"No, wait! Don't hang up!" Jacall said frantically. "What about Sonny? Where is he?"
"Probably in some po-lice car, heading to jail, seeing as how he just got himself in one hellacious bar fight. And Ah'm getting the hell out of here before Ah end up in the same place."
Click!
Jacall was still staring at the telephone in his hand when Alex Chareaux came bursting into the living room.
"What about Sonny?" he demanded.
"A man just called," Jacall said quickly, frightened by the look in Chareaux's reddened eyes. "He said Sonny got in a fight, in a bar, and the police have taken him to jail."
"Sonny is in jail?"
"Yes," Jacall nodded his head frantically, "but this man, he said that Sonny gave him this number and asked him to call you and tell you that the pilot is cool."
"What!" Chareaux exclaimed, blinking in confusion. "What do you mean by cool?"
"That's the word he used." Jacall shook his head. "Maybe the pilot is okay, so that means that the man in the truck might not be a government agent after all."
"Not an agent?"
"Alex, if this is true, you must stop Butch before-"
But Alex Chareaux was already out of the living room and running for the door.
"Butch, wait!" Chareaux yelled out in the darkness, and then kept on running until he was at the doorway of the dimly lit warehouse, looking around with the long folding knife still in his hand.
"Over here," a voice whispered weakly on the opposite side of the truck, and Chareaux moved quickly, coming around the back of the truck, the knife blade exposed and ready, only to see Henry Allen Lightner sitting on the floor of the warehouse, leaning back against a steel I-beam pillar that was about three feet away from the back of the truck.
To Chareaux's absolute amazement, Lightner was holding his blood- soaked shirt against the bloodied and swollen face of Butch Chareaux, who was sprawled out on the floor with his head in Lightner's lap.
"What happened?" Alex Chareaux demanded, dropping down to his knees and staring first at his unconscious brother and then at the equally blood-streaked face of Henry Lightner.
"He was trying to help me out of the truck," Lightstone explained in a weak whisper, "but he slipped in the blood, and I think his foot caught under the bear-" Lightstone pointed over at the bear carcass that was hanging half out of the truck. "He couldn't catch himself and he fell and hit his head on this post. Sounded like he hit it hard. Like a goddamn melon," he added, laying his own aching head back against the solid pillar.
"Is he alive?" Chareaux asked as he felt for a pulse, still disoriented by the sight of his brother sprawled out on the floor.
"Yeah, he's breathing, but I think…" Lightstone paused to catch his breath. "I think he's hurt pretty bad. Need to get him some help. Tried to call you guys, phone over there," he mumbled, making a weak gesture in the general direction of the wall phone, "but I couldn't figure… how to call the house. Kept getting a busy signal. Thought you'd never get here."
"We have to get him to a doctor," Chareaux said, his mind racing as he tried to keep all of the confusing pieces together.
"No, it's okay," Lightstone mumbled softly, looking as though he was about ready to slip back into unconsciousness at any moment. "Already…"
"What? What did you say?" Chareaux demanded, bending down closer to try to hear what Lightner was saying.
"I said I already…" Lightstone tried again, but his words were drowned out by the sounds of the paramedic truck that came roaring into the driveway and headed directly toward the open warehouse door with all lights and sirens blazing, closely followed by a fire rescue truck and two sheriffs' patrol cars.
"… called them for you," Henry Lightstone finished, smiling weakly up at the stunned and shocked face of Alex Chareaux.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Monday June 3rd
At precisely ten thirty-five hours on the following morning, in the armor-plated control room that overlooked the Whitehorse Training Center's expansive underground LIFET (Live Fire, Evasive Target) Range, Dr. Reston Wolfe was standing next to Lisa Abercombie and Command Sergeant Major Clarence MacDonald when an aide quietly entered and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Yes?" Wolfe said absentmindedly, keeping his eyes focused on the bank of color monitors mounted on the far wall.
"Phone call, sir."
"Who is it?"
Wolfe wasn't the least bit interested in taking a phone call just then. He had been watching live-fire exercises by integrated German, Japanese, and American ICER teams through the bulletproof observation windows and the banks of color monitors since eight o'clock that morning, and was far from tired of it. Each of the increasingly complex exercises had been fun to watch from the safety of the protected booth (a considerable improvement over the tiny tree platform on Tom Frank's West Texas hunting ranch, he reminded himself.) It was the follow-up to yesterday's highly successful late-afternoon hunt.
"It's your message service, sir."
Wolfe continued to ignore the young aide, thinking instead about the growing heat from Abercombie's body as she stood close to him, lost in the drama being displayed on the screens before them.
"Ah, sir…"
Both Wolfe and Abercombie were now focusing their attention on the oversized monitor in the far corner of the control room that was showing-in slow motion and from the robotic target's point of view- Gerd Maas, in night-vision assault gear, diving into a darkened room, twisting away to avoid the small, high-velocity, paint-pellet rounds and then "killing" the humanoid target with a single shot to the forehead.
"Tell them that I will take my messages when the exercise is completed," Wolfe said firmly as he shifted his gaze over to the adjacent monitor, which was replaying the humanoid robot's futile efforts to track its target-the white-bearded Maas-at its programmed but clearly limited "human reaction" speeds before its finely tuned servo motors went dead in response to the kill shot.
Caught up in the simulated drama on the color monitor, Lisa Abercombie brushed her arm up against Wolfe and briefly squeezed his wrist.
"I tried to tell them that, sir," the aide said in a quiet, differential tone, "but apparently one of the people who called in was very insistent. He wants to talk to you immediately."
"After we're finished here," Wolfe said emphatically, determined not to leave Lisa Abercombie's side.
Not now.
Not when she was clearly starting to comprehend the nature of the ICER team that he had put together.
"I'm supposed to tell you that the caller's name is Alex and that the message appears to be very important, sir," the aide said, standing his ground.
Wolfe blinked and turned to look at his nervous but still determined young assistant.
"When did he call?"
"At quarter after ten this morning."
"Do you know what the message is about?"
"No sir, I don't. All I know is that the call is from Alex and that it's very important."
Wolfe turned to Lisa Abercombie. "I have to go," he whispered. "I'll be back in a few minutes." He quickly followed the aide out the door, oblivious of the fact that Abercombie-her dark eyes still glued to the monitors-had barely noticed his departure.
Hurrying into one of the small offices adjacent to the much larger command-and-observation center, Wolfe closed the door behind him and immediately reached for the phone.
"This is Wolfe," he spoke into the mouthpiece. "I understand you have something for me?"
Then Reston Wolfe stood in absolute silence, the color draining out of his face, as the duty operator carefully repeated Alex Chareaux's message, word for threatening word.