Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

He waited for the laughter to subside, luxuriating in the waves of love that washed upon him.

“As I say, this can only happen if men have honor among themselves. I look, I see men of honor. I see my new friend Jackson Collins who oversees his Agency’s efforts in my country; I see my new friend Theodore Hollister who supervises all, I see Arthur Rossiter, sublime of countenance, yet as fierce a warrior as there is. And finally I see Walter Troy, who makes sure that what must happen happens. These are men I love and respect. They believe in my country and in its future. They understand that our two nations and our two cultures must embrace and entwine and learn from each other. They understand that the trust between men is what holds us together and enables us to reach out and overcome our tiny, negligible differences, and in the words of your great moral reformer, overcome. One day we shall overcome, I swear it, my friends, my honorable friends, I swear it on my honor.”

His eyes brimmed with a fervor that took the shape of tears, and the tears drained sweetly down his face.

“And thus it is my pleasure, my duty, my responsibility, but above all required by my honor that I declare myself a candidate for the presidency of my country and I will return on Sunday to begin to run to capture the hearts, the souls, the minds, and the love of my countrymen. Thank you, Americans, for showing me, a much fallen sinner, the path back to honor!”

The diplomats, normally staid men with dry eyes and the demeanor of undertakers, rose in unison to clap thunderously.

CORNER, P STREET AND WISCONSIN

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

2119 HOURS

Dead center,” said Tony. “Bing-fucking-go! Home run, three-pointer, goaallllll ! Now let’s-”

“Shit,” said Mick. “I hit a fucking TV. I saw it shatter. It’s a fucking trap.”

His bullet had struck the center of what was supposed to be Cruz’s head, but wasn’t. He realized, from the momentarily unperturbed image of Cruz sitting immobile after the hit, which a second later disappeared in a shattering collapse of transparent plastic and the sparks of electrical damage, that he’d drilled some kind of screen displaying a prerecorded image of Cruz sliding into the car and taking a seat.

From side streets along the five blocks of P to the target zone, heavy SUVs gunned into view, cranked east hard, and ramrodded at them.

It seemed that a fucking convention of special operators also began to spill out of bushes left and right with all the world’s collection of submachine guns and black rifles, and spotlights came on them, as an amplified voice rose from an indeterminate point and said, “In the SUV, show us your hands, you are surrounded, this is the FBI.” Choppers whirled in low overhead, sending their own beams of illumination down to penetrate through the elms above. The world had instantly gone to war.

Mick slapped Tony hard on the shoulder.

“Okay, son,” he said. “Let’s show these motherfuckers a thing or two.”

“Hoochie mama,” said Tony. “It’s the big rodeo!”

Mick picked up his MP5, lying next to the big Sako sniper rifle, thrust its snout out the open rear window, and with one strong hand emptied a long burst into the darkness at the nearest men, watched them fly or drop. He heard Tony Z’s M4 empty itself of thirty.223s in less than two seconds and saw the lead SUV vibrate in tune to his multiple hits as it veered left, hit something hard, veered right, and totaled itself and the car it creamed, blocking P street.

“Great shooting!” yelled Mick.

The night became magical with havoc. Their own vehicle began to shiver as bullets hit it, metallic clangs ringing in protest at each penetration. It sank on quickly flattened tires. The windows smeared with a spidery webbing of fissure and crack as the bullets sheared through them, holding for a bit, but as more came, one, then another atomized into a spray of shiny sparkles.

Mick got out first, left-hand side, curbside, as bullets plowed into the grass around him, kicking up superheated puffs of vegetable protein. He squeezed close to the car, seeking what little cover was available in its lee, as Z squirmed out next, fast and awkward. Mick saw targets, he gunned targets. He saw another SUV having squirmed around the wreckage and come down the sidewalk, he put his sight on it and lit it up, watched it waver as junk and shit flew off it, and then it collided with a tree and came to rest on its side. More lights came on, but Mick and Tony firing in a stack, one on top of the other in classic SWAT formation, each emptying a magazine at fast movers and vehicles with signs of motion in them, which seemed to drive back the agents. None of the badges wanted to be the only guy to die.

The shooting was fabulous, all you could want in the mad psycho surge of the moment, it was Heat, The Wild Bunch, The Dogs of War, the North Hollywood bank robbery, Babyface going hard at the FBI gunners, his tommy gun blazing, all of them, all at once, a world gone spastically into chaos and mayhem. Flashes danced at muzzles, the smokeless powder spurted its intoxicant, a devil’s cologne so potent that the hair inside the nose became erect with pleasure, while the spent shells flew in a blur, like insects spiraling from the hive, the recoil was satisfyingly stern but not stout, and over that drama another one played out, the drama of men falling, windows shattering, cars veering, dust flying, things breaking, the fan exploding as the shit hit it by the ton.

Mick rushed through a mag change.

“You guys want a little war?” he screamed. “Okay, motherfuckers, we’re gonna have us a little war, and guess what, we like war!”

Tony laughed. It was, really, mercenary heaven. It was all that mercs dreamed about, when they were honest with themselves. It was the final big ride with the devil, firepower, destruction, a great deal of ammo, an enemy who expected you to fold and was not at all anticipating World War Three here in sedate Georgetown.

“You good?” asked Mick, completing his reload.

Tony got a new mag into the carbine.

“I am so good,” he said. “Man, am I good. I just wish Crackers was here.”

Mick reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of Dexies, and swallowed them dry. They banged off in his head like illumination rounds hitting stainless steel. Man, was he jacked. Fucking A, he was crazed with war lust.

He saw Tony swallow his share of the magic pills, and each flashed the other a cocky fuck-the-world grin, all macho death wish and lust, maybe the last look that passed between Matix and Platt behind the Suniland shopping center in Dade County, 1986, or maybe the Delta snipers Shughart and Gordon at Black Hawk UH-60’s crash site in Mogadishu in 1993.

“Let’s kill some assholes,” said Tony.

Both rose, firing. Their rounds, splaying out in the night, plowed up debris, stucco, splinters, atomized glass, steel shrapnel, turning the weather to a 100 percent chance of death. They ran across somebody’s front yard, while incoming rounds pulled up turf geysers all around them. A bullet smacked Tony down, but it was stopped by his armor, and he was up in a second, laughing at the wit of it all.

“Fucking guy thought he had me!” he said. “What a loser.”

They got between houses.

Mick, changing magazine again, blinking to wipe the sweat from his eyes, looked up to see a little girl peering down on him through a window.

“Down, down, honey,” he gestured wildly.

She smiled.

He smiled back, winked, and made the “get down” signal once again, and this time she obeyed.

“Good to go?” asked Z.

“Cocked, locked, hung like a stud horse, ready to rock, roll, and die proud and loud.”