“You’d have to ask Payne, Colonel Shreck.”
“I did.”
“Bear in mind, sir,” said Hatcher, “that in the expanse of the chest, the heart is a fairly difficult target. It’s much smaller and to the right of where people think it is. I talked with him about anatomy, but in the dark, and the crisis of the second, he…”
Hatcher let the sentence end.
“You’re a doctor, Dr. Dobbler. What’s the medical prognosis?”
Dobbler cleared his throat. He’d researched this.
“Swagger could die of blood loss or infection. But it’s possible that the bullet just rushed through doing minor tissue damage and left him largely intact. If he was smart enough to stanch the bleeding right away – and clearly he was, having been wounded before – he’ll heal up and if he doesn’t get infected, he’ll be good as new in two weeks.”
Shreck looked as if he were going to laugh.
“Now,” said Hatcher, “let me just show you, by contrast, a later 9mm.”
“Of course,” said Shreck.
“This is a Federal 147-grain Hydra-Shok, with a post in the center of the cavity, to help expansion. I think you should see some dramatic results.”
Suddenly, Dobbler was nauseous. He didn’t want to watch the man shoot the animal and then talk about the weight of the bullet and the angle of the wound and the size of the temporary stretch cavity. It seemed obscene to him: it was killing, after all, not to any ends, not to purpose or point, but just to satisfy some arcane curiosity.
Dobbler looked away. Outside, through the barn door, he could see the rolling Virginia hills.
“Just a second,” said Shreck. “Dr. Dobbler, would you mind paying attention?”
Dobbler smiled and turned his face to watch. The bullet was fired. She kicked, an amazing burst of energy from so stolid an animal. Then her heavy head twitched once. Subtly, her lines changed as she shuddered, and her knees went as the bullet, a ragged nova of hot metal, ruptured her heart, and she surrendered. The great head slid forward and lay atilt, eyes blankly open. She was still in a dark and spreading pool of blood.
Dobbler smiled weakly, afraid he’d lose face in front of Shreck, but thought for just a second he was all right. Then he vomited all over his clothes.
But Shreck did not even notice. Instead he watched the animal die, then turned to Hatcher and said, “Now at least I know what to tell them.”
“Ahhh,” said Howdy Duty, regretfully. He looked up at Nick over half-specs, his face haggard with fatigue. He’d been working like the rest of them, eighteen on and six off, and was beginning to wear a bit thin. But he would be polite, Nick knew.
“Come on, sit down, Nick.”
Nick sat down. The gray light of the office turned Howdy Duty’s skin the color of old parchment; his eyes were lost behind the crescent specs. He had a slightly distracted air.
“Oh, Nick, what are we going to do with you?”
Nick didn’t know what to say. He’d always suspected that he didn’t prosper in the Bureau because he’d never been much at coming up with charming answers to rhetorical questions agents in charge tended to ask at awkward moments. So, as usual, Nick said nothing; he just parked his considerable bulk into the chair, breathing hard.
“Nick, tell me about the Charlie thing to begin with. The Secret Service is making all kinds of trouble. You know what an asshole that Mueller can be.”
“Well,” said Nick, swallowing as he began, “maybe I did screw up. But Jesus, Howard, there were over sixty names on the Charlie list, and they were way down in importance. The Secret Service guys themselves said that; they won’t admit it, but they made it seem like it was strictly business as usual. But I worked it real hard, Howard. What’s his name, Sloane, he told me himself I’d done a good job. I located most of them or accounted for them; I recommended three be moved up to Beta classification, and they didn’t like that one bit, because it meant they had to do more work.”
“But you did miss Bob Lee Swagger?”
“Not really. I picked him out, and made inquiries. I called Sheriff Tell in Polk County to find out if he’d had any recent troubles. He’d been sitting pretty, off by himself. They say the pattern with these guys is they begin to destabilize in the days before they make a hit. There was no sign of that. He didn’t fit any pattern and his sheriff vouched for him. Also, the only reason he was on the list was for that letter and the only reason the letter got him there was because it had four exclamation points. Four exclamation points! It seemed like a safe call to me. I can’t say I’d make it any different way now.”
“All right, Nick. I suppose you performed adequately. We can’t expect distinction twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Nick, I think I can save you from Secret Service, because they want some Bureau blood to let them off the hook. It was really their operation, and they got beaten.”
“They sure did.”
“But, I’ve talked to the director and we feel our position is strong. They could complain that we didn’t do a good job on the Charlies and we could complain that they were so poorly managed they couldn’t deal with the Charlies themselves. Mexican standoff, and I think they’ll back down. Now, Nick, I have to say, that arrest; it was badly bungled.”
“I know, Howard. I screwed up.”
“It looked so bad in the newspapers. And it looks bad inside the Bureau, too. We’re supposed to be able to handle situations like that.”
“I don’t know what to say, Howard. It was a desperate situation. Maybe I – I just don’t know, Howard.”
“Nick, you were in a desperate situation in 1986 in Tulsa and you mismanaged that, too.”
Nick was silent. Then, finally, he said, “Howard, I just want to be an FBI agent. That’s all I ever wanted.”
“Well, Nick…the director has left this call to me.”
Nick hated the fact that he was begging. But he tried to imagine a life without the one thing that mattered as much as his wife, which was the Bureau. He had to live a life without Myra now; but he couldn’t imagine one without the Bureau.
“Please don’t fire me, Howard. I know I haven’t been sharp lately. But I just lost my wife a few months ago…it just hasn’t been an easy time.”
“Nick, we need bodies on this thing. I’m going to suspend you without pay for a week, but it won’t go into effect for three months. Then I’m afraid it’ll have to.”
Nick nodded. It meant that within a month afterwards he’d be rotated back to the sticks and he’d never get out. It had taken him years to get to New Orleans. But it also meant, however provisionally, he’d be able to stay.
“I suppose I’ll be transferred then.”
“Nick, you know how it works. And I’m going to have to put a letter in your file. Like the other one.”
“Yes.”
“Nick, I don’t want to.”
“Okay, Howard.”
“I’m trying to cut you as much slack as I can.”
“Sure, I appreciate it,” Nick said.
Sure, I appreciate it! You prick, if you’d have kept your fucking trap shut six years ago, I’d have nailed that fuck right between the eyes and I’d be where you’re sitting and you’d be on your way back to Tulsa.
“You’re still in the Bureau, Nick.”
“I appreciate that, Howard.”
“But, Nick, no more mistakes. Do you understand. There can’t be another slipup.”
“There won’t be, Howard. I promise.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When Bob crawled from the water just before dawn on the day after the shooting, his head seethed with rage and flashing pictures and hallucinations. His body was numb as the log under which it had floated and slightly swollen and soft from the long immersion; he smelled of diesel oil from the barge scum that coated the surface of the river below New Orleans. He reckoned he’d drifted fifty or so miles; around him were scrub pines, an infinity of them, and boggy marshes, a maze of them, and dense, interlocking cypress trees. Small things scurried and then went silent; far off, a bird made a strange and mournful sound, a screech of pain; then it went silent too.