Джозеф Файндер - The Switch

Gary sounded angry, and it took Will a beat to realize the guy wasn’t being accusatory. Just angry at how unfair the world is. “That’s terrible.” Will did indeed know that but had forgotten. He felt bad about what had happened to Gary but tried to put it out of his head.

“Krauss thinks I was the one who took classified materials out of the SCIF! I told him no goddamned way I did that. But he just sort of weaseled around and said he was acting on ‘guidance’ from the NSA. That goddamned toad.”

“Sorry about that, man,” Will said, putting a consoling hand on Gary’s sloped left shoulder. “That really sucks.”

“Can you put in a word for me?”

“Uh, sure. You mean, with—”

“Krauss, right. That would be great.”

“How long is this for?”

Gary shook his head. “Indefinite. But I’m not coming back. I know how the system works.”

“They think it was you who” — the line moved forward, and Will lowered his voice so as not to be overheard — “took the documents?”

“Insane, right?”

This could be a very good thing, he realized. If the NSA fingered Gary Sapolsky for the leak, that took the boss off the list.

“They have any evidence for this?”

“Of course there isn’t any evidence. I didn’t do it.”

“But I mean, did they say they had something?”

Gary shook his head. “I didn’t talk to them. I wasn’t allowed to. Krauss called me in and told me to pack and get out, and they brought in an extra security guard to stand by my desk and make sure I didn’t take anything or copy anything I’m not supposed to.”

The line had started moving quickly, and Will had reached the salad bar. He stuck out his hand and only then realized that Gary’s hands were both gripping the file box. He withdrew it. “That totally sucks, Gary,” Will said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

A strange memory floated into his brain. He was sixteen and his brother, Clay, was thirteen. This was just two or three years after their father had died.

Will was watching TV in the family room while Clay was doing something in the garage, probably putting together one of his model cars using that chemical-smelly glue he wasn’t allowed to use in the house. It was just the two of them at home, while their mom was at work, probably showing a house. Technically, Will, as the eldest, was in charge.

He heard a sudden shriek, and he got up and ran over to the door that led into the garage, where the sound was coming from.

He flung the door open and saw Clay cowering in the far corner of the garage. Around twenty feet away from him was some kind of a big animal, hissing and growling at Clay, trapping him in the corner. A cat? No. He saw a striped tail flicking, saw the black bandit-mask fur around the eyes, realized it was a raccoon.

His heart began to wallop. While Mom was away, he was supposed to take care of his younger brother, who stood there red-faced and gasping, his hands out, trying to protect himself against what Will only later learned was a rabid raccoon.

Frantically, Will scrambled over to the wall of tools and yanked down the longest one he could find, a sharp-bladed shovel. He took a few steps toward the raccoon, which continued to menace Clay, hiss-growling. Will tinged the shovel’s steel blade against the concrete floor.

The raccoon spun around, facing Will, fangs bared, hissing, tail whipping around. It was mangy-looking and matted. Its bandit-masked face looked crazed. Then it reared up, rounded its back — and suddenly sprang at him, making its horrible hissing growl as it flew through the air.

Terrified, Will stepped back, a reflex.

But then, in the next second, he felt something he’d never felt before. His fright, his fear of the maddened raccoon, abruptly turned into outrage, a kind of indignation, an anger that this beast had dared to launch at him.

And Will leapt forward and swung the shovel with a strength he didn’t know he had. It clanged against the oil-stained concrete of the garage floor. Then he swung again, with a force even greater, and it hit the raccoon in the head.

The raccoon screamed, and a spray of blood spurted into the air. The blade of the shovel, Will saw, had sliced into the creature’s head or neck.

Yet it was still alive, and it kept screeching and hissing, its claws flailing around, gouging the air.

Will lifted the shovel to take another whack, but the raccoon’s body lifted along with it, as if it had attached itself. He was disgusted and horrified, but his heart was still skittering along and he had superpowers. He slammed the shovel’s blade against the floor, and then something repulsive happened: the creature’s head came off its body, rolling a few inches away, into a little greenish puddle of transmission fluid.

He had beheaded the animal. Gagging, he dropped the handle. It clattered on the concrete.

Clay took a few tentative steps and said, “Cool!”

At supper, Clay told the story of Will’s heroism, and Will kept himself from making fun of the way Clay screamed like a silly little kid. Will shrugged modestly, said it was no big deal, even though it had been the most intense thing he had ever been through.

And he never forgot what he’d learned that day, about the way his deep terror of the raccoon had transmuted into outrage and bravery and a wild, intoxicating fury.

And about how a frightened person could become a brave one.

The man Will Abbott hired to give him a gun lesson was a mountain of a man, a retired DC cop with a deep, rumbling voice that seemed to vibrate the card table they were sitting at.

“You ever shoot a gun before?” the man asked. He was a black man in his sixties with a large domed head and close-cropped white hair.

Will nodded. “One lesson, once. A while ago. So let’s start from the beginning.”

“First thing is, treat all guns as if they’re loaded.”

The cop, named Joe Randall, shoved a revolver across the table at Will. Joe Randall was an employee of this gun range, an indoor range in northeast, close to the National Arboretum.

“Go ahead, pick it up.”

Will considered interrupting his rap and telling the guy to speed it up. He didn’t want to learn safety and handling and all that crap; he wanted to learn how to shoot to kill someone.

He knew that if he focused on logistics, the how-to, he could distract himself from his terror of getting caught. And getting caught was unthinkable. There would be no explaining himself without dragging in the boss.

Will picked up the gun as if it were loaded and he planned to kill Joe Randall: he gripped it in his right hand and poked a finger into the trigger.

“No!” Randall said. “Jesus, no. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. You have no idea if that thing’s loaded or not!”

“You’re right,” Will said meekly, and set it back down on the table. “But can you teach me on a semiautomatic pistol instead of a revolver?”

“You start with the alphabet. The basics. A revolver is more basic.”

“Okay, sure. You’re the boss.” Will said it lightly, but it sounded off, condescending. He knew he had that tendency, which he’d have to moderate if he was going to make it to the big white house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the center of the universe, as far as he was concerned.

“You want to learn on a pistol, I’ll teach you on a pistol. But for the license you got to know both.”

“I understand.”

Randall slid another gun over to Will, a Smith & Wesson nine millimeter. He taught Will to load bullets, which he called “shells,” into the magazine. Will paid close attention. He figured he’d have to do this just once, anyway. He’d figure it out when he had to. He wanted only to make the shot, make it once, kill the guy, and get out. Without being connected to it.