"Kinda hoping you'd say that," the voice over the radio drawled. "And, as a matter of fact, we sure do. Just got a report sayin' there's a couple of poachers out near Big Lostmans trying to nail themselves one of our Florida panthers. Now just between you and me, I really wouldn't much care if they shot every one of them hybrid bastards, but I guess if that ever happens, we're gonna have ourselves a mess of pissed-off Indians around here."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon stay out of an Indian war for the first couple of weeks," Paxton commented.
"You and me both," the voice agreed.
"Listen, I'm pretty close to Big Lostmans right now," Paxton said. "What do you want me to look for?"
"Supposed to be two hunters in a pirogue, working their way north toward Alligator Bay," the voice said into Paxton's earphones. "We got ourselves a floatplane waiting down at Whitewater, but we're still about a half hour out, and that's gonna make it a long way to go for a couple of poachers that ain't there. Thought maybe you could make a pass or two around that area for us, see if there's anybody worth talking to down there. You get lucky and then guide us in, maybe we can share the credit, make it one of them fancy state and federal joint investigations," the voice suggested.
"Tell you what," Paxton said as he banked the Super Cub. "If we get lucky, why don't we just keep it a state case, and then you and I share a couple of beers afterward?"
"Son, you sure you're an honest-to-God federal agent?" the voice drawled dubiously.
"Yep, that's what the badge says," Paxton chuckled.
"Well, Ah guess Ah'm willing to be convinced."
"Super Cub Two-Two-Seven-Four, be back at you in just a minute." Humming cheerfully, Paxton dropped the nose of the Super Cub down and roared in low over the edge of Alligator Bay.
"This is Two-Two-Seven-Four," Paxton spoke into his helmet mike as he looked back over his shoulder at the irregular shoreline. "Negative on the first pass. I'm going to… ooops, what have we here?"
Turning his head quickly, Paxton tried to focus on the blurry dark spot that had suddenly appeared and then disappeared under his left vertical stabilizer.
"Two-Two-Seven-Four, I think I've got something. Hold on a minute," Paxton said quickly as he pulled the Super Cub around into a sharp turn and then came back in low over the water. This time the dark, blurry spot was much easier to locate and identify.
"Two-Two-Seven-Four," Paxton spoke as he continued to scan the shoreline. "Confirming one pirogue located on the west shore of a small cove at the far south end of the bay. Looks like somebody tried to hide it in the tall grass."
"Two-Two-Seven-Four, we copy one pirogue, south end of the bay. You see anybody down there?"
"Uh, that's a negative, but I'm going to make another pass soon as I get a little more altitude," Paxton said as he throttled the Super Cub up into a steep climb and then brought the agile plane around to the left in a tightly banked turn.
On the ground, the two men in the concealed blind waited until the Super Cub was halfway through its turn and perfectly silhouetted on its side against the blue sky before they brought their M-14 rifles up to their shoulders.
The roar of carefully aimed semiautomatic gunfire was lost in the noise of the Piper Super Cub's engine as the ejected casings began to splash in the water. But the red flashes of tracer fire were clearly visible as the camouflaged riflemen sent round after round of 7.76mm ball tracer ammunition into the cockpit and engine cowling of the Super Cub, until the small, slow plane finally nosed over and dove straight down into the glistening blue water of Big Lostmans Bay.
High over the western shoreline of British Columbia, Henry Lightstone had finally managed to drift off into an uneasy sleep when Marie Pascalaura nudged him awake.
"Hummmph?"
"I've been thinking," she whispered softly.
"Yeah, me too," Lightstone nodded sleepily, keeping his eyes tightly closed as the heavy plane shuddered through a brief stretch of turbulence.
"Oh? How could you be thinking when you were snoring?"
"Um-hum, that too," Lightstone mumbled.
"What I've been thinking," Marie went on as she rubbed her fingers gently over the nicely healed scar tissue on Lightstone's left temple, "is that you and Scoby and Paxton and Stoner really got into helping each other out. You know what I mean?"
"Um-hum."
"So won't you miss that? That adrenaline rush when you guys get into trouble, help each other out, and then joke about it afterward?"
Henry Lightstone yawned and then shook his head slowly into the pillow resting against Marie's shoulder. "Scoby, Paxton, and Stoner are big boys," he whispered as he readjusted the pillow into a more comfortable position. "They can take care of themselves just fine. Don't need me as a baby-sitter."
"So you really don't think you're going to miss all that crazy undercover stuff if you and I decide to settle down, grow carrots, and have kids?"
"Nah, just a game," Lightstone mumbled softly. "Shit-pot full of rules. No referee. Last one standing wins."
"That sounds pretty dumb, if you ask me," she said quietly after a long moment.
"Uh-huh. Exactly what it is," Lightstone mumbled as he drifted back asleep. "Nothing serious. Just a dumb game."
Fifteen minutes after Alligator Bay was once again glistening like a blue, reflective mirror, one of the camouflage-dressed riflemen slipped into the hidden pirogue and slowly paddled out to collect the few pieces of wreckage that had bobbed to the surface from the Super Cub. As he did so, he kept a close eye on the half-dozen alligators that had begun to investigate the floating debris.
Back on shore, the second rifleman removed his ear protectors and slipped them into his jacket pocket. Then, after carefully changing the frequency setting on his scrambled radio, he brought the small electronic instrument up to his camouflage-painted face.
"Charley Whiskey Seven to Charley Whiskey Four," he spoke quietly into the radio microphone.
"Charley Whiskey Four, go," Paul Saltmann, the voice of "A1 Cousins, Florida State game officer," responded.
"Charley Whiskey Seven, mission completed."
"Can you see him?"
Gunter Aben looked out across the bay as Felix Steinhauser cautiously reached over the side of the pirogue and retrieved the bullet-punctured lid of a foam ice chest.
"That is negative. We can see nothing except the debris and the alligators."
"Charley Whiskey Four, copy. They can have him," Paul Saltmann said. "Two down and four to go."
Chapter Thirty
Lightstone had been expecting to see McNulty waiting for them at the gate. Instead, he saw a young Eskimo man standing off by himself, holding up a sign labeled " lightstone." Pulling Marie off to the side, Lightstone watched the young man with the long, dark brown hair and dark features.
"Is something wrong?" Marie Pascalaura asked, still looking around for Paul and Martha McNulty.
"See that young guy over there to the right, the one holding the sign?"
"Yes, I… oh, that is odd, isn't it?"
"What do you say we sit over there for a while and see what he's up to?" Lightstone said, gesturing toward a group of empty seats at the opposite gate.
They walked over to a pair of seats that would give them a good view of the young Eskimo man. Lightstone dropped his carry-on bag at his feet and settled into the chair.
"So what are we looking for?" Marie asked calmly. "Somebody else named Lightstone?"
"Tell you the truth, I'm not sure," Lightstone said.
They waited until the first group of stewardesses came through the ramp gate, signaling the end of the deboarding process. The Eskimo walked over to one of the stewardesses as Lightstone rose and walked around and behind him.
"Yes, sir, I am certain that all the passengers on this flight are off the plane," Lightstone heard the stewardess say. "You might try down at the baggage-claim area."