Stephen Hunter - Soft target

So, who the fuck was shooting at him? And why did he miss?

It didn’t take a genius to make the next leap. Sure, it was a law enforcement sniper, maybe directly across the atrium, on the other second-floor expanse of balcony, maybe a part of a team the cops had somehow gotten into the mall who were even now moving into position for the assault. He’s on his scope, he sees a guy with an AK and a head scarf and he figures he’s got a target, he gets his authorization (or maybe not?). And then he puts a bullet in Ray’s head, only for some reason, he misses.

Fuck you, Jack, Ray thought.

But telling Jack to fuck himself did nothing to solve his immediate problem. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized the guy probably wasn’t across the way or even higher, on the third or fourth levels, but even higher than that. He had to be firing through or from the skylight. If he’d been right on Ray, he couldn’t have missed, but the higher he was, the more extreme the angle was. If you’re shooting downhill, the rule was you always hold low because the bullet’s point of impact will be higher. He’d forgotten while putting the hairs on Ray’s forehead, and the bullet had instead hit high, blitzing Ray’s head right through the scarf and the crew cut, spilling red but not gray stuff. But fuck, it hurt.

Ray could feel blood sliding down through his hair. His ears rang still and he couldn’t stop shaking. Man, that was a close sucker, that was as close as close gets without death being involved.

He tried to work out a move. Hmm, maybe a feint, to draw a shot, then a quick dash during the cocking sequence. But suppose Jack isn’t shooting a bolt gun but is on some state-of-the-art semiauto rig, so the gun reloads itself in a one-hundredth of a second, and after his feint Ray steps out and catches the spine breaker.

The bastard has me dead-zero, he thought.

“Sniper Five, Sniper Five, come in,” McElroy heard through his earphones.

Shit!

“Sniper Five, have you engaged, Sniper Five? Goddammit, McElroy, what the fuck is going on?”

McElroy recognized the voice of his immediate supervisor. He couldn’t hide anymore.

“I have engaged,” he said. “One shot.”

“Can you confirm a kill?”

“Uh-”

“Oh, fuck, McElroy, you missed? Jesus Christ, I am going to have your ass for sure.”

“No, I hit him, I saw his scarf blow up as the bullet impacted in the rear quadrant of the head, but he didn’t prone out. I think I damaged him badly, but he slipped back in this niche in the wall. That’s where he is now.”

“You have him zeroed.”

Did he ever, even if the weight was racking him. He’d now been in this awkward half-hunch offhand standing for a good seven minutes, sweat was everywhere on him despite the forty-degree temp, the small of his back felt like it had taken the bullet, his arms and wrists were fighting those oncoming yips, and he kept squirming a little this way and that to find a more comfortable position even as the crosshairs had begun to widen in their tremble circle. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it and still have the confidence to squeeze one off if the guy made a sudden move.

On the other hand, he did not want to lose this. I will not let up. I am strong enough. I will stay on this guy no matter what.

“I have him zeroed,” he said.

“Sitrep?”

“He’s stuck in there. He’s out of the fight. I’m guessing he’s bleeding out. He’ll be gone soon. You know, brain shots aren’t always instantaneous, sometimes not even fatal. But he’s not going to do much more today, that I guarantee you.”

“Yeah, but while you’re on him, who’s on your window, sending us dope?”

“There is no dope, nothing’s happening.”

“You stay on him for a little while longer, but if I have to, I’m pulling you off and sending you back to general intelligence reporting.”

“I will get him for you,” said McElroy, thinking, I will get him for me.

The phone vibrated. Great. Trapped by a sniper, shot in the head, men with guns all over the joint, and the phone vibes.

Somehow Ray got the little rectangle of plastic genius out of his pocket, careful not to extend an elbow past the edge of the niche and invite a bullet into it, slid the answer icon to the right, and saw Molly’s name announced as the caller.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Not really,” he said. “Sort of stuck here.”

“I heard from my sister. Ray, she’s in with the hostages. My mother too.”

“I can’t do anything for them now.”

“Ray, what should I tell her?”

“If there’s an assault, get down. Don’t run. Most of the firing will be at waist to chest level or higher. If they’re down, they’ll be much safer. Crawl slowly away from the area but be willing to play dead at any second. It’ll be over quickly. There’ll be a lot of firing, a lot of confusion, and they should be as innocuous as possible. If they panic and run, someone may target them as movers, our guys, their guys.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her.”

“Did those kids get there?”

“Yes, the place is now crawling with them. All the women are helping. That day care girl is something.”

“She’d make a hell of a marine. Meanwhile, I’ve just had an idea. I have to get off the phone.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

Tell him, Ray thought.

But now that he had the phone out, he went quickly to his contacts screen and touched the call icon for the one man who might be able to help him, the strange, remote, laconic guy who was, they had both so recently learned, his biological father.

“This is Swagger,” came the message. “Leave a number and maybe I’ll call you back. But I probably won’t.”

Ha ha. Great for the dry humor the old bastard was known for, almost as much as his shooting, but it did his son no good now.

Ray swept his contacts and at last came upon another possibility.

Nick Memphis, FBI, the entry read.

Only a few people had his private number, so Nick was somewhat surprised to feel the phone tingling in his jacket. He picked it open, saw Ray’s number, thought it odd that the man should be calling him at all, particularly now, today.

“Cruz, how are you? Long time no hear, nice to get a call. Actually, Ray, I’m kind of busy-”

“I am too. I’m betting you’re watching reports come in of a terrorist deal in Minnesota. Well, I’m in the middle of it.”

Memphis was stunned. He was indeed sitting in the FBI Incident Command Center in the Hoover Building in DC, actually not doing much except pitching in his comments on dealing not with the gunmen but with the phenomenon known as Douglas Obobo, a tricky character. On another floor, theoretically brilliant people on computer terminals tried to hack into the closed-off mall system; up here, others worked the phones, trying desperately to find some clue as to who was behind this, and others ran logistics, helping coordinate the problems by which law enforcement units continued to pour into Indian Falls, particularly the now airborne FBI HRT from Quantico, while still others were on the phone constantly to Will Kemp, the SAIC in Minnesota, giving him advice and handling his inquiries while also monitoring the situation and evaluating his performance.

Ray explained what was happening to him.

“Jesus,” said Nick, thinking instantly how ugly a fate it would be for Cruz, after his legendary service, to get nailed by an FBI sniper in a bullshit friendly-fire incident.

He looked over, saw Ron Fields, head of the FBI’s sniper school and a leading tactical guru within the institution, on the phone.

“Okay,” he said. “Cruz, you stay put. I’m going to try and get you out of the kill zone.”