The sergeant retained the rifle. "Atkinson Company sends us the twenty-four-inch heavy stainless steel barrel as a blank, and our armorers cut a recessed crown, then pipe-thread it to fit the receiver. The barrel has a diameter of almost an inch and it's free-floated. The rifle is chambered for 7.62 match ammo."
"You got a moment, Arlen?" Gray asked. "I've got a couple questions for you."
Able might not have heard him. He continued, "Makes our Winchesters and Springfields and Remingtons from the old days look like Model A's."
"I'm in a bit of a hurry, Arlen." Gray tried to turn him toward the office door.
"Can I ask you a question, Mr. Gray?" Paley asked.
Owen Gray tried to mix both courtesy and dismissal into his smile and again tried to lead Sergeant Able away. Gray knew the questions these students would ask of him.
Paley said, "We heard that one time in Vietnam you were in a hide for four days and that you crapped your pants and sat in it rather than chance giving yourself away and losing your shot. That true?"
Gray shook his head. "That was before you were born, if it occurred at all."
"Christ yes, it occurred," Able said. "Our fire station was at Din Po, remember? I was there when you came in from the field. You smelled bad enough to gag a maggot, pants all soiled and everything." Able may have seen Gray's frown, so he halted the reminiscence. He said, "We take our schooling more seriously than when you and I trained, Owen. Today we are practicing in full camouflage, which we do once a week."
This time Bobby Sims tried. "Can I ask you something, Sergeant Gray?"
"I'm no longer in the service," Gray answered quickly. "Nobody calls me sergeant anymore. And asking me questions about your profession won't get you much because what little I knew I forgot."
The corporal had a beatific face even under his paint, with blue eyes under long lashes and a gentle smile. "But this is a philosophical question."
Sergeant Able scowled. "Sims, you want philosophy, go figure out why Goofy can talk and Pluto can't. That's all the goddamn philosophy I allow in this school."
Corporal Sims plunged ahead. "How do you know you'll pull the trigger that first time? Sergeant Able says the thing you notice most is the target's eyes. They jump out at you through the scope. So how do you know you'll do the deed?"
Abie's face registered utter astonishment. "What else you going to do to the enemy? Give him a Tootsie Roll? You'll pull the jack when the time comes, Sims. No buck fever. Don't worry your little head about it."
The gunnery sergeant looked at Gray, who was utterly still, not willing to confirm the principle by the slightest motion.
Able lectured, "And after your first kill you'll find it easier to shoot a human than a stray dog. Am I right, Owen?"
With some force Gray grabbed Sergeant Abie's elbow to lead him toward the office. They left the sniper students behind and stepped toward the headquarters building, a gray clapboard one-story portable unit indistinguishable from a thousand other Marine portables except for the thick bars over the windows. The only cosmetic touch to the structure was a wood planter near the doorstep that trailed ivy to the ground. A siren loudspeaker was attached to a corner of the building.
"You were always a kook about sniping, Arlen," Gray said in a pleasant voice.
"Sniping is my life," the sergeant replied defensively. "That and my church. I'm the choir director."
"You leading a choir? That's not an image that comes readily to mind."
"I'm catching up with you, Owen. Three kills in Beirut and six in Iraq. I'm up to forty-eight."
Gray avoided the invitation to discuss statistics. "I made a few calls. You've made an avocation of studying snipers."
"I wrote the Topps Company and suggested they issue sniper cards, like baseball cards. A natural, I told them. Big hit with the kids. I'd supply them with all the material. Biographies, photos, interesting tidbits. They sent back a nice thanks but they declined."
"I've got some trouble with one of our old friends," Gray said. "Or one of our old enemies. I can't figure out which or who."
The dead bolt on the door was unlocked. They stepped into the headquarters building. The front room was almost all government issue, with a metal desk, a swivel chair, lockers, a bench, and a dozen clipboards hung on a wall. An alarm control pad was on the wall near the door, and an infrared sweeper hung in a corner, its red light flickering.
"Paley's mother sent us that quilt," Able said. "I was touched."
The patchwork quilt hung on a wall and was made of red and white swatches with gold lettering that spelled out "Second place is a body bag."
Two dozen framed photographs were on one wall, most showing a Marine receiving a trophy. Gray recognized the Lauchheimer Trophy, first awarded in 1921, which bore the name of Brigadier General Charles H. Lauchheimer, who as a major in 1901 captained the first Corps team to enter a rifle competition. Another Marine was shown receiving the Elliot Trophy, a loving cup named after a commandant who brought the Marines their first rifle range, at Winthrop, Maryland. Gray recognized himself, shaking the hand of Camp Perry's commandant after winning the national title.
The room was the repository of Sergeant Abie's collection, the result of a thirty-year search for the odds and ends of a singular profession. Rifles, scopes, sniper logs, and other mementos. The weapons were mounted on the walls.
"Here's my latest acquisition." Able lifted a skull from the display case. The skull had a hole in both temples. "This is all that remains of Horace Wade, the seventy-three-year-old veteran of the Mexican War who joined the 7th Wisconsin Volunteers, and picked off twelve Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg before one of the rebels paid him back in kind. I traded four scalps for it. But I still got five scalps left." He pulled a string of hair knots from the case. Blackened flesh rinds hung from the tufts. "Our old friend Sam Short Bear sent me these. He was an Indian but a good Indian. Only shooter we ever knew who took scalps, remember? Sent me nine of them for my collection, so I had enough to trade for Horace Wade's skull."
"Arlen, I'm not talking to a lunatic, am I?"
Able lifted a rifle from the wall. "Here is my museum's pièce de résistance. A Winchester Model 70 under an Unertl scope. Recognize it?"
"Jesus, I hope not."
"It's your old smoke pole."
Gray took an uneasy step back, as if his old rifle were infectious. He breathed heavily, unable to remove his eyes from his old weapon. His mouth felt cottony, and he moved his tongue over his lips.
"Brings back memories, I'll bet," Able prompted.
Gray wiped his hand across his mouth. He was determined not to let this weapon regain an advantage over him. He knew this rifle more intimately than he had known his wife, knew every grain in the wood, every tiny pock on the barrel, every curve and hollow. In the past three or four years, as much as sixty minutes would elapse without this rifle rising from the dark pit of his memory. And here it was again, thrust up in front of him, heartless, mindless, and soulless. The torturous memory of this rifle was his constant and faithful companion, outlasting his military service, outlasting his marriage, living with him with unswerving and appalling fidelity.
But Owen Gray had built a sanity stick by stick, layer after layer over the years, and he could beat this weapon. He had learned to suppress the memory, will it away from him, if only for short times. He could do so now with the actual weapon. Surely. He would not allow the grisly Winchester to possess him again. With an effort that seemed to snap ligaments in his neck and shoulders, he turned away from the Winchester and focused on the gunnery sergeant.
"You know about snipers." Gray lowered himself to the bench. He found he could continue. "And you know the stuff the Marine Corps doesn't tell the public, like Sam Short Bear and his scalps."