"To somebody with a guilty conscience?"
"Presumably."
"And since everything's pretty much shut down right now except for the Chareaux operation-"
"That kinda narrows it down, doesn't it," MeNulty muttered sarcastically.
"You check in with John?" Scoby asked, referring to John Marsh, chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Law Enforcement Division.
"First thing I did," MeNulty said. "As far as he knows, there's nothing going on. They've been getting a lot of questions from the Hill about field operations in general during the last couple of weeks, but he figures it's probably just some posturing over the budget."
"What about Internal Affairs?"
"He doesn't think so," MeNulty told him. "Unless the chief himself is a primary suspect, the IA boys have to check in with him first before they start any kind of serious investigation of anybody in the division. Outside of the Haitian counsel flap, which is just about wrapped up anyway, he hasn't heard a word about any of us for the last couple of months. Far as he knows, we're all clean, and he mentioned that he'd like us to stay that way for a while."
"So why the FBI probe?"
"The only thing he can figure is that maybe it's a couple of high-level game-players with nothing better to do than rummage around the department, looking for some dirty laundry before they make a run on somebody else's turf."
"That's happened before."
"Yeah, no shit," MeNulty muttered. "And with any luck, that's all this is. But I want to be damn sure before I stop looking over my shoulder."
"Okay, so how do you want us to… hold it," Scoby whispered, the tone of his voice suddenly taking on a tense urgency as everyone in the motel room heard the distinctive sound of a key being forced into the outer door lock of room two-ten.
Chapter Fifteen
Alex Chareaux had been right after all, Henry Lightstone decided. The bear was a monster.
As best he could judge from his vantage point, it was bigger than any grizzly he had ever seen, including the stuffed mounts that had been prominently displayed behind glass in the lobby of the Anchorage Hilton.
Lightstone was hopeful that the bear wouldn't be all that active for the next half hour or so. Not with a tranquilizer- dart dose of sodium secobarbital still swimming through its bloodstream.
But then, too, Lightstone reminded himself, all of that just might change if somebody with more guts than brains decided to do something really stupid.
Like ricocheting a navel orange-size rock off a huge male grizzly bear's thick skull.
After bracing himself against the protective bulk of a fifty-foot Douglas fir and checking with his thumb to make absolutely certain the safety of his rifle was in the forward "off" position, Lightstone used his right hand to remove the small packset radio from his jacket pocket.
Then he looked over at Butch Chareaux, who was standing about thirty yards back and to his right, his old weatherbeaten 7mm Winchester rifle held up in the ready position. Lightstone waited until Chareaux waved his hand to indicate that he was all set before he keyed the radio mike.
"Okay," he whispered. "I've got him in sight."
"Describe your position," Alex Chareaux demanded, his voice sounding clear and very close through the expensive digital radio.
Lightstone looked out around the big Douglas fir, made an estimate of the distance, and decided that he was much too close by at least a factor of three.
"I'm about twenty yards away from the bear right now," he said quietly into the radio's external microphone. "I figure that puts me just about due south of your position, maybe a hundred and fifty yards at the outside. There're a couple of pretty steep gullies with a lot of rocks and trees between us, but the way he's positioned right now, we ought to be able to keep him running straight in your direction."
"What is he doing now?"
"Sitting on his ass, rocking his head back and forth like it weighs a couple hundred pounds, making some kind of weird grunting noises. Acts like he's got one hell of a hangover," Lightstone said uneasily.
"The drugs should start to wear off soon now," Chareaux acknowledged. "Does he know that you and Butch are there?"
"I think so, but it's kinda hard to tell," Lightstone said, ready to drop the radio and bring the heavy-barreled. 300 McMillan up to his shoulder the moment the huge bear made the slightest move in his direction.
"He will still be confused by the drugs for a while, so he should not be too difficult to move," Chareaux said. "You know what to do then, do you not?"
"Pretty much. I just hope to hell somebody gave a copy of the script to the bear, too."
"It is just as I promised you, Henry-" Chareaux said reassuringly "-an adventure unlike anything that you've ever had before."
"Okay, Alex, just tell me when," Lightstone said.
Alex Chareaux looked around to confirm that his three hunters were in position, with Reston Wolfe in the center, braced against a fallen oak; Lisa Abercombie about fifteen yards to Wolfe's left; and Dr. Morito Asai an equal distance to his right. All three were facing the area where Chareaux had predicted the bear would most likely appear.
"We're ready here," Chareaux whispered into his radio. "Do it now."
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Henry Lightstone propped the beautifully finished McMillan up against the tree with his left hand and then slowly knelt down and picked up a pair of rocks that were sitting by his boots, each of which was about the size of a large navel orange.
Then, after slipping one of the rocks into his jacket pocket and holding the other in his gloved hand, he slowly stood up and looked over at Butch Chareaux, who gave him a thumbs-up sign.
Okay, McNulty, Lightstone thought to himself, I hope to hell you and Scoby and that maniac Stoner are going to appreciate this.
After picking up his rifle and holding it tightly in his left hand, Lightstone took in one last deep breath and stepped away from the tree, nervously aware that the bear was staring groggily in his direction.
Sliding his boots forward in slow, easy steps, Lightstone moved closer to the huge animal, until his right foot crunched down on a small twig.
The sound seemed to focus the bear's attention, resulting in a low, guttural "Woof!" as it slowly brought its huge furry body around to a position where it could watch the approaching upright figure without having to lift its head.
Lightstone froze. Now that he was out in the open and fully exposed to a sudden charge, the huge grizzly looked a least twice as big as it had from behind the protective bulk of the fifty-foot Douglas fir. It seemed to be increasingly aware of its surroundings, as though the sound of the snapping twig had activated some sort of survival mechanism that was helping it to counteract the dwindling effects of the secobarbital.
For a long moment, Henry Lightstone and the bear remained in their respective positions, each staring silently at the other.
Then, in an act of pure madness, Lightstone lunged forward in a headlong charge toward the squatting bear, yelling as loud as he could as he heaved the rock at the large cluster of pinecones hanging just above the bear's head.
Lightstone had previously decided to aim for the pinecones-instead of for the bear's head as Butch Chareaux had advised-because he hoped that the noise of the falling cones might confuse and scare the huge animal, rather than making it madder than hell.
But Lightstone hadn't counted on the grizzly suddenly bringing its head up in an instinctive response to the sound of his voice. Thus, instead of sending a shower of pinecones tumbling down over the bear's broad head, the orange-sized rock caught the unsuspecting grizzly right square in the center of its much-too-sensitive nose.
Still running forward and now less than a dozen yards away, Lightstone had already started to pull the second rock out of his jacket pocket when the huge bear roared in pain and fury, and then suddenly rose up on its oddly short and stubby legs to its full, terrifying height of over nine feet, with its four-inch claws fully extended and savage mouth wide open.