Stephen Hunter - Black Light

The general and the colonel then went to lunch, demolishing mighty amounts of rare roast beef at one of Oklahoma City’s finest establishments, and the general dropped the colonel off at his hotel, to prepare for the flight home. The general himself went to his club, where he played three quick games of squash with his lawyer and one of his board members. He took an hour in the steam room, showered and got back to the office at four. He expected to spend another two hours on paperwork and to begin work on a presentation set in a month’s time for the German GSG-9 antiterrorist group; if he could snatch them from the jaws of Heckler & Koch and its blasted, overrated PSG1, it would be a wonderful feather in his cap!

He sat at his desk, and Judy, his secretary, came in with his messages.

“Anything important?”

“No sir. Your wife. She’s waiting for her payment.”

“Dammit, I sent that check,” he said.

“Two calls from Jeff Harris at the FBI.”

“Yes, yes. They may go night-vision. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“A Mr. Greenaway, the procurement officer for the Cleveland Municipal Police.”

“Oh, I’ll get right on that one.”

“Long-distance, Mr. Arrabenz from Salvador.”

“That old pirate. Okay, I’ll get back to him. In fact, you may as well start trying to put the call through now. It’ll take hours.”

“Yes sir. And Mr. Short.”

The general thought he misunderstood.

“I’m sorry?”

“Mr. Short. He said it was about Arkansas. He said he’d call back. Frenchy Short, the name was.”

The general nodded, smiled, thanked her.

She left the room.

The general sat there, finding his breath hard to locate in his chest.

It was coming back. Swagger, now this.

Goddammit .

He waited and waited. His technicians left at five, as usual, and Judy went home at six, but the general stayed in his office. Twice after Judy left, the phone rang; one was a wrong number and another a hang-up.

You bastard, he thought, nursing a glass of Scotch neat. You bastard.

Finally, at 8:27 the phone rang.

He snatched it up.

“Hello.”

“Jack! Jack Preece, you old son of a gun, how the hell are you? It’s your old pal Frenchy Short.”

The voice was southern and arrived in a laughing tone of fake heartiness.

“Who are you?” Preece demanded. “You’re not Frenchy Short. Frenchy Short is dead. He died in Vienna in 1974. I saw the Agency report.”

“Details, details,” came the voice. “How are you doing these days, Jack? That divorce still takes a pretty penny, I’ll bet. Your daughter likes Penn, does she? Business is booming, isn’t it? Battalion 316? Excellent , Jack. That’s quite a healthy little shop you’re running.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Frenchy Short.”

“Goddammit, who are you?”

The man on the other end let him sweat for a few moments.

“Jack, you’re right. Frenchy’s dead. You might say I’m his heir apparent.”

“What the hell is this all about?”

“Jack, Frenchy Short was the best thing that ever happened to you. You’ve lived a charmed life ever since you met him. You got the commands you wanted. You moved up through the ranks. You had clout, power, prestige. You ran that sniper school, the premier sniper command in the Western world. You’ve seen your night doctrines accepted by the army. You’ve got a chestful of ribbons and medals. You’ve become a wealthy man. Jack, you owe Frenchy Short a great deal.”

“Stop bullshitting me. Get to the goddamned point.”

“Here’s the point, Jack. In 1955 you did Frenchy a big favor. You hit a shot for us that no one else in the world could have hit. It bought us all kinds of things. And it bought you all kinds of things. Now, forty-odd years later, that case has been opened again. Somebody’s come hunting us. You have to take another shot. You have to put him in the ground. Night shot. Long-range. Your specialty.”

“No,” said Jack. “That is the one thing I regret doing. That man was a law enforcement officer who did no one any harm. He was a hero. That is the only shame I feel. I don’t care what the consequences are.”

“Jack, I forgot how brave you are. You won the Bronze Star, didn’t you? All right, Jack, go noble on your old pal Frenchy Short. You say you’ll face the consequences? You’ll give it all up, your good name, your firm, your family? You’ll endure the scandal? That’s not what it’ll cost you. No, no, if he comes for me, I’ll make certain no matter how it works out, he gets your name, Jack, then he’ll come for you. He’s the best. There ain’t no better.”

“Swagger?”

“And how, ten feet tall and really pissed off. Still the best. Still is. Dusted ten pros the other day, maybe you read about if?”

Preece had, dammit.

“Jack, I’ll give you to Swagger and he’ll take you apart. Or I’ll set him up for you. One shot, one kill.”

The general was quiet. He looked around at his marksmanship trophies, his paneled office, his medals on the wall. If Swagger came for him it was over.

“Then I’m out?”

“For keeps. You go back to your life, I go back to mine.”

“How?”

“Tomorrow you move out with your gear. You go to a farm way out on a dirt road on County 70, off of 71, just north of Blue Eye, Arkansas. It’s way, way out, near a little place called Posey Hollow. Your contact will be a boy named Duane Peck. He’ll get you settled in. Meanwhile, I’m working to set Swagger up in the woods. He’s got to be drawn in slowly, carefully. It can’t be rushed, but I’m thinking a few days, maybe a week. When it happens you’ll have to move fast and quiet. I’ll get you your shot. You better not miss, General Jack, or he will bury you good and deep.”

“I never miss,” said the general.

B eyond the bridge the land changed. It grew flat and plain and gave way, after a time, to perspectives over water, choked with reeds, huge vistas of almost colorless marshlands, broken here and there by clumps of trees. The water sparkled in the sun.

“There isn’t this much water in the whole state of Oklahoma,” said Russ.

They were on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, heading toward St. Michaels, which, a map suggested, was a small town situated on a promontory that jabbed out into the Chesapeake. It seemed like land only marginally reclaimed from the sea: the water winked at them from behind the trees or off beyond farm fields; or it lurked, black and still, in deep pools that lapped around the edges of dark trees that seemed to stretch off for infinity; or, finally, it was in the rivers and streams that lashed this way and that, like saber cuts.

“Wet,” was all Bob could think to say.

“Maybe she won’t see us,” said Russ.

“Oh, I think she will.”

“Do we tell her about Sam? It might upset her.”

“Tell her the truth on all things. She was a damned smart lady, as I remember. Back in the days when nobody thought a woman was smart, they all said, Miss Connie is smart . That says a hell of a lot about her. I do believe all the men were half in love with her, my own father and Sam Vincent included.”

“She’s ninety-five,” said Russ.

“I’ll bet she’s still as sharp as a bee’s ass. You’ll see.”

They passed through St. Michaels, a town so quaint it looked as if it belonged in an antique store window, and then, off Route 33 still farther toward the Chesapeake, they saw a discreet sign, expensive and muted, that said DOWNY MARSHand pointed the way, without explanation.

Russ turned down the drive, came to a gate under overhanging elms. A guard stopped them.