Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

THE SPIRIT OF RESISTANCE, said the cover.

“He’s their Lancelot,” said Weber. “Was beaten up in Selma by the Alabama State Police, got his picture on the cover of Time in sixty-eight at the convention. He’s been everywhere in the Movement since then. One of the early peace freaks, a rich kid from an old Maryland family. Just came back from a year in England, studying drawing at Oxford. Harvard grad, some kind of painter, isn’t that it?”

“Avian painter, sir. That’s what he told me.”

“Yes. Birds. Loves birds. Very odd,” said Bonson.

“Very smart boy,” continued Weber. “But then, that seems to be the profile. It was the profile in England, too. The smart ones, they can figure everything out, see through everything. They’ll be the elite after the revolution. Anyhow, he’s big in the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, a kind of glamorous roving ambassador and organizer. Lives here in DC, but works the campus circuit, goes where the action is. The FBI’s been monitoring him for years. He’d be exactly the kind of man who’d get to Crowe and turn him into a spy. He’d be perfect . He’s exactly who we’re looking for.”

“Fenn, I can’t emphasize this enough. You’ve got less than two weeks until the big raft of May Day demonstrations is set. Crowe will be pressed to uncover deployment intelligence, Carter will be on him for results. You’ve got to monitor them very carefully. If you can’t get tape or photos, you may have to testify in open court against them.”

Donny felt a cold stone drop in his stomach: he saw an image, himself on the stand, putting the collar on poor Crowe. It made him sick.

“I know you’ll make a fine witness,” Bonson was saying. “So begin to discipline your mind: remember details, events, chronologies. You might write a coded journal so you can recall things. Remember exact sentences. Get in the habit of making a time check every few minutes. If you don’t want to take notes, imagine taking notes, because that can fix things in your mind. This is very important work, do you understand?”

“Ah—”

“Doubts? Do I see doubts? You cannot doubt.” Bonson leaned forward until he and he alone filled the world. “Just as you could have no doubters in a rifle platoon, you can have no doubters on a counter intelligence mission. You have to be on the team, committed to the team. The doubts erode your discipline, cloud your judgment, destroy your memory, Fenn. No doubts. That’s the kind of rigor I need from you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Donny, hating himself as the world’s entire melancholy weight settled on his strong young shoulders.

Crowe was particularly derelict that afternoon in riot control drill.

“It’s so hot, Donny. The mask! Can’t we pretend we’re wearing our masks?”

“Crowe, if you have to do it for real, you’ll want to be wearing a mask because otherwise the CS will make you a crybaby in a second. Put the mask on with the other guys.”

Muttering darkly, Crowe slid the mask over his head, then clapped his two-pound camouflaged steel pot over his skull.

“Squad, on my command, form up!” shouted Donny, watching as his casket team, plus assorted others from Bravo Company assigned riot duty in Third Squad, formed a line. They looked like an insect army: their eyes hidden behind the plastic lenses of the masks, their faces made insectoid and ominous by the mandiblelike filter can, all in Marine green, with their 782 gear, their pistols, their M14s held at the high port.

“Squad, fix … bayonets!” and the rifle butts slammed into the ground, the blades were drawn from their scabbards and in a single clanking, machinelike click locked onto the weapon muzzles. Except one.

Crowe’s bayonet skittered away. He had dropped it.

“Crowe, you idiot, give me fifty of the finest!”

Crowe was silenced by his clammy mask, but his body posture radiated sullen anger. He fell from the formation.

“At ease,” said Donny.

The squad relaxed.

“One, Corporal, two, Corporal, three, Corporal,” Crowe narrated through the mask as he banged out the push-ups. Donny let him go to fifteen, then said, “All right, Crowe, back in line ASAP. Let’s try it again.”

Crowe shot him a bitter look as he regathered his gear and rejoined the line.

Donny took them through it again. It was an extremely hot day and the darkness of his mood was such that he worked the men hard, breaking them down into standard line formation, flank marching them into an arrowhead riot element, counting cadence to govern their approach to the imagined riot, wheeling them left and right, getting them to fix and unfix bayonets over and over again.

He worked them straight through a break as great wet patches discolored their utilities until finally the platoon sergeant came over and said, “All right, Corporal, you can give them a break.”

“Yes, Sergeant!” yelled Donny, and even the sergeant, a shit-together but fairly decent lifer named Ray Case, gave him a look.

“Fall out. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. If you don’t got ’em, borrow ’em. If you can’t borrow ’em, then get outta town because your buddies can’t stand you.”

Then, instead of mingling with the silently furious, sweating men, he himself walked over to the shade of the barracks and declared himself off-limits. Let ’em grouse.

But soon Crowe detached himself and came over, cheekily enough, secretly irritating Donny.

“Man, you really put me through it.”

“I put the squad through it, Crowe, not you. We may have to do this shit for real next weekend.”

“Oh, shit, none of those guys is going to march with bayonets into a bunch of kids with flowers in their hair where the girls are showing their tits. We’ll just hang here or go sit in some fucking building like the last time. What, you figure, the Treasury again?”

Donny let the question simmer in his mind a bit. Then he said, “Crowe, I don’t know. I just go where they tell me.”

“Donny, I got it straight from Trig. They’re not even coming into DC. The whole thing’s going to the Pentagon. Let the Army handle it. We won’t even leave the barracks.”

“If you say so.”

“I thought we were—”

“Crowe, I had fun last night. But out here, in the daylight, I’m still the corporal and squad leader, you’re still a PFC, so you still play by my rules. Don’t ever call me Donny in front of the men while we’re on drill, okay?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Anyhow, some of us were going to Trig’s tonight. I thought you might want to come. You got to admit, he’s an interesting guy.”

“He’s okay for a peacenik.”

“Trig’s not like that. He was beat up in Selma; he was a fucking hero in Chicago. Man, they say he went out twenty-five times and dragged kids in from the pigs. He saved lives.”

“I don’t know,” said Donny.

“It’ll be fun. You need to relax more, Corporal.”

Donny actually wished the invitation hadn’t come; it was his half plan, dimly formed, just to let his secret assignment peter out, go away in vagueness and missed opportunities. But here it was, big and hairy: a chance to do his job.

Trig, as it turned out, lived off upper Wisconsin, just above Georgetown, in a row house that was one in a tatty block of similar dwellings. The house was crowded; it could be no other way. The furniture was threadbare, almost ascetic. Still, the stench of grass almost levitated the house and made Donny’s nostrils flare when he entered. Everything was familiar but unfamiliar: lots of books, a wall full of shelved albums (classical and jazz, though; no Jimi H. or Bob D.). But also, no posters, no NVA flags, no commie posters. Instead: birds.