"No way Henry'd let Ruebottom do something like that," Larry Paxton's deep voice echoed in the room. "No fucking way. He gets pissed off every time Stoner and I try to give him some cover on a buy."
"We keep coming back to that point," McNulty said. "The thing is, maybe Ruebottom did it anyway, and stayed far enough back that Henry never saw him. That would explain why you guys can't find him around here. Ruebottom's supposed to be a sharp pilot. Far as any of us know, he could have aced the surveillance course at Glynco. Maybe he's sitting in Gardiner right now drinking a beer and waiting for Henry to show up at the motel so he can get out ahead of him and meet him back at the airport."
"He's doing something like that, next In-Service I'm gonna take his fucking head off," Larry Paxton growled.
"Yeah, but even if that is what happened, that was what, six, seven hours ago?" Scoby protested. "Hell, even if Ruebottom did follow Henry into Gardiner on his own, and Sonny was right on his ass all the way, all Sonny had to do was drive over to the Best Western and tell Alex all about it right there. End of story."
"So then why the hell is Sonny Chareaux acting like he's panicked out of his mind over a routine check-in call?" McNulty demanded.
"According to the wardens in Louisiana, Sonny's supposed to be the least emotional of the three brothers," Carl Scoby reminded. "Far as they know, the only thing he's afraid of is Alex, which, I suppose, could explain the situation. But still… oh, shit," Scoby suddenly whispered.
"What's the matter?" McNulty demanded.
"What if it isn't routine?"
"I don't follow."
"We've been assuming all along that it has to be a routine check-in because of the timing. But what if it's not? What if Sonny snapped up Ruebottom at the airport, had him stashed away somewhere, and seven hours later finally managed to break him down? So now he knows for sure that Henry's an agent and he's trying to warn Alex before it's too late?"
McNulty continued to stare at his assistant team leader while the room went deathly silent.
"But since Alex and Butch are out in the field with Henry, the only way Sonny can warn Alex is to wait for one of their prearranged check-in calls when the hunt's over," Scoby went on. "Eight o'clock at a certain number. And if he misses that one, go to the next number at ten."
McNulty looked down at his watch again. Twenty-one fifty-two hours. Eight minutes until ten o'clock.
"If that's the situation, we can't let him make that call," Scoby said.
"Yeah, but if it really is just a check-in, and Sonny doesn't want to get Alex pissed off, and Ruebottom's sitting on his ass drinking beer in Gardiner, then we don't dare get in his way," Larry Paxton's deep, raspy voice interrupted. "If we screw around with Sonny now, Alex is gonna get suspicious and we're gonna blow Henry right out of the water."
"But, Christ, Larry, who the hell's gonna open up on a patrol unit over a goddamn routine check-in?" Carl Scoby objected.
"Nobody with any brains, but this is Sonny Chareaux we're talking about," Paxton countered. "Far as I'm concerned, the man never did start out with a full deck."
McNulty turned around to face the speakerphone again and spoke quickly. "Larry, who's closer to the airport, you or us?"
"Uh, you are, but not by much."
"You think you and Stoner can delay him from making that call without making him suspicious?"
"We could stop him," Paxton said in his low Southern drawl, "but I don't know about delaying him. Way he was acting back at that gas station, I figure anybody who tries to keep him away from that phone around ten o'clock is probably going to start a riot."
"I've got to know more about Len Ruebottom and that plane," McNulty said, forcing himself to stay calm. "If Carl's right…"He looked over at Scoby. "You got a car?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Get out to the airport, right now. Take one of the scrambled radios with you. Soon as you find Mike, and find out what the hell's going on with that plane, get on the air and-"
At that moment, the scrambled packset radio on the table gave out a weak squawk.
Carl Scoby grabbed up the radio and quickly moved over to the window. "Sierra Oscar Two, repeat that last transmission."
"Sierra Oscar Two, this is Sierra Oscar Five," Mike Takahara said, his voice sounding hollow and distant over the small packet speaker. "Where the hell are you guys?"
"We had to move. We're over at the Prime Rate."
"Okay, I'll be there in about five or ten-"
"No, no time," Scoby interrupted. "Listen, Paxton and Stoner located Sonny Chareaux in Bozeman."
"Where?"
"In a bar called the Cat's Paw. Right now he's sitting next to a telephone and looking real anxious. We think he's waiting for twenty-two hundred hours to check in with Alex."
"Shit, don't let him do that!"
McNulty came over to the window and took the radio from Scoby. "Mike, this is Paul. What's the matter?"
"They've got Ruebottom for sure, and they're fucking serious," Takahara said. "They wired the damn plane. Took me four hours but I finally got in."
"What?"
"Never mind, it's a long story. I'll fill you in later," Takahara said quickly. "What you need to know right now is that there's blood all over the inside of that plane, and the cabin's torn to shit."
"How much blood?" McNulty demanded.
"Not that much," Takahara said. "Looked like nose and mouth stuff to me. Not enough in any one spot to indicate a serious knife wound or a gunshot. What I think happened is that Len and Sonny got into one hell of a fight inside that plane, and Sonny won."
"Anybody see him leave with Ruebottom?"
"No, but there was an empty bag for a ten-by-twenty painter's tarp and a mostly used roll of duct tape in the cabin. It would have been easy to wrap him up and haul him out of there like a piece of baggage."
"What about the bomb? How did he rig it?"
"First guy who opens the passenger door pulls a nylon cord that shuts a switch and touches off fifteen sticks of engineering-grade dynamite. That should have been plenty, but I guess Sonny wanted to be sure, because he stuck about a dozen five-gallon cans of aviation gas all around the cabin as an accelerator."
"Christ!"
"Yeah, he was probably trying to make it look like some kind of accident. But one way or another, he wasn't planning on leaving us much in the way of evidence."
Paul McNulty looked down at his watch. Twenty-one fifty-six hours. Four minutes until ten. He turned to face the speakerphone.
"Larry-"
"Never mind, I heard it," Paxton said, standing in the phone booth, the phone against one ear and a small, scrambled packset radio against the other. "What do we do?"
"Try to maintain your covers as long as you can," MeNulty ordered. "But whatever you guys do, don't let that bastard make that call!"
Something about a phone call. I think they missed it.
The words had been echoing in the back of Henry Lightstone's mind for the past half hour while he drifted in and out of consciousness. He felt disoriented by the darkness, confused by the intermittent bouncing, and savagely torn by the pain.
It was the terrible odor that hit him first. A feral stench born of matted hair, gamey urine, and perforated intestines, a stench that threatened to completely overwhelm his senses. He moved one of his hands and discovered something that he finally identified as an antler.
It took him a few moments before he remembered being chased by the huge grizzly. Then he remembered the bear's powerful claws slashing through the back of his shirt, and the gunfire.
But he couldn't understand where the antlers had come from until he was able to move his hand another six inches and felt the large, stiff feathers of an eagle. Finally the fragments of his memory began to pull together again.