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Chapter 7
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Getting the handheld Bearcat scanner to function properly was a chore and a half. Pete played with it while Myka tried to read the ridiculously large manual. They tried downloading frequencies into the unit directly from their laptop but for some bizarre reason, it wouldn't 'stick'. Finally, they surrendered and brought it back to the store where an eighteen year old store associate programmed it for them. Blushing slightly out of embarrassment, Pete thanked her.
Once outside, he flicked it on and listened, searching the channels for communications chatter. It stopped on something that hissed loudly but gave no information.
Myka fished out the manual and tried to figure out how to block that frequency. She did what it said and nothing happened. She sighed. Pete followed the instructions and it died altogether. Myka sighed louder, yanking it out of his hands.
Together, they returned to the store. The teen gave them an evil and totally suspicious glare as if to accuse them of doing this on purpose or as part of a prank. But she wanted to keep her job so she plastered a patient smile on her face and reprogrammed it. Then as a bonus, she instructed them on how to delete frequencies after Myka asked for the additional information.
Scanner up and running, Myka slipped it into her oversized purse, leaving it open so she could catch bits and pieces of information. She pulled the Farnsworth out and gave it to Pete to carry. That done, they went and had dinner and prepared for their evening's hunt.
Midnight found both agents peering around the corner of an ancient building, ears straining for the sounds of animal activity, eyes once more alert for unexpected movement. Their tension was so palpable it practically formed an invisible but solid bubble around them.
"Greetings!" a jovial voice knifed through the stillness all around them.
Pete wheeled and pressed against the wall, more because of instinct than any other reason. Myka had jumped about two feet off the ground. She hadn't quite managed to suppress an alarmed cry and it echoed sharply down the alley. Both of their right hands were reaching for weapons. And then the short, rounded figure who'd spoken materialized out of the darkness into the glow of the amber street lights.
"Artie! What are you doing here?" Myka asked incredulously. If truth be told, she was still spooked by his sudden appearance and it sounded in the quaver of her voice. "You're getting to be as bad as Mrs. Frederic."
As she spoke, she resisted the impulse to search for a tracking device on her person. Artie had this knack for finding them even when he had no specific idea of where they were. It certainly wasn't the first time he'd put this unusual talent into practice. She shivered slightly and collected herself, tamping down the urge to berate him for sneaking up on them.
"Mrs. Frederic felt that you could use an extra pair of hands to bring this to a quick conclusion and…" he paused to chuckle softly, "Claudia was driving me crazy. She's been like the energizer bunny on crack and I really needed to get out of the Warehouse for a bit. So when Mrs. Frederic suggested it, I jumped at the chance."
Artie gave them the pleading, puppy dog eyes which, oddly enough worked better on Pete than on Myka.
"Okay, I guess we could cover more of the city streets this way. You have a rental, I assume?"
"Next block over," he informed them, pointing back through the alley.
"Work fine for you?"
"Yeah, sure, why?"
"Oh nothing. Just wondering."
At that moment, the scanner crackled to life. Artie wheeled quickly for a guy of his age and generous proportions. He scanned the street before them as if expecting a cop car to be right there, and then at Myka who shrugged with her hands and retrieved the device.
"You-know-who isn't going to be happy about that purchase…unless you already owned it. Please tell me you already owned it," Artie pleaded in a deep coercive voice.
"What is it with the money issues lately," Pete grumbled.
"Not 'lately'," Artie supplied immediately. "Always. Always boils down to money in the end. Doing what we do isn't cheap and funding is good but we have to answer for every penny, much as it irks me deal with that end of it."
"I thought you just said Mrs. Fred—"
"She deals with the complaints from…higher up…and then I get to deal with it in the trenches. Believe me, it irritates me as much as it does you, but that's life." He let the subject drop abruptly and reached for the scanner. As if his touch coaxed it to life, the thing spoke in a woman's voice, in a pattern known to dispatchers everywhere, the location and nature of the call and the units that were requested to respond. A few officers responded to her summons. Animal Control, also on constant standby in the last week, notified them he was heading out. Mobilized by the summons, the three secret service agents dashed toward Myka's vehicle, which had been closer than Artie's, and proceeded to the location of the attack.
Once they found the right place, they sidled up to the assembled officers as unobtrusively as possible. Animal control was already there and armed with a tranquilizer rifle. The police were carrying an assortment of handguns with the Glock 9mm being the most prevalent. It would have taken down a man and perhaps a wolf easily enough but Myka found herself wondering if it was enough fire power for a bear.
The officers fanned out, in pairs, to troll the streets for anything that didn't 'belong'. A few street people and drunks were hurriedly carted into a van and brought to a shelter despite their vociferous protests.
Suddenly a shrill unearthly scream rent the air followed by a horrific gasping gurgle. "That was close!" one of the officers commented as he broke into a run. The other uniformed cops pursued him at a flat out run.
On their tail were Pete and Myka. Trailing behind them a short distance was Artie. The latter put on a sudden huffing burst of speed, trench coat billowing out as he ran. He caught up to them just in time to see a gaping maw filled with enormous teeth go airborne over two cringing officers. As one, they all turned to watch their attacker flee down the street, its black striped body sinuously contracting and stretching as it ran across the pavement.
Everyone wheeled, putting Artie somewhat in the lead as they bore down on the fleeing beast which turned a corner smoothly, disappearing from sight.
In no time at all, Pete outpaced everyone and was just at the intersection when he heard a piercing cry echoing along the narrow street. It was followed by a gun shot and chatter on the radio, which suddenly got cut off.
Guns drawn, the three agents and several officers plunged around the corner in time to see the Siberian tiger lunge for a uniformed policeman. Dagger-like teeth scythed into the man's upper arm and yanked. His scream, borne of terror and pain. ripped through the pursuers. With a wild twist of its massive head, the tiger tore the arm clean out of its shoulder socket and with the bloody appendage still dangling between its jaws, it glared balefully back at them. Then it was off with a snarl and chest-deep growl.
Pete watched as several of the officers near him took aim. Shots rang out, the sound multiplied by the tight confines of the surrounding buildings. An agonizing howl, clearly not human, issued from the fleeing animal but it kept moving.
Just as Pete and Myka were about to go after it, Artie called out from behind them, "Wait, wait. Let them do their job."
"I want to be there when they catch it," Pete sounded like a kid excited by his first trip to the zoo.
"No, no, no. Let them do their job," he repeated with more emphasis, then added. "I don't want them knowing why we are here just yet. It's the artifact we want, not the animals themselves."
"So you don't want to see it after they catch it?" Myka asked, surprised.
Artie pushed his glasses up a bit higher on his nose and squinted in the general direction of the trouble. A plain clothes detective had knelt down beside his fallen comrade and was issuing commands to bring an ambulance 'ASAP' over his hand-held radio.
"I would like to see it, yes. I just think it's a good idea not to step on any toes in the process, alright? If they get upset with us for sticking our noses in where they don't think they belong, they may make pursuit of the real problem more difficult."
Pete threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine, have it your way. So now that they are chasing the thing, why don't we just mosey along after them?. See what pans out from a distance."
"I agree with Pete," added Myka, nodding for additional effect. "I'm curious to see it myself."
With a curt wave of his right hand, Artie gestured for them to proceed. Flashlights out, they scanned the point of attack, finding blood swelling outward from the downed man. His companion was encouraging him to hold on while he tried to staunch the flow of life-giving fluid. In the harsh white light his face was pallid, skin drawn taut over the bones of his face. All three agents had seen death often enough to know that the poor guy probably wasn't going to get to the hospital on time even though there was a swelling of siren songs approaching.
Further down they found more blood, small puddles of it, more or less evenly spaced.
Glancing at Myka, Pete queried, "From the arm?"
Artie looked around him and shined the light into the distance. Under the amber glow lights the small round pools of blood looked like black tar but under the flashlight bulbs there were crimson and still fresh, stark against the grayish street surface.
"No, not from the arm. See? Paw prints. The thing is bleeding. One of the shots, maybe more, must've hit its mark." Saying that, Artie began a slow but steady jog along the path left by their prey.
The tiger hadn't run more than a few blocks. They realized this when they saw a group of uniformed cops hovering around something just at the entrance to an alley. They were either muttering in consternation or arguing angrily.
"You idiot!!" one of them shouted harshly.
The answer was just as angry although there was a heavy dose of confusion layered into it. "Hey, I didn't do this. I'm telling you I hit the tiger. I saw it stagger. We all saw the trail of blood. It led to right here."
"Yeah, well I'd way you either have a serious need to get glasses or your shot was misplaced."
Consumed by curiosity, the three Secret Service agents boldly walked through the small crowd and peered between the two men leaning over the body.
"Oh my God!" Myka murmured in shock as she looked down on the still figure. The body lying there was definitely not that of a tiger, Siberian or otherwise. Instead it was of a Caucasian male, with an approximate age of somewhere between twenty and thirty years old. He was on his side, one arm thrown up over his face.
"I'd say somebody screwed up," added Pete in a husky whisper, noting the bullet holes piercing the body, both entry wounds in the upper back, one exit wound in the center of his left pectoral. It wasn't enough to kill the man instantly but obviously it hadn't taken long.
One of the cops rounded on Lattimer, a fierce light in his eyes. "Who the hell are you? And what are you doing messing with my crime scene." He raised a hand in warning. "Don't insult me by saying you just got here. I saw you walking the streets earlier. So what's your interest in this?" He covered all of three of them with his eyes.
Since there was no longer any hope of avoiding close scrutiny, Artie took that moment to flash his ID and badge. "Secret Service actually. Agent Nielsen, that's me. My associates Agents Bering and Lattimer."
Myka and Pete reached for their identification as well. The officer gave it a more than a cursory glance and returned the badge cases with a suspicious glare.
"Right. So why are you involved? No one informed me of it."
Stroking his lower lip in thought, Artie swung his eyes from the carcass to the officer. His face turned impassive, his voice professional. "That's because we were brought to Coeburn for another matter. It just happened that we learned about your problem with the animal attacks and we just got curious to know what was going on. Nothing more, nothing less. These are your cases, your jurisdiction. We have no desire to intrude or get in your way."
This seemed to mollify the man. His shoulders visibly lowered, his features relaxed. "Well, assuming that's true, you wouldn't mind moving on. I really can't talk about this." He gestured at the body then looked at Artie. "This is going to cost me more hours than I'd care to count in paperwork not to mention all the debriefings by internal affairs." He exhaled forcefully as if the ordeal facing him was causing him an equal amount of physical pain as well.
"Would you mind if we give the body a quick once-over?" Artie queried as he put both hands inside his pockets. "I'm not going to touch the corpse. I promise. I'll just be a second."
The cop wasn't exactly buying the curious routine. "What are you really after?"
Artie's voice turned mild. "Just an ID. We were supposed to meet with someone tonight for a…uh…transfer of sensitive information and I just wanted to make sure your guy doesn't fit the description."
Once more the officer's eyes bored through Artie but the secret service agent was like an impenetrable rock. He said nothing, did nothing…just waited.
"Fine. Have your look. Perkins, do me a favor. Get scene investigations down here right away for some photos of the body. Once that's done, you may turn him onto his back and let these folks have a quick look. They are not to touch anything. Understand?"
That last question was directed as much toward the three agents as it was toward Perkins. Pete, Myka and Artie withdrew a short distance and leaned back against a wall while waiting for their opportunity to view the victim. Pete stood, shifting from one foot to the other. Myka leaned back against a brick wall, crossed her arms and legs and generally made herself look comfortable. The first thing Artie did was find a nice comfortable step to park himself on. It was hard and it was cool but he was grateful for the opportunity to rest and think.