Prey (6 page)

. . . if you have any balls,
Lightstone understood the implication.

"Are you sure no one else has seen him?" Lightstone whispered. What he really wondered was if anybody would spot the Chareaux brothers. The Louisiana Department of Fish and Game was eager for their arrest in any way possible.

According to the dossiers that Paul McNulty's Special Operations team had put together, Alex, Sonny, and Butch Chareaux had been born and raised in the backwoods bayous of Terrebonne Parish. They had been taught to shoot by their maternal grandfather, who—despite a thirteen-page rap sheet—truly believed that the illegal killing of wild game was an honorable way to make a living. The boys took to killing wildlife like ducks to corn bait.

Their motto was "If it flies, it dies." They eagerly killed any fish or animal they could, limited only by the number of shotgun and rifle rounds they could steal in a week. When the local fish and game authorities finally decided that they'd had enough of the Chareaux brothers, Alex, Butch, and Sonny were wakened at three o'clock one morning and quietly escorted across the state line with six .357 Magnums pressed solidly against the back of their long-haired heads. They were politely offered a chance to emigrate.

North, south, east, or west, it didn't matter as far as the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game was concerned. Given the well-earned reputation of the Fish and Game Department for being serious about protecting the state's wildlife, the Chareaux brothers had wisely chosen to move on. But six months later, two of the "relocation" wardens were discovered facedown in the Terrebonne swamp, with numerous deep cuts crisscrossing their arms and chests.

And when further examined by the coroner, it was determined that both of the officers had had their femoral arteries severed.

In spite of some very emotional testimony, a local magistrate had come to the interesting conclusion that there wasn't enough evidence to warrant an extradition order on the Chareaux brothers for murder. But the way the teletype read, in the event that any law-enforcement agency in the country
ever
managed to obtain a felony arrest warrant for Alex, Butch, or Sonny Chareaux, the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game would be more than happy to provide a team of four volunteer officers to kick the door.

"They said they saw no one else, but it is of little consequence, because we will be in and then out, so very fast."

"So where do I meet you?" Lightstone asked agreeably.

"I have made reservations at the Best Western in Gardiner. Room one-oh-two is yours. I'll be next door, in one-oh-one."

It was a canned deal all the way. Chareaux had known where the target was—in a cage ten miles east of Gardiner— for the last five days, but Lightner wasn't supposed to know that.

All of which meant that either they were playing with him—holding off until iust before the game started—or they still didn't trust him.

There was also a third possibility: that they knew he was an undercover agent and intended to kill him.

And the thing was, he couldn't just be serious. He had to convince them that he was
dedicated
serious. That was the key. They had to believe that he was one of those truly driven hunter-killers who would do damn near anything to expand his illicit trophy collection, or he would never pull it off. And a truly driven hunter-killer would be focused on only two things: the target and the kill.

There was a brief, ominous pause.

"Henry, it is now or never," Alex Chareaux said flatly. "You know how our system works. This one—the one you have dreamed about all your life—is yours, but you must decide now. Do you
really
want him? You must tell me."

"I want him," Lightstone said. He sighed one last time and then nodded. "I'm in," he whispered. "See you in Gardiner."

Chapter Five

The ritualistic killing of the fearsome Bengal by Gerd Maas turned out to be a pivotal event in the life of Lisa Abercombie and Dr. Reston Wolfe, although neither of them had any sense of that at the time.

It was only six months later, in an isolated cedar log cabin several hundred miles west of Tom Frank's hunting ranch, that the emotional aftereffect of that terrifying day finally began to surface.

There, Lisa Abercombie—a thirty-six-year-old woman with icy political savvy, visceral determination, and very special connections to a White House advisory team—did something that was completely out of character.

Without warning or hesitation, Abercombie suddenly reached under the massive six-sided wooden table, rubbed Dr. Reston Wolfe's upper thigh, and smiled.

"I'm very impressed, Reston," she whispered in a voice that was both firmly authoritative and discreetly enticing, giving his thigh a little extra squeeze before bringing her discernibly warm hand back to her lap. "You've made incredible progress since I was here last."

Wolfe started to say something—anything at all—but discovered that his mind had gone completely blank. For a long, embarrassing moment, Dr. Reston Wolfe could only blink his eyes and stare.

Then, mercifully, Abercombie reached over and patted his hand in a more traditional bureaucratic greeting that finally got Wolfe's mind back in gear.

"That's all right," she whispered, the warmth of her words reflected in her smoldering dark eyes. "You look like you could use a long vacation far away from here."

Wolfe, feeling very much like a love-struck fool, decided then and there that Lisa Abercombie was the most provocative woman he had ever met.

"It's been a long eight months," he nodded, feeling his entire body surge with barely controlled lust as he forced himself to concentrate. "But getting off by myself is the last thing I want right now."

"You're eager to get started, aren't you?"

Wolfe desperately wanted to believe that Lisa Abercombie was aware that her words were loaded with double meaning.

"To tell you the truth," he said honestly, remembering the press of her hand, "I can hardly wait."

"I assure you that the entire committee feels the same way," she said quietly.

Wolfe looked around the huge conference room that was filled with equipment, weapons, files, and the twelve men and women he had brought together as a team.

His team.

His operation.

Reston Wolfe envisioned himself leading Gerd Maas and the rest of the ICER assault group into action while Lisa Abercombie looked on with . . . what?

Admiration?

Affection?

Desire?

Or maybe even . . . passion?

"You know what you've done, don't you?" Abercombie asked, snapping Wolfe back to the present.

"What's that?" He blinked away the images that were too absurd to even think about. Especially not now. Not here.

"You've made ICER a reality," Lisa Abercombie said, her eyes glowing with an emotion that Wolfe had never seen before. "These people," she gestured out across the room, "that
you
selected and brought together are going to have an impact far beyond anything we have ever imagined. They are going to realign the industrial revolution, literally change the course of history. And all because of
your
efforts. You should be incredibly proud of what you've done here."

Dr. Wolfe nodded and smiled, shamelessly basking in the warm glow of Lisa Abercombie's praise.

"It's been a team effort all the way. You and I both know that," he said, deliberately making direct eye contact. He remembered the expression on her face when she had knelt down and stroked the hot, sweaty fur of the Bengal, her dark eyes glazed as she stared at the glistening broadhead sticking through the back of the Bengal's bloodied skull.

He'd seen the blood-lust in her eyes, and he knew now just how he'd . . .

One of the resident caretaker staff walked up to the table and whispered something in Lisa Abercombie's ear.

"I have a phone call," Abercombie said as she got up from the table. "I'll be right back."

"I'll be here."

He watched her walk across the room, her snug jeans providing a thoroughly distracting view of her well-toned torso.

Reston Wolfe knew full well the inherent dangers of trying to establish a relationship with a driven woman like Lisa Abercombie. Yet he simply could not resist the temptation. And it wasn't just the fact that Lisa Abercombie was a beautiful and alluring woman, like so many others who were readily available in Washington.

What he
couldn't
overlook was the political and bureaucratic clout that Lisa Abercombie possessed and exercised in a manner that belied her youth and overwhelming physical charms.

What it all boiled down to were two very distinct and separate possibilities.

If Operation Counter Wrench was successful, then he and Abercombie would become wealthy, powerful, and influential beyond comprehension. If it all failed, he would be either a hunted felon or, more likely, dead, buried, and forgotten.

All in all, Wolfe, told himself as he remembered again Lisa Abercombie's hand on his thigh, it was worth the risk.

Lisa Abercombie followed a staffer into a small office, where he pointed out a complex-looking console phone sitting on a small wooden desk. There were three rows of yellow-tabbed buttons in the center of the console, one row of blue tabs above them, and a single red-tabbed button in the upper right corner. The red tab was blinking.

"Line one," the staffer said.

"Fine, thank you," Lisa Abercombie nodded. She pointedly waited until the staffer had exited the room and closed the door before reaching for the phone.

"Abercombie," she responded in a gruff, neutral voice.

"Lisa?"

"Al, how are you?" Lisa Abercombie smiled, her voice softening with genuine pleasure as she sat down in the thickly padded chair. She pressed a tab on the console marked "Secure" and watched as a small green light began to blink, confirming that the two-point link was secure from taps or traces.

"I'm fine. How are
you
doing? I understand that you're had some adventures these last few weeks."

"Nothing as exciting as crewing for a deranged skipper in the Gulf Stream," Abercombie replied, referring to the sailing trip that she had taken with Albert Bloom during the previous summer. Intent on consummating their intricate political relationship in the luxurious suite of a Freeport hotel, they had sailed straight into the teeth of a sudden and unexpected tropical storm that nearly sank the thirty-six-foot skiff. They had fought the storm for almost sixteen hours, losing the engine and trying to stay afloat with sea anchor, rudder, and torn sails, when suddenly the surging winds and waves and dark clouds had given way to an unlikely calm that left them collapsed in their safety harnesses, soaking wet, shivering and exhausted.

Somehow they had been able to maneuver the boat into the shelter of a small cove, where they dropped anchor and staggered down into the shambles of the main stateroom ready to collapse. Instead, they had found themselves caught up in a frenzy of survival-enhanced sexual passion that continued on intermittently through the night and well into the next morning.

They had never made it to their luxurious hotel suite, and had never regretted it for a moment.

A1 Bloom laughed easily. "I'm sitting here in my office, getting ready for a one o'clock appointment on the Hill, and now I won't be able to concentrate on a damn thing."

"I have a similar problem," Lisa Abercombie said. "Perhaps we should get together to discuss it."

"Unfortunately," Bloom said, "Senator Talkins has expressed an interest in doubling the budget for ICER."

"You mean our
official
budget?"

"A seven-and-a-half-million-dollar increase. Isn't that nice?"

"No, it's not," Abercombie said fervently, all thoughts of sex immediately forgotten. "For God's sake, Al, we've got commitments for at least five
billion
from the private sector. And more on top of that if we need it. At this stage, any kind of add-on from Congress, no matter how small, will just attract attention. And that's the
last
thing we need right now."

"Yes, exactly," Bloom agreed. "But one thing we
do
need is more contingency support, and Talkins is just the man to handle some of the more sensitive inside maneuvers."

"In exchange for a good-sized contribution to his campaign fund?"

"Precisely," Bloom said.

Lisa Abercombie hesitated, and the finally said: "I hate to say it, but I think it's worth it."

"So do I, but not if it means taking on one of his people."

"He's asking for that?"

"Yes."

"No way," Abercombie said firmly. "This one's too touchy to be run by committee. You know that. And besides, it's ours."

"I'm glad you feel that way, because that's exactly what I planned to tell him," Bloom said. "But that's not really why I called. We may need to advance the start date for Counter Wrench."

Lisa Abercombie blinked in surprise. "But I—"