Stephen Hunter - Black Light

Duane’s breath left him; that wasn’t a good sign. He felt adrenaline flare through him, and the urge to dump the boy, shoot him in the head and run like hell spiraled through the deepest and most frightened part of his mind.

But, no, goddammit, maybe the old Duane Peck, not the new one. This was it: his chance. Grab it and make it happen. Be strong.

“Git going, you little bastard,” he hissed.

In what seemed like not much time at all, they reached the clearing. Duane held Russ close and looked about it. He could see nothing. Was Bob there? He didn’t see him.

He shoved the boy ahead. They moved through the grass into the clearing. Duane started hollering.

“Come fight me, Swagger! Come on, goddammit, or I will kill this boy right here. Come on, you gutless asshole, come and fight me!”

But nothing happened.

“See, he’s chickenshit,” he said to the boy. “You say he’s a man, but he ain’t. He likes to kill people from a long way off and scurry away like a little toad. But when it comes to man’s work, by God, his little dick gets small and goes away.”

He paused.

“Come and fight me, sniper,” he screamed again.

And then he saw that he was going to get his wish.

Across the way, he watched as a man emerged, tall and strong, and walked toward him with the slow and steady pace of a gunfighter.

“You’re fucked,” said Russ.

Bob had the .45 Commander cocked and locked over his kidney, not in the inside-the-belt holster, but wedged lightly between his jeans and his shirt, too delicately situated for vigorous action. It was set just so for one reason: to draw. He could see Peck hardly at all as he approached. Only Russ, his arms jacked tight behind him, was visible. The boy’s face was pale with fear and he looked as if he were in great pain. Now and then Peck peeked around for a glance, but quickly retreated behind his human shield.

With a good rifle, Bob could have possibly hit the brain shot, but he didn’t have one. He just had the .45 and he didn’t like Peck’s damned Glock with its tricky, dangerous trigger, its black snout pressed at the boy’s temple.

It seemed to take forever, that long, slow walk through the grass across the clearing. The sun was shining through the trees. The birds were singing. The grass ruffled in the breeze. It looked to be a glorious, radiant Arkansas summer day.

Get in close , he told himself. You get in close, then you get ten feet closer .

He kept moving.

Am I fast? he thought. We’ll see if I’m still fast .

“That’s far enough,” called Peck.

“What?” Bob said, taking another few steps.

“I said hold it!” Peck bellowed, the gun coming off Russ’s head and toward Bob.

Bob stopped and raised his hands, and the gun went back into Russ’s neck, just under the ear. Bob was five feet away, close enough to see the whiteness of the taut index finger as it rode the trigger right to the breaking point and the way the square muzzle actually plunged a quarter inch into the soft skin in the gap between the boy’s jaw and his skull, just under the ear. Russ’s eyes bugged like deviled eggs.

“Ain’t this a pretty picture,” Bob said.

“Fuck you, Swagger,” said Peck. “You are checking out today, partner.”

“Shoot him,” said Russ through a throatful of gun. “Shoot through me and kill him.”

“You shut up now, Russ,” said Bob. “Peck, this here’s between you and me, isn’t it? Let the boy go. Let him run free. Then you take your shot at me and we will see who’s the quicker man today.”

“I got a better idea,” said Peck. “I shoot him and then I shoot you and then I go home a big hero.”

“Who you working for?” said Bob.

“You ain’t ever going to find out,” said Peck.

Now and then he’d lean out from behind Russ, and just a bit, say a two-inch slice of the side of his face, would be clear, but only for a second. Like many stupid men, he was quite cunning. He was not exposing anything for Bob to shoot at, assuming Bob could even get his gun into play fast enough.

“Shoot him,” screamed Russ.

“I got some money,” said Bob. “I been financing this thing off a killing I made in a lawsuit years back. Got sixteen thousand left, small, unmarked bills. Buried not far from here. What you say, Peck? That money for the boy. Then you and I have our business. Winner take all. Might as well get paid.”

Peck considered. The money was a little tempting. But nothing would keep him from his idea of the good life.

“No way,” he said. “Turn around. Turn around or by God I shoot this boy, then take my chances with you.”

Here it was. If he turned, Peck would shoot him, shoot the boy. If he drew, he might be able to hit Peck before he fired but the odds were against it. But he had to move. The time had come. He looked at Russ, who had his eyes shut and whose face had gone gray: he’d made his peace, like many a soldier who’s about to die will do.

So here it was.

“Keep them hands up,” Peck was shouting, more and more insanely, gone now, lost in madness, “and turn around or by God I will—”

A telephone rang.

Incongruously, there in the middle of the clearing, with the sun rising, Russ choking to death, Bob with his hands up, Duane Peck playing his last and grandest hand, the telephone rang.

Peck leaned out in surprise and Bob saw the confusion in his eyes as he tried to figure out what to do, and then in just a split second his eyes involuntarily veered downward to look at the phone on his belt and by the time they came back they were surprised to see not Bob but a blur of Bob, a Bob whose hands already seemed to have a gun in them and were moving so quickly up his chest and leveling toward him that there was no way to make a measurement or take a picture, and Peck tried to get the Glock over on him to catch up but knew he never could.

The bullet hit him in the right eye, crushing through it, bounding through the cerebrum, opening as it went, and plunged to the dense tissues of the cerebellum. The impulse to fire was trapped forever in his nervous system, never reaching his trigger finger. He fell backwards stiff as a bronze statue, his knees so locked that when he hit he bounced. The Glock thumped into the grass.

Russ was stunned by blast, his face peppered by flecks of hot powder, and one eye was blurred and watery. His ears rang thunderously.

He turned and looked at Peck, totally defunct.

One word came to his mind.

“Cool,” he croaked.

But Bob was already kneeling at the man and had pried the ringing folder phone off his belt. He looked at it in terror. How did it work?

“The button under the earpiece, push it!” Russ cried.

Bob’s quick hand reached it.

“Yeah?” he said gutturally.

“What’s happening, Peck?” came a voice that he had never heard, an Arkansas voice, not without its polish and charm, though now undercut with urgency. Bob’s mind emptied at the question. Then he said, in a slightly better imitation of Peck, “It’s over. Got ’em both.”

“Goddammit!” bellowed the voice. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Ah—” Bob began, but the voice plunged ahead.

“I told you to follow orders exactly: Don’t you get that?”

“Yes sir,” mumbled Bob, trying to keep himself bland and simple. “Sorry, I—”

But the voice had lost interest and shot ahead to new topics.

“Is the general all right?”

“Yep.”

“Bury the bodies, get the general home and disappear for a week. Call me next week. I want a full report.”

“Yes sir,” said Bob.

The phone clicked to dial tone.