"Ruebottom's a trained agent, and he's supposed to know how to take care of himself in a situation like this," McNulty argued.
"Yeah, well, he's doing a lousy job of it so far," Scoby grumbled. "What about Henry? You hear from him yet?"
"No, and I'm not expecting to for at least another four or five hours. He's supposed to be out on a hunt with Alex Chareaux right now."
"No way to contact him."
It wasn't a question. Scoby knew how Henry Lightstone operated. Completely on his own. No beepers, no transmitters, no backup. Nothing on his person or in any of his luggage or equipment that could be found by the bad guys and used to break his cover. Nothing but guts, brains, incredibly quick reflexes, and an absolute refusal to lose, which was exactly why they had recruited him in the first place.
"Not until he gets back and calls in," McNulty said.
"Any idea where they're hunting?"
"Henry figured they'd end up somewhere between Gardiner and the northern border of Yellowstone, but he also said that Chareaux was pretty vague about the details."
"So you're saying he could be anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of Gardiner."
"That's about it," McNulty said. "All we know for sure is that he rented the car in Bozeman at eleven forty-five and ended up at the Best Western in Gardiner some time before two in the afternoon."
"You sure he checked in?"
"Yeah. I called the motel and asked to speak to him, and they put me through to his room."
"Anybody answer?"
"No. I had one of the locals do a drive-by. They confirmed that his rental car is still out there in the parking lot."
"So hopefully Henry and Alex met like they were supposed to, then took off immediately on the hunt because they're getting such a late start," Scoby said.
"That's the way I figure it. Otherwise Henry would have called in."
"But either way, that still means he's a sitting duck if those bastards scooped up Ruebottom and broke him," Scoby growled. "You want us to try to pull him out?"
"I don't know how you could," McNulty said. "Tell you the truth, right now I'm more worried about Ruebottom than I am about Henry."
"What about Halahan? You going to fill him in?"
"No. Not until I've got something more to go on."
"Christ, this is just what we need-a blown investigation when every goddamn butt-protecting bureaucrat in D.C. is trying to shut Special Operations down."
"It's bad timing all the way around," McNulty agreed. "The way I see it, the only thing we can do now is to put the team in the area and play it by ear. I told the airport manager at Bozeman to stay away from the Lear until one of you guys gets there. No sense in making people suspicious if we don't have to."
"Understood. What do you want us to do when we land?"
"Find a hotel near the airport and set up a command post," McNulty said. "Bozeman's a pretty small place, so you better figure on at least five or six rental cars. Give yourselves enough variation that they don't pick up on a tail. Put everybody on a twenty-four-hour stand-by, ready to move the moment we hear something."
"What about Mike?"
"Send him over to the airport manager's office. I'll see if I can get the manager to rig him up in some kind of official- looking uniform. Airport maintenance, repairman, something like that. Anything that'll let him move around inside and outside the terminal. With any luck, he ought to be able to get in fairly close to that plane."
"Gotcha," Scoby acknowledged.
"Anything else you can think of?" McNulty asked.
"Call Len's wife?" Scoby suggested hesitantly. "See if he checked in with her?"
"I don't want to do that just yet. No sense scaring the hell out of her if we don't have to."
"Yeah, right," Scoby sighed heavily. "The big question. What do we do if we spot Ruebottom in Bozeman? Get him out, or leave him there in place?"
McNulty didn't hesitate for a moment.
"Until we know more about what happened," he said, "we have to assume that Len's being watched and that he's too hot to approach. If anybody spots him, they shouldn't go anywhere near him. If he's in a motel, don't even call his room. Just put on a loose tag, stay as far back as you can, and get ahold of me right away."
"And if we spot him with one of the Chareaux brothers?"
This time McNulty did hesitate.
"Then he's either spilled everything he knows about Henry or he's still holding out," he said finally. "And in either case, if you spot him out in the open, that means they're staking him out as bait."
"So who do we leave hanging, Len or Henry?"
"I don't know. Call me when you get into Bozeman," McNulty said and hung up.
In the cool, crisp mountain air just northeast of Yellowstone National Park, surrounded by reflecting masses of rocky outcrops and high mountain peaks, and watched over by a pair of golden eagles that soared and swooped among the rising thermal currents, things that were actually quite far away could seem very close indeed.
Like a bull elk, with a seven-point rack and a mean disposition, that had been turned and was now heading their way.
They could hear him clearly, coming fast, being driven away from the shelter of the huge trees by the stomping of heavy boots, and thrown rocks, and two carefully placed shots from a thirteen-year-old 7mm Winchester Model 70 that had seemed to echo throughout the entire valley like a Civil War artillery barrage.
Very close, or still far away, it really didn't matter, because it had already been decided that this one was hers.
"Be ready," Alex Chareaux whispered.
About fifteen feet away, Lisa Abercombie braced herself against the trunk of a forty-foot cedar, set the forearm of her eighteen-thousand-dollar. 375 Rigby rifle over a low-lying branch, and tucked the hand-carved cheek piece in tight against her right cheek and shoulder. She moved her head slightly to bring the field of the adjustable scope into clear view, gently slipped her right index finger in through the trigger guard and over the trigger, thumbed the safety to the "Off" position, and then began to breathe slowly and carefully as she waited.
They could hear the crashing of the brush more distinctly now. He had to be close. Something in the range of twenty yards, Lightstone guessed as he eased the safety to the "Off" position on his twenty-eight-hundred-dollar bolt-action McMillan Signature Alaskan rifle.
He had purchased the. 300 Magnum rifle with some of McNulty's covert funds several months ago. He hadn't really been concerned about the money because he had believed that he was buying exactly the type of weapon that a man like Henry Allen Lightner would have purchased, to bolster both his ego and his image.
But that, of course, was long before Alex Chareaux had described to Lightstone the weapons that his three new clients had brought on their illicit hunt.
Much to Henry Lightstone's amazement, it seemed that the woman's eighteen-thousand-dollar Rigby really wasn't all that big a deal in terms of serious big-game hunting; because, according to Chareaux, the two men had armed themselves with a pair of matched Holland and Holland, African Hunter, side-by-side, double-barreled hunting rifles. Both weapons had been chambered for the incredibly powerful. 416 Rigby big-game round, and each had been purchased for the tidy sum of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
The etching alone on the two weapons-again according to Chareaux, who seemed to know what he was talking about-had apparently cost over ten thousand dollars apiece.
Which, Lightstone realized, made his twenty-eight- hundred-dollar McMillan the equivalent of a K-mart special.
"Where will he come out?" Lisa Abercombie asked as she looked out over the telescopic sight of her rifle, talking to Reston Wolfe, who was standing just behind her and to the right.