Stephen Hunter - Point Of Impact

Bob flicked the safety back on the Colt, slid it back into his jeans, then smiled.

“Don’t kid yourself, wormboy. I’m a soldier. You’re only a murderer. And because of what you’ve done, every man who ever loved a rifle is a suspect in his own house. I know who you are. And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Then he turned and raced out the door.

Dobbler looked inside the safe. Its contents were prosaic. He saw a handgun, some kind of automatic. There was a wad of bills, and a passport and driver’s license, both fake. The colonel had made plans for a fast getaway, prudent enough preparation for a man in his line of work.

And that was it. No family jewels, no dark secrets, nothing remotely incriminating. Dobbler was somewhat disappointed. He’d expected a bit more. He replaced the passport and the license, and felt his fingers bump against something. He withdrew it. It was only a black plastic videotape cassette, unmarked.

Dobbler stood in the darkened office. He could hear each tick and sigh in the building, but no human activity. He stared at the cassette, tempted, a bit afraid. He looked over and yes, the big Sony TV was still at the table on one side of the room, a VCR underneath it on the shelf.

He walked over and inserted the cassette.

His finger trembled as he pushed PLAY.

Bob dashed through the open door to the pool and saw three of them. They had just come around the side of the house at a hell-bent pace, safeties off, fingers cupping and tensing their Galil triggers. They saw him.

They were fast. The rifles came up…Bob fired three Silvertips in what seemed a burst but was really three aimed shots unleashed in three tenths of a second, the gun flicking from recoil to sight picture to recoil to sight picture at a speed too quick to measure. He killed two instantly with center-chest hits, dead before their knees gave and they toppled; the third, hit in the throat, began to bleed out spectacularly all over the cement. Then Bob, hardly having paused to fire, cleared the deck of the pool, fell into the deep underbrush and began to thrash his way toward the hill.

When he reached the incline, he paused just long enough to shuck his jacket, hit a fast combat reload on the Colt. He climbed through loblolly and stunted pines, clawing his way over ground cover and tufts of dried grass. The trees were not tall here, and now and then he’d run a dangerous trek over open ground. Behind him, he could hear the choppers ferrying in more troops. This was a big operation. They were throwing everything at him. Now and then a shot would come arching toward him, and one hit close by, lofting a cloud of dust and fragments. He winced but kept climbing.

At one point, he paused for a quick recon. They were searching for him with binoculars but he knew they would wait until they had all the men there, could ring the damned thing, before they’d move up the hill in coordinated maneuver. That’s how he’d do it, at any rate, and he knew these cowboys were pros. He looked and thought he could see movement, the troops assembling into their squads under the cover of the trees. The house was visible below and Lon Scott in his electric wheelchair was talking to somebody in jungle fatigues by the pool. They were pointing up the hill. Bob could not make out the other man’s face. But he guessed he knew who it was.

He turned. The hill was steep here and he was almost out of cover. Then there was a last hundred feet up the bare ground to the summit. He slid the Colt back into the holster. The summit was a bare knob standing out against that blue, pure sky. Sweat raced down his face into his eyes; he blinked.

Now he had to move. This was the worst part, the open part. Would they have snipers? Would they have a guy with a good rifle, a steady hand, who could down a running man at six hundred feet? Time to find out.

Bob touched the green grass and took a deep breath and began the last pull over the bare ground to the hilltop, thinking, Lots of men have died on hilltops.

“There he goes,” said Lon, whose eyesight, like Bob’s, was still extraordinary.

Shreck picked him up in the next second, a man running desperately up the scruffy hilltop. He brought the binoculars to bear and through their magnifying lenses saw a tall angular figure racing agilely up the last few feet to the top of the hill.

“I could have hit him,” said Lon.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Shreck. “He’s finished now. It’s all over now.”

A few shots rang out from lower down the hill as various Panther Battalion troopers, having a view of Bob, threw their rifles to their shoulders and squeezed off rounds. The bullets struck near him and at one point they thought they saw him falter, but he regathered his strength and launched himself over the edge, out of sight.

“General de Rujijo!” Shreck barked.

De Rujijo, who had been standing next to his RTO and two junior officers, came over smartly.

“What’s your situation?”

“ Colonel , we have all one hundred twenty men on the ground now. I’m only waiting for a confirmation from my second platoon, on the other side of the objective, that they are in position. Then I’ll move my assault troops up in two elements, and in a few minutes I’ll bring enfilading fire to bear, move my final assault team up, and bring you this man’s head.”

“I just want his corpse,” said Shreck.

He turned back to Scott.

“We’ve got his ass now.”

“I wonder what he’s thinking about,” said Scott. “It would be very interesting to know what such a man thinks about at such a moment.”

Shreck said, “I was once on a hill waiting to die. You don’t think about much. You think about how you wish you could get another day, that’s all. But this son of a bitch is probably thinking about how many of us he can take out before we nail him. Well, I have one last thing for him to think about.”

General de Rujijo was suddenly waving at him.

“ Colonel Shreck, the ring is complete. Shall we move out?”

“One second,” said Shreck. He turned to Scott. “I want to send this bastard to hell knowing all the bad news.”

“Colonel Shreck,” said Scott. “You shouldn’t let it get personal. Hugh wouldn’t want it to become personal.”

“Fuck Hugh,” said Shreck, “it’s always personal.”

He raised the bullhorn.

Bob lay atop the hill. He was extremely winded. Below, about four hundred yards or so, he could see the house, Scott in his chair and some officers and several junior officers standing around the pool. Men moved through the trees below.

Suddenly, there came a voice vibrating through the air.

“ Bob Lee Swagger. Bob Lee Swagger. You know who I am. Swagger, I wanted you to know before I send the troops up to get you that we found your woman in Ajo, Arizona .”

Shit, Bob thought.

“ I sent Payne. Payne will kill her. She may be already dead .”

Swagger sat back from the rocks.

He heard whistles as the troops began to move out.

Payne had no trouble at all. It went so easily, the flight to Tucson, the rental car, the hour or so drive to Ajo. He found the trailer without difficulty. He parked, and went up to the door and knocked.

When she answered he said, “Nurse Fenn?”

“Yes?” She was the kind of woman that Payne had never had. He’d had whores all the world over, listless women with shriveled tits, or young and stupid and poor and desperate. Having sex with them was nothing. It was like doing yourself and in time Payne lost interest in either, unless he was drunk.

This one was classy, somehow. It enraged him that Bob had once had such a fine woman and he’d had nothing like her.

“Aren’t you the one who was with him?” he asked.