Stephen Hunter - The Third Bullet

Who would the Italian soldier in the mountains be shooting at? The enemy would be a German or an Austrian mountain soldier, skilled in climbing, hearty, with a higher pain threshold, a more athletic demeanor, superb physical conditioning, an elite soldier. One more thing, the key thing: he would be heavily dressed. He would be wearing underwear, long underwear, heavy woolen pants, a heavy woolen shirt or battle tunic, probably a sweater or some kind of tight leather-and-fleece vest, a parka heavily matted (no Gore-Tex in those days), all bundled tight by belts and pack straps.

To kill him, what do you have to do? You have to penetrate him. You have to drive a bullet into him with such force that it will not deviate if it strikes a button or a strap or a canteen, that will not disintegrate if it strikes a bone, but continues on its quest for heart or lungs or guts that lay deep inside the insulation. That is what the Mannlicher-Carcano was designed to do, and that is exactly what WC399 did on November 22, 1963. It was not an anomaly. It performed totally within its design characteristics.

Swagger saw immediately where his thought process had taken him. It was enough to drive a man to drink. If the second bullet performed to design specification, that meant that the third bullet did not. It disintegrated when it should not have. And that was the key question of the whole goddamned thing.

The true magic bullet of the JFK assassination was bullet number three. It was a heavily encapsulated round designed to penetrate, not fly apart. It killed by penetrating, not by detonating. Moreover, at a range of 265 feet, it had lost a great deal of its momentum – from a high of 2,100 feet per second, it had probably dropped off to 1,800 feet per second. It hit the skull fully flush. Swagger had no difficulty understanding why the president’s head yielded a massive, explosive wound upon impact, as the bullet would have pushed an energy wave through any material it encountered, and if that material were enclosed, the results inevitably would be explosive, but he couldn’t see why the bullet itself would have detonated. There was no ballistic principle for such a thing happening.

Why did the third bullet explode?

Richard Monk allowed himself a steak once a week, and on Friday, he went to the Palm in the West End. He had a nice martini (straight up, slightly dirty, olives), ordered the small filet medium rare with mashed potatoes, nursed his ’tini while the steak was seared, and then looked up in astonishment when Jack Brophy slid in across from him.

“Richard, I do declare, mind if I join you?”

“Jack, God, I thought you’d left. I tried to call you, and they said you’d left.”

“I changed locations, that’s all.”

“Where are you now?”

“See, that’s it, Richard. I’ll be honest with you. I think I’m being followed.”

“Followed?” said Richard with a little too much dramatic emotion driving the word from his lips.

“Two guys, I’m sure. Black guy, white guy, a team working out of one car. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You were in intel, you know how these things can be arranged.”

“If I was in intel, I’d be a trained liar, right? So if I tell you no, you won’t believe it. I don’t know what to say except that if you look at it, why on earth would I have you followed, which, after all, would cost some money, and I don’t have enough of the stuff to throw around like that. The piece of meat I ordered is my one weekly luxury.”

“Okay, okay,” Bob said. “Sorry, didn’t mean it as an accusation. But let me ask you this: do you know anybody in the wide body of buffs, fanatics, researchers, whatever, who might follow me? I’m thinking I may have a valuable piece of intellectual property. Maybe you mentioned it to someone who mentioned it to someone who thought it sounded interesting and decided to look into me.”

“Jack, I don’t even know what it is. Something about guns, that’s all.”

“That’s right,” said Bob.

“Maybe it has to do with something else altogether, something back in Boise. Child support?”

“If my children can’t support themselves by now, there’s nothing I can do for ’em. I think the money manager sends my ex-wives their checks, so I believe I’m okay on that. No, my life’s too dull for intrigue.”

“Jack, no one’s approached me, asked me any questions about you, anything like that.”

“Richard, I’m just going to disappear for a bit. You okay with that?”

“Sure, Jack.”

“I’ll see you in three days at that Mex place on Main, twelve-thirty.”

“You’ve got it, friend.”

Of course, Swagger didn’t show at the Mexican place, but two FBI agents did, and they confirmed that the operatives from the Jackson-Barnes detective agency were in place down the street with a Nikon and a heavy telephoto lens.

Swagger called Richard while he sat there, apologized for being unavoidably detained, and promised to make it up to him and that they’d meet soon, but he couldn’t set a time because his schedule was so “fluid.” He let three days pass and ambushed Richard in the parking lot outside the Y.O. restaurant, another famous joint just across from the Palm in the West End.

Richard was a little buzzed from the martini, and his belly was loaded with protein and carbohydrates. “Man, you show up at the oddest times,” he said, perturbed, Bob guessed, because his photo team wasn’t with him and there was no way he could call it in to them in time.

“I’m secret-agent man, all over the place. I think I dumped my followers. Let’s get a cab and drive around for a while.”

“Jack, maybe you’re overdoing it a bit. I should tell you again, in the past three days, nobody asked me anything about you, and nobody’s keeping an eye on me or anything. I do have something for you.”

“Yeah?”

“I have a friend who has a gun as close as you can get to the Oswald rifle. It’s a Mannlicher-Carcano Model 38 carbine, serial number CV2755, just eleven shy of Oswald’s, from Terni. It’s got the Japanese scope and mount, and it was ordered from Klein’s just a week or so before Oswald ordered his, in March 1963. I’m guessing the same technician attached the scope to the rifle. You couldn’t come closer. A wealthy collector I know paid over three grand for it. I think you’d find it interesting to shoot. We’ve even got some white-box 6.5 from Western. You know how hard that stuff is to come by.”

“Nah,” said Swagger. “See, it doesn’t matter how 2755 shoots. It only matters how 2766 shoots. For a dozen reasons, a hundred reasons, they could shoot different by far. And you know what, Richard? In my theory, it doesn’t matter a lick how even Oswald’s rifle shot that day.”

“Okay, I get it. Second gunman, second rifle. Another Mannlicher.”

“Close, but no. Let me tell you this: I don’t know why, I don’t know who, but goddammit, I know how. Come on, let’s get that cab and go for a ride. On me.”

He herded Richard toward the street in a friendly-bear manner, and the younger man couldn’t resist. If working for somebody, he had to maintain the contact; if the assassination nut he claimed to be, he had to find out whether the new info was cool.

They got in, and Swagger instructed the driver to drive around for a while on the meter, that he’d pay whatever. It was a great gig for the fellow, who rarely got a big ride this late at night. Off they went.

“Richard,” Swagger said, “I want your judgment. Maybe I’m nuts and all I’ve got is bullshit. Or maybe it’s part of the answer. Anyhow, I had a what-you-call-it, epiphany today, which makes me even more sure I’m on to something. It came out of something you said. Let me run this by you–”