Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

“Cool!” said Crackers.

“-and people will run like fuck. Tony Z pulls the SUV up and we jump the wall-”

“It looks like a pretty high wall, Mick.”

“You’re an Airborne Ranger, you can do anything.”

“I’m an old Airborne Ranger. It’s my knees. They aren’t what they used to be.”

“Just roll over it like an old man,” said Tony. “You know, hit it, swing your legs over. You don’t have to do any Hong Kong gangster shit.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Crackers. “That’ll work.”

“May I continue?” asked Mick. “Or are there other important areas of discussion you two would like to examine?”

“Sorry, Mick,” said Crackers. “I was just thinking about shit.”

“I hate it when you do that. No good can come of it.”

“But if I’m in the SUV, they’ll still get a read on our license plate.”

“Okay, okay. So… the car we steal, we trade plates.”

“Actually, it would make more sense if we stole two sets of plates,” said Crackers earnestly. “We steal SUV plates and we put ’em on our vehicle. We keep our plates. Wait, no, we steal SUV plates because they’re different from automobile plates. We put them on our wagon. Then we switch back to our plates.”

“Numb nuts, we have a.50 caliber Barrett in the backseat. I think that’s going to-”

“Jesus Christ, girls, this bicker-bicker-bicker shit has got to stop. We steal SUV plates and make the change. Then we steal a car. One pair of SUV plates, one car. Then we do it as I have laid it out. I take the car in, Crackers wanders down the street to the yard. I do the dirty deed, Crackers burns off a mag or two making holes, breaking glass and blasting pennants out of the air, his own private Fourth of July, and off we go in the SUV. I’m guessing nobody gets a read because it’s going to be thirty seconds of World War Three. But we do the plate switch just to be sure. Then, Miami Beach, here we come. Home free, a year’s vacation, lots of pussy and dope, some new tats, the life of O’Reilly.”

“Reilly. Not O’Reilly. He’s a TV guy.”

“O’Reilly lives plenty high enough for me.”

Body armor. An entire 9-mm trousseau including MP5s and SIGs. Randall fighting knives. Black wool watch caps. Danner Desert warfare boots. So Tommy Tactical. They looked really cool.

DIRECTOR’S OFFICE

HOOVER BUILDING

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

WASHINGTON, DC

1700 HOURS

The call came at five. Swagger was just back from a too hasty trip to the Georgetown site of Zarzi’s upcoming speech. He joined Nick in the director’s anteroom, and the two were beckoned in.

“Sit, sit,” said the director.

They sat.

“You guys look all frowny. Why the frowny faces?”

“It’s too fast,” said Nick. “If you had good news, there’d be an Agency liaison, two or three guys from Justice, and probably an Administration overseer. I’m not optimistic.”

“It’s not as bad as you think it could be. The key is, Cruz has to come in. Cruz has to come in, he will be placed under our protection, and he will cooperate. All charges against him will be held in abeyance. He will be placed on administrative leave from the Marine Corps, seconded to the FBI TDY, and he will give his material, under oath, to us and to Justice. At that point a determination will be made between the players, us, Justice, the Agency, and the Administration, as to whether or not we will progress with the investigation. I’m promised a fair and positive chance to make our concerns known and to build a case, and the Agency will cooperate. Evidently, there’s some in-house feeling over there that the Afghan Desk cabal has become too powerful policy wise, and this is seen as a way to take them down a few notches. You can have Okada on the team too, if that’s what you want. But Cruz has to come in. Can he be reached? I’m assuming one of you is in contact with him, because your stuff has to come from him.”

Silence, and then Bob said, “I may have a way to reach him.”

“I thought so. Swagger, once again you impress. I love the way he takes over our investigations, changes their objective and content, and advances them in another direction-fortunately for us, the right one. Oh, and once this is completed, you are to go home to Idaho and you are sentenced to the rest of your life in a rocking chair. Nick, I’ll get you another promotion if you agree to handcuff him to that chair.”

Swagger and Nick looked at each other.

“It’s pretty good,” Nick admitted. “I thought we’d be bigfooted into silence, the investigation officially closed before it got started, and-”

“Can I say one more thing?” Bob interrupted.

“What would that be?”

“This just seems smart to me. The Agency people have got to feel a little on the spot by now, like we’s hunting them. So I’m thinking we run a briefing for them. We reach out and give them some kind of palaver on our progress with Cruz. Get all the players there, all the big Afghan Desk people, all the Zarzi big believers. We’re real smooth and assy-kissy.”

“ You could do ‘assy-kissy’?” Nick asked.

“Not for long. Maybe fifty-nine minutes. Around minute sixty, you throw a blanket over me.”

“I’d pay to see that. But is this really the time for a public relations offensive?” said Nick.

“No, no,” said the director, “it is a good idea.”

“Okada can give us a list by name,” said Bob. “Get ’em in one room just to set them straight and settle them down. I’m thinking the deputy director, the head of plans, the head of Afghan Desk, and of course, in the Administration, the director of National Intelligence. We’ll even bring free doughnuts.”

“No doughnuts,” said the director. “It isn’t in the budget.”

CORRIDOR AND ELEVATOR BETWEEN DIRECTOR’S OFFICE AND TASK FORCE ZARZI WORKING ROOM

HOOVER BUILDING

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

WASHINGTON, DC

1720 HOURS

Do me a favor,” said Nick, “the next time you get a bright idea about doing PR, let me in on it. That way, I get the credit, it helps my career. Helping your career doesn’t amount to much because you don’t have a career.”

“If you’d suggested it,” Bob said, as the elevator doors opened, “he’d have turned it down. He only said yes to annoy you, to punish you for bringing me into this again.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Anyway, I didn’t do it to help the Bureau with its Agency problems. That don’t matter spit to me. But one of those four guys pulled the trigger on Cruz. I want to see ’em, throw some business their way, and get a read.”

“Uh-oh. You’ve been reading Shakespeare again.”

“What?”

“ Hamlet. ‘The play’s the thing, in which to catch the conscience of the king.’ Old idea: if you put before the bad guy an image of his crime, he’ll in some way react and give himself away. Shakespeare believed it, but it’s bunk.”

“I ain’t never read Hamlet . Not in Polk County, Arkansas, in the fifties where I’s educated.”

“Whatever, it’s based on a folk concept of the mind. The image of their crime sparks some kind of overt response. But it’s bunk. We know now that people are complex, devious, sophisticated, practiced, and they don’t go ‘Boo!’ when manipulated into such a confrontation.”

“Still like to try.”

“I know you have all kinds of sniper voodoo and eighth and ninth senses, but these guys are much smarter than Hamlet’s uncle. These are all sophisticated, mentally tough, experienced, widely traveled, and brilliant men. You won’t see anything they don’t want you to see. If they’ve navigated their way through DC intelligence politics, plus survived in the field, they will have a little bit of smarts in how to handle an office meeting, even with the great Bob Lee Swagger.”