F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

Semelee went pale beneath her tan. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“What’s so important about that shell?”

Her hand went to the one around her neck. “I’ve had em since I was a kid, is all. I just want it back.”

“And I want Carl back.”

She sighed. “Looks like we’ll have to put together a swap meet. Bring the shell to the lagoon and—”

Jack shook his head. “Uh-uh. Bring Carl here.”

Jack watched Semelee’s hands open wide, then close into tight fists.

“You’re makin this awful hard.” She looked up at the hazy sky, then back to him. “Guess we’ll have to meet somewheres in the middle. You got any ideas?”

Jack reviewed his trip with Carl and remembered the dry stretch where they’d had to carry their canoe. He mentioned it to Semelee and she knew where it was.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll meet there in an hour.”

Jack looked out at the Everglades and the clinging haze. Semelee seemed on the level but he didn’t know about the rest of the clan. And because of that, he wanted maximum visibility.

“What say we make it noonish?” he said.

“Why’re you makin me wait so long?”

“I need the time.”

“All right. See you then. And don’t be late.”

She turned and walked off. Jack watched the sway of her hips as she moved away. He missed Gia.

He was still watching her, wondering how she was going to get out of Gateways, when his father’s voice interrupted him.

“I hope you’re not really thinking of going through with this.”

Jack turned to find Dad standing on the porch, staring at him through the jalousies.

“You heard the whole thing?”

“Just the end. Enough to know that she’s connected to what happened to me, and probably to the others who’ve been killed. But what was that about Carl? Carl the gardener?”

“One and the same.”

Jack gave him a quick overview of what had happened—about the trip to the lagoon, and Semelee and her clan.

Dad was shaking his head. “You’ve only just got here, Jack. How did you manage to get involved in something like this in just a couple of days?”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“I’m serious, Jack. You’ve got to take this to the police and the Park Service.”

“That’s not the way I do things.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? This is the second time you’ve said something like that.”

“It’s plain and simple, Dad: I promised Carl I’d get him back safely. Me. Not the cops, not the park rangers. Me. So that’s how it’s going down.”

“But you didn’t know the odds against you when you made that promise. He can’t hold you to it.”

“He’s not,” Jack said. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Dad rubbed his jaw. “I understand perfectly. And you know, Jack…the better I know you, the more I like you. Carl’s not holding you to your promise…you are. I can respect that. It’s damn foolish, but I have to respect that.”

“Thanks.”

How about that? Dad did understand.

“But you can’t go out there alone. You’re going to need backup.”

“Tell me about it. Know where I can find any?”

“You’re looking at him.”

Jack laughed. Dad didn’t.

“I’m not kidding, Jack.”

“Dad, you’re not cut out for that.”

“Don’t be so sure.” He pushed open the porch door. “Come inside. I need to tell you some things you don’t know.”

“About what?”

No matter what he was told, Jack wasn’t taking an accountant in his seventies as backup, especially if that accountant in his seventies was his father.

“About me.”

4

Inside, Dad handed him a cup of coffee, then, before Jack could ask him what this was about, disappeared into his bedroom. He returned a minute later carrying the gray metal lockbox Jack had found back on Tuesday. He hadn’t expected to see it again, but he was more surprised by what his father was wearing.

“Dad, are you kidding with that sweater?”

His father pulled the front of the ancient brown mohair cardigan closer about him. “It’s cold! The thermometer outside my window says sixty-nine degrees.”

Jack had to laugh. “The Sasquatch look. It’s you, Dad.”

“Never mind the sweater.” He set the box on the coffee table. “Have a seat.”

Jack sat across from him. “What’ve you got there?” he said, already knowing the answer.

Dad unlocked the box and flipped it open. He pulled out an old photo and passed it to Jack: Dad and six other young guys in fatigues.

Jack pretended to study it, as if seeing it for the first time.

“Hey. From your Army days.”

“Army?” His father made a face. “Those clods? These are Marines, Jack. Semper fi and all that.”

Jack shrugged. “Army, Marines, what’s the diff?”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever been in the Corps.”

“Hey, you were all fighting the same enemy, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but we fought them better.” He tapped the photo. “These were my wartime buddies.” His expression softened. “And I’m the only one left.”

Jack looked at those young faces. He pointed to the photo. “What are you all smiling about?”

“We’d just graduated Corps-level scout-sniper school.”

Jack looked up from the photo. “You were a sniper?” He’d learned to believe in the unbelievable, but this was asking too much. “My father was a sniper?”

“Don’t say it like it’s a dirty word.”

“I didn’t. I’m just…shocked.”

“Lots of people look on sniping with disdain, even in the military. And after that pair of psychos killed all those folks in the DC area a while back, so does just about everybody else. But those two weren’t sniping. They were committing random murder, and that’s not what sniping is about. A sniper doesn’t go out and shoot anything that moves, he goes after specific targets,strategic targets.”

“And you did that in Korea.”

Dad nodded slowly. “I killed a lot of men over there, Jack. I’m sure there’s plenty of soldiers walking around today who’ve killed more of the enemy—Germans, Japs, North Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese—in their tours of duty than I did, but they were just shooting at the faceless foreign bodies who were trying to kill them. We snipers were different. We positioned ourselves in hiding and took out key personnel. We could have a hundred, a thousand soldiers milling around just five hundred yards away, but we weren’t interested in the grunts. We were after the officers, the NCOs, the radio men, anyone whose death would diminish the enemy’s ability to mount or sustain an attack.”

Jack was watching his dad’s face. “Sounds almost…personal.”

“It does. And that’s what makes people uncomfortable. They feel there’s something cold-blooded about picking out a specific individual in, say, a bivouac area, sighting down on him, and pulling the trigger.” He sighed. “And maybe they’re right.”

“But if it saves lives…”

“Still pretty cold-blooded, though, don’t you think. When I started out, if I couldn’t nail an officer or NCO, I’d go after radio men and howitzer crews. But I noticed that whenever I took a guy out, another would pick up the radio or jump in and start reloading the howitzer, and then I’d have to take them out as well.”

Jack started nodding. “So you began going after their equipment.”

“Exactly. Know what a .30 caliber hardball will do to a radio? Or to the sights on a howitzer?”

“I can imagine.” Jack had a very good idea of the damage it could do. “Good for the junk pile and nothing else. You guys were using M1s back then, right?”

“Not us snipers. I was trained on the M1903A1 with an eight-power Unertl scope, and that’s what I used. Made a couple of thousand-yard kills with that.”