Stephen Hunter: I, Sniper

“All right,” Nick told them at the meeting he convened in about thirty seconds, “I don’t want to commit to Carl Hitchcock, but we have to get more. I’ve been on the phone with the federal attorney for North Carolina and he’s putting together a search warrant. I want our best team on this. Ron Fields will run the show, and Ron, you know what I expect. This is a tough situation, you don’t want to brown off the locals with overzealous supervision, the marines are going to be very interested because he’s very much a symbol of their branch, one of their heroes, but I’ve also got Joan Flanders’s ex-husband T. T. Constable calling the director and demanding action, sometimes twice a day. Ron, you’re up for this?”

“I am.”

“Take the young woman here with you. She did good. What was your name, young lady?”

“Jean Chandler.”

“Take Special Agent Chandler, Ron. Run her hard, treat her unfairly, call her by her last name, overwork her, don’t let her call her husband-”

“No husband,” Chandler said, blankly.

“-boyfriend, who’s probably a linebacker for the Redskins, and see if she comes up smiling. Maybe she’s a keeper, maybe not. We’ll see.”

Chandler smiled; Nick was famous for his needling, joshing style with the younger people.

Nick said, “You make sure-I know you know this, but they pay me to point out the obvious-you make sure the legal paperwork is perfect before you move; you don’t ransack; you show utmost respect to this old duffer if he’s around; you document everything, okay? Is this understood?”

“Yes, Nick.”

“And you understand this one other thing: if, God forbid, he’s the boy and if it gets dicey, you back off quick and look contrite. I know you’re a gunfighter yourself, but you cannot engage Carl Hitchcock. Under no circumstances are you to engage Carl Hitchcock. If you want to see a lot of people dead in a hurry, you corner a former marine sniper with a rifle and a bagful of ammo with no way out, and I guarantee you, you’ll have body bags all the way out to the trees and back in the first two minutes. And the survivors will never get a promotion.”

They laughed, nervously.

“And you keep me in the loop and everybody else out of the loop. Everything goes through me, because I get paid to be the asshole. You let me be the asshole. If you do that, I’ll fight to death for you. If you don’t, I’ll dump you and hang a do-not-promote-this-fool toe tag on your career. I will not be asked questions by the press I don’t know the answer to. Okay, go, go, go. What, you’re not out of here yet?”

The house was a one-story brick job under palms and pines in a leafy neighborhood full mostly of young marine noncom families. Jacksonville, it turned out, was one of those parasite towns that grew up on the outskirts of a large military installation, this time Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the home of and training site for II Marine Expeditionary Force, the Second Marine Division, the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Marine Expeditionary Units as well as the USMC infantry and engineering schools. The town was full of small retail for young marines-dry cleaners, tailors, shoe repair places, fast food-and of course a seamier array of afterduty amusements, mostly beer and strippers, as well as a bus station, a train station, and a surprisingly well developed taxi system, which ferried the boys and girls to and from duty and recreation if they were not advanced enough in their careers to afford autos.

Ron Fields and Jean Chandler met early that afternoon with the federal prosecutor for Shelby County, a USMC JAG staff rep, the local police chief, and a captain in the North Carolina State Police. Fields had a lot of explaining to do.

“I’m really a nice guy,” Ron said, “and people love me. But I’m going to big-foot it now to save time and let you decide how wonderful I am six months from now. Sorry if I come on like a jerk, but that’s the way it has to be. Jack,” he said to the prosecutor, sliding into first-name familiarity, “I’m going to fax your office’s legal work to DC for vetting by guys who went to Harvard. I don’t think they’re smarter, I just have to be sure.”

“Of course,” said Jack, “I only went to UNC, what do I know?”

“We have forensics and evidence recovery teams and SWAT people on standby. But we cannot approach this by kicking in doors. We go gentle. Slow and gentle. I want you, Major Connough,”-the Marine Corps JAG rep-“to witness and sign off on all my decisions, and you tell me any time I act with disrespect; I don’t want the Marine Corps mad at me.”

“The Marine Corps is already mad. This guy is an institution. He’s a god, a hero. If it turns out-well, it won’t. Everyone who knows Carl Hitchcock says it won’t.”

Ron didn’t like the sound of that. It was already out. That’s the thing with these service cultures, he thought. They’re hardwired for commo and something can’t happen here without everyone knowing it in five seconds.

“I hope he’s clean too. Makes my job easier. Okay, no police presence up front. I want it gathered at the school two blocks away; your SWAT people, your traffic control, your medical standby, your press liaison, whatever. How fast can you assemble?”

“We can have people in place by four p.m.”

“Good, I’m hoping to get a yes from DC and that you can get to a nice friendly judge by then, all right?”

“We can work that time frame. The warrant’s already at Judge O’Brian’s. He’ll sign. He always has before.”

“Good move, Chief, that saves some time. Now at three, Chief, I want your people to begin a discreet evac of the neighborhood. Friendly cop style, ma’am, we’re making a potentially dangerous arrest, and we’d like you to quietly gather your kids up and head over to the school, that kind of thing. These are marine people, they’ll follow orders.”

“Is that necessary?” asked the marine JAG rep. “Carl’s nearly seventy. He’s not going to go to guns.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Major Connough. But I can’t take the risk. We cannot have civilian casualties. Furthermore, every public safety professional who has the potential of going in line of sight to the house will wear, I say again, will wear body armor.”

“Won’t stop a.308,” said the marine.

“No, but it could deflect and we’ve found that the armor increases efficiency and confidence as well as survivability in critical incidents.”

“We do have some critical incident experience in the Marine Corps,” said the major. “Ever hear of Iwo Jima?”

“Yes sir, I meant no disrespect, I’m just covering all the bases in my dull, straight-ahead fashion. In the meantime, I’m going to take a cab ride over and just pass by the house a couple of times.”

So next, while the various authorities moved their teams into place, Ron and Jean Chandler glided along Peacock Lane for the third time, with a Jacksonville cop in civies over body armor behind the wheel. The feds played elementary security games, maybe overkill, but coming from a second-guess culture bar none, they took no chances: first time they were in coat and tie and a formal blouse, the second in polo shirts and glasses under ball caps, and this time they had switched sunglasses and ball caps.

Each time, they’d seen nothing, though as they worked it, only one of them, in the off side, actually observed the house. The closer agent sat still, eyes dead ahead, utterly uninterested; it was his partner, leaning back just a bit, head cocked just a bit, who scanned for intelligence.

“Give me your read,” said Ron.

“Nothing,” she said. “It looks empty. The grass is trim, though it’s been a while since the last cutting. The garden has been weeded, the lawn watered, nothing is lying around. It just looks dead. No sign of habitation, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing spontaneous or unexplainable, just the house of a neat older retiree who lives alone but is still spry enough to do his gardening. He’s been gone a week, maybe two, but there’s no sign of decay or instability. It’ll run down in time, but not yet. It’s still neat as a button. The car looks dusty but the dust covers a clean vehicle. It’s been washed but not driven and it’s sat for a week.” That was Carl’s Chrysler 300 with the North Carolina rear plate SNIPR-1.