Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“Anything on the gun?”

“Probably stolen. That’s where the Pagans strap up, mostly. By the spray pattern, I’d say a shorty, sixteen inches. As I say, well-shot. He hit what he was shooting at dead solid perfect. The guy knew what he was doing.”

“How much do you think they clipped?”

“Plenty. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five thousand, small bills. On a weekend, much bigger, so if the point was to hit a stash house, they would have waited till Saturday night. Hitting one on a weeknight doesn’t make any sense robbery-wise.”

“They needed the dough to get out of town,” said Nick. “Strictly travel money. What about the woman?”

“Different guy. Unarmed. Theola was a formidable woman; she’d been shot three times, and we believe she had at least four kills on her, two bare-handed, but nobody would think of snitching her out. Anyhow, this was amateur hour. He kicks her in the head after she fell down, jumps on her face like it’s a pogo stick. You can see his tracks in the blood. Size: about ten and a half. I’ve seen plenty of those tread marks, they’re Vans, a shoe suburban kids think is cool. It’s not a ghetto icon. The other guy was in size eleven cross-trainers, probably New Balance or Nike. So it’s an odd combo of a pro and someone suburban with zero experience.”

“But they knew where to hit. How’d they know where the stash was?”

“Followed the runner’s car, I’d guess. He’d been out servicing the street pushers.”

“So I think we’d like to talk to the street pushers. They might have something.”

“Sure, so would I, but I can’t do that right away. After something like this, they’ll all go to ground, because they don’t know how it’s going to come down from here. They don’t want to be standing on their corner when the retaliation starts turning the air blue.”

“Got it.”

“And one more thing. See that fat guy with his balls splattered on the wall? His name was Reggie ‘Candy’ Peppers. A legend in this town. Anyhow, he had a 2017 Mercedes S, jet-black, shiny as sin. His pride and joy. We found two cars out back registered to the two other vics, but Candy’s was missing. I’m thinking your boys not only ripped off money and guns and ammo but the car as well. We can put out a statewide on the license plate and a descript of the bad guys. Maybe tighten it up with street pusher info to be collected later.”

“Do that, please, Lieutenant. But as you say, the main guy is a pro, and he’ll be good at evasion. He may have dumped it for another car by this time. It’s been, what, twelve hours since all this occurred?”

“Get right on it, sir.”

“So they needed dough and a car to travel,” said Nick to Bob. “Best way to get each fast is to hit a place like this. That we’re on it so fast is a break for us, thanks to a cop’s sharp eyes. Still, they’re out and on the road.”

“Fuck,” said Bob.

“Yeah, and for someone who hates to improvise, he’s doing it pretty goddamned well.”

Next day, nothing, no reports of an abandoned Mercedes S, Michigan 4C55 409, jet-black. A few replies to Jared’s photo, but all useless. Another Assistant Director showed up to sit with Nick in his office. No comment on the subject of the chat. Bad news from latent prints: nothing for Juba. A few that presumably belonged to Jared Akim, but since he’d never been fingerprinted, that couldn’t be confirmed. Bob on the phone to the long-range retail shops of America, to the president of the Mile Benchrest Club in Pennsylvania, to MidwayUSA and Brownells, which owned Sinclair International. Nothing tangible. The .338 Lapua Magnum was mainstream enough that no unusual activity on behalf of its sustenance could be identified. A few hours for nap breaks, but nothing else.

The day after was going the same way, until Nick hung up his phone with a crack.

“Okay, let’s jump,” he said. “Get that State Police chopper over here, Chandler. Email intercept from Jared Akim to a pal, asking him to tell the folks he was all right, would be home soon — this was the coolest thing.”

“Did they get a locality on it?” Swagger asked.

“Yeah, the GPS record puts it at a Kmart in Germantown, Ohio. About one hundred and fifty miles south of here, right on the state line.”

“Let’s go to Ohio,” said Bob.

On the road

The Mercedes-Benz was a sweet ride. But at a small-town strip mall two hours out of Detroit, by way of Ann Arbor on 127, Juba slipped out of it, popped the lock and the ignition of a dark blue Chevy Impala, sitting in the neon wash of a coffee shop, and drove away. Another hour, and he spotted a low creek, shrouded in bushes, and directed Jared, who’d been following him in the Benz, to pull off. It took some arranging, but once they’d removed the shotgun — a Remington 1100 Auto-Tactical — and the canvas sack containing $23,650 in small bills from the Mercedes, Juba sent it through the bushes and into the water. It sank low, until only the roof was showing. Nobody would notice it, at least not routinely.

They drove on in the Impala, and finally Jared said, “Man, I am almost dead.”

“All right. Small motel, you go in and rent a room, pay with cash. Make sure you know this license number so you don’t struggle.”

This proved within Jared’s range of abilities, and soon he was zzzzed out.

He woke at 4 in the afternoon, suddenly disconsolate. What would his parents say? God, he’d been such a disappointment to them. They’d given him everything, he’d given them nothing. Now his mother was battered by tears and pain, his formidable father was being bedeviled by FBI agents, black cars were parked all around the block.

But maybe his friends thought he was cool.

Someone knocked.

“Yeah.”

“Come on, time to go.”

“Let me grab a shower.”

“Hurry.”

He cleaned himself but climbed into stinking clothes.

“You drive,” said Juba, his eyes everywhere.

“I think we’re okay,” said Jared. “I signed with a false name.”

“Oh, what a clever boy,” said Juba. “He knows all the tricks.”

They drove on, staying off the interstates, which were patrolled by more vigilant Highway Patrolmen, confident that they could outsmart small-town cops. Soon enough, they came to a Kmart, mooring some other stores in a downscale strip mall. Juba pulled in.

“Okay,” he said. “You go in. Buy some underwear. Me too. Also buy me a heavy file — a carpenter’s file, no fingernail stuff. And a light jacket, any kind, size fifty-two. But, most important, you buy a disposable phone. You know how they work?”

“Yeah, you buy a card with minutes on it, she activates it at the register, and we’re all set.”

“Yes. Don’t buy anything unusual, like toothpaste and a toothbrush, along with underpants. We’ll buy that some other place.”

“Shall I wear my sunglasses?”

“No. It’s dark out. You don’t want to be noticed. Tell yourself: I am nobody.”

“I am nobody.”

He got out and entered the bright zone of the store. It was sparsely populated, every clerk a composition in disinterest, and he got his stuff together in a short time, stopped for some Milky Ways and some protein bars, and got through the line quickly.

But it was too much. The melancholia broke over him quickly. Sitting on a stool at the hot dog counter in the front of the store, he quickly activated his phone and dialed the number of a pal back in Grosse Pointe.

“Hello?”

“Jimmy, it’s Jar—”

“Holy Christ, man, what are you up to? The FBI has been here, and everything.”

“I can’t explain now. It’ll be okay. Look — real quick, just send my mom an email to Shareen at AOL-dot-com . Say you heard from me, I’m fine, I’ll be in touch in a bit. That’s all.”