Shreck paused, swallowed. This was the one he didn’t like. He knew he sailed into dangerous waters here.
“Go on, go on,” said Hugh, impatiently.
“My people never saw him,” said Shreck. “We have no idea who he is or what he did. We only know that he can shoot better than any man on this earth. And we know he isn’t mobile, because he had to work from Bob’s report and couldn’t handle it himself. And we had the sense that he was once famous, in a way, or at least public. So there has to be history there. And we examined his rifle. We know that it was used to win championships.”
Hugh’s eyes flashed over at Shreck.
“Among other things it was used for,” he said. “The security was important, indeed crucial. There are things you don’t need to know. I told you I would handle that part of it. That it didn’t involve you or your people. Didn’t I? Now what on earth can this be about, Colonel?”
“Our plan needs bait. This Swagger is a difficult antagonist, but he has weaknesses. He had a weakness for a Soviet sniper he thought shot and killed his best friend. My staff psychiatrist, Dobbler, put that together; and it worked, Mr. Meachum. It got us Swagger on a platter. But we couldn’t keep him there.”
“Obviously.”
“Now Dobbler thinks that Swagger will have somehow sensed the other shooter. And will find him as provocative as he found the Russian. I want to put him before Swagger. It needn’t be complicated, but it must be authentic. I want a sense of him, I want his cooperation.”
“As bait?”
“Yes. Well, not physically. But we’ll need name, history, background, accomplishments, that sort of – ”
“Well, for your information, he and I go way back. We went to school together, in fact. His life has been…remarkable. Colonel, his identity is the one secret I hold most precious.”
“If we don’t get Swagger, he’ll blow us away, Mr. Meachum.”
Hugh considered.
“I’ll have to ask him,” he said. “I couldn’t think of doing it without his agreement.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They pulled up outside the house. It was a quiet twilight in Syracuse, New York. Nick wore a suit, a white shirt, a tie, all recently purchased from Bob’s cache of nearly thirty thousand dollars that he wore in a moneybelt. Bob had bought a suit and tie, too – he looked almost civilized.
Nick turned and faced the house, and took a swallow.
“Oh, my,” Nick suddenly said. “We are finally here.”
This was the hardest thing, and it had placed a large ball of ice in his stomach.
Bob just chewed on a toothpick, looked ahead through the windshield of the rented Buick.
“Got to do it, Memphis.”
Nick exhaled four or six lungsful of air, just kept blowing the stuff off as the melancholy crept through him.
“I cross this line, I may never get back.”
“You don’t cross this line, they may kill you on the wrong side of it.”
“Doesn’t help much,” said Nick. “Not the way I was raised.”
The line was the felony line. It had haunted him since Bob had laid the plan before him; but it was the only way.
“This is it?”
“Yeah, ’fraid so. No other way to get what we want and get it fast. Look at it this way. These bad boys from this RamDyne outfit probably going to blow you out of your socks in a day or two anyway, what difference does it make then?”
Bob smiled at him again.
“Okay,” said Nick. He knew that so far in his adventures he’d done nothing illegal, though he’d stretched the elasticity of the law considerably. This was different. He was about to represent himself as a Federal agent, when he no longer was one. It violated Federal Code 28-02.4, and it carried three to five, though if he ever went over on it, he knew he’d be out in six months maximum, unless somebody was really mad at him. But he also knew he’d never work his side of the street again.
“Okay,” said Nick again. “Let’s do it. And to hell with Howdy Duty.”
“This is your duty,” said Bob.
They knocked on the door and a little girl answered. Nick took out his identification.
“Hi,” he said. “My name is Nicholas Memphis and I’m a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. May I see your daddy, please, honey?”
She ducked in and in a few seconds a grave, thin man in a cardigan appeared.
“Yes?” he asked, running a hand through his hair.
“Mr. Porter, I’m Nicholas Memphis, special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My associate, Special Agent Fencl.”
“Sir,” nodded Bob.
“Have I – ”
“No, no, sir,” said Nick fast. “But if our information is correct, it’s from this address that you edit and collate and send out Accuracy Shooting, the newsletter of benchrest shooting?”
Porter swallowed.
“Uh, yes, that’s correct. I’m an insurance executive but I’ve been benchresting fifteen years. I inherited the editorship ten years ago. A labor of love, really. I lose time and money on it. But I’ve gotten some good friends out of it and had lots of fun.”
“Yes, sir. We understand.”
“Mr. Porter,” said Bob, “we’re looking for a man who may be involved in several shootings.”
“Oh, God – ” said Porter.
“And our information suggests that he was at one time one of the leading benchresters in the country.”
“Oh, no,” said Porter. “Benchresters aren’t like that. We’re not talking about, you know, survivalists, AK-47’s, that sort of thing. These are just tinkerers who love to play with their completely useless rifles and loads and shoot tiny groups. Gosh, they just sit there and shoot and cuss, that’s all. It’s the most boring thing you ever saw. It’s enormously challenging to do, but to watch it it’s – ”
“Our information is pretty good, Mr. Porter. You know, there’s always one or two in any group who can give it a bad name.”
“God, it’s so harmless,” Porter said. “I’d hate to have the damn newspapers to get ahold of something like this and say, you know, that benchresting was training for sniping or some such – ”
“Mr. Porter, the last thing we’d ever do is talk to the press, you can be sure of that. What we’d like to do is examine your subscription list. This is an older man, he was active in benchrest shooting back in the late fifties, and we believe that if he’s a subscriber, he’d almost certainly have been one for a long time. As we understand it, the publication began as a shooting club newsletter right back in the early sixties?”
“That’s right. You’re looking for a name?”
“No, sir, almost certainly he’s living under a pseudonym. But we have several other characteristics, and if we get a set of names from you, we can compare them to other lists and look for correspondences. We can assure you your information will be held in strictest confidence.”
“And I suppose if I said no, you’d get a subpoena.”
“Mr. Porter,” said Nick, “this is a friendly visit, not a hostile one. If you’d like to call a family lawyer and have him come over and advise you, that would be fine. We can wait.”
“No, no,” said Porter. “No, come on in. Would you guys like some coffee?”
“Thank you, no, sir,” said Nick.
Porter led them through pleasant rooms until at last they reached his study, where an IBM PC and an Epson printer stood on the desk. The room was heavily lined with shelves, and Nick recognized many standard texts of ballistics, many reloading manuals, but also Crime and Punishment, Portnoy’s Complaint and The Great War and Modern Memory, all books he’d planned on reading sometime. On one wall hung a series of the typescript covers of Accuracy Shooting.
“I went to the computer two years ago,” Porter said. “It was getting to be too damn much with the paste-up. I can do each issue in one operation now. And I’ve got loads of volunteer help. And my wife helps with the typing. It’s great fun, we’ve loved every second of it.”