Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

He checked his weapons: .45, three mags, M14, eight mags. There was a ritual here, a natural order, checking one thing then the next, then checking it all again. It was all ready.

He crawled from his hootch, went to the S-2 bunker, where Bob, similarly accoutred except that he had the Remington rifle instead of an M14, waited, sipping coffee, talking quietly with Brophy over the map.

“You don’t have to go, Fenn,” said Bob, looking over to him.

“I’m going,” said Donny.

“Check your weapons, then do a commo check.”

Donny examined his M14, pulling the bolt to seat a round in the chamber, then letting it fly forward. He put the safety on, then took out the .45, ascertained that the mag was full but the chamber empty, as Swagger had instructed him to carry the piece. He ran the quick commo check, and all systems were functioning.

“Okay,” said Bob, “last briefing. Up here, toward Hoi An. We go a straight northward course, through heavy bush, across a paddy dike. We should hit Hill 840 by 1000 hours. We’ll set up there, glass the paddies below in the valley for a couple of hours, and head back by 1400 hours. We’ll be in by 1800 at the latest. We’ll stay in PRC range the whole time.”

“Good work,” said Brophy.

“You all set, Fenn?” Bob asked.

“Gung ho, Semper Fi and all that good shit,” said Donny, at last strapping the radio on, getting it set just right. He picked up his M14 and left the bunker. The light was beginning to seep over the horizon.

“I don’t want to go out the north,” said Bob. “Just in case. I want to break our pattern. We go out the east this time, just like we did before. We ain’t never repeated ourself; anybody tracking us couldn’t anticipate that.”

“He’s gone, he’s dead, you got him,” said Brophy,

“Yeah, well.”

They reached the parapet wall. A sentry came over from the guard post down the way.

“All clear?” Swagger asked.

“Sarge, I been working the night vision scope the past few hours. Ain’t nothing out there.”

Bob slipped his head over the sandbags, looked out into the defoliated zone, which was lightening in the rising sun. He couldn’t see much. The sun was directly in his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, “last day-time to hunt.”

He set his rifle on the sandbag berm, pulled himself over, gathered the rifle and rolled off. Donny made ready to follow.

How many days now? Four, five? He didn’t know. The canteen had bled its last drop of water into his throat yesterday before noon. He was so thirsty he thought he’d die. He hallucinated through the night: he saw men he had killed, he saw Sydney, where he won the gold, he saw women he had fucked, he saw his mother, he saw Africa, he saw Cuba, he saw China, he saw it all.

I am losing my mind, he thought.

Everything was etched in neon. His nerves fired, his stomach heaved, he had starvation fantasies. I should have brought more food. Something in his blood sugar made him twitch uncontrollably.

This would be the last day. He could stand it no more.

The days were the worst. There was no shield from the sun and it had burned his body red in slivers, between the brim of his soft cap and his collar. The backs of his hands were now so swollen he could hardly close them.

But the nights were no better: it got cold at night and he shivered. He was afraid to sleep because he might miss the Americans on their way out. So he stayed awake at night and slept during the day, except that it was too hot to sleep well. The insects devoured him. He’d never leave this cursed chunk of bare ground in the most forgotten land in the world. He could smell his own physical squalor and knew he was living beyond the bounds of both civilization and sanitation. He was putting himself through the absolute worst for this job. Why was he here?

Then he remembered why he was here.

He looked at his watch: 0600. If they were going on a mission today, this was the time they’d go.

Wearily, he brought the binoculars to his eyes, and peered ahead. He had to struggle with the focus and he lacked the strength to hold it steady.

Why didn’t I take that shot when—

Movement.

He blinked, unbelieving, feeling the sense of miracle a hunter feels when after the long stalk he at last sees his game.

There was motion down there, though it was hard to make out in the low light. It looked like the movement of men from the bunkers toward the berm but he could not be sure.

He abandoned the binoculars, shifted left and squirmed behind the rifle, trying his hardest not to jar its placement. He poured himself around it, half mounting the sandbag into which the toe of its butt was jammed, his fingers finding the grip, his face swimming up toward the spot weld, feeling the jam of his thumb against his cheekbone.

He looked through it, saw nothing, but in a second his focus returned.

He could see motion behind the berm, a small gathering of men.

It was an unbearably long shot, he now saw, a shot no man had the right to take.

The wind, the temperature, the humidity, the distance, the light: it all said, You cannot take this shot.

Yet he felt a strange calm confidence now.

All his agonies vanished. Whatever it was inside him that made him the best was now fully engaged. He felt strong, purposeful. The world ceased to exist. It gradually bled away as he gave himself to the circle of light before him, his position perfect, the right leg cocked just to the right to put some tension in his body, tightening his Adductor magnus but not too much, his hands strong and steady on the rifle, the spot weld perfect, no parallax in the scope, the butt strong against his shoulder; it was all so perfect. He controlled his breath, exhaling most of it, holding just a trace of oxygen in his lungs.

Reticle, he thought.

His focus went to the ancient reticle, to the dagger point that stood up just beyond the horizontal line that bisected the circle of light, and watched now, in amazement, as, like a phantasm springing from the very earth itself, a man came over the berm, dappled in camouflage, face painted, but even from this far, far distance recognizable as a member of his own rare species.

He did not command himself to fire; one cannot. One trusts the brain, which makes the computations; one trusts the nerves, which fire the processed information down their networks and circuits; one trusts that little patch of fingertip that alone on the still body must be responsive.

The rifle fired.

Time in flight: one full second. But the bullet would arrive far before the sound of it did.

The scope stirred, the rifle cycled lazily, called another cartridge into its chamber and settled back, all before, ever so lazily, the green man went down.

He knew the second would come fast and that to hit him he had to do the nearly unthinkable. Fire before he saw him. Fire on the sure knowledge that his love would propel him after his partner, just hit, the knowledge that the bullet must be on its way before the man himself had even decided what he must do.

But Solaratov knew his man.

He fired just a split second before the second man jumped into view, arms extended in urgent despair, and as the man climbed, the bullet traveled its long parabola, rode its arc, rising and falling as the man himself was squirming desperately over the berm, and when it fell, it met him exactly as he landed on the ground and lurched toward his partner and it took him down.

The black dogs were everywhere. They yipped at him at night, preventing him from sleeping; they haunted his dreams with their infernal racket; they made him wake early, crabby, bitter, spent.