For the second time in as many minutes, Lightstone seriously considered the idea of driving off and leaving the young agent-pilot and his family standing there next to the plane and wondering what the hell was going on.
It really wasn't all that bad an idea, he told himself. With luck, he might be able to catch the last half of the game, during which time he was bound to come up with a reasonable explanation that just might satisfy both Paul McNulty and Alex Chareaux.
Yeah, Alex, I know I was supposed to be there, but you see, the guy I hired to fly me to Bozeman turned out to be a federal agent. Saw him standing there in broad daylight wearing this agent hat and jacket. Imagine that? Yeah, hell of a deal, huh? So anyway, what I did, I decided to go back home and catch a ball game instead. I mean, no sense in bringing the cops right into the middle of the deal when it's an illegal hunt all the way and I'm trying to get my Boone and Crockett record, right? Yeah, figured you guys would understand.
And at least a couple dozen people for witnesses, Lightstone sighed. Absolutely incredible.
"Did this McNulty fellow happen to mention a guy named Lightner? Henry Allen Lightner? Probably looks a lot like me?" Lightstone asked, trying very hard to keep a pleasant tone to his voice.
"Oh… uh, yeah, that's right." The young pilot winced. "Lightner's the guy I'm supposed to fly-"
"To Bozeman, where he's going to drive down to Gardiner and meet up with three guys who are just the kind of fellows who would probably kill him on the spot if they even thought he might be a federal agent?" Lightstone suggested.
"Uh… I guess I figured that since you weren't actually going to meet them in Bozeman-"
"That none of them would ever think to hang around the airport, taking pictures of the wife and kids of the pilot that this guy Lightner hires to take him around to do all his illegal hunting?"
"Oh, Christ!" Len Ruebottom grimaced, unable to keep from glancing over at his family, still waiting expectantly over by the Cessna.
"And even if they did take a couple of pictures," Lightstone went on, "they probably wouldn't ever think to run the registration number on the plane and then maybe fly out to Great Falls to see if anybody hanging around the airport might have seen this guy Lightner talking with anybody who looked like a Fish and Wildlife agent."
Lightstone glanced meaningfully over at the twenty or so people who were still wandering around on the asphalt tarmac.
Len Ruebottom's hand started to come up, as though he was going to rip the cap off his sandy-haired head and then quickly pull himself out of his jacket. But then he caught himself and just stood there.
"That's right. It is a little late, and you really don't want to make a scene," Lightstone nodded.
"But-"
"And we won't even discuss how long it would take these bastards to find out where you live, where your wife works, where the kids go to school, what kind of locks you have on your doors, names of friends, baby-sitters, little details like that."
He hadn't meant to push it that far, and MeNulty had vouched for him, but Henry Lightstone suddenly decided that he wanted to see for himself just how far he could trust the young agent-pilot.
"Jesus, I really screwed up," Len Ruebottom whispered, staring at Lightstone in shock, his sunburned face visibly paled.
"Yes, you did."
"So what do I do now?"
"Is that your plane over there?" Lightstone pointed at the yellow-and- white Cessna.
Ruebottom looked over his shoulder and nodded.
"You think it's safe to take something like that up in weather like this?"
"Oh, yeah, sure, no problem," Ruebottom said, his eyes still glazed from the shock of realizing that his thoughtlessness had exposed his family to… what?
"Okay, then. Why don't you hand that cap and jacket over to your wife and see if you can talk her and the kids into staying home this trip so we can get going?" Lightstone suggested.
Len Ruebottom took in a deep breath, let it out, and asked, "Anything else I should have had brains enough to think about, but didn't?"
"Duty weapon, shoulder holster, badge, registration, log book, anything else in the plane that somebody could find and link us back to the Service?" Lightstone suggested.
"You think they'd break into the plane, right out in the middle of the airport?"
Lightstone closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "Ruebottom," he said, "listen to me very carefully. These people, the ones you're flying me down to Bozeman to meet-if they even thought you had something in that plane that might keep them from going to federal prison, they'd take it apart, rivet by rivet, right out in the middle of the fucking runway. You can't underestimate a guy like Alex Chareaux. If you do, you're going to get some people killed. And if you're real lucky, it'll only be you and me."
Len Ruebottom nodded solemnly. "Can you give me a couple of minutes?"
"Yeah, sure," Lightstone said tersely.
Two minutes later, the station wagon was slowly driving away, the kids in the back solemnly waving good-bye to their father, as Len Ruebottom walked up to Lightstone.
"Sorry about that. It won't happen again."
"If I thought it would, I'd be looking for another pilot right now," Lightstone said agreeably.
"This all your gear?" Ruebottom asked, looking at the pair of duffel bags and the rifle case lying at Lightstone's feet.
"That's it."
"Okay, let's get going."
Len Ruebottom grabbed one of the duffel bags and the rifle case and started off in the direction of a nearby hangar, walking right on past the yellow-and-white Cessna.
"Hey, where the hell are you going?" Lightstone demanded.
Ruebottom stopped for a moment to look at his passenger. "To the plane," he said, a perplexed expression on his face. "We're behind schedule. I thought you wanted to get going."
"But you said this was your plane," Lightstone said, pointing at the Cessna.
"It is, but that's not the one we're going up in today." Ruebottom started walking again toward the hangar.
Muttering yet another curse, Lightstone reached down, grabbed the other duffel bag and followed the young agent-pilot.
"McNulty and Halahan worked this thing out a couple of weeks ago," Ruebottom explained as he unlocked the hangar. He grunted with exertion as he pushed one of the heavy doors all the way over to the side. "The way I heard it, McNulty figured that one of his agents-you, I guess- might need a pilot and plane on stand-by to enhance his cover. He was willing to pay all the expenses, so Halahan said fine, do it. And then, this morning McNulty calls and tells me that you're on the way and to meet you at the airport."
"Yeah, so?"
"So what I did, a couple of weeks ago, was to work out a special deal with a rich buddy of mine," Len Ruebottom explained as he shoved the door to its fully open position on its oiled but rusty rollers.
"What kind of special deal?" Lightstone asked suspiciously.
"A very special deal indeed," Ruebottom said with a smile as he flipped on the hangar lights and then gestured with his head at the glistening metal shape inside the hangar.
"That's the plane that you and I are going to fly to Bozeman."
Lisa Abercombie looked up as Dr. Reston Wolfe finally put down the phone.
"Well?"
"It's all arranged," he said, smiling like a man who had just put together the deal of a lifetime.
"It sounded like you were having some problems."
"Nothing that couldn't be resolved," Wolfe shrugged easily. "He and I have done business before, and he wants to continue doing business in the future. It was just a matter of rearranging some schedules."
"And offering to pay a great deal of money," Abercombie added. "You're a smooth operator. It sounds like a nice way to thank our financial backers."