Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“Maybe,” said Janet.

“But you don’t feel any better, is that it?”

“Not really. Not where it counts. I’m a mom, that’s all. I’d rather have my son back than all that other stuff, and no matter how much of what someone calls good came from it, the price was too high. That’s how I feel.”

He didn’t say a thing. What was there to say?

“How long will that last?” she said. “That’s my question. You would know. You lost so many over the years.”

“Oh, you can do things. Help veterans, write an inspirational book, and if you make some money — and you should — endow a scholarship, fund a school, contribute, keep Tommy alive that way.”

“Sure,” she said. “Good advice, all of it. But you know it only takes you so far. Bob, tell me the truth. How long does it really last?”

“It lasts forever,” he said.

This book began with and is respectfully dedicated to Tracy Miller, whose son Nick Ziolkowski—“The Sniper from Boys’ Latin,” dedicatee in Dead Zero —was killed in Fallujah in 2004. Instead of letting her grief cripple and destroy her, she turned it to energy, the energy to engagement, and the engagement to help others. She has spent her last fourteen years as an advisor to veterans and other recent arrivals at Towson University, where she is an adjunct professor of education and serves on the Veterans Committee, among about a thousand other things. That’s heroism. I have taken the kernel of her story and do what I do, which is dramatize, romanticize, exaggerate, and open fire. Hence, Game of Snipers .

Now, on to apologies, excuses, and evasions. Let me offer the first to Tel Aviv; Dearborn, Michigan; Greenville, Ohio; Wichita, Kansas; Rock Springs, Wyoming; and Anacostia, D.C. I generally go to places I write about to check the lay of streets, the fall of shadows, the color of police cars, and the taste of local beer. At seventy-three, such ordeals-by-airport are no longer fun, not even the beer part; I only go where there’s beaches. For this book, I worked from maps and Google, and any geographical mistakes emerge out of that practice. Is the cathedral three hundred yards from the courthouse in Wichita? Hmm, seems about right, and that’s good enough for me on this.

On the other hand, I finally got Bob’s wife’s name correct. It’s Julie, right? I’ve called her Jen more than once, but I’m pretty sure Jen was Bud Pewtie’s wife in Dirty White Boys . For some reason, this mistake seemed to trigger certain Amazon reviewers into psychotic episodes. Folks, calm down, have a drink, hug someone soft. It’ll be all right.

As for the shooting, my account of the difficulties of hitting at over a mile is more or less accurate (snipers have done it at least eight times). I have simplified, because it is so arcane it would put all but the most dedicated in a coma. I have also been quite accurate about the ballistics app FirstShot, because I made it up and can make it do anything I want. The other shot, the three hundred, benefits from the wisdom of Craig Boddington, the great hunter and writer, who looked it over and sent me a detailed email, from which I have borrowed much. Naturally, any errors are mine, not Craig’s.

I met Craig when shooting something (on film!) for another boon companion, Michael Bane, and his Outdoor Channel Gun Stories crew. For some reason, he finds it amusing when I start jabbering away and likes to turn the camera on. Don’t ask me why. On the same trip, I also met the great firearms historian and all-around movie guy (he knows more than I do) Garry James, who has become a pal. Gentlemen three, God bless them all.

In Baltimore, the usual suspects came to my aid. First, my friends John Bainbridge, Lenne Miller, and Gary Goldberg were diligent and thorough on my behalf. Why, I cannot say. Meanwhile, Mike Hill and Jim “Six Days of the Condor” Grady had useful insights and enthusiasm, as did Bill Smart and Barrett Tillman. And in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, my good friend Dave Dunn, owner of Trop Gun Shop, offered me cigars, bourbon, and deals — all important to morale. In Baltimore, Ed De Carlo, maître d’, majordomo, and NCOIC of On Target, kept my shooting life running smoothly. In L.A., old pal Jeff Weber pitched in as usual. Thanks to all, and particularly to Lenne, who also had a major health crisis to deal with but stayed on course.

Professionally, the great Esther Newberg supervised the shift from the late house of Blue Rider to the very much alive house of Putnam, and editor Mark Tavani added his guidance. My wife, the great Jean Marbella, made the coffee that pulled me from the sticky miasma of old man’s psychedelic dreamworld every morning and got me upstairs to the writing machine. Without that coffee, I’m the bitter crank whining to strangers in grocery store lines about what might have been.

And finally: did I steal the excellent title Game of Snipers from the immensely successful Game of Thrones series by George Martin? Sure. Why would I not?

Stephen Hunteris the author of more than twenty novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post , where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight . His novel, Point of Impact , was adapted for film as Shooter , starring Mark Wahlberg, and aired as a TV series. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.