Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

But something knocked her flat. This burst, probably from a gunman behind a car, spared Bob. No one would kill him! It seemed so wrong!

He ran to her.

“Where are you—”

“Vest,” she wheezed. “I’m okay. Just … ribs …”

He got behind her and dragged her behind the Marshals’ SUV.

“Stay here!”

“Take this!”

It was her Glock. But it was locked back, empty.

“Mag?”

“Gone.”

“Shit,” said Bob, and flicked the slide lock so that the gun clacked shut, even if empty. An empty gun could be better than no gun.

“Stay down now!” he yelled.

If she had a riposte — and she almost certainly did — he didn’t hear it, for again he took off. But this time instead of running to the building, he ran to its side, reasoning that Juba would cut through the cathedral, find a way to reach the other side, and make his break into traffic, where he’d hijack a car or maybe just hot-wire something parked nearby. Juba would know what to do, that was for certain.

Bob came around the rear of the immense building, stepped out of its shade into sunlight, and noted that on this street traffic had stopped, pedestrians had disappeared, but all the cop cars with flashing lightbars and still screaming sirens were half a block away, clustered at the intersection. He slowed, but not much, negotiating the far side of the cathedral complex, and came to an arch, out of which, at that precise point in time, came a husky priest. As priests don’t normally wear mics, yellow shooting glasses, or carry Krinkov assault rifles, he understood, in supertime, who it was. His reactions were appropriate. It was an open field tackle, low into the hips, no arms wrapping around, and, as the two crashed together, Juba’s rifle flew. Each endured a moment of spangled confusion, but each came up fast.

“Freeze!” yelled Bob, the Glock locked on Juba’s midsection.

“No shoot, no shoot!” yelled Juba, in English, his arms flying upward. “Please, sir, no shoot!”

But then, unaware or not caring that it was an empty gun that tethered him in place, he moved so fast, Bob could not keep up, even if he squeezed on an empty chamber. It was Systema Spetsnaz, the Russian Special Forces fighting system, which is not built of memorized elaborate moves — they break down under pressure — but the natural physics of the body relative to strength, balance, practice, and experience, the latter of which he had plenty. It began as a wave, a crest of energy, rushing through the body to accumulate at the point of contact, accelerated through the universe in warp drive, and was delivered at a speed that has no place in time, the limb going so fast, so soon, it rendered itself invisible. The hollow of Juba’s foot hit Bob in the head so hard, it knocked him straight to Wonderland, and Alice and the White Rabbit played chess on his ruined skull for one or two seconds, and, when he recovered, the fight was over, and Juba, having recovered his rifle, stood over him to finish things off for good and all.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he spat something in Arabic, turned, and, fleet as a deer, amazingly fast for such a big man, headed down the street.

Bob tried to rise, to look about, to yell for backup, but all the squad cars were clustered halfway down the block at the intersection, lightbars pulsing red-blue distress, men scuttling for shooting positions, though the shooting seemed to have halted.

Bob’s knees went as a new wave of dizziness came over him, and he realized he had been hit so hard, he might die, as the pavement came up in a zoom shot to smash him in the nose, setting off more lights and frenzy.

Hospital, recovery

He came to once in the ambulance, alone, except that his brain felt as if it had nails hammered into it. It was not pleasant, and he decided to lie back and, somewhere between the lying and the backward part, he went to black again.

The next time he awoke, it was a hospital room. Nick was there, but so were the nails.

“Welcome to the world,” said Nick.

“Ahh,” said Bob, “not sure I want to be here.”

“No, the news is not good, but I expect you’re man enough to take it.”

“Chandler?”

“She made it. Broken ribs, but the vest saved her.”

“Thank God,” said Swagger. “Tell her to sit the next one out. You’re her boss.”

“You try and tell an American woman anything these days, let me know how you do.”

He lay back, and didn’t slide under. Meanwhile, a drip passed something medicinal into his veins, his vision was somewhat lazy in its mission to put edges on things, the smell of hospitals was its own special ordeal. A nurse leaned in to perform vital life-giving tasks, the last of which was holding a cup up for a long drink of water.

“Juba?” asked Bob after the last gulp.

Nick’s expression told enough, but as a stickler for details, he then provided them.

“He got into a parking lot, hot-wired a car, and got out of town. Where, we have no idea. The report on the car didn’t come in till last night—”

“It’s the next day already?”

“Afraid so.”

“Christ.”

“Anyhow, we haven’t located it yet, though now there’s an APB out.”

“That won’t help. He’ll dump it — he’s already dumped it — and pick up another. He’ll always be a car ahead of the APBs.”

“No doubt. Smart operator.”

“And fast. I never saw anybody so fast. He put that leg into me at light’s speed. So give me the score.”

“Not as bad as it could be. No police KIA, four wounded, not including you and Chandler. Four bad-guy KIA, including their NCO, who blew his own brains out rather than be taken. Six surrenders. Counterterrorism Division people are all over them, but since they were hired by a cutout in Mexico, and handled by cutouts all the way through, there’s not going to be much. Universal soldiers, Mexican variation. Special Forces, good operators; as long as someone pays their life insurance, they’ll shut up and wait for a chance to break. Also, some guy who’s a glass expert, cut the window for Juba’s shot. He doesn’t know anything either.”

Bob nodded.

Then he said, “Anyhow, when do I get out of here?”

“There’s some recovery time up ahead. You’ve sustained a heavy concussion and skull fracture. They say not for a week.”

“By then, Juba could have whacked—”

“Not your department. Your department is, tell the artist what this guy looks like. You’re the only one who’s seen him who’s still alive and not afraid to talk.”

“Jesus, Nick, it was just for a split second before he whacked me out.”

“You’re a trained observer. When you put your mind to it, you’ll be surprised what you can recover.”

“I’ll try.”

“There is no ‘try,’” said Nick. “There is only ‘do.’”

But there was no do. There was only try.

“I admit, it’s not much,” said Swagger.

A square-faced, rather generic Arab stared back at him from a universe of deft charcoal strokes. Whatever subtle nuance of geometry, weight distribution, underlying musculature, bone slope, and eye radiance that make a face a face was not there. Nothing was there.

He was still abed after three long days of working with a very decent guy billed as the best police artist in the world, but it came to only this.

“He looks like a cross between Saddam Hussein and Dr. Zhivago,” said Swagger.

“You mean Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor,” said Nick. “Well, it does have a certain standardized, even idealized, quality to it. We’ll put it out, but if it draws in over seventy-five thousand suspects, we’ll know it’s not really working.”