Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

“Okay, okay,” said Nick, “almost done.”

“Suppose one of ’em comes home about now and sees the two white guys in the big black sedan spying and tells the others.”

“I hear you, I hear you,” said Nick. “All right, I’m going to pull out, pass the house, turn right on Dickens, and you run a check through these from that side. I’ll go slow.”

“Don’t go slow,” said Bob. “He’ll notice if you go slow. He notices shit like that. He’s a sniper.”

“You mentioned ‘radar for aggression.’ You’ve got it too, I know. Some buried ESP synapse left over from reptile days. All you tactical people have it. Maybe that’s why you become tactical people. But do you feel anything now? You seem jumpy and I’ve never seen you jumpy.”

“I’m worried that this ain’t right. It’s a big gamble.”

“It’s smaller than it seems,” Nick said. “If he’s here, ball game over, we win the Oscar, our class gets the Bible. If he’s not, so what? It’s not as if we’re overcommitting to this. I’m not taking resources that would otherwise be deployed as countersnipers tomorrow. The same number of guys will be on the street. What I’m doing, frankly, is a little management-level ass covering, that’s all. I have to work it hard so no one sitting on the fifth floor with four martinis in him says, ‘Oh, if only you’d done that .”

Bob was quiet as Nick pulled out. The car glided down the street, took the right, and Bob got a good ambient-light view of the southern and the western, that is, the right side and the rear of 1216, seeing nothing out of the usual, no movement, nothing but a big old house dozing in the night, probably looking better because its shabbiness was veiled by the darkness.

“Okay,” Nick said as the car pulled away, “now tell me why you’re really jumpy. What came up on the Swagger aggression radar?”

“Ahh,” said Bob, “you FBI guys, you don’t miss a damned trick, do you?”

“I’m Dick Tracy, didn’t you see my picture on the lunch box in the cabinet?”

“Well, it ain’t nothing,” said Bob. “It’s just… something.”

“Nothing, but something. Yeah, I get it. That’s perfectly clear.”

“Don’t know what. Like a hair tickling me somewhere, like somewhere someone’s watching me. Maybe it’s because I’m so goddamned tired and a little over a week ago I got whacked in the head by a flying desk. I got nothing I can point at and say, now, yessiree, that’s it, that’s the thing. It’s just an oozy feeling I used to get in the bush when bad hombres moved in. I’d say it’s my imagination, except I don’t got no imagination.”

“You need some rest.”

SECURITY HEADQUARTERS TO 1216 CRENSHAW

0530 HOURS

He got some rest, three hours’ worth, on the SAIC’s couch. He was awake before they came for him, and stepped into general chaos. He followed the swell of personnel down the hall to the elevator, down that to the entrance to the parking lot where, as if lit for the movies and oh so SWAT-team dramatic, the raid was staging. Special agents buckled on body armor, then pulled raid jackets with FBI emblazoned in huge yellow letters across the back. Most wore jeans, athletic shoes or assault boots, carried their Glocks in cowboy-cool tactical rigs that held them to midthigh, below the extension of the body armor beneath the waist. Everyone had a radio and the air was alive with the crackle of static as call signs and nets were checked. Nick talked earnestly to Matthews, his raid commander, and when it seemed everybody was done being dramatic, Matthews turned, gave the whirlybird rotation with his fingers, meaning “Guns up,” and everybody piled into the six SUVs.

Matthews led, followed by the five SUVs, and last came Bob and Nick in Nick’s sedan. No need for flashing lights at this time of morning, as Beltway traffic was nonexistent. To the east, over downtown, just the tiniest glaze of a pinkish blur colored the sky. The parade roared its one-exit hop, got off on Reisterstown Road, and turned inward toward the city. Now the red-blue dance of the flashing lights began, as the few motorists on Reisterstown yielded to the federal convoy as it blazed through the three stoplights, and into what comprised “center-city” Pikesville, and at the corner of Reisterstown and Crenshaw turned the hard right.

Bob could hear the radio chatter between the feds and the on-scene county police locals.

“Baker-Six-five, this is Twelve-Oscar, we are inbound.”

“Roger, Twelve-Oscar.”

“Be there in a minute or so.”

“We are set to cover your perimeter, Twelve-Oscar. Area is cordoned off.”

“Very good and appreciated, Baker-Six-five.”

Dramatic spurts of color splashed against the trees and houses as the convoy, lights flashing, passed down the corridor of old big houses that was Crenshaw, and came at last to the corner house, 1216, where they halted, then turned spotlights inward to illuminate every turret and gable of the old place. Bob watched as the raid theater continued.

The men piled out, no long guns among them, but hands resting comfortably on or near their holstered Glocks, and went to assigned doors and windows, making egress impossible. That took a minute, as the federal team was well trained.

“One, in position.”

“Two, I’m set.”

“Three? Three, where are you?”

“Sorry, Command, my radio switched off as I was pulling it from the holster. I am in position.”

“Four, I’m ready too.”

“Okay, let’s open her up.”

With that, Matthews, carrying a radio unit but no sidearm and two other agents with drawn pistols but nothing exotic, walked swiftly up the front walk, and pounded.

And pounded.

And pounded.

“Oh, shit,” said Nick. “I wonder what’s wrong.”

Matthews tried the door. It opened to his turn of the knob.

He disappeared inside and came out in a few minutes. He yelled something to the other men, who started to put away their pistols and file into the house. Then Matthews walked straight to Nick. His face was grave.

“I don’t like the looks of this one fucking bit,” said Nick.

TWO BLOCKS FROM FBI HQ

WOODLAWN

1230 HOURS

THE PREVIOUS DAY

See,” explained Crackers the Clown, “I’m just not that into this. I’m an operator, a rock star, an action-Jackson guy. I blow shit up and kill people. I learned from the best.”

“You learned from Soldier of Fortune magazine,” said Mick.

“Mick, no, I wasn’t SEAL or DELTA but I was forces, just like you. And I did some shit for an outfit I can’t talk about.”

“The Boy Scouts of America,” said Tony Z. “He got his merit badge in Advanced Paintball.”

Laughter.

“Hey, paintball’s tough . Tougher than Airsoft!”

More laughter. The three of them sat in their by now rather-well-lived-in Explorer. Ahead, the only large building in this zone of cottage industry and light manufacturing, the one whose three floors comprised the Baltimore FBI office, loomed against the sky. As it was somewhat creamy in complexion, though undistinguished architecturally, it was easily visible and its burning lights made it all the simpler to mark.

“I don’t like this shit either,” said Mick. “I don’t like sitting on my ass like some vice cop outside a Korean massage parlor, waiting for a politician to show up. Give me a nice torture interrogation or a shot at laser-designating a Sadr militia warehouse for the Mavericks, that’s my preference. I also really like that big gun and watching them toss when you knock them off at a mile.”

“That’s so cool,” said Tony Z. “I like that part too.”