Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

The agents stood, began to file out.

Bob leaned close. “Sorry, I’m tired. Do you want me to can it with my doubts? I see it ain’t helping you much.”

“Nah, everybody knows you’re crazy. Plus, you’re the big hero. You get to do what you want. What you’re doing, questioning, prodding, bringing your unique skill set and IQ on to this stuff is very helpful, believe it or not. The kids on the team love you, so it keeps them working hard without complaining. It’s a win-win, but just don’t go mouthing off to any reporters.”

“I hate those bastards.”

“Get some sleep. You’re not Superman anymore.”

“Don’t tell no one, but I never was.”

ROOM 233

JUST NORTH OF BALTIMORE

0430 HOURS

He slept the dark sleep of the dead, dreamless and heavy, gone far away from the world. Then a dream began to nudge him. It seemed that one of his hands was bound, he couldn’t move it, it stymied him and he twisted against it, beginning to come up through the various levels of consciousness and REM until he arrived hard at the insight that his hand was bound to the bed head-board and it then occurred to him that he was in fact awake and that he wasn’t alone.

“I’m in night vision,” a voice said softly. “I can see everything you do. Take the other hand out from under the covers and lay it out in front of you, wide open. Keep it there. Otherwise don’t move. I have a gun on you, but I don’t want to kill you. The bullet would probably bounce off, anyhow.”

Swagger knew the voice. It pulled him to full alertness.

“Cruz! How the hell did you-”

“I can get into and out of anyplace. I’m a Ninja assassin from the planet Pandora. I am the trees, the wind, the planet itself, white man. My face is blue.”

He laughed a bit, dryly, at his own twisted sense of humor.

“And I’ll ask the questions.”

“Man, you are crazy coming in here like this.”

“Just answer. What was with all those poor Filipinos who got wasted last night? Does that have a connect to this sordid little game?”

Bob said nothing.

“Come on, Gunny, I don’t have all night. Don’t make me use the blowtorch on you.”

“It was my fuck-up,” said Swagger, then explained briefly how it had happened.

“And the Bureau doesn’t see any tie-in?” Cruz asked.

“They’re not saying that. They’re saying no evidence.”

“They don’t want evidence. They don’t want to go into some cesspool of national security bullshit where a faction of CIA is trying to take out an American sniper team to save an Afghan scumbag from the headshot he so richly deserves, and the whole thing spins out of control in some kind of sick mission-creep phenomenon.”

“They say the guy is clean. They’ve gone over him a dozen times-”

“If he rises, they rise. That’s how it works. It’s politics and ambition, there, here, everywhere.”

“Cruz, maybe you’re overplaying it in your mind. The weight of combat operations, all them tours, the kills-”

“I saw a building in Qalat I’d just exited turned into a crater and thirty-one people thermobarically toasted. I saw Billy Skelton torn in two by some motherfucker on a Barrett.50. I saw Norm Chambers with a hole in him the size of a football.”

“You have too many people working against you.”

“As long as I’m on the loose, as long as you think I’m going to cash out the Beheader, you guys have to ask questions. The more questions you ask, the harder you look, the more likely it is to become unraveled. That’s my game. You want to stop me? Figure out what they’re pulling off with this guy Zarzi-”

“Everything you say sounds like you’re psycho about the Agency. You’re implying the Agency is after you. You should know, the Agency is cooperating with the Bureau. I’m working for an Agency officer I’ve known for years, and she’s smart, tough, fair, and decent. She wouldn’t be party to some scam that targeted our own people.”

He was totally aware that he had become Nick. Now he was the guy saying “no evidence” and “stuff like that doesn’t happen” and “it’s all subjective.” Yet the theater of the moment forced him into his supervisor’s shoes, because if he just dumbly agreed with Ray Cruz, where did that leave him? Not on this side of the law.

“Think about it,” Cruz responded. “At our level, we take out a double-0 license on a warlord. Off Two-Two goes. Halfway there we’re intercepted by contractors who classic-ambush our sorry asses. I discover they’ve been tracking me by satellite transmitter implanted in my SVD. I pull a switch on them and get away. I make it to Qalat, tell my people I’m setting up the shot as planned. I enter the building, then I depart the building, because I know somebody in the system is talking. And they knew which building. A fucking missile totals the building. Much more than a Hellfire.”

Now he became Susan, speaking for the Agency of mystery and endless games, with objectives so shrouded no man could view them. Again, a feeling of rootlessness hit him: if you could change perspectives so quickly, then who, really, were you?

“You don’t know it was a missile. Lots of things blow up in that part of the world. And if they wanted you to abort the mission, they could have simply ordered your battalion CO to issue the withdraw. The Agency has that kind of power. It’s a phone call, that’s all. You’re saying they hired contractors, ran an ambush in tribal territories, finally called in a missile shot, when they could have reached the same ending with a phone call. Sergeant, it doesn’t track.”

“Think harder, Swagger. That’s all I’ve been doing for six months. If they go through channels, through the leaky, penetrated, cheesy-security chain of command, then everybody in country knows the Agency’s got game with Zarzi, and pretty soon everybody everywhere knows. Maybe his own ex-friends behead him. Maybe the newspapers blow it all over the front page and his political future is shot. Langley couldn’t have that. To protect their boy, they had to double-tap Two-Two, and once it started, they couldn’t stop it. So whatever they’re doing, it involves Zarzi. Zarzi’s the key. That’s the end of the-”

He seemed to run out of gas. He, clearly, was exhausted as well.

Finally he said, “Either you stop him or I will.”

“Sergeant Cruz,” Swagger said, “I’ll make you a deal. You go underground. You don’t try no more attempts on Zarzi; I will see what I can see and learn what I can learn. I will get people to help and to talk. I’m their big hero now, I’ve got a tiny amount of juice. You check back with me, and I will have something for you. Just trust me a little. If I discover what you say is true, we will go in together, sniper all the way. Fair enough?”

Again he was aware, painfully, that the deal he offered Cruz he was basically offering himself as well. I will consider it. I will put it on the table and look into it, because in its way, it coincides with my own doubts as well.

The pause told him Cruz was listening.

“You have a few days,” said Cruz.

Bob felt a tug on his wrist and the flex-cuff was cut.

Then the sniper was gone.

U.S. 215 EAST

1430 HOURS

THE NEXT DAY

Can we stop?” inquired Professor Khalid. “I have to go to the bathroom again.”

“Ach,” said Bilal, “you old men. You have to go to the bathroom all the time. We have a schedule.”

“But I can’t do what I must do pissed up. One does not martyr oneself with urine in the underpants.”

“Martyrdom is a week away,” said Bilal, “if this van doesn’t break down or I don’t go mad listening to you two argue all the time.”