Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

“That’s good work,” said Bonson, over the net. “We’re going to lose you now. We’re going through the tunnel.”

“I’ll stay on him, Blue One.”

“Catch you when we get out of the tunnel.”

The first van maintained about a four hundred-foot gap between itself and Swagger’s truck, which now coursed down desolate South Clinton Street. Off to the right, a giant naval vessel, under construction, suddenly loomed, gray and arc-lit for drama and security. Bob passed it, passed a bank, a few small working men’s restaurants, then stopped by the side of the road.

“Goddammit,” said Two. “Burned. Goddammit.”

His own driver started to slow, but he was exceedingly professional.

“No, just keep driving. Just drive by him. Don’t eyeball him as you pass him, don’t even think about it; he’ll feel you paying attention. I’m dropping out of sight.”

The driver continued at the same speed, while the observer dropped into the seat well, knowing that a single driver was much less of a giveaway signature for a tail job. And he hit the send button.

“Blue Three, do you read?”

“Yeah, I’m past the Boston-South Clinton Street exchange, just pulled over.”

“Okay, he’s stopped. We’re going to pass him; you come on by and pull off a long way down. He’s on the right. Don’t use your lights. Go to night vision and monitor his moves.”

The lead vehicle sped around the curve, passed several mountains of coal ready for loading on the right.

He pulled off when he was out of sight of the parked man.

“TWO, this is Three. I’m in position and I’ve got him in my night lenses. He’s just sitting there, waiting. I think he’s turned off his engine. No, no, he’s turned off his lights, now he’s pulling ahead, he’s turning in — now I’ve lost him.”

“Okay, he’s gone to ground.”

“Sitrep, people,” came the voice of Bonson, who had just cleared the tunnel and was now on this side of the harbor.

“Sir, he just pulled into a yard or something in the warehouse district down by the docks. Just off Boston. We have him under observation.”

“I’m right at Boston Street here. Do we go east or west off of Ninety-five?”

“You go west. Go about a mile and turn left again, on South Clinton Street. I’m off by the side of the road just around that turn, lights off, left side of the road. Two is on the other side, around the curve. We’re both about a half mile away from where he’s gone to rest.”

“Okay, let’s meet one at a time in two-minute intervals two hundred yards this side, my side, of the location. You go first, Three, then you Two, from the other side, then I’ll join you. Keep your lights on in case he’s looking out. If he saw unlit vehicles, he could go ballistic.”

“Sir, I honestly don’t think he’s seen a damned thing. He was off in his own world. He wasn’t even looking around when he stopped. He’s just looking for some deserted place.”

“We’ll know in a few minutes,” said Bonson, just as his car turned left and pulled in behind one of the vans.

Bob parked to the left of the silent, corrugated-metal building, as far back and out of sight as he could. He paused, waiting. He heard no sounds; there was no night watchman. The place was some kind of grain storage facility, again for loading cargo ships, but no ship floated in the water. He could see the shimmering lights on the flat, calm water, and beyond that the skyline of the city, spangled in illumination. But here, there was nothing except the rush of cars from the tunnel exit nearby, a separate world sealed off by concrete abutments.

He got out, taking the wrapped painting, a powerful flashlight and a heavy pair of wire cutters with him, and headed to the warehouse. It was padlocked. But where the lock was strong, the metal fastener that secured door to wall was not, and the wire cutters made quick work of it. The lock fell, still secure, to the ground, wearing a little necklace of sheared steel. He pulled the door open, stepped into a space that in the darkness appeared to be cut by bins, now mostly empty. The dust of grains — wheat mostly, though he smelled soya beans too — filled the air.

He walked, his shoes echoing on the bricks, until at last he came to the center of the room. He stopped by a pillar and a drain, then turned on the light. The beam skipped across the empty building, finding nothing of interest but more emptiness, dramatic shadows, fire extinguishers, light switches, closets, crates. He went and got a crate, pulled it into the center and set it down. Finally, he set the light on the floor, aimed back toward where he had left the package. It cast a cold white eye on the painting.

He walked over, and leaned into the circle of light.

Slowly, he peeled the rags away, until at last the painting stood exposed. He examined it carefully, saw how the tacks held the canvas to the backing. He took out his Case pocketknife, and very slowly used its blade to scrape at the paint.

It was thick and cracked easily, falling to the ground in chunks and strips. He scraped, destroying the image of the eagle, pulling at the paint, watching it flake in colored chunks downward. In a minute or so, he came to a ridge under the paint, and ran the knife blade along it until he reached a corner. It was the top of a heavy piece of paper, and it had been literally buried under the heavy oil pigmentation of the image.

With the blade, he pried the corner loose enough to get a grip on, set the knife down and very carefully pulled the sheet of paper free. It cracked off the canvas. As he finally freed it, there was a kind of soft, slipping sound: paper, sliding loose, fluting down to land with a rattle on the dirty floor. He set the backing down and bent there in the harsh light to see what secrets he had unlocked.

It was the last few sketches from Trig’s book. Bob began to shuffle through them, finding images of a campus building in Madison, Wisconsin, portraits of people at parties in Washington, crowd scenes of big demonstrations. There was a portrait of Donny. It must have been made about the time he did the scene of Donny and Julie, which Bob had seen in Vietnam. He brought those days vividly to life, and Bob began to feel his passion — and his pain.

One man had gone ahead and returned with a report.

“He’s in there with a flashlight, reading some pages or something. I can’t figure it out.”

“Okay,” said Bonson. “I think I know what he’s got. Let’s finish this, once and for all.”

The guns came out. The team consisted now of five men besides Bonson. They were large men in crew cuts in their late forties. They were tough-looking, exuding that alpha-male confidence that suggested no difficulty in doing violence if necessary. They looked like large policemen, soldiers, firemen, extremely well developed, extremely competent. They drew the guns from under their jackets, and there was a little ceremony of clicks and snaps, as safeties came off and slides were eased back to check chambers, just in case. Then the suppressors were screwed on.

Bonson led them along the road, into the lot and up to the old grain warehouse. Above, stars pinwheeled and blinked. Water sounds filled the night, the lapping of the tides against ancient docks. From somewhere came a low, steady roar of automobiles. He reached the metal door and through the gap between it and the building proper, he could see Bob in the center of the room, sitting on a crate he’d gotten from somewhere, reading by the light of a flashlight. The painting was on the floor, somehow standing straight, as if on display, and Bob was leaning against a thick pillar that supported the low ceiling. Bonson could see that the image had somehow been destroyed, yielding a large white square in its center.