"But does he know his ass is on the line?" Wintersole asked pointedly.
"Oh, I think the congressman understands that very clearly." Rustman nodded his head solemnly, a deadly look narrowing his eyes. "Very clearly, indeed."
Wintersole waited until Rustman disappeared. Then he took the long, narrow, and winding path down to the training compound where, one by one, he contacted the members of his team and relayed the change in plans and related instructions.
Set the bait tonight, at 2100 hours.
Spring the trap tonight, at 2300 hours.
Note the important change in plans: unless absolutely unavoidable, do not kill the agents.
Withdraw all escape-route sets of explosives except one for use in the planned obliteration of the Chosen Brigade's compound.
And under no circumstances harm the female agent or either of the two medium height, medium weight, male Caucasian agents tentatively identified as Henry Lightstone. They needed them to earn the bonus.
One by one, the members of the hunter-killer recon team at the training compound withdrew to their new assignments, until finally only Wintersole and the man he knew as Henry Randolph Lee remained with his nearly exhausted — but still visibly enthusiastic — students.
Wintersole waited until the almost-too-painful-to-watch session finally ended with some futile attempts by the trainees to apply some of their new skills against each other. Then he walked into the open-sided barn as the members of the Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal began staggering down the hill toward their waiting trucks.
"Well, how did it go?" Wintersole asked as he helped his new martial-arts instructor roll the mats into the center of the open barn.
"Pretty much the way you thought it would," Lightstone admitted with a wry smile. "The only ones with decent potential are the two kids. They need more discipline, but that will come with the training. The rest of them will be lucky if they make it all the way through the course without making a couple trips to the emergency room."
"They are a pretty sad lot," the hunter-killer recon team leader conceded thoughtfully.
"You know, I really don't get it," Lightstone ventured as he covered the mats with a waterproof tarp.
"What?"
"You said these guys plan to confront the feds someday. That's a joke, right?"
"You don't think they can pull it off?" A slight smile appeared on Wintersole lips.
"Pull it off? Are you kidding?" Lightstone scoffed. "They might be able to hold their own against a bunch of paper-pushing federal bureaucrats… if you could limit the fight to paper targets and theoretical bullshit. But if you're talking about them facing down a bunch of federal agents — or even regular police officers, for that matter — it wouldn't even be funny. More like suicide, if you ask me."
"Then maybe what we really need to do is open their eyes a bit, in terms of the real world," the hunter-killer recon team leader suggested.
Henry Lightstone eyed his new employer.
"I take it you have something in mind?"
"As it turns out, I've got an interesting field exercise planned for this evening," Wintersole explained. "Something my associates and I dreamed up the other night to give these people a little better grasp of reality. It's a little complicated, and we could use some help with the logistics if you're free tonight."
"Well…"
"And if you do have other plans for this evening," — the hunter-killer team leader smiled knowingly — "you might be interested to know that our employer authorized a thousand-dollar bonus for each participating instructor."
"A thousand dollars?" Lightstone blinked. "What would you expect me to do? Shoot a couple of those jokers?"
Wintersole chuckled. "Actually, something a little less violent, but equally instructive."
"No actual wounds. Just scare the hell out of them?"
"Something like that."
"But a thousand dollars for one night's work?" Lightstone pressed, remembering to stay in character. A thousand dollars was a hell of a lot of money for a man supposedly in between jobs who had just spent a goodly amount of his reserve funds on a used motorcycle.
"Actually, probably only five or six hours, max. I plan to start at 2100, sharp, and finish around 0200 in the morning. Payment in cash, on the spot, assuming everything goes okay," Wintersole added helpfully.
Lightstone smiled.
"Where do I go, and what time should I be there?"
"Be at the entrance to their main compound at, oh, say 2000 hours — 8:00 P.M. I think that would work out just about right. Plan on doing a lot of moving around in the dark, minimal noise, maximum concealment, then all of a sudden popping up out of nowhere to mess with their minds, that sort of thing. We'd be looking for you to take a couple of them out of the picture silently with some quick take-downs and choke-outs if you can get into the right position. Basic psy-ops stuff. Make them sweat a little when their teammates start disappearing, and they don't know why. You ever use any night-vision gear?"
Lightstone shook his head. "Nope. Matter of fact, I don't think I've ever even seen any night-vision gear."
"No sweat. The new-generation stuff is real easy to use. We'll run you through the drill, get you qualified in fifteen minutes. Just make sure you bring a good pair of boots — high-tops if you've got 'em, lot of rocks and holes in the area where we set this up — wool socks, gloves, long johns, and a warm jacket. We'll supply everything else."
"Why do I get the strange feeling I'm being recruited?"
Wintersole smiled. "By the Brigade, or by us?"
"All things considered, I'll be a hell of a lot safer working with you. Especially if these Chosen Brigade characters are really serious about taking on the feds."
"Oh, I think they're serious. No question about that." A shadow flitted across Wintersole's cold gray eyes. "The question is, can they pull it off — or even make a reasonable showing — if they try. That's what we're going to find out tonight."
"You don't sound too optimistic."
Wintersole shrugged. "Just like the old army game, Henry. You do the best you can with whatever resources you're given. Sometimes the best you can do is play for pride."
"Well, whatever the game is, I'm certainly looking forward to it. Especially the money part." Lightstone smiled cheerfully. "Twenty hundred hours, front entrance, main compound." He waved his hand as he began walking toward the distant road.
"Glad you feel that way, Henry," First Sergeant Aran Wintersole whispered to himself as he watched his lanky new recruit disappear into the surrounding woods. "I'm looking forward to it, too."
Chapter Forty-seven
It had grown completely dark that Monday evening by the time Henry Lightstone worked his way through the tall stand of old-growth trees, across a shallow stream, and up a long incline to the edge of an open field, pausing every hundred yards or so to check his compass bearing.
Then, after pausing one last time at the edge of the open field to catch his breath, he knelt and leaned against the rough bark of a concealing thirty-foot evergreen, cupped his hand over his wrist, and checked the luminous hands on his watch.
Seven oh five. Shit.
It had taken longer than he expected — and much longer than he had hoped — because he'd doubled back on his tracks on two separate occasions… once as a routine precaution, and then a second time when a branch snapped somewhere behind him.
He'd spotted the deer on his second loop back, which left him with a vague sense of uneasiness when the animal finally noticed him and bounded off into the surrounding brush. While an incautious deer might snap a twig, the agile young men employed by the pale-gray-eyed man they referred to as sergeant could easily move through a dense old-growth forest without their boots coming anywhere near a dry branch.