Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

“I am so psyched,” said Tony Z. “Man, this is so Heat !”

“It’s the Auburn game all over again,” laughed Mick. “Roll, Tide! Okay, on my lead, I’m reckoning we’ll head to Wisconsin where we can really do some damage.”

“Go on, you lazy bastard,” said Tony.

They ran between houses, one with the MP5, the other with his M4, two armored, hulking terminators crazed on drugs and destruction, sweaty and doomed and loving every motherfucking second of it.

O’BRIAN CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT CENTER

CORNER, 37TH AND P STREET

GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

2142 HOURS

Nick had gone to the scene, in full body armor.

All around, people talked on commo, coordinating incoming SWAT units, the air traffic overhead, the pileup of emergency vehicles, all of it made crazier by the Secret Service need to get its high-value target securely out of the way fast.

“I told him these guys wouldn’t go easy,” said Swagger.

“Jesus, get me a rifle, I need to get there,” said Cruz.

“You stay put, Cruz. You’re going nowhere,” said Swagger in a voice that meant exactly what it said.

They could hear: “Suspects crossing Wisconsin, firing both directions. They are shooting up storefronts, they shot the windows out of a bus, there are people down everywhere, we need maximum medical personnel-” And then Nick’s voice coming in, “This is Incident Commander, no, repeat no, negative medical personnel to move to site until suspects are apprehended, I will convey that information.”

“This is DC SWAT commander, I have ten armed men good to go at the corner of Wisconsin and N, I need permission to deploy. Incident Commander, may I-”

“Hold still, DC SWAT, we have two active shooters, they are difficult to pin down.”

“Incident Commander, this is Air Six, I have a good visual and a sniper aboard, permission to fire?”

“If you get him, take him, but be advised these individuals appear to be wearing body armor, so I am advising head shots, and if they are down, I am advising snipers to take brain shots on the body before approach.”

“Maneuvering for shot, Incident Commander-Oh, he fired, I think he-” and the helicopter crew report exploded into chaos.

“This is Whipshot Four, I have one suspect down, I have the other suspect entered into convenience store, 2955 Wisconsin, I think he’s going to barricade.”

“Was that your shot, Air Six?”

“Affirmative, that was my shot,” and Swagger recognized the voice of Ron Field, who had been involved in another event with Swagger some years back and ended up in charge of the FBI’s sniper school.

“Good shooting, Ronnie, now listen to me, from maximum allowable altitude, I want you to put another one into his head. All units hold, let the sniper make sure the perp is closed down.”

“Read you, Command, will comply.”

The airwaves, still floating with static and crackle and dust, went silent for a few seconds and then a single crack went to all receivers.

“He’s toast,” came a call, then a dozen other confirmations.

“Good work, Ronnie,” said Nick. “All teams converge on 2955 Wisconsin, we have a barricade situation. I’m releasing medical personnel to handle casualties on or near the five-block P Street corridor, but everyone else not in a SWAT team, stay off Wisconsin. DC SWAT, you are released to barricade position, 2955 Wisconsin, FBI SWAT be advised DC SWAT is incoming. We have a very dangerous individual.”

“This guy thinks he’s got the Bruce Willis role,” someone said.

2955 WISCONSIN AVENUE

LOWER GEORGETOWN

WASHINGTON, DC

1943 HOURS

Z was down. So much shit was in the air you’d never know who fired the shot. But he lay in the street, squirming, his carbine a few feet away, in a vast lake of blood. Still, he was trying to rise, and he kept waving at Mick, go back, go back, mouthing the word no even if blood had frosted his teeth and goatee.

Then the head shot blew his watch cap off, and he was still and that was it.

“Via con dios, amigo,” Mick said, and felt a knife of pain that another good guy in a firefight had departed the earth. He took a deep breath, looked one way up Wisconsin, then the other. Each was a festival of blue-red flashes, and behind the screen of pulsing illumination, figures ducked and bobbed, dark men, bent double over their weapons, trying to find an angle to get the killing shot. Mick had been hit four times in the chest and lower back, the body armor saving him each time. He knew he couldn’t stay put. Snipers, not the most mobile, would have finally caught up to the front lines and this very second be setting up over car hoods for the brain shot. As it was, rogue bullets pecked up dust puffs down the street, zinged through the glass windows of this place, shot up and withered the cars parked along the street. He could see creepers in the shadows trying to get close for that finishing round.

Fuck all you amateurs, he thought. SWAT! Wannabes and never-weres. Do it where it’s real, motherfuckers, where an IED may take you down any second or the nice lady selling pop will pull out an AK. Do it where the guy with the mild smile on his face and the gentle, empathetic eyes says Allah Akbahr and detonates himself and all pilgrims in a hundred-foot circumference. Hunt the motherfuckers on goat paths and in twisted arroyos and in little mud and wood towns where an RPG can turn you to barbecue at any fucking second. Lie in your own shit and piss for three days for a high-value shot. Raid the cave by moonlight, taking fire all the way to extract. Then tell me you’re a pro.

He turned, kicked his way into the store.

At first it seemed empty. But he ran to the rear counter, where four people cowered, one on top of the other.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ll take a six of Bud and a package of Camels. Also, got any 9-mil hollow points?”

He laughed at his own joke through cracked, dry lips, though his face was heavily wet with sweat, blood, crap, whatever. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the beer-cooler glass, a stocky figure in all black, watch cap low over the ears, face mottled, the subgun cradled in his hands, body armor, a SIG P226 in a mid-thigh tac holster, black Danner assault boots bloused, mags in pouches everywhere. God, he was beautiful. He was war. He was Special Ops. He was Forces. He was the Real Thing. Nobody could stand up to him. Then he completed his turn, lifted his submachine gun over the racks of shelves that stood between himself and the door and windows, and fired the rest of his magazine in a sweeping blast that shattered all the glass into a spew of glitter until only a few jagged pieces clung to the frame.

He bent over. One of the women was a blonde, blondes are best. He came around, grabbed her by her hair, and pulled her up. He saw she was forties, attractive, the Washington party dame type, and he yanked her to the doorway of the walk-in beer cooler.

“You people,” he yelled at the ones who remained cowering behind the counter. “You people, get the fuck out of here, make sure you go out hands up or these assholes will shoot you. I want to see the head FBI guy. Fast, or Diane Sawyer here gets it in the neck.”

He pulled the woman by the hair into the vault and felt the frosty air against his sweating skin. He began to steam. That was funny. He dragged her to the rear, and forced her down.

“Please,” she said, her face gone to dumb fear, “I have children.”

He laughed. “So do I. About fifty. I just don’t know any of them. Here, have a beer.” He pulled a big can from the shelf, and leaned over and handed it to her. It was a Sapporo, very good beer. Then he got one for himself, kicked her forward, and scootched down behind her, so that the wall was at his back and she was between him and anyone coming through the door. He locked his armored legs around her pelvis, drawing her near. He tossed the MP5 away, pulled her toward him, tight, intimate, sexual, and took out his SIG P226. He cocked the hammer, and laid his wrist along her shoulder so that the pistol muzzle nonchalantly touched her ear.