Stephen Hunter - Point Of Impact

But nobody had ever done what Nick had just done. Nobody simply ignored the suspension hearing, simply didn’t show. Added to everything else – even subtracted from everything else – it alone was cause for dismissal.

Howard didn’t hate Nick. He looked on him as a young man who just never learned the lessons of the team. In Tulsa, Nick had blown his shot all those years ago by refusing to acknowledge Howard’s control. And look at how it had cost him and that poor young woman he ended up marrying.

Then in New Orleans, Nick had screwed up and screwed up again. It was as if he’d learned nothing from the hold that had been put on his career. He still thought he could do it his way, by his instincts, his talents and his guts. A supervisor cannot run a well-oiled, professionally disciplined unit under such circumstances.

Now Howard looked at the separation order before him. He had merely to sign it, as had three supervisors on the hearing board that Nick had ignored, and Nick was gone.

He never enjoyed this part. He was not a cruel man who relished his power. What he relished was the system itself and his own mastery of it. He believed that what was in his best interest was also in the Bureau’s best interest. Nick’s greatest sin was that he couldn’t be a team player. He couldn’t get with the program. Poor Nick. Doomed to be an outsider, a loser, his whole life.

Howard’s pen poised over the document. He paused, just a second, then -

“Ah, Mr. Utey?”

He looked up. It was his assistant.

“Yes, Robert.”

“Ah – ” Robert was distinctly uncomfortable, which was strange, for what had recommended Robert was his complete passivity. Robert had no personality whatsoever. Howard liked that in a man.

“Go on, Robert.”

“You’ll recall that strange shootout in North Carolina yesterday?”

“Yes.” Who could not recall it? Some drug war thing, forty-odd men killed, wounded Latinos babbling of ambush and slaughter, a DEA task force down there trying to shake it all out.

“Well, sir, they found over fifty-five 7.62mm shells atop that mountain.”

“Yes?”

“We just got the lab report. Latent prints got seven good completes and four partials. The computer spat them out a few minutes ago. Sir, I thought you should know immediately.”

Howard still didn’t see where this was headed. At his level, he was no longer responsible for on-site investigations. Wasn’t that Bob Mattingly over on the Bureau/ DEA liaison committee?

“Sir. Uh, the prints check out positively.”

“Check out how ?”

“Yes, sir. They’re Bob Lee Swagger’s.”

Howard looked at him. He let nothing show on his face. He felt a little something rise in his stomach.

“There must be some mistake. Swagger is dead and buried, we ID’d the corpse through forensics, everything was all – ”

“Sir, I’m only telling you what the computer said.”

“I see.”

“And sir, there was a rental automobile recovered at the site.”

“Yes?”

More bad news?

“Go on.”

“It was rented by Nick Memphis.”

Oh, Christ, thought Howard.

Nick came awake in the cab of the truck when Bob nudged him. He’d been dreaming about Sally Ellion, of all things. Sally was laughing at a joke he’d told her. There was something about Sally he really liked. It was -

But he blinked awake, somewhat chilly, aware of the jounce of the truck, the gray air of dawn. He wasn’t even sure when he’d fallen asleep.

“Time to get up, Nick,” said Bob.

“Yeah,” he said. “You want me to drive. No sweat.”

“No,” said Bob. “We’re almost there and it’s almost time.”

Nick looked around. He saw that they were headed up the access road toward an airport terminal. In the gray distance, a small jet was getting ready to take off.

“What – ”

“You got a job to do.”

“What are – ”

“In twenty minutes you’ll be on a United flight to New Orleans. Be in by seven-thirty.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Annex B. You been explaining it to me for a month and a half. Now it’s time to find the goddamn thing.”

“But – ”

“But nothing. These birds have someone. A woman who helped me once. Goddamned wonderful woman, the best. They got her and there’s nothing I can do but stew and they know it and they like it. It gives them all the goddamned leverage. But when it comes to meeting time, I got to have some leverage or she’s dead. They’ll use her to get at me and they’ll blow me away and then they’ll blow her away and then they go on with the rest of their lives, happy as pigs in a bath of shit. You got to get me some leverage, Nick. That’s all there is to it.”

Nick swallowed.

“I – I don’t know if – It’s hard. Maybe it’s there or maybe it’s in Washington or maybe it’s – ”

“Nick, you’ve been explaining to me how I was doing this all wrong. I’m man enough to say you’re right, I was a fool, all I managed to do was get some people killed. Now it’s time to let a professional work. I’ll step aside. You go get this Annex B.”

Nick looked at him.

He tried to think.

“But it’s probably in Washington. It’s buried in some computer file in Washington that only people on Lancer Committee can get to with special performance and – ”

He stopped himself.

The words ROM DO. formed in his mind.

It all came back to ROM DO. The message that Eduardo Lanzman had left him all those months ago, on the day that his wife died.

Eduardo Lanzman had come to see him.

But think about it, he told himself. He wouldn’t have just come . That’s what’s been haunting me. He wouldn’t have just come with some crazy story. He was a pro, pro enough to know he’d been made, pro enough to try and protect himself from electronic eavesdropping as per the latest Agency hot tips. And pro enough to know he’d have to bring something along, something I could use to go to higher people and stop the assassination.

He must have – I don’t know, but we didn’t find anything on his body.

Maybe his killers took it.

No. Why’d they chop him? To get him to talk. But he was a tough bastard, who believed in one thing, Nick Memphis of the FBI. Whatever he had, he hid it. Between the plane and the motel room, he hid it. And he told me where – he left me a message. ROM DO – Romeo Dog. R-D. RamDyne.

“Nick?”

“Huh?”

“Nick, we’re here.”

The truck had stopped. He looked and yes, they were there.

“Remember,” said Bob. “You be back by the first Sunday in November. You meet me at the cabin in the mountains. The day before hunting season.”

The most absurd document in the world, Shreck thought.

He looked at Dobbler’s report on his desk. A glance had told him that it was self-serving bullshit. Dobbler was hopeless.

Shreck was waiting for the doctor to show up. There was work to do and not much time left. His session with Hugh had not gone well. Hugh was capable of being extremely uncivil and in this episode he hadn’t disappointed Shreck. He was a vindictive, bitter old man, who raved about legacy, about heritage, about responsibility. He was enraged that the colonel had endangered poor Lon, after all Lon had suffered. And now Lon had to give up so much. When the colonel told him that Lon seemed happy, even excited about the whole thing and was treating it like some mad adventure, and was quite happily nailing silhouette targets at a thousand yards in central Virginia, it still didn’t sit well with Hugh.

You two Yale boys certainly go back a long way, the colonel had thought. I wonder to what?

Hugh finally wondered, frankly, if he could do a damned thing for the colonel anymore.