Dead Zero

by Stephen Hunter

  “I hear you, I hear you,” said Nick. “All right, I’m going to pull out, pass the house, turn right on Dickens, and you run a check through these from that side. I’ll go slow.”

  “Don’t go slow,” said Bob. “He’ll notice if you go slow. He notices shit like that. He’s a sniper.”

  “You mentioned ‘radar for aggression.’ You’ve got it too, I know. Some buried ESP synapse left over from reptile days. All you tactical people have it. Maybe that’s why you become tactical people. But do you feel anything now? You seem jumpy and I’ve never seen you jumpy.”

  “I’m worried that this ain’t right. It’s a big gamble.”

  “It’s smaller than it seems,” Nick said. “If he’s here, ball game over, we win the Oscar, our class gets the Bible. If he’s not, so what? It’s not as if we’re overcommitting to this. I’m not taking resources that would otherwise be deployed as countersnipers tomorrow. The same number of guys will be on the street. What I’m doing, frankly, is a little management-level ass covering, that’s all. I have to work it hard so no one sitting on the fifth floor with four martinis in him says, ‘Oh, if only you’d done that.”

  Bob was quiet as Nick pulled out. The car glided down the street, took the right, and Bob got a good ambient-light view of the southern and the western, that is, the right side and the rear of 1216, seeing nothing out of the usual, no movement, nothing but a big old house dozing in the night, probably looking better because its shabbiness was veiled by the darkness.

  “Okay,” Nick said as the car pulled away, “now tell me why you’re really jumpy. What came up on the Swagger aggression radar?”

  “Ahh,” said Bob, “you FBI guys, you don’t miss a damned trick, do you?”

  “I’m Dick Tracy, didn’t you see my picture on the lunch box in the cabinet?”

  “Well, it ain’t nothing,” said Bob. “It’s just . . . something.”

  “Nothing, but something. Yeah, I get it. That’s perfectly clear.”

  “Don’t know what. Like a hair tickling me somewhere, like somewhere someone’s watching me. Maybe it’s because I’m so goddamned tired and a little over a week ago I got whacked in the head by a flying desk. I got nothing I can point at and say, now, yessiree, that’s it, that’s the thing. It’s just an oozy feeling I used to get in the bush when bad hombres moved in. I’d say it’s my imagination, except I don’t got no imagination.”

  “You need some rest.”

  FBI RAID TEAM

  SECURITY HEADQUARTERS TO 1216 CRENSHAW

  0530 HOURS

  He got some rest, three hours’ worth, on the SAIC’s couch. He was awake before they came for him, and stepped into general chaos. He followed the swell of personnel down the hall to the elevator, down that to the entrance to the parking lot where, as if lit for the movies and oh so SWAT-team dramatic, the raid was staging. Special agents buckled on body armor, then pulled raid jackets with FBI emblazoned in huge yellow letters across the back. Most wore jeans, athletic shoes or assault boots, carried their Glocks in cowboy-cool tactical rigs that held them to midthigh, below the extension of the body armor beneath the waist. Everyone had a radio and the air was alive with the crackle of static as call signs and nets were checked. Nick talked earnestly to Matthews, his raid commander, and when it seemed everybody was done being dramatic, Matthews turned, gave the whirlybird rotation with his fingers, meaning “Guns up,” and everybody piled into the six SUVs.

  Matthews led, followed by the five SUVs, and last came Bob and Nick in Nick’s sedan. No need for flashing lights at this time of morning, as Beltway traffic was nonexistent. To the east, over downtown, just the tiniest glaze of a pinkish blur colored the sky. The parade roared its one-exit hop, got off on Reisterstown Road, and turned inward toward the city. Now the red-blue dance of the flashing lights began, as the few motorists on Reisterstown yielded to the federal convoy as it blazed through the three stoplights, and into what comprised “center-city” Pikesville, and at the corner of Reisterstown and Crenshaw turned the hard right.

  Bob could hear the radio chatter between the feds and the on-scene county police locals.

  “Baker-Six-five, this is Twelve-Oscar, we are inbound.”

  “Roger, Twelve-Oscar.”

  “Be there in a minute or so.”

  “We are set to cover your perimeter, Twelve-Oscar. Area is cordoned off.”

  “Very good and appreciated, Baker-Six-five.”

  Dramatic spurts of color splashed against the trees and houses as the convoy, lights flashing, passed down the corridor of old big houses that was Crenshaw, and came at last to the corner house, 1216, where they halted, then turned spotlights inward to illuminate every turret and gable of the old place. Bob watched as the raid theater continued.

  The men piled out, no long guns among them, but hands resting comfortably on or near their holstered Glocks, and went to assigned doors and windows, making egress impossible. That took a minute, as the federal team was well trained.

  “One, in position.”

  “Two, I’m set.”

  “Three? Three, where are you?”

  “Sorry, Command, my radio switched off as I was pulling it from the holster. I am in position.”

  “Four, I’m ready too.”

  “Okay, let’s open her up.”

  With that, Matthews, carrying a radio unit but no sidearm and two other agents with drawn pistols but nothing exotic, walked swiftly up the front walk, and pounded.

  And pounded.

  And pounded.

  “Oh, shit,” said Nick. “I wonder what’s wrong.”

  Matthews tried the door. It opened to his turn of the knob.

  He disappeared inside and came out in a few minutes. He yelled something to the other men, who started to put away their pistols and file into the house. Then Matthews walked straight to Nick. His face was grave.

  “I don’t like the looks of this one fucking bit,” said Nick.

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  TWO BLOCKS FROM FBI HQ

  WOODLAWN

  1230 HOURS

  THE PREVIOUS DAY

  See,” explained Crackers the Clown, “I’m just not that into this. I’m an operator, a rock star, an action-Jackson guy. I blow shit up and kill people. I learned from the best.”

  “You learned from Soldier of Fortune magazine,” said Mick.

  “Mick, no, I wasn’t SEAL or DELTA but I was forces, just like you. And I did some shit for an outfit I can’t talk about.”

  “The Boy Scouts of America,” said Tony Z. “He got his merit badge in Advanced Paintball.”

  Laughter.

  “Hey, paintball’s tough. Tougher than Airsoft!”

  More laughter. The three of them sat in their by now rather-well-lived-in Explorer. Ahead, the only large building in this zone of cottage industry and light manufacturing, the one whose three floors comprised the Baltimore FBI office, loomed against the sky. As it was somewhat creamy in complexion, though undistinguished architecturally, it was easily visible and its burning lights made it all the simpler to mark.

  “I don’t like this shit either,” said Mick. “I don’t like sitting on my ass like some vice cop outside a Korean massage parlor, waiting for a politician to show up. Give me a nice torture interrogation or a shot at laser-designating a Sadr militia warehouse for the Mavericks, that’s my preference. I also really like that big gun and watching them toss when you knock them off at a mile.”

  “That’s so cool,” said Tony Z. “I like that part too.”

  “But we are stuck on this sucker until we make it go away,” said Crackers.

  “I think he has a morale crisis,” said Z. “I’d make an appointment with him for the chaplain.”

  “My morale improves with pussy. Any suggestions?”

  “We kill this guy, and go someplace with a lot of pussy.”

  “You have muscles, so you get chicks who give it out easy,” said Crackers.

  “Plus, you’re a psychopath, a great
advantage in fucking chicks. Me, I’m a rather nice guy and I always empathize with them. They like me. They don’t want to suck my cock, they want to tell me about their mothers. I have to go someplace special.”

  “By ‘special’ he means ‘whorehouse.’”

  “Can I help it if I’m not sexually competitive?” said Crackers. “I thought going forces would get me laid more, but so far it hasn’t panned out that way.”

  “I thought that’s why you got married.”

  “Funny, that hasn’t panned out sex-wise either.”

  They laughed.

  “Okay,” said Tony Z, his eyes drawn to the BlackBerry in his hands, “got movement.”

  Crackers made a doodley sound along the lines of the 7th Cavalry’s famous “charge” bugle call. All three men tried to shake off the dreariness that had turned them to putty over the last few hours.

  Mick, behind the wheel, started the SUV and nudged it out into the road. He did not turn on the lights.

  Up ahead, advanced by its own blazing headlights, a sedan exited the FBI parking lot and turned right, then left, toward the close-by beltway entrance.

  “He’s in that car,” said Tony. “I have him clear.”

  “Have they sent him out to get doughnuts, I wonder,” said Crackers.

  “Not likely,” said Mick.

  They had worked the following technique out well, having learned to keep Swagger in any car within a mile and a half, but not within a mile. Maybe a little closer during daylight, but now, late at night, Mick knew to keep his distance. Only when he verified that Swagger’s car had hit the beltway did he go to his own headlights and approach the giant roadway superstructure at a modest pace. He went up the ramp, merged into a very thin traffic stream, and progressed at just under fifty as the faster vehicles buzzed by on his left.

  “One exit,” said Z. “Well, two if you count 795 West, but one actual city exit. Reisterstown Road.”

  Mick followed the directions, not really seeing the ratty neighborhood into which the ramp to Reisterstown Road deposited him but rather locked hard into the hunt.

  “He’s turning right, third street past Old Court.”

  They counted too. Mick doused his lights before the turn so that a psychic voodoo sniper mojo motherfucker like Swagger wouldn’t pick up on the sudden disappearance of light behind him, found Crenshaw, and turned. He followed the roadway through big, softly quiet houses, and eased to the curb two blocks behind the car in which Bob and whoever had parked.

  “Now what the fuck is this?” Crackers asked.

  “Maybe it’s your whorehouse. Maybe the great Bob Lee Swagger has a bone on, and he’s come down here to Chinatown to get it off. Clarifies the thinking.”

  “I’ll take sloppy seconds, no problem,” said Crackers. He didn’t mean it as a joke.

  “Okay,” said Mick, “Crackers, on the night vision, you stay low, you move ahead, you find solid cover, I’m guessing between cars, you set up and you keep them in surveillance.”

  “Yo,” said Crackers, “action.”

  He slipped out.

  Mick watched the man, one of those scrawny, thin types with a lot of surprising strength in his narrow arms, slip down the road, low, under the cover of parked cars. A few minutes passed.

  “Okay,” came the call over the radio, “I got him in the car, they’re just eyeballing this big corner house.”

  “Can you get me an address?”

  “Ah, let’s see, let’s see, yeah, 1216, 1216 Crenshaw.”

  “What is it?”

  “Big dark house, that’s all.”

  “Great. Otherwise . . . ?”

  “They’re eyeballing, they’re talking, that’s all.”

  “Okay, hold tight.”

  Mick picked up the satellite phone, sent the call out.

  “This better be good, Bogier,” said a groggily irritated MacGyver.

  “Don’t know why, but Swagger and an FBI guy are now parked outside a house in a town called, ah, Pikesville. Address is 1216 Crenshaw. But there’s no team here, it’s not a raid or even a real recon. They’re just, you know, studying on it.”

  “Crenshaw, 1216. Okay, hang tight.”

  “This has just developed, I don’t know how long they’ll be here.”

  “I will get back as fast as the system allows,” said MacGyver, somewhat annoyed.

  Mick sat back, thinking.

  Has he found Cruz? Is Cruz in the house? Why would they be here? But if he’s here, why don’t they have a raid team? Why aren’t they pouring in?

  “Whoa, now they’re pulling out. Starting up, heading out.”

  “What do we do?” Tony asked.

  “Fuck if I know,” said Mick. His head ached. He hadn’t been to the gym in a week. Z and Crackers were driving him nuts. He could feel his body melting along with his mind. He wanted it over. This was the worst shit. He didn’t sign up for this cop shit. He was Special Forces, cross-trained in sniper and demolitions, plus he knew a good bit about radio. He had worked all over the world and here he was sitting in—

  “Miiiiccccckkkk,” said Tony, slowly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t jerk, don’t move fast, but I got a guy across the street, walking toward the house. Or maybe to another house. But he’s an Asian guy, I think, thin, strong, looks sniper to me.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Mick, understanding in a flash why the feds hadn’t raided.

  They didn’t know if he was in there either. And if he wasn’t but might be, and they raided now, they’d blow that deal. So they’d hit the place at dawn, figuring the stragglers might come into the house all night, whatever it was. The image of drunken college kids, from any of the six or so schools he’d been kicked out of, came to his mind. From there the connection was easy to Alabama, the big one. Number one recruit, best high school linebacker in history. Great six games, then Auburn, a legendary game, nine solo tackles. Got drunk. Mary Christian DeLaux, the only girl he’d ever loved. The yellow Corvette from Mr. Bevington, the Chevy dealer. Bevy’s Chevys, biggest outlet in town. How ’bout a ’Vette, Rhett? The crash. He tried to push it away. He thought it was gone. But it wasn’t. The word “dormitory” flashed to him from some file deep in his cerebellum.

  He turned his head just a quarter of a degree, and a man, thirty-five feet away, directly across the street, walking forward briskly, came into view. In profile he was Asian with a thick bush of stiff hair, very muscular, maybe a little tall, in jeans and a sweatshirt. He gave no sign of noting two men sitting in an SUV across the street; he was intent on his progress, just churning ahead.

  But, goddamn, Mick hadn’t gotten a good look at the face.

  He picked up the radio unit.

  “Guy coming, your five o’clock, on sidewalk, I need you to get a good visual on his face with night vision, but don’t give your position up. Move real slow.”

  “Got it,” said Crackers.

  They watched. The walker passed the end of the row of cars in the street, diverted across the lawn, opened the unlocked door of 1216, and disappeared. No light came on, he didn’t go to the kitchen for a beer, or kibbitz with his frat brothers in the TV room. There was no TV room, no frat brothers, just darkness.

  Crackers appeared in his car window.

  “You get him?”

  “Yeah. Asian, thirties, muscular, tall, thick hair.”

  “Could he be forties? Cruz is forty-two.”

  “Hey, I’m no expert. They don’t age like we do. He could be thirty, he could be sixty.”

  Mick rooted around, came up with a briefcase, pulled it open, and pulled out a xerox of a photo of a marine sergeant in dress blues in a formal promotion shot. But the duplication had eroded its subtleties and it flowed weirdly toward the generic.

  “That him?”

  “Hell, Mick,” said Crackers. “It could be. I couldn’t say for sure.”

  “God, I wish I’d hear from that motherfucker MacGyver. Where is he when you need him? Look again, go
ddamnit, tell me it’s him.”

  Crackers examined the flimsy photo first in the dark, then in a bright cone of illumination from his SureFire. “Mick, maybe. I suppose. You know, some of them have distinctive faces, round, square, fierce, dumb, fat, thin, whatever. This guy looks like all of ’em, with some white thrown in.”

  “Mick, let’s roust ’em,” said Tony Z. “Do it fast. If he’s there, we pop him, we leave. They won’t know what hit them. The fucking door isn’t even locked.”

  “That’ll never work,” said Crackers. “We don’t know how many there are, how do we control ’em, we don’t have cuffs or blindfolds, we don’t have balaclavas, we leave prints, man, that is all fucked up. Plus, even if we have him full frontal in the flashlight, how can we be sure it’s him? We just won’t know.”

  “Okay, junior,” said Tony, too intensely, “what’s your bright idea?”

  “Sit, wait, and see.”

  “Negative,” said Mick. “The feds may raid at any second, and when that happens, if he’s there, we have failed, we are screwed, all hell breaks loose.”

  Both the team boys were silent.

  “I don’t like it either,” said Mick. “But I’m not here because I like it and neither are you. This is what we do. The hard thing. For the right reasons. It sucks, but there you have it. I am open to suggestions for the next five seconds.”

  Silence.

  “Look at it this way,” said Mick. “You call in artillery, you get a coordinate wrong, a shell lands in a village. Too bad. Our war, their village. You don’t feel good about it, but that’s the price of doing business. Collateral is to be expected. We’ve all seen it.”

  “Mick, I don’t know if I can do it,” said Tony Z.

  “Sure you can,” said Mick. “You’re a cowboy. You’re a trooper. You’re a one hundred percent life-taking, throat-slitting, mother-fucking rockin’, rollin’ operator, baddest of the bad, meanest of the mean. You’re Ming the Merciless, got it? How ’bout you, laughing boy? I know you’re in.”

  “I don’t like it either, Mick.”

  “It ain’t about liking,” said Mick. “It’s about doing. Give me the fucking night vision. I’m in the lead, I’m on the gun.”