Off to the right, a large, slow swirl broke the reflective blue surface about fifteen feet away from the lure.
"There, did you see that?" Marie asked as she clutched Lightstone's arm anxiously.
"Just be patient," Woeshack advised quietly as he stared out over Lightstone's shoulder at the glistening water. "They think they are the hunters, but you're the one who has the bait they want. Watch for the next one. It will come to you."
It was the timing of the third explosion, as much as anything else, that jarred at Henry Lightstone's peace of mind.
Paced shots, cool, deliberate aim, he thought, unable to resist the urge to count off the interval.
Not a hunter.
… thousand and three, one thousand and four.
"What's the matter?" Marie Pascalaura whispered, but he ignored her.
Now.
Crr-rack… booom!
Henry Lightstone slowly turned his suntanned face toward the distant southern shore, aware that the soaring eagles had instinctively drifted away from the echoing explosion. He waited… and then winced six seconds later when the fifth shot echoed across the water with a discernible sense of finality.
"You have many hunters out here?" Lightstone asked.
"A few," Sam Jackson said with an edge to his voice. "Never heard any shoot like that, though." He, too, had detected the unlikely pattern of the gunshots.
"Someone doing some target practice, maybe?" Thomas Woeshack suggested, but the tone of his voice suggested that he didn't really believe it. He slid his rod down against the gunwale of the aluminum boat and reached for his backpack.
Lightstone could hear Woeshack at the rear of the boat, opening up the waterproof equipment box that had been bolted to the cross structure of the sturdy patrol craft. At the same time, Sam Jackson slowly and carefully climbed back into his smaller patrol craft and opened up his own equipment case.
For a good five minutes, the two federal agents and the refuge officer scanned the distant rocky, tree-lined shore with their binoculars, searching for some sign of the individual who seemed much too methodical- much too precise — to be a hunter, while Lightstone tried to hold back the harsher reality that threatened to overwhelm the serenity of the glistening, smooth water. Memories of grisly crime scenes and deadened eyes. And of terrified victims, and of nervous suspects on the edge of panic, ready to run or fight or kill again, because they were never sure of exactly how much you knew.
"Anybody see anything?" Woeshack finally asked in a hushed voice.
"Nothing here," Sam Jackson answered from his boat.
"Nothing here either." Lightstone shook his head. "You're probably right. Just some guy out-"
There was another splash nearby, and the fly rod suddenly clattered violently across the bottom of the patrol boat.
"Hey!" Marie Pascalaura cried as she lunged across her fiance's lap and grabbed her fishing rod just as it was about to go over the side.
The sudden pull on the line as the thirteen-pound, hooked rainbow trout dove for the rocks pulled Marie forward, causing her to squeal in surprise as the rod bent down toward the water like an eight-foot bow.
"Hold on to it!" Lightstone yelled as he yanked the binocular strap up over his neck and reached for the waterproof case.
"What do I do?" she gasped as she tried to get back into her seat.
"Give him some line and watch out for those rocks," Sam Jackson advised, quickly securing his binoculars and reaching for his net. Thomas Woeshack got ready to pull up the light anchor and kick in the motor if the fish pulled them anywhere near the rocks that protruded from the water about fifteen yards away.
"I knew your luck would change," Woeshack said cheerfully from the back of the rocking boat.
"I hope you're right," Lightstone nodded as he looked one more time toward the distant southern shoreline.
Chapter Thirty-Two
"Do you see anyone?" Gerd Maas asked over the loud, angry roar of the bear.
Up in the hills surrounding the southern shore of Skilak Lake, and about half a mile from the thick berry patch where the Kodiak sow had fought and died, the male grizzly bear had started to growl and slash at the cage again. But Maas was ignoring it, because he was still on a high from his more recent encounter with the enraged mother bear, and because he was much more concerned about getting the setting exactly right.
"Just some fishermen. Four of them, in two boats," Kimiko Osan replied as she continued to scan the distant northern shore with the powerful spotting scope.
"How far out are they?"
"About a mile," she estimated. "Due north, just outside Doroshin Bay. One of them is wearing an orange survival suit. I think he's the refuge officer we've been monitoring. The one with the small dog. They are very busy. Three of them have fish on their lines, and at least two of the lines seem to be tangled."
"Good. They shouldn't be too interested in what we are doing here," Maas nodded as he pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves over his muscular hands. Then he turned to Shoshin Watanabe.
"What about the plane?"
Watanabe spoke into his radio, listened for a reply, and then looked back up at Maas. "He is flying in a circle pattern approximately thirty kilometers to the south."
"And the diversion team?"
"Parker and Bolin are in position, approximately five hundred meters to the east. They are also ready."
"Excellent."
Twenty feet away and partially concealed in a clump of spruce and alder, the male grizzly roared out his anger as he continued to tear and bite at the aluminum crossbars of the portable cage. Several of the bars had already been bent by his furious mauling.
Ignoring the bear for the moment, Gerd Maas walked over to where the two men had been secured to individual trees with lengths of wide medical gauze and hospital tape to eliminate the possibility of telltale bruising.
Kneeling down before the younger of the two, Maas placed the long serrated edge of his belt knife against the man's neck-causing his eyes to bulge wide open-and then, with a savage twist of his wrist, he cut the gauze and tape wrappings away from Butch Chareaux's mouth.
It took the younger Chareaux only a few moments to recover his composure, whereupon he began to curse wildly in his fluent Cajun dialect until Maas dealt him a savage backhanded blow to the side of his bearded face.
"You will remain silent," Maas ordered in a raspy whisper as he cut the bindings away from Chareaux's legs. Then he looked up at Kimiko Osan, who was standing a few feet away with Paul McNulty's. 45 SIG-Sauer automatic and Sonny Chareaux's stainless-steel. 357 Magnum revolver in her small hands.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Yes. Are you comfortable with his boots?" Kimiko Osan responded. She was hesitant to question Maas, but she knew that timing would be crucial and that Chareaux's boots were two sizes too big.
"They are fine," Maas nodded with icy-cold indifference.
"Then I am ready also," she said calmly.
"And you?" Maas turned to look at Shoshin Watanabe, who was standing next to the tree where McNulty was tightly secured with gauze and tape.
"Hai!" Watanabe acknowledged with a sharp forward nod of his closely shorn head.
"Good, then we begin," Maas said as he cut the last of Butch Chareaux's ties. Maas held him on the ground with a knee pressed into his lower spine and his unbroken wrist twisted tightly against his upper back.