"I think, perhaps, that we should catch up with our clients," Chareaux said, "before they kill everything in the valley and draw too much attention to our little game."
Chapter Fourteen
"McNulty."
"We just checked into the Baxter Holiday Inn, out at the north end of town," Carl Scoby said into the phone, moving aside as Dwight Stoner and Larry Paxton came into the room, their arms loaded with duffel bags and equipment cases.
"Everything clear?"
"So far."
"What have you got for rooms?"
"Mike and I are in two-ten, Dwight and Larry are in two-twelve. Two-fourteen's yours, and we've got two- sixteen on hold for Henry or Len. We've been paying cash for everything, like you said. Had a little trouble with the car rentals. Mike finally had to use a credit card from one of our stand-by dummy businesses."
"Which one?"
"Herpitol Imports, the one we were going to use for the Caiman hide trade."
"Anything going to come back to us on that?"
"Not as long as we pay cash when we drop the cars off," Scoby said. "Of course that assumes we turn them back in one piece," he added thoughtfully. "If not, we're going to end up putting a pretty big dent in our petty-cash account."
As the two muscular agents began to set duffel bags and equipment cases against the wall that separated the two queen-sized beds from the small bathroom, Scoby gestured to Mike Takahara, who quickly put down his soldering iron and moved forward to shut the door and pull the blinds.
"Okay, I'll get all that settled with Purchasing," MeNulty said. "What about the comm link?"
"I'll let you talk to Mike," Scoby said. He held the phone out to Takahara. "He wants to know how soon you're going to have that computer hookup ready."
"All set to go, boss." Takahara spoke into the mouthpiece as he reached over and unplugged the soldering iron. "I've got the modem hard-wired into the phone in our room, using one of our handy-dandy little switch boxes as the primary link. I checked out the phone lines, and they're pretty decent. Shouldn't run into any more breakdowns like we had in New York."
"Christ, I hope not," McNulty swore, not wanting to even think about the time he had suddenly lost contact with three of his covert agents-just moments after he had received word from a reliable snitch that the buy of rhino-horn pills that they were scheduled to make from a gang of six armed Haitians had gone sour-when the lines between New York and New Jersey had overloaded and shut down.
It had taken Mike Takahara nearly two hours to restore the contact so that McNulty could finally learn that Scoby, Stoner, and Paxton had survived the incident with only four of the six Haitians sustaining injuries that were serious enough to require hospitalization.
"You can trust me on this one," Takahara chuckled. "We're cool."
"How did you rig the switch?"
"Standard codes. Figured we'd better stick to those because they're the only ones that Henry's worked with so far."
"Straight-in call?"
"Right. All you have to do is ring our room, wait for the tone, and then add the two-digit code for access. Anything else gets you a busy signal."
"Good. What about the lifeline? You manage to get that set up?"
"First thing I did when I got here," Takahara replied. "The eight-hundred number will ring once back at the office, twice at your home as an alert, and then bounce back to the switch box here. You can pick it up at your place or let it go, doesn't matter. Either way, as long as Henry remembers the number and can get to a phone, we'll have him."
"Okay, good. Listen, can you change the dial-up number for my home?"
"Uh, yeah, sure. What's the number?"
McNulty read off a new phone number with a 303 area code.
"Okay, got it," Takahara said. "What happened, you start getting some crank calls?"
"Something like that," McNulty muttered and then smoothly switched the subject. "Any problem with the phone company this time?"
"Nope, we got lucky. I managed to track down a guy at Ma Bell who shows up at some of our tech meetings every now and then," Takahara said. "Turns out he's more of a bigwig than I thought. Took time out from his afternoon tea and crumpets to drop in the connections himself. His boss is going to be calling you for an after-the-fact verification, and I owe him a couple of six-packs. Other than that, it looks like we're home free."
"Okay, we're going to keep the telephone calls in the room down to a minimum anyway," McNulty said. "We'll stay with the computer link for outside messages unless there's an emergency time factor."
"You really think the Chareaux brothers are that sophisticated?"
"No, not really, but we know they're dangerous, and I don't see any sense in taking chances. Which also means that you watch yourself out there at the airport if you get anywhere near that plane," McNulty emphasized.
"You got it, boss."
"Okay, let me talk to Carl."
Mike Takahara handed the phone to Carl Scoby, then returned to the task of putting away his tools and electrical equipment.
"Okay, I'm back on," Scoby said.
"I'm heading for the airport in a few minutes. Anything else you guys need out there?"
"Name of the airport manager, for a start," Scoby said, looking over at Takahara, who nodded. "Then you might start looking for a friendly magistrate in case we need a warrant."
"Hold on," McNulty said as he flipped back through two pages of his notebook.
"The manager sounds like he's older than the hills, but he's friendly and cooperative over the phone. Probably ask for him at one of the airline counters. He knows somebody's going to be coming by."
Scoby quickly wrote the name down on one of the motel note pads. He tore off the page and handed it over to Mike Takahara, who glanced at the paper and slipped it into his pocket, then pulled on a light jacket to cover his shoulder-holstered semiautomatic, grabbed one of the small packset radios off the bed and headed out the door.
"Okay, Mike's on his way," Scoby said.
"Good. I'll call the regional office, ask them about the magistrate, see who they got to down there."
"Any word on Henry?" Scoby asked hopefully.
"No, but it's still too early," McNulty said. "We know he rented the car at Bozeman at about eleven forty-five. Assuming he left the airport right away, I figure the earliest he could have met Chareaux and been out on the road would be about one thirty. So that's what, three hours at the outside? Hell, even if they just went out in the woods for a couple of miles and started shooting right away, I don't see how they could possibly get back to the motel before dark."
"Assuming they do come back," Scoby muttered darkly.
"Stay positive, Carl," McNulty said, his voice calm and firm. "Henry's a survivor and his cover is tight, so let's keep our focus on Len and see what we can do there. What's the status on Dwight and Larry?"
Scoby looked over at the two agents who were in the process of reassembling their armory. Larry Paxton was fitting and securing the short barrels of a pair of Remington Model-870 pump shotguns into their dull Parkerized receivers, while Dwight Stoner was taking five-round boxes of deer slugs and double-ought buck out of one of the heavy duffel bags and tossing them onto the bed. A pair of extra- large Kevlar vests, three identical SIG-Sauer. 45 semiautomatic pistols, leather gear, and extra magazines were already laid out on the bedspread, along with three small scrambled radios and six sets of handcuffs.
"They're loading up for bear and getting ready to hit the streets right now. I'm going to have them make a sweep of the bars and lounges, see if they can get lucky."
"What about the other motels?" McNulty asked.
"The phone directory lists seven places in Bozeman," Scoby said. "We contacted every one of them, and a couple more places outside of town. Far as we can tell, nobody named Ruebottom has checked into a motel anywhere near Bozeman today."