Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

“And that’s why you hate him, Mick?”

“I don’t hate the fuck at all. I love him. I wish I was half as hung as he is. No way I’d be where he is now, not with all the shit we’ve put on his ass. I wish I could let him have his shot. I wish we could just go away. But we showed the greed, we showed the need, we have to do the deed. We took the dough, so we have to go. That’s our code. It ain’t much of one, but goddamnit, I will play it out, same as him, right to the end.”

“Where are we, Mick?”

“Do you mean philosophically? Somewhere between Housman and Xenophon.”

“No, Mick, I mean where are we space-time-location-wise. That kind of ‘Where are we?’”

Mick pivoted, but did not point.

“Down P Street, almost to Wisconsin. Remember, the cops will have it cordoned off, so there won’t be any traffic. It’ll be a straight shot to his position. We park early to get a location. We go see a movie, then we come back, slip into our war gear, and set up. We’ve pre-lased the ranges, we’ve figured the angles, there’s not supposed to be any wind tomorrow night. I’ve dialed in the scope setting, so there’s no holdover. I’ll go with the.338 instead of the.50, much easier to manipulate and shoot. I’m prone in the back, shooting through the rolled-down window. You’re next to me, on the spotting scope. You pick him out, index me into him, and when I have him on the cross, I take the slack out on him whether he’s made his move or not. Suppressor mutes our signature; the only thing anybody hears is a sonic boom six hundred yards downrange indicating nothing. I pull the rifle into the car, you scramble to the driver’s. Then we just drive away, turn left on Wisconsin, drive to Baltimore-Washington airport and catch a flight to Florida. If we have time, we dump the guns and burn the car, but it ain’t no big deal. MacGyver says all the firepower was obtained overseas for black ops and can’t be traced, and the car is registered through a maze of shipping companies, holding companies, Cayman Islands banks, Mexican rental agencies, and what have you.”

“Suppose you read him wrong, Mick. Suppose he doesn’t show or he doesn’t show at this spot.”

“He will. He doesn’t know why, but I do. He has to do the deed the sniper way. He has to complete Two-Two’s mission, make Two-Two’s shot. That’s his thing. That’s what’s driving him, subconsciously. He’ll be exactly where I say he’ll be. It’s his only shot.”

“But I’m saying a lot can go wrong. He doesn’t show. What then?”

“Well,” said Mick, “I guess we commit hari-kari on the spot.”

“Not me, Mick. Tony Z’s not that much into the samurai thing. I’ll just feel really bad for three full days, is that okay?”

“ Four days,” said Mick. “Minimum.”

O’BRIAN CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT CENTER

BASEMENT

3614 P STREET NW

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

1530 HOURS

FRIDAY

I know you’re a professional, Sergeant. But let’s pretend I’m an infirm old man with short-term memory loss and I’ve forgotten we just went over this seven minutes ago. One more time, please.”

Ray looked at the FBI executive hard, at the man Swagger who was supposedly-he was still trying to wrap his mind around this one-his father, at the beautiful Asian woman who repped the Agency, who were the stars here. Meanwhile, clerks, techies, SWAT cowboys, street agents, commo people bustled about, though all vehicles were parked a mile away.

“You’re going to dump me off at Reservoir. My job is to infiltrate the mile or so down the hill, through the woods, and get to the other side of the wall that fronts P Street right at the point where P bends left to become Thirty-seventh.”

“Do you think that’s a good choice?” asked the woman. “It all turns on that choice.”

“It’s the only choice, ma’am. It’s my only shot.”

“Swagger made the choice,” said Memphis. “He said it would be his choice.”

“It was an easy read,” said Swagger.

“I get in, I wait,” continued Ray. “I’m next to the P Street wall. I’m hearing police activity outside, I know there are cops all over the place. We’re hoping we have some bad guys down P Street, closer to Wisconsin.”

“Another interpretation,” she said.

“It’s right. If I’m here, they have to be there. It’s their only shot. We’re both locked in by the geography of the site.”

“Go on.”

“I wait, I wait, I smoke a couple of cigarettes, I listen to Iron Maiden on my iPod, I watch the movie Mesa of Lost Women on my portable disc player, yadda yadda.”

“He has a sense of humor,” said Memphis. “I like that.”

“Humor deflects bullets, though it didn’t do Billy Skelton any good. Anyhow, the witching hour is 1915. At that point, I leave my hide, creep to the roadway that separates me from my shooting position at the end of the Thirty-seventh Street wall, check out the cop situation. I have to hop a wall. Maybe I can get across that roadway easy does it, on stealth, ’cause I’m a Ninja Turtle bastard from way back. Maybe I have to conk a cop. At any rate, I uncover, I move, and as I move into position, whammo, I’m hit, that is, by cops across the road. In ten seconds there are twenty cops there. I’m moving so fast Mick Bogier can’t risk a shot, he’s got no sight pic, or that’s the theory, at any rate. But he’s real into it, and he’s got Zemke spotting the action for him, he’s on me all the way. Anyhow, the cops wrestle me to the ground, a couple of cop cars pull up. I’m cuffed, surrounded by cops, and I’m dragged to the police car. I’m put in the back. And then I wait for the shot, head in profile through the back window. When he fires, I’m so fast, I can duck before it arrives.”

“Ha, ha,” said Nick.

“When I get in…” And he continued with Nick’s plan, chapter and verse, crossing all the t ’s and dotting all the i ’s and Swagger more or less blanked out, having heard it so many times already.

“It’s a good plan, I think,” said Nick. “But then I thought it up, so I would think it’s good. Sergeant Swagger, do you have any comments?”

“Sergeant Cruz, don’t get cute out there. You are never standing still, you are never not moving erratically. You give the motherfucker a whisper of a chance, he’ll put one right through you. And if he’s shooting a.50 or anything heavy, the body armor don’t mean a thing.”

“I get it,” said Cruz.

“You better get it. I’ll kick your ass if you don’t.”

“My ass will be dead if I don’t.”

“Don’t matter. I’ll kick it anyway.”

Cruz just shook his head at the man’s intransigence. Once a sergeant, always a sergeant, no matter what.

“I know you’d feel better if you had your rifle, Cruz,” Nick finally said. “But you know we can’t play it like that.”

“Sure,” said Cruz. “I’ll play your little game, even if it sucks. Me, I’d just call in a Pred and order up a Paveway Two crater. But your game is the only game in town.”

RESERVOIR ROAD TO P STREET

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

1600 HOURS

The van pulled to the extreme southern edge of the woodland behind the Georgetown University Hospital parking lot. It halted for just a second, and Ray slipped out, crossed a walkway, launched himself over a low brick wall, and found himself on a wooded downslope that ultimately would bring him to the intersection of P and 37th with its interesting geometry of walls, trees, open shots across the green to the library entrance, the FBI trap, and a meet with Mick Bogier on the wrong end of a rifle.