Stephen Hunter - Black Light

Other sites: Ben & Jackie’s Harley-Davidson shop, on 271 South, where a huge man in black leather and the lush hair of a rock singer, drawn into a ponytail, contemplated a chrome-plated extended muffler; the Central Mall Trio Theaters, on Rogers Avenue, where two rangy men who could have been ballplayers but weren’t sat watching an extremely violent but idiotic movie; Nick’s Chicken Shack on Route 71, where a large, pie-faced black man with a great many rings and necklaces ate a second extra-spicy breast; and finally at the Vietnam Market on Rogers, where a snake-thin Asian, also with a ponytail and a webbing of tattoos that ran from his neck down one arm (and scared the hell out of the proprietors), was trying to decide between diced mushroom and dried asparagus for the three-color vegetable salad he was contemplating for that night. He was a vegetarian.

The team leader, a Marisol Cuban with a gaudy career in Miami behind him, was named Jorge de la Rivera. He was an exceptionally handsome man and spoke in his vaguely Spanish accent to the assembled unit before him.

“We’re thinking mainly of going for the kill from cars. Not a drive-by, not this guy, but a setup assault off a highway ambush, coordinated and choreographed, with good command and control. Three cars, a driver, two shooters in each car. Body armor. Lots of firepower up front. You want to go at this guy behind a fucking wall of nine-millimeter.”

He waited. They were assembling their weapons, a selection of submachine guns stolen in a raid three weeks earlier from the New Orleans Metropolitan Police Property Room. He saw a couple of shorty M-16s, three MP-5s, one with a silencer, another with a laser sighting device, a Smith & Wesson M-76 with a foot of silencer, and the rest that universal soldier of the drug wars, ugly and reliable as an old whore, the Israeli Uzi.

Those who had satisfied themselves with their weapons loaded ammunition into clips: Federal hardball, 115-grain, slick and gold, for the subs; or Winchester ball .223 for the 16s.

“You been paid very, very well. If you die, money goes to your families you got families, your girlfriends otherwise. You get caught, you get good lawyers. You do time, it’s good time, no hassle from screws or niggers or dirty white boys, depending on which color you are. Good time, smooth time.

“That’s ’cause you the best. Why do we need the best? ’Cause this fucking guy, he’s the best.”

He handed a photo around: it passed from shooter to shooter. It showed a thin man who might have been handsome if he hadn’t been so grim, leathery-faced, with thin eyes, squirrel shooter’s eyes.

“This guy was a big fucking hero in that little war they had over in fucking gook country.”

“Hey, Hor-hey, you not be talking about my country that way, man,” said the ponytailed Asian, as he popped the bolt on a 16 and it slammed shut.

“Hey, we can be friends, no? No bullshit. I’m telling you good, you listen. Nigger, spic, cowboy, motorcycle fuck, wops, slope, fucking southern-white-boy asskickers, we got to work together on this. We’re a fucking World War II movie. We’re America, the melting pot. Nobody got no problem with nobody else, right, am I right? I know you guys have worked alone mainly or in small teams. If you want to go home in one piece, take it from Jorge, you do this my way.”

“I don’t like the gook shit.”

“Then take it out on this boy. He killed eighty-seven of you guys. That was back in ’72. They even got a nickname for him; they call him Bob the Nailer, ’cause he nails you but good. You think he forget how? In 1992, bunch of fucking Salvadorean commandos, trained by Green Berets even, think they got his ass fried on the top of a little hill? He kills forty-four of ’em. He shoots down a fucking chopper. He sends them crying home to mamasita . This guy is good. They say he’s the best shot this great country ever produced. And when it gets all shitty brown in your underpants ’cause the lead is flying, they say this guy just gets cooler and cooler until he’s ice. Ain’t no brown in his pants. His heart don’t even beat fast. Part fucking Indian, maybe, only Indians are like that.”

“He’s a old man,” said the lanky cowboy. “His time has passed. He ain’t as fast or as smart as he once was. I heard about him in the Corps, where they thought he was a god. He wasn’t no god. He was a man.”

“Were you in Nam?” asked Jorge.

“Desert Storm, man. Same fucking thing.”

“Yeah, well,” said Jorge, “whatever. Anyhow, we tie the whole thing together on secure cellulars. We move south this afternoon, as I say, three cars, three men in a car, and me, I’ll be in a pickup, I’ll hold the goddamned thing together while I’m talking to the boss. We know where he lives, but I don’t want to do it there. We hunt him on the roads. We move in hunter-killer teams. You get a sighting, we work the maps, we plot his course, we pick him up. Very professional. Like we are the fucking FBI. We get him and his pal on a goddamned country road, and then it’s World War III. We’ll show this cabrón something about shooting.”

N ow it was his turn to dig. He looked around, making certain. Yes, yes, this was it. The fallen loblolly, over there, snarled in moss, that was the first marker. The gray chunk of rock ten feet away was the second; he remembered it well, though it seemed to have worn over the years. Standing where he could see a notch in the high ridgeline of Black Fork Mountain through a gap in the pines was the third. Triangulating between the three, he knew: this was the spot.

Bob set himself, and with the same sure spade strokes that he had seen liberate the coffin that was not his father but some poor young man he attacked the earth. It fought him, but he was in a mood for a fight. The spade sliced and cut into the earth and lifted it; he began to sweat as he found a rhythm, and beside him a pile of dirt grew.

It was still early. He’d arisen before dawn, while the boy slept, and headed up this trail, a mile from his trailer. He used to walk it all the time with the dog Mike, but Mike was gone now. So Bob was alone, with the spade and the earth. As the sun rose it sent slats of light through the shortleaf pines and they caught the dust that his efforts raised, enough to make a man cough. He worked on, taking pleasure in the power of his movements.

It wasn’t a coffin he uncovered. It was a plastic tube, nearly a foot in diameter, nearly four in length. Pulling it from the ground at last, he felt its considerable weight, even as its contents shifted a bit, but that was fine. He got it out on the ground and stood for a moment, breathing heavily. All around him it was quiet. His actions had scared the birds. No animals came around, and it was too cool yet for bugs.

He wiped his brow with his handkerchief. Then he put his boot on the cylinder to hold it steady and thrust the sharp blade of the spade against the cap of the cylinder, punching at the Loc-Tite bonds that sealed the capsule, until at last they gave. With his hands, he pulled the cap entirely off, then reoriented the cylinder so that he could get at its contents easier and began to empty it.

First came a Doskosil gun case. He opened it, flipped away the envelope of desiccant and took out a Colt Commander .45, dead black, with Novak sights and a beavertail-grip safety. He pinched back the slide to reveal the brass of a Federal Hydrashock; eight more rested in the magazine. It settled into his hand, almost nesting; he hadn’t touched a gun in years. Thought he was done with guns. But in his hand the gun felt smooth and familiar, knowing almost. It fit so well; that was the goddamned thing about them: they fit so well. He cocked the hammer and locked the safety up; cocked and locked was the only way to go. Somewhere in here there was a holster too, and a couple of more magazines, but for now he only wedged the pistol, Mexican style, into the belt above his right kidney.