Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

“There was some DNA and I hope yours isn’t on file somewhere.”

“It isn’t.”

“Memo: you always leave DNA. Always. Got it? My end is secure, don’t you worry about it. What’s the sitrep now?”

“We are off the shoot zone, but still on Swagger, who’s put himself about a hundred feet north of the restaurant. He’s just another street pair of eyes, that’s all. But I don’t think Cruz is going to show because this place is flooded. He couldn’t get in, he couldn’t get out. We’re just waiting. When Swagger goes off duty, we need to crash. We’re on our third day without sleep, which isn’t helping matters any.”

“Good idea. And here’s a little something to improve your morale. Your decision? To hit those people. It was the right decision. It was a good risk. I don’t think it cost us anything. I’m sorry about the collateral too, but it’s a tough-luck world. As I say, after action, you are so gone no one will ever know you existed.”

“We want a beach, a gym, lots of chicks and dope, a really profoundly corrupt law enforcement establishment, and indoor plumbing.”

“You want Gilligan’s Island with porn stars. Really an original fantasy. I can’t guarantee the plumbing. You stay on Swagger, and we all believe he will lead you to-”

“Oh fuck,” interrupted Mick. “I hear shooting!”

THE 800 BLOCK OF NORTH CHARLES

MOUNT VERNON DISTRICT

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

1654 HOURS

Getting him in was a bitch. Getting him out would be a bitch and a half because it took place after everyone had been standing around collecting blood in their feet for three grim hours.

Swagger felt like a ceremonial soldier at some state funeral for a distinguished old general. He stood, not at attention but in the uniform of the day-FBI raid jacket over shirt and tie, black cargo pants bloused into black tactical boots, a radio unit in his hand wired to his ear, along a street, doing nothing but yawning and watching. The only difference between him and the many other boys and girls thereabouts was the absence of a Glock.40 strapped to his thigh in a Nigel Ninja tac holster.

His sniper eyes darted about, looking for… well, what? A straight line where there shouldn’t be one? No, that bromide didn’t work in a city full of straight lines. The glint of sun off a lens? Cruz was too advanced for that. A figure on a skyline? A chopper would catch a rooftop shooter before any ground Joe would make the ID. A speeding black 1937 Cadillac with a Cutts compensator on a Colt tommy gun muzzle sticking out the back window? That made as much sense as anything else. He just watched, waited, looked around, eyes lighting on nothing, more or less committed to the single idea of movement, because if Ray Cruz moved, he’d move fast, and that might be the only way you could spot him, and then only if you happened to be looking at the small section of the universe through which he moved at the precise moment. But try as he could, he could not spot an uncovered area, that is, an area not already on someone’s regularly assigned observation schedule.

“Boring, huh?” said Nick, standing next to him.

“Not fun,” he said.

“I could use some sleep myself. I’m hoping to let everyone go when this guy-”

“BREAK-BREAK, ALL STATIONS, COMING OUT, COMING OUT!”

The Secret Service incident commander from inside the restaurant alerted all that the moment of maximum risk was about to occur, as the principal was about to move to the limo and would be on the street and vulnerable for a few seconds. If Ray was here, this was when he would act, unless he had an RPG capable of blowing through armored limo glass, unlikely.

Along the street, all the drifting watchers tightened up, reasserted control over their dozing nervous systems, put hands on pistols, blinked crud from eyes, went to balls of feet for a few minutes of maximum concentration. Above, the choppers came down a few hundred feet, their rotor wash stirring up flecks of grit from the rooftops they were putting the binocs to, all the Secret Service sniper teams in various designated windows locking hands to comb, cheeks to stock, eyes to scope for serious examination of their shooting areas.

Bob sensed, rather than saw, the flurry of motion as Zarzi, his brother, two children, and about ten Secret Service agents and bodyguards spilled from the restaurant in a sloppy formation, the two brothers chatting animatedly, as if none of this security drama were surrounding them. Ibrahim, of course, had to show off. He dawdled in plain sight, holding the hands of two of the younger children, laughing at old memories of childhood with his brother Asa. He refused to move, out of some polo athlete’s macho instinct by which he dared the universe to destroy him if it had the nerve, while around him the Secret Service people ground molars to powder, looked feverishly this way and that for signs of movement or action, saw only the pedestrian and the banal, the expected, the normal, the dreary: a homeless man far down one block, a flock of pigeons on the park lawn, a hip-looking couple across the street, a garbage truck pulling out of an alley in the next block, a cab on a cross street, nothing to-

Bob thought: Wrong. Something wrong. What is wrong with this picture? What is-

Jesus Christ, in thoughts so fast they defied the words that tried to catch up with them, what the fuck is that garbage truck doing there?

JUST OFF THE SHOOT ZONE

THE 1300 BLOCK OF ST. PAUL STREET

MOUNT VERNON DISTRICT

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

1558 HOURS

Romy Dawkins lifted the can to hoist it into 144’s dumper bin, and that’s when he saw him.

“Hey,” he called to Larry and Antwan, “hey, there’s a guy here.”

The man lay behind the row of cans, facedown, evidently passed out or dead.

Antwan came over, and then Larry climbed down from the cab. As crew supervisor and driver of the big truck, this was not welcome news. They still had half the route to go, there was some big traffic tie-up in the blocks ahead, and now they had to deal with a drunk.

“Fuck,” he said. “Kick ’im, see if it gets him up.”

Antwan drove a heavy boot into the figure, who groaned, stirred, then settled back.

“He’s out, boss,” said Antwan.

“Okay,” said Larry, “nothing we can do. I’ll call the cops, and we go on. We got a route to finish.”

“He could-”

“Let the cops worry about it,” said Larry. “It’s their job.”

At that point, the collapsed man rolled over. He held a dark automatic pistol in one hand.

“Okay,” he said, “I will hurt you if I have to, but that’s not the point. You do what I say, you get out clean. You fight me, you go home in a box.”

He was sort of Asian, semi-Asian you might say, with no accent whatsoever, very hard, sharp dark eyes and a demeanor that suggested he meant what he said. He connected with a lot of kung fu and Hong Kong shoot-’em-ups most of the trashmen had seen on DVD. He looked like Chow Yun-Fat in The Killer, only for real and really pissed off.

“You guys, you haulers, you drop to your knees, fast, come on, fast ! You, driver, assume the position against the fender.”

All obeyed.

“Never heard of no garbage truck robbery before,” said Antwan. “You must be one dumb motherfucker you think you gettin’ any change off us.”

“Just chill, trashman,” said the Chinaman.

He knelt and deftly looped a set of flex-cuffs-high-strength, plastic, disposable handcuffs-around each set of big wrists. With a yank, he tightened both of them.

“Ouch,” said Romy. “Too fucking tight.”