Stephen Hunter - Point Of Impact

Nick struggled down with the dog’s corpse; he could sense Bob above him, the yawning bore of the.45 always locked onto him. The man carried the gun lightly, easily, as if he’d been born with it.

At the bottom Nick looked up, and there was Bob, the gun on him. Obediently he went to the floor as Bob clambered down, pulling the grate shut after him.

“This way, now,” he said.

Nick had to admit it; yes, he was impressed. Bob knew the layout of the place cold; he’d left the woman up front to call the cops because he wanted lots of commotion and chaos; he figured he could get out. But he couldn’t make it with the dog, so he’d had to wait until a strong enough man showed up who could carry Mike while he, Bob, negotiated the obstacles.

Recon, remembered Nick. A good sniper always recons the area before he operates. He never goes in blind. He knows where everything is, he plans escape routes, evasion maneuvers, always has a plan.

At the end of the narrow tunnel they came to another ladder; this time Bob went up first, back against the rungs, the gun on Nick. Nick followed, covered the whole way, and had trouble lugging the dog’s body up the ladder, but Bob didn’t help him a bit. Finally, grunting heavily, he was up.

“Damn dog is heavy ,” he said.

“You ought to try humping a seventy-pound pack in the boonies in a-hundred-twenty-degree weather, Pork,” said Bob. “Now shut up. This part might be tricky.”

They were in another closet, close in the dark. Outside it, they could hear motion, the staticky crackle of a radio, the low murmuring of serious men.

“Hold on to that dog,” whispered Bob.

Then he pressed open the door. They were in some sort of garage a good seventy yards from the main health complex building. Outside, Nick saw three state police cars set up to form a perimeter around the building. Cops were crouched behind their wheel wells, aiming shotguns or scoped rifles. But Bob and Nick were outside the perimeter.

“Now, we go out here, we walk, we don’t run, about a hundred yards, to where you see a generating shack. Around back, there’s a red pickup. That’s where we’re going. You make any sudden moves, son, and you know what’s waiting for you.”

“Yeah,” said Nick.

“So let’s do it.”

They walked out into the bright sunlight and didn’t look back. The damn dog was getting even heavier. Nick’s arms ached. He watched as the generating shack wobbled closer, wondering when the hell Howard would shake the cobwebs from his skull and figure out what was going on and order his snipers to green light the two walking men. The bullets would sing out and since the guys didn’t shoot worth a shit at any range over seven yards, he knew he’d get blasted. What made it worse was the sense of commotion rising behind them, two or three new choppers arriving, while all the sirens in the world seemed to be sounding, as if it were some kind of state police convention in Little Rock.

But they made it to the shed, and behind it found the red truck.

“Put the dog in back,” said Bob, who had opened the cab and pulled out a short-barreled lever action carbine, an actual Winchester.

“Now, get in, Pork. You’re driving, and I got this little rifle on your butt.” He spat a leisurely gob into the dust.

“Jesus, now we’re just going to drive on out of here? Like, nobody’s going to notice? There’s maybe five hundred men out there by now.”

“We’re going out the back way and up the hill.”

“What back way? There is no back way.”

“I think you’re going to be surprised, son. Now get going. Key’s in the ignition and I’ve got this damn poodle-shooter on you.”

Suddenly there was a helicopter hovering overhead, whipping up a brisk curtain of dust and beating the trees back.

“You in the truck,” came the loudspeakered voice, “out, or we’ll fire.”

“Shit,” said Nick.

“Punch it,” said Bob.

Feeling extremely mortal, Nick punched the truck. With a stunning leap, the vehicle took off, blowing up its own curtain of dust as it zoomed along the perimeter of the fence.

The shadow of the chopper stayed with them. Sirens rose; from around the sides of the building a fleet of squad cars emerged, plunging like a cavalry charge across the grounds at them.

“Now left, left,” shrieked Bob.

But there was nothing left but Cyclone fence.

In Operations, the men sat quietly, faces grave. Nobody looked at anybody else. From the bank of communications equipment, they could hear the drama playing itself out.

“All units, all units, I have suspects in red pickup inside the wire perimeter, goddamn that’s him, I swear, goddamn – ”

“This is Command, this is Command, all units, stay in position, I want state police in pursuit, do you read, Victor Michael Five, get after him.”

“Are we green light, are we green light?”

“Only if you get a clear shot, all units, suspect is armed and dangerous but he’s got a federal hostage.”

“Is hostage expendable?”

“You must not let suspect get away, that’s imperative, all units.”

“Jesus,” said one of the Operations guys, “whoever’s on command just said go ahead and drop their own guy if they have to. The feds want this boy bad.”

Not as bad as I do , thought Shreck.

“ Left! ” screamed Bob, himself reaching over to shove the wheel. Nick felt the truck swerve and before it there was a steel fence post and he knew it would stop them and he’d end up wrapped around it. But the post went down like a snowman, yanking with it twenty feet of fence – Nick knew instantly it had already been cut through, that Bob had laid the whole thing out hours ago – and now they faced hill. Nick didn’t need instructions. He pressed the gas and rocked backwards through the gears and the truck bucked and clawed its way up, through underbrush, until it felt like a rocket ship ascending toward gravity’s release. It seemed almost vertical; he waited to slide back, felt the truck fighting and fighting and fighting.

Then, amazingly, they were over the crest of a ledge and on a dirt road.

“Go, go, you sonovabitch!” Swagger was yelling. “Wooo-eeee, left those old boys way back there.”

Indeed the police cruisers and the FBI cars didn’t have the gear ratios to make the incline. Nick could see one or two of them stuck halfway up and the others paralleling his course at ground level. But the choppers were everywhere, two, three, now four of them, darting like predatory birds.

“You won’t shake the choppers,” he yelled.

“You just drive, Pork. You let me worry about that,” Bob commanded. He actually looked a little happy.

A shot tore into the hood of the truck with a clang.

“Oh, fuck, they’re shooting,” Nick said.

But Bob squirmed half out the window and brandished the carbine, and instantly the choppers fell back.

“Gutless bubbas,” he said, sliding back in.

They tore down the high road at eighty, dogged at a distance by choppers. And behind them rose state police cars, their lights flashing. The squad cars gained.

“Go on, boy, hit it. Push this damn thing or I’ll have to dump you at hundred miles per.”

“It’s pushed, dammit, I got the pedal on the floor, they’re gonna get us!”

“Another mile or so, boy, that’s all.”

This distance narrowed appreciably over the next few seconds, as the state police cruisers rocketed down the road much faster than the truck could hit. In the rearview mirror, Nick could see the offside man in the lead car slide a pump gun out the window and try to find enough of a sight picture to fire as the car drew nearer, but the road bucked too hard and the dust was too thick.