Lee Child - One Shot

He found the Humvee guy behind a waist-high counter in the main hut. Up close he was older than he had looked from a distance. More than fifty, less than sixty, sparse gray hair, lined skin, but ramrod straight. He had a weathered neck wider than his head and the sort of eyes that pegged him as an ex-Marine noncom even without the tattoos on his forearms and the souvenirs on the wall behind him. The tattoos were old and faded and the souvenirs were mostly pennants and unit patches. But the centerpiece of the display was a yellowing paper target framed under glass. It had a tight group of five.300 holes inside the inner ring and a sixth just clipping it.

“Help you?” the guy said. He was looking past Reacher’s shoulder, out the window, at the Mustang.

“I’m here to solve all your problems,” Reacher said.

“Really?”

“No, not really. I just want to ask you some questions.”

The guy paused. “About James Barr?”

“Good guess.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t speak to reporters.”

“I’m not a reporter.”

“That’s a five-liter Mustang out there with a couple of options on it. So it ain’t a cop car or a rental. And it’s got Indiana plates. And it’s got an NBC sticker in the windshield. Therefore my guess is you’re a reporter fixing to gin up a television story about how James Barr used my place to train and prepare.”

“Did he?”

“I told you, I’m not talking.”

“But Barr came here, right?”

“I’m not talking,” the guy said again. No malice in his voice. Just determination. No hostility. Just self-assurance. He wasn’t talking. End of story. The hut went quiet. Nothing to hear except the distant gunfire and a low rattling hum from another room. A refrigerator, maybe.

“I’m not a reporter,” Reacher said again. “I borrowed a reporter’s car, that’s all. To get down here.”

“So what are you?”

“Just a guy who knew James Barr way back. I want to know about his friend Charlie. I think his friend Charlie led him astray.”

The guy didn’t say: What friend ? He didn’t ask: Who’s Charlie ? He just shook his head and said, “Can’t help you.”

Reacher switched his gaze to the framed target.

“Is that yours?” he asked.

“Everything you see here is mine.”

“What range was it?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Because I’m thinking that if it was six hundred yards, you’re pretty good. If it was eight hundred, you’re very good. If it was a thousand, you’re unbelievable.”

“You shoot?” the guy asked.

“I used to,” Reacher said.

“Military?”

“Once upon a time.”

The guy turned around and lifted the frame off its hook. Laid it gently on the counter and turned it around for inspection. There was a handwritten inscription in faded ink across the bottom of the paper: 1978 U.S. Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational. Gunny Samuel Cash, third place . Then there were three signatures from three adjudicators.

“You’re Sergeant Cash?” Reacher said.

“Retired and scuffling,” the guy said.

“Me too.”

“But not from the Corps.”

“You can tell that just by looking?”

“Easily.”

“Army,” Reacher said. “But my dad was a Marine.”

Cash nodded. “Makes you half-human.”

Reacher traced his fingertip over the glass, above the bullet holes. A fine group of five, and a sixth that had drifted just a hair.

“Good shooting,” he said.

“I’d be lucky to do that at half the range today.”

“Me too,” Reacher said. “Time marches on.”

“You saying you could have done it back in the day?”

Reacher didn’t answer. Truth was he had actually won the Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational, exactly ten years after Cash had scraped third place. He had placed all his rounds through the precise center of the target, in a ragged hole a man could put his thumb through. He had displayed the shiny cup on one office shelf after another through twelve busy months. It had been an exceptional year. He had been at some kind of a peak, physically, mentally, every way there was. That year, he couldn’t miss, literally or metaphorically. But he hadn’t defended his title the following year, even though the MP hierarchy had wanted him to. Later, looking back, he understood how that decision marked two things: the beginning of his long slow divorce from the army, and the beginning of restlessness. The beginning of always moving on and never looking back. The beginning of never wanting to do the same thing twice.

“Thousand yards is a long way,” Gunny Cash said. “Truth is, since I left the Corps I haven’t met a man who could even put a mark on the paper.”

“I might have been able to clip the edge,” Reacher said.

Cash took the frame off the counter and turned and hung it back on its hook. He used the ball of his right thumb to level it.

“I don’t have a thousand-yard range here,” he said. “It would be a waste of ammunition and it would make the customers feel bad about themselves. But I’ve got a nice three-hundred that’s not being used this morning. You could try it. A guy who could clip the paper at a thousand should be able to do pretty well at three hundred.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Don’t you think?” Cash said.

“I guess,” Reacher said.

Cash opened a drawer and took out a new paper target. “What’s your name?”

“Bobby Richardson,” Reacher said. Robert Clinton Richardson, hit.301 in 1959, 141 hits in 134 games, but the Yanks still only finished third .

Cash took a roller ball pen from his shirt pocket and wrote R. Richardson, 300 yards , and the date and time on the paper.

“Record keeper,” Reacher said.

“Habit,” Cash said. Then he drew an X inside the inner ring. It was about half an inch tall and because of the slant of his handwriting a little less than half an inch wide. He left the paper on the counter and walked away into the room with the refrigerator noise. Came back out a minute later carrying a rifle. It was a Remington M24, with a Leupold Ultra scope and a front bipod. A standard-issue Marine sniper’s weapon. It looked to be well used but in excellent condition. Cash placed it sideways on the counter. Detached the magazine and showed Reacher that it was empty. Operated the bolt and showed Reacher that the chamber was empty, too. Reflex, routine, caution, professional courtesy.

“Mine,” he said. “Zeroed for three hundred yards exactly. By me myself, personally.”

“Good enough,” Reacher said. Which it was. An ex-Marine who in 1978 had been the third-best shooter in the world could be trusted on such matters.

“One shot,” Cash said. He took a single cartridge from his pocket. Held it up. It was a.300 Winchester round. Match grade. He stood it upright on the X on the paper target. It hid it entirely. Then he smiled. Reacher smiled back. He understood the challenge. He understood it perfectly. Hit the X and I’ll talk to you about James Barr .

At least it’s not hand-to-hand combat , Reacher thought.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Outside the air was still, and it was neither hot nor cold. Perfect shooting weather. No shivering, no risk of thermals or currents or shimmer. No wind. Cash carried the rifle and the target, and Reacher carried the cartridge in the palm of his hand. They climbed into Cash’s Humvee together and Cash fired it up with a loud diesel clatter.

“You like this thing?” Reacher asked, over the noise.

“Not really,” Cash said. “I’d be happier with a sedan. But it’s a question of image. Customers like it.”

The landscape was all low hills, covered in grass and stunted trees. Someone had used a bulldozer to carve wide straight paths through it. The paths were hundreds of yards apart and hundreds of yards long, and all of them were parallel. Each path was a separate rifle range. Each range was isolated from the others by natural hills and backed by high berms made from the earth scraped up by the bulldozer. The whole place looked like a half-built golf course. It was part green, part raw, all covered with red earth gashes. White-painted rocks and boulders delineated tracks through it, some for vehicles, some for foot traffic.