“Huh?” said then-twenty-four-year-old First Lieutenant Preece, still an unformed boy whose celebrity as the author of “Night Sniper Operations: A Doctrinal Theory” in the Infantry Journal was beginning to fade.
When he thought about it later, Preece recognized what a load of bullshit the story Frenchy sold him had to be. But to a twenty-four-year-old infantry officer seething with anticommunist bacillus as inculcated by the political culture of the year 1955, who worshiped Joe McCarthy and had just—dammit!—missed Korea, it made a kind of sense. And part of it too was Frenchy, who had that weird psycho’s gift of utter conviction. Frenchy could sell Stalinism in the gulags. Frenchy had the odd chameleonlike ability of absorbing your personality, of becoming you, and so in effect entering your subconscious as he ground you down with furious and one-pointed eye contact, smothering, ass-kissing charm, and a bandit’s utter ruthlessness.
“We thought we’s years ahead of the Reds in IR,” Frenchy, who was originally from Pennsylvania, breathed in the assuring tonalities of Preece’s own South Georgia accent, “but goddamn, we’re gittin’ reports they got IR working on an experimental sniper rifle, combat-effective out to two hundred yards.”
“Shit,” the young man said.
“Now, you know they ain’t that good and I know they ain’t that good. How come they that good?”
“Spies,” said Preece.
“You got that right. Seems this old-boy state trooper got his ass in a little gambling trouble, so some old Red Army spymaster sniffs him out and makes his ass a proposition-he’s got to git inside B L or he’ll go down. So this old boy arrests a corporal on a fag charge and threatens to destroy his life. But the cop’ll let him go if he supplies certain documents. CID got the kid’s statement and the kid in the hoosegow. Now we got to send the Reds a message: this is what happens when you go against the U.S. Army. We don’t take no prisoners.”
If Preece believed it, it was because he wanted to believe it and because it was, of course, well known that Red Army intelligence had penetrated the entire establishment, lurked everywhere and was capable of anything. As Frenchy pointed out many times, “Them boys don’t even b’lieve in God and once you give up your spiritual heritage you’re capable of doing anything.”
So it was that four nights later he found himself in the deer stand, watching a drama play out before him. As he understood it, Frenchy had gone to some lengths to set up an arrest scenario where the real shooters were to take the cop down. The point was to disguise the murder as a duty-related killing, so that only the Russians would get the message. It had to be done. It was duty. But suppose the pros missed? That was Jack’s job.
He watched from the tree as the police cruiser pulled in, backed around, sited itself. Jack put the scope on the man, snicked on the IR unit and watched the dull scene spark to incandescence. The officer sat in his car; he looked sad, nervous. He took his hat off and rested patiently. At one point, he tested his searchlight. Jack had good elevation and saw clearly over the corn: but the corn was a problem because its leaves reflected too brightly in the iridescence. But still he knew: he could hit that shot easy.
In time another car pulled in. It sat across from the police car as the rogue officer put his beam on them. Two young men got out, one a James Dean clone, hair slicked back in a wavy pile, an insolent cigarette dangling from his lips, his jeans tight and sexy, and the other a doughy, sullen farm boy in a T-shirt. It was too far to hear distinct words, but the two youths had their hands up; the cop got out of the car. It appeared to be some kind of surrender thing. The cop was yelling instructions. The slicker boy threw something into the dust. Preece put the scope on it as it lay there and saw at once that it was a wrench, not a gun.
The heavy boy started across. Preece watched in grim horror. The night seemed to have stalled out. There was a terrible frozen moment and Preece at that instant utterly changed sides, his natural respect for the uniform and what it represented overriding the rational part of his brain.
He has a gun, he wanted to scream to the cop. He put the sight on the slick boy’s chest and almost fired. Almost. Took the slack out.
Shoot!
No.
He lowered the rifle and realized he was sobbing. He watched; in the next second, the slick boy pulled his gun. The flashes lit the night but the sound of the shots was flat and far away. Dust rose as men ran and dodged. Preece raised the rifle again and in the green of the scope saw the sullen farm boy flat on his back, a big dark stain spreading across the glowing greenish white of his T-shirt. Dust or gun smoke floated in the air still. The cop was down by his car, reloading. The other boy had disappeared into the corn. Stay put, Jack yelled in his head. Call for backup. He isn’t going anywhere.
But the cop finished his reload and rose. Jack could see that he too was hit and he moved with the slow pain of a man locked into his duty by forces too broad to be understood by other men.
Stay put, Jack commanded.
But the cop was too bull-stubborn or proud, too much of a goddamned rare-as-hen’s-teeth authentic American hero to stay put, and he sloughed along the edge of the dirt road, one arm dead, walking the slow walk of a man losing blood but not heart, some kind of fiend for duty. Jack lost him in the reflection of the corn. He put the carbine down and waited. The minutes dragged by. Jack heard yelling, voices again indistinct. Then the crackle and flash of shots from the corn.
It was silent. He waited. Near the car, a figure emerged from the cover of the corn. Jack watched, unable to identify him, until he at last recognized no single feature except the rhythm of the walk.
It was the cop, now so laden with melancholy he could hardly move. He made it to his car and sat sideways in the seat. He seemed to be fumbling with something. Then Jack saw him talking on the radio. He put the mike down. He waited and tried again. A third time he tried. He set it down. Then he stirred, as if popped by something. He seized it up, spoke animatedly. Then he put it down. He’d made contact.
The cop sat in the car.
Jack hoisted the rifle, flicked on the scope, and the beam of black light reached out to ensnare the policeman.
He put the crosshairs square on the center of the chest. The lawman was breathing heavily and seemed to be talking to himself.
Do it, Jack told himself.
He’s a Red, he told himself, though he no longer believed it.
Do it, he again told himself.
The rifle grew heavy. The crosshairs wavered, came off the chest, rode down the leg to the ground.
DO IT!
He raised them until they quadrasected the square broad chest. The trigger broke and through the silencer the rifle spoke with a cough but no flash. There was no recoil, or hardly any. Jack saw the rifle bullet strike, saw the body jack with shock, then topple sideways and catch against the steering wheel.
He turned off the scope.
Jack put the safety on and slung the rifle. It was only a short climb to the ground, even with the monstrously heavy battery pack. He turned and was halfway down the hill on the other side when he heard the first siren.
Voices.
Jack flashed back to the present.
He snicked the scope on.
They walked, talking animatedly, the tall man, the shorter boy. The optics were superb. They were big and clear as life, rushing down the forest path by the creek in the enfilade between the two low hills, now seventy yards distant, now sixty.