Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

“What is it?” asked Benteen.

“Seven-millimeter Remington Mag.”

“Is that a good bullet?”

“Yes, sir, it is. Very flat shooting, very powerful. They use them mainly in hunting over long distances. Rams, ’lopes, elk, the like. Lot of ’em in these parts.”

“A hunter’s round, then. Not a professional sniper’s round.”

“It is a hunter’s round: I’ve heard the Secret Service snipers use it, but nobody else.”

He stood, looked back across the gap. Bipod marks, circular, where the bipod sat in the dust, supporting the rifle. Two 7mm Remington Mag shells. Range less than two hundred meters, a good, easy shot. Nearly anyone could have made it with a reasonable outfit. Now what was bothering him?

He didn’t know.

But there was some oddness here, too subtle for his conscious mind to track. Maybe his unconscious brain, the smarter part of him, would figure it out.

He shook his head, to himself, mainly.

What is wrong with this picture?

“I wonder why there’s only two shells,” said Benteen, “if he fired four times. That would be two missing.”

“Only one,” said Bob. “He may not have ejected the last shell. As for the third shell, maybe it caught on his clothes or something, or he kicked it when he got up. Or it was right by him and he picked it up. That’s not surprising. The shells are light; they get moved about easily. You can never find all your shells. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that.”

Was that it?

“Good point,” said the elderly officer.

But then the radio crackled again. Old Benteen picked it off his belt, listened to the stew of syllables, then turned to Bob.

“They found your wife.”

She would live. She lay encased in bandages. The broken ribs, five of them, were difficult; time alone would heal them. The shattered collarbone, where a bullet had driven through, missing arteries and blood-bearing organs by bare millimeters, would heal with more difficulty, and orthopedic surgery lay ahead. The abraded skin from her long roll down the mountainside, the dislocated hip, the contusions, bruises, muscle aches and pains, all would heal eventually.

So now she lay heavily sedated and immobile in the intensive care unit of the Boise General Hospital, linked to an EKG whose solid beeping testified to the sturdiness of her heart despite all the fractures and the pain. Her daughter sat on her bed, flowers filled the room, two Boise cops guarded the door, the doctor’s prognostication was optimistic and her husband was there for her.

“What happened?” she finally said.

“Do you remember?”

“Not much. The police have talked to me. Poor Mr. Fellows.”

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am very sorry about that.”

“Who did this?”

“The police seem to think it was some random psycho in the hills. Maybe a militia boy, full of foolish ideas, or someone who just couldn’t handle the temptation of the rifle.”

“Have they caught anybody?”

“No. And there were no distinguishable prints on a cheap thermos they recovered. They really don’t have much. A couple of shells, some scuffs in the dust.”

She looked off. Nikki was coloring steadily, a big Disney book. The scent of flowers and disinfectant filled the room.

“I hate seeing you here,” Bob said. “You don’t belong here.”

“But I am here,” she said.

“I’ve asked Sally Memphis to come up and stay with you. She’s a couple of months pregnant but she was eager to help. I called Dade Fellows’s daughter, and she said her father has a ranching property over in Custer County, remote and safe in a valley. When you get better, I want Sally to move you up there. I want you and Nikki protected.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nikki, honey, why don’t you go get a Coke?”

“Daddy, I don’t want a Coke. I just had a Coke.”

“Well, sweetie, why don’t you get another Coke. Or get Daddy a Coke, all right?”

Nikki knew when she was being kicked out. She got up reluctantly, kissed her mother and left the room.

“I haven’t told the cops,” he said, “because they wouldn’t get it and they couldn’t do anything about it. But I don’t think this is a wandering Johnny with a rifle. I think we got us a big-time serious professional killer and I think I’m the boy he’s after.”

“Why on earth?”

“There could be many reasons. As you know, I have been in some scrapes. I don’t know which of ’em would produce this. But what that means is until I get this figured out, I believe you are in more danger around me than less. And I need freedom. I need to get about, to look at things, to get some items sorted out. This guy’s got a game going on me; but now I have the advantage because for a few days more he won’t know he missed me. I have to operate fast and learn what I can in the opening.”

“Bob, you should talk to the FBI if you don’t think these Idaho people are sophisticated enough.”

“I don’t have anything they’d recognize yet. I have to develop some evidence. I’d just get myself locked in the loony bin.”

“Oh, Lord,” she said. “This is going to be one of your things , isn’t it?”

There was a long moment of quiet. He let the anger in him rise, then top off, then fall; then he began to hurt a little.

“What do you mean, ‘things’?”

“Oh, you have these crusades. You go off and you get involved in some ruckus. You don’t talk about it but you come back spent and happy. You get to be alive again and do what you do the best. You get to be a sniper again. The war never ended for you. You never wanted it to end. You loved it too deeply. You loved it more than you ever loved any of us, I see that now.”

“Julie, honey, you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re on painkillers. I want you to be comfortable. I’m just going to look into some things for a while.”

She shook her head sadly.

“I can’t have it. Now it’s come to my daughter. The war. It killed my first husband and now it’s come into my life and you want to go off and fight it all over again, and my daughter, who is eight, had to see a man die. Do you have any idea how traumatizing that is? No child should have to see that. Ever.”

“I agree, but what we have is what we have and it has to be dealt with. It can’t be ignored. It won’t go away.”

He could see that she was crying.

“Get some help,” she finally said. “Call Nick; he’s with the FBI. Call some Marine general; he’ll have connections. Call one of those writers who’s always wanting to do a book with you. Get some help. Take some money from my family’s account and hire some private guards. Don’t be Bob the Nailer anymore. Be Bob the husband and Bob the father, Bob the man at home. I can’t stand that this is in our life again. I thought it was over, but it’s never over.”

“Sweetie, I didn’t invent this. It’s not something I thought up. Please, you’re upset, you had a terrible experience, you’re in what we call post-traumatic stress syndrome, where it keeps flashing before your eyes and you’re angry all the time. I’ve been there. Time is going to heal you up, your mind as well as your body.”

She said nothing. She looked at Bob, but wasn’t seeing him any longer.

“But I have to deal with this. Okay? Just let me deal with this.”

“Oh, Bob—”

She started to cry again.

“I can’t lose you, too. I can’t lose both you and Donny to the same war. I can’t. I can’t bear it.”

“I just have to look into this. I’ll be careful. I know this stuff; I can work a lot faster alone and you’ll be safer without me there at all. Okay?”