Easily, he slid off the cot, coming to rest on the floor. He was aware of the red light as if it were a red eye, a dragon’s eye, staring at him. But he pressed on, snaking his way across the dark floor to the door, where he slid upward, leaning against the hard metal, and found the key hole. He probed, a pick in the fingers of each hand. The job required delicacy, and after thirty-six hours of bound torture, he had none; his fingers felt like stone, when they weren’t atremble like the wings of a butterfly. The process seemed to devour time. It seemed hours, as he probed, felt the give of levers inside, the weight of tumblers, the dense cylinder that was the core of the lock, whose flanges had to be manipulated properly, while he held a spring down by pressing hard against it with strength he no longer had. Hours passed, then days and nights, then months. Somehow the years changed, and decades later, the door at last yielded, not with a click but with a whisper. He eased it open, stepped into the well-lit hallway, blinked for focus and clarity, looked each way for a weapon, saw none. He did exactly what he’d done earlier when he’d first entered the house, but he did it more artfully this time, using the sniper’s gift for silent movement, the sniper’s patience for goals reached surely but without rushing, and he came at last to the steps and then to the doorway atop the steps, and he slid through, hearing heavy snoring. His trip took him through the kitchen; he quietly pulled a drawer, then another, and finally a third until he located a butcher’s crude blade with enough point and length to reach blood-bearing organs in a single cut.
He eased around a corner into the security office and there saw on a screen his own empty cot and the door of his own cell half ajar. Alas, no one was awake to notice, for Ginger, the smartest of the Irishmen, lay sound asleep in a chair, his feet up on a desk under the TV monitor. No time for deliberation now, as Swagger’s trembly, weakened muscles were pumped by the pressure of adrenaline foaming into his bloodstream, and in three swift steps he was upon Ginger, had the man’s neck wrapped in the crook of his elbow, securing it, and with the other hand, drove the knife point into the delicate skin of the neck just tenths of an inch from the river of red blood known as the carotid.
“Wake up, you Irish fuck,” he said sharply, jerking on the neck as if to break it, for that was another of his options, given the leverage he had attained.
“Ggggg—kkk,” was all his crushed passages allowed Ginger to mutter.
“You listen to me, I’d just as soon cut you open”—he put pressure so that the tip of the butcher’s tool sank another tenth of an inch or so into skin entirely too fragile to offer it anything of an impediment—“and watch you bleed dry on the floor, but what’s going to happen is I’m going to roll you to the vault just like this and you’re going to open it. And if you pretend you don’t know the combination, I’m cutting your carotid clean through and you die vomiting blood and shitting and pissing, while I go upstairs and get myself another Irish artery to split. I will kill all night if I have to. I’m only letting you live because I want some dough, and you’re the messenger.”
The softness of surrender flashed through Ginger’s big body, and Bob rolled him on the strength of his shoulders, and in a few seconds they’d arrived at the heavy door. This time it was locked, but Ginger got his hands to the dial, a silver disk the size of a destroyer day-room clock, and spun and clicked the knob back and forth half a dozen times, and a vibration announced that he’d opened it, and then the door, of its own volition, unlinked and opened an inch.
Bob rode Ginger to his feet, not wanting to give the bigger, younger, stronger man any space to acquire leverage; Bob could not afford a fight now, even if he won it. When Ginger was upright, Swagger said, “Open it,” and the door flew wide, and Bob pushed Ginger in. He saw stacks of rifles, bins of ammo, and just where it had been, the film, safe in its cardboard package on the shelf.
“Knees,” said Bob, and Ginger went down.
Kill him, Bob thought. One fewer of the bastards. Murder his ass and send the message that this is to the death.
But cutting a half-strangled thug’s throat was not a thing he could do; instead, he released the clamp on the neck, quickly seized a rifle—it was a Remington 700—inserted the butt into the cleft between skull and shoulder against the neck, and forced Ginger facedown.
“Tell Anto I’m too old to give a fuck about honor. I want dough and lots of it. I’m sick of being poor and noble. But I want to be in control, not him. I want to get paid for my trouble. I want to get paid for that war in something other than nightmares. This is my chance and I won’t let him fuck me like everyone else. I’ll contact him tomorrow and we’ll rig an exchange somehow in the wilderness. And I want dough up front so they best get on the phone to Constable and get a big pile of cash here. You can remember that? Oh, and I hope you don’t suffocate.”
With that he withdrew the buttstock a few inches, then drove it hard into the back of Ginger’s skull, knocking the fellow either out or, more likely, into a grogginess so intense and a pain so heavy he could do nothing for minutes.
Swagger wished he had time to disable the rifles or at least twist all the knobs to hell and gone, but he didn’t. Instead, he snatched the film, slid out, and locked the heavy door behind him. Whether Ginger lived or died did not at this point seem an issue to ponder.
He went quickly to the shelf, plucked off a radio unit next to the blinking receiver by which the professional security people stayed in contact. He looked around until he saw a heavy ring of keys. Then he slipped out the door.
Piles of stars filled the western sky. A wind pushed cold air across the plains, fresh out of the mountains close by, whose darker bulk obliterated the low starlight. Vegetation, moved by that cascade of air from above, filled the sky with the sound of its own rustling. Far off, a coyote howled, and his mate responded.
Swagger sucked the cold air, glad of its plentitude, hoping for energy. Then his adrenaline took over.
He set out on a course to the vehicle compound next to the barn, stopped to retrieve a knapsack he had wedged into a culvert on the way down. He opened it, removed an ice pick.
At the compound, it took a second to find the right key, and then he unlocked the padlock and lifted the gate back. He walked past each vehicle—five four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, two jeeps, a pickup truck, and a Cherokee—and thrust the penetrating needle of the ice pick into each tire. It sank without difficulty into the tires, and it produced in him a reverie of vengeance as he fantasized it was going into the thoracic cavities of his captors. In a very few seconds had disabled all the vehicles save one of the ATVs.
He knelt, used the grip of the tool to shatter the plastic housing of the ignition, found the wires tangled beneath, did some pulling and jiggling before he freed the leads up, then sparked the vehicle to life. Maybe it was loud enough to awaken the sleeping Irishmen, maybe not. It didn’t matter by now.
Throwing the ice pick in the knapsack, he threw the whole thing on his back and his leg over the saddle of the ATV, a thing built by Honda called a Foreman. It was essentially a broader, slower, but more agile four-wheel motorcycle, its broad base giving it stability, designed to negotiate the back country, the vehicle that made hunting fields accessible to lazy, out-of-shape suburbanites. He kicked it into gear and twisted the throttle at the handlebar’s end and peeled out of the compound, turned, and headed out into the wilderness. No noise arose behind him, and he roared onward in the dark, his pains forgotten, his angers quelled, his righteousness unstoked. He was only thinking one thing: time to get my rifle.
45
At five, Raymond’s alarm woke him and told him it was time to relieve Ginger. He rose, dressed, brushed his teeth, ran a wet comb through his hair, smiled at his cheeky beauty in the mirror, and thought of the many gals he’d had and the many more, with all that swag, that awaited. Then down he went, whistling and calling, “Is the coffee hot still, Ginger, or must I make it meself?” and first discovered that Ginger was missing, then saw the empty cell and open door on the secur
ity monitor, turned quick to check the vault, saw it locked, then heard the pounding from inside.
Things happened in a blur after that. Raymond pulled Anto and the others from sleep. They got the vault open in time to save the gasping Ginger’s life, though the man was cross-eyed with a skull as bloody as if the red Indians had taken his hair from the pounding the sniper had administered.
The team made quick checks, discovered the useless vehicles, the stolen radio set, got Swagger’s message as relayed by the slow-of-wit Ginger, and realized they’d just inherited a new game.
“Do you see?” said Anto, the first to figure it out. “This was the bastard’s plan from the start. Remember how daft I thought it, him coming in all clumsy and stupid, him giving up without much fight, him just a sponge in our hands? Give it to the bold bastard, his plan was canny—to let us work him hard, him believing it was in him to last us out, and last us out he did. Then, knowing where the film was, he became himself again and ceased with the stupid and the slow. He got out, took down poor, unsuspecting Ginger, and now he’s the one with the cards.”
“The bloody magician,” said Raymond, a little awestruck, “but a hard man he’d be to know what was coming and ride it through.”
“Hard he is,” said Anto, “hard and smart, but he’ll be dead, I swear. It’s Twenty-two he’s fighting here, not some ragtop A-rab boy petters.”
“What now, Anto? Do we track him? I’m thinking them tire tracks would make the job easy.”
“We do not. He has a rifle cached, I’m sure of it. We track him, he puts us down one at a time, from way out. I’ll not have that.”
“Then what is left for us to do?”
“Well,” said Anto, “what we must do is figure where he’ll set up and be ahead of his thinking, not behind it.”
“Anto, yis cannot read minds. That’s a hell of a spread out there in all directions. He could be anywhere. Guess wrong and you’re the dead one.”
“Yeah, Anto, Ginger’s got a point. The smart move, I’m thinking—”
“Jimmy, don’t wrinkle your brow with thinking now. It ain’t becoming. And no, I don’t read minds, and yes, it’s a hell of a big spread and he could be anywhere. But think of him, think of us. Snipers all. He fears us; what’s he want? Where does he seek safety? How would he feel at his most comfortable? And who would know of such a place?”
“Anto, I—”
“That fellow who manages the ranch operation for his lordship. He must know the land like his wife’s wrinkly arse. Get him by phone, please, Jimmy. He’ll have an answer.”
Jimmy searched the database—the task normally would have fallen to the brighter Ginger, but Ginger’s head was a little messy—and in time, the phone was handed to Anto.
“Mr. McSorley, it’s Anto, of Mr. Constable’s security team, sir, and I do apologize for the early nature of the call.”
Anto listened to the old grump pretend to be undisturbed, fight for time to clear the grogginess, remind Anto that he, Anto, had told him to clear the property of working men for a few days, and then settled in to listen.
“Sir, I’ve heard from Mr. Constable this very morning and he’s asked me to set up a security exercise to keep the boys sharp and for him to watch when he returns. Thus I wonder if I might explore the knowledge ye’d be havin’, livin’ here your whole life, and help us find a chunk of land out there suitable. Yes, thanks, Mr. McSorley, what I need is distance, space, a long way for the eye to see and no place to hide in nature. Not glades and trees and rocks and foothills but an open valley, short grass, and it would be helpful if it weren’t too far out, because transpo’s an issue as well. Oh, I see. Yes, that’s right. ‘The Goggles,’ you say. Perfect, you say. I’d have looked at the map a hundred years and not have known, but you’ve got me right to it, and I’m thanking you kindly, sir, and will tell Mr. Constable of your cooperation. Good day to you, sir.”
He hung up.
“What would ‘the Goggles’ be, Anto?”
“Look to the map, boys.”
The geodesic survey chart was quickly pulled from a drawer and unrolled.
“He says there’s a couple of broad valleys about, twenty
mile out, the first one, the second another four mile along. He guessed a compass radial from security HQ to be around two-fifty, not quite true west, but a little shaded to the south, over rough
territory, foothills and the like. He thinks they was formed by comets striking the earth a million years ago. A double tap, you might put it.”
“There, Anto,” said Raymond, pointing out the irregularity on the map, “and can you not see why they’re called the Goggles?”
Indeed, the broadness, the circularity, and the separation of the elevation lines to convey gentleness of slope appeared to the naked eye like two broad, clear lenses against the density of marking that expressed rougher ground. Squint and you were looking into the eyes of an aviator from the open-cockpit days.
“He’ll be able to see a long way coming,” said Ginger, as if his head had cleared, “and having set up, and alone knowing the site and having a chance to examine it with his fine eye, he’d have no fear of hidden shooters.”
“Moreover,” said Raymond, “the land right on the approach is rugged, craggy, with lots of dips and arroyos and valleys, then it crests up, you cross over, and there’s a big emptiness. He’ll bounce you through them valleys on the approach.”
“He will indeed,” said Anto. “Then this is where it’ll play out. He’ll call late afternoon. He’s got to sleep the day away; he’s not slept in three and he’s had that bout with the water, which would break all other men. So this I’ll tell you: he’s in a fog now. He’ll know that and not want to make mistakes. He’s found a fine bog and and he’ll sleep like a bear. Then he’ll call, and the game begins.”
“And we arrive at the crest once he’s exposed himself, you’re thinking, Anto,” said Raymond.
“Then with iSniper we write The End to this story,” added
Ginger.
“No, fellows, too many slips could occur. This is how it must happen. This is the fulcrum, the key. It’s that you’re already there. You moved in at night—tonight, that is—you set up a hide so good it can’t be spotted, because when he gets to the place after the long game he’s run, he’ll pass his shrewd eyes over it. That’s where your snipercraft must be as I taught you, and I won’t be there to check and improve. It’s on Team Irish, not on Anto. It must be perfect, and your patience and your stalker’s stillness and your shooting ability with iSniper911 and Mr. 168-grain Black Hills must be at the top of the heap, because you’ll only get one chance. You put the beam on him, let the magic bean do its trick and solve your jumble of numbers and designate your point of aim, and then you hold, control breathing, press to surprise, break, and put the man down.”
“Anto, suppose we search the body and the MacGuffin ain’t upon him? Should we then shoot for hip, smash it up, and leave him still breathing for further interview?”
“You will not. Shoot him dead. I don’t want him wounded, I want him belly up, the Sniper nailed. He’ll have it on him, as it’s fragile and can’t be left in nature, and if he’s hit or takes a fall, or the play blows him this way or that across the land, that makes picking it up afterward a consideration he’d rather not face. He’ll have it upon him, that I know.”
“I’d like the shot, Anto,” said Ginger, “if it can be arranged. It was my head he thumped, enjoying the blow, and it was my lungs that would’ve come up empty if Raymond hadn’t needed his cup of coffee, so with me, it’s taken on the personal.”
“You’ll understand, then, Ginger, why I’m placing you low, with a carbine, for close-in if it must be, because I don’t want you brooding in your hide and getting anxious and bumbling on the delicacy of the trigger. I’ll let Raymond take the shot from above, with Jimmy spotting, and you’re my security, down close. I’m putting you in a ghillie where I think he’ll make the play and you’ll be closest to him.
If Raymond misses, you’ll have but a second to dump a magazine into him, or it’s poor Anto among the angels, what a mighty tragedy that would be. So Raymond, the shot you’ll take will be through the moving stuff, and that’s why it’s yours, because you are the best wind reader and through shooter on the team, as I know the fellows would agree.”
“It’s true,” said Jimmy. “Raymond’s a genius in the breeze. Otherwise, the poor man’s the dullest blade in the drawer, but fluff up the weeds and set the leaves to rustle, and Raymond’s the man you want.”
Everybody laughed, even Raymond, who was known to be a sensitive type.
“Then, mates,” said Anto, “we’re done with this bloody job and this bloody country with its thin beer and bad poetry, and it’s off to castles in Spain where his lordship has set up our fine lives for us.”
46
Swagger awoke from dark sleep that felt drugged, shook his head to drive out memories too grotesque to be recorded, wished hard for a cup of coffee. He didn’t feel refreshed or enlivened a bit; he wanted to go back to unconsciousness and escape his reality: in a dirty-smelling nook in the rocks, heaped with the crap he’d brought along, faced with a mission he felt too old for. Have to get my combat mind back, he told himself: have to!
He crawled out of his sleeping bag, crawled up the incline to the mouth of the cave, and went to his Leicas for a good five-minute examination of landscape. It looked fine—a drift of low hills and sparse forestry, a glimpse of green-yellow valley floors, a haze of far-off peaks. At one point he thought he saw a line that seemed a little too straight for anything in nature, and he put down the binoculars to take up the rifle. Through the Leupold Mark IV’s 10X, he studied hard and realized it was a length of birch trunk 240 yards out.
He glanced at his watch, saw that it was nearly 5 p.m., meaning it was 8 p.m. in the East and he was already behind schedule.