulders at the damned things
