Dead Zero

by Stephen Hunter

  “Hold still, DC SWAT, we have two active shooters, they are difficult to pin down.”

  “Incident Commander, this is Air Six, I have a good visual and a sniper aboard, permission to fire?”

  “If you get him, take him, but be advised these individuals appear to be wearing body armor, so I am advising head shots, and if they are down, I am advising snipers to take brain shots on the body before approach.”

  “Maneuvering for shot, Incident Commander—Oh, he fired, I think he—” and the helicopter crew report exploded into chaos.

  “This is Whipshot Four, I have one suspect down, I have the other suspect entered into convenience store, 2955 Wisconsin, I think he’s going to barricade.”

  “Was that your shot, Air Six?”

  “Affirmative, that was my shot,” and Swagger recognized the voice of Ron Field, who had been involved in another event with Swagger some years back and ended up in charge of the FBI’s sniper school.

  “Good shooting, Ronnie, now listen to me, from maximum allowable altitude, I want you to put another one into his head. All units hold, let the sniper make sure the perp is closed down.”

  “Read you, Command, will comply.”

  The airwaves, still floating with static and crackle and dust, went silent for a few seconds and then a single crack went to all receivers.

  “He’s toast,” came a call, then a dozen other confirmations.

  “Good work, Ronnie,” said Nick. “All teams converge on 2955 Wisconsin, we have a barricade situation. I’m releasing medical personnel to handle casualties on or near the five-block P Street corridor, but everyone else not in a SWAT team, stay off Wisconsin. DC SWAT, you are released to barricade position, 2955 Wisconsin, FBI SWAT be advised DC SWAT is incoming. We have a very dangerous individual.”

  “This guy thinks he’s got the Bruce Willis role,” someone said.

  HERE-4-FOOD

  2955 WISCONSIN AVENUE

  LOWER GEORGETOWN

  WASHINGTON, DC

  1943 HOURS

  Z was down. So much shit was in the air you’d never know who fired the shot. But he lay in the street, squirming, his carbine a few feet away, in a vast lake of blood. Still, he was trying to rise, and he kept waving at Mick, go back, go back, mouthing the word no even if blood had frosted his teeth and goatee.

  Then the head shot blew his watch cap off, and he was still and that was it.

  “Via con dios, amigo,” Mick said, and felt a knife of pain that another good guy in a firefight had departed the earth. He took a deep breath, looked one way up Wisconsin, then the other. Each was a festival of blue-red flashes, and behind the screen of pulsing illumination, figures ducked and bobbed, dark men, bent double over their weapons, trying to find an angle to get the killing shot. Mick had been hit four times in the chest and lower back, the body armor saving him each time. He knew he couldn’t stay put. Snipers, not the most mobile, would have finally caught up to the front lines and this very second be setting up over car hoods for the brain shot. As it was, rogue bullets pecked up dust puffs down the street, zinged through the glass windows of this place, shot up and withered the cars parked along the street. He could see creepers in the shadows trying to get close for that finishing round.

  Fuck all you amateurs, he thought. SWAT! Wannabes and never-weres. Do it where it’s real, motherfuckers, where an IED may take you down any second or the nice lady selling pop will pull out an AK. Do it where the guy with the mild smile on his face and the gentle, empathetic eyes says Allah Akbahr and detonates himself and all pilgrims in a hundred-foot circumference. Hunt the motherfuckers on goat paths and in twisted arroyos and in little mud and wood towns where an RPG can turn you to barbecue at any fucking second. Lie in your own shit and piss for three days for a high-value shot. Raid the cave by moonlight, taking fire all the way to extract. Then tell me you’re a pro.

  He turned, kicked his way into the store.

  At first it seemed empty. But he ran to the rear counter, where four people cowered, one on top of the other.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’ll take a six of Bud and a package of Camels. Also, got any 9-mil hollow points?”

  He laughed at his own joke through cracked, dry lips, though his face was heavily wet with sweat, blood, crap, whatever. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the beer-cooler glass, a stocky figure in all black, watch cap low over the ears, face mottled, the subgun cradled in his hands, body armor, a SIG P226 in a mid-thigh tac holster, black Danner assault boots bloused, mags in pouches everywhere. God, he was beautiful. He was war. He was Special Ops. He was Forces. He was the Real Thing. Nobody could stand up to him. Then he completed his turn, lifted his submachine gun over the racks of shelves that stood between himself and the door and windows, and fired the rest of his magazine in a sweeping blast that shattered all the glass into a spew of glitter until only a few jagged pieces clung to the frame.

  He bent over. One of the women was a blonde, blondes are best. He came around, grabbed her by her hair, and pulled her up. He saw she was forties, attractive, the Washington party dame type, and he yanked her to the doorway of the walk-in beer cooler.

  “You people,” he yelled at the ones who remained cowering behind the counter. “You people, get the fuck out of here, make sure you go out hands up or these assholes will shoot you. I want to see the head FBI guy. Fast, or Diane Sawyer here gets it in the neck.”

  He pulled the woman by the hair into the vault and felt the frosty air against his sweating skin. He began to steam. That was funny. He dragged her to the rear, and forced her down.

  “Please,” she said, her face gone to dumb fear, “I have children.”

  He laughed. “So do I. About fifty. I just don’t know any of them. Here, have a beer.” He pulled a big can from the shelf, and leaned over and handed it to her. It was a Sapporo, very good beer. Then he got one for himself, kicked her forward, and scootched down behind her, so that the wall was at his back and she was between him and anyone coming through the door. He locked his armored legs around her pelvis, drawing her near. He tossed the MP5 away, pulled her toward him, tight, intimate, sexual, and took out his SIG P226. He cocked the hammer, and laid his wrist along her shoulder so that the pistol muzzle nonchalantly touched her ear.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’m real close on you and you’re thinking sex. That’s your primal fear. But I won’t do anything dick-wise, okay? I may kill you, sweetie, but I won’t rape you, so you can relax. Now open my beer.”

  He handed the can to her with his other hand. She struggled with it, her fingers shaking, shivering with hysterical sobbing, but somehow got it open and handed it back.

  He took a deep swallow, and lord, was it not the finest slug of beer he’d ever had in his life?

  “Boy,” he said, “did I have a tough day at the office!”

  Again he laughed at his own bad joke. Then they sat for a few minutes, listening as various forces and entities got things organized outside.

  In time, the beer-cooler door opened.

  “Bogier?”

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

  “Bogier, I’m Memphis, FBI. You don’t need to do this. Let that woman go. It’s not like you to put someone untargeted at risk. You’re a pro.”

  “She’ll get a book contract out of it and do the talk shows for a year. She’ll become a star on that fat-black-chick TV show. She’s in better shape by far than you or me, Memphis.”

  The woman shivered. Mick had finished his beer. He pointed at the one he’d given her, which had rolled a few inches away from her leg. She grabbed it obediently, opened it, and handed it back.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” he said. “Now just close your eyes and think of the happiest day of your life. When you got married. The birth of little Nicholas von Featherstone the Third. When you got that big divorce settlement. When you hit the putt on the eighteenth at Burning Tree to edge out Jennifer Tilden for the club bitch championship. Whatever, just think of
it and it’ll be over in a few minutes.”

  He took another swig.

  “Bogier, you’re not walking. You know that. No immunity, not after Baltimore and the Filipinos plus all the dead cops out there. But I’ll get you off the needle, get you a good joint, maybe conjugals, no butt sex from the Blackstone Rangers. Give her up, give it up, walk out, testify against the assholes who put you here, everybody’s happy.”

  “Sounds pretty crappy to me. I want a window, goddamnit. A guaranteed window and a cell next to Dr. Lecter.”

  He laughed again.

  “Now I’ll tell you the name of the game we’re playing. It’s called, ‘Will Mick blow Lady Astor’s brains out?’ I think she’s the wife of somebody important. This would be a very dark mark on your record, Memphis.” He laughed again, at his own twisted, drug-cranked humor. Everything was pretty goddamned funny.

  “Okay, here’s the game. I want Cruz. Get his ass over here, send him through the door. Then Mrs. van Jackson gets to go home to her husband, the third assistant secretary of agriculture and mineral rights. I get Cruz, you get Lady Plushbottom. Oh, and do it fast. Like, say, in three minutes. Or I blow her fucking head off, and come out shooting, and in case you haven’t noticed, I shoot very well and I will take a lot of SWAT bozos with me to hell. Nothing but head shots. Any trace of tear gas or immobilization chemistry and Lady Winthrop decorates a convenience store beer cooler with her cerebellum tissue and I know whose career goes into the dipsy Dumpster. Get me Cruz!”

  FBI SUV ALPHA 6

  EN ROUTE

  INCIDENT COMMAND TO HERE-4-FOOD

  LOWER GEORGETOWN

  2046 HOURS

  The driver pressed it. He careened the wrong way down one-way streets, roared through power turns riding the brakes against the laws of gravity and physics, went to sidewalk blowing out shrubbery and small trees where emergency medical vehicles blocked the streets.

  Outside, Washington gone to war sped past the windows: medics working on the wounded, gurneys, plasma units everywhere, men in battle gear with tense faces, lots of throat mikes in play, the roar of low-flying choppers, more guns than at the NRA annual meeting, all of it a kind of eternal D-Day in the half dark.

  “I see where this is going,” Bob said in the backseat. “He still wants his kill. Cruz, you do not have to do this. You don’t have to do any heroic thing, do you hear me? Enough is enough.”

  Cruz said nothing. He was hunched in the front seat, breathing imperceptibly, his dark face tense and sweaty, his eyes gimlet slits. He gave no indication of having heard Swagger.

  It seemed to take an eternity, but they reached the convenience store on Wisconsin, its windows shot out, fire trucks and ambulances standing by, a fleet of first-responder vehicles everywhere except the route out of which they’d been hastily pulled to admit the SUV. The lighting was intensified, the shards of glass everywhere seemed to pick up and reflect that already intense wave of illumination. Again, Kevlar-clad, helmeted commandos everywhere, crouching, weapons loose and ready, on balls of feet, with that go-to-war vibe so heavy in the air you could feel it.

  As Swagger and Cruz bailed out, agents flew at them like butlers to push them into Kevlar vests and helmets, and they slid through the shattered doors, over glass and a thick gunk of soda, beer, cereal, canned peaches, gobs of yogurt, melting ice-cream lumps, burritos, cigarette cartons, squished doughnuts, a whole food fight on the floor, debris from the fusillade Mick had fired when he entered. A SWAT team, the Bureau’s very best guys, all stacked up and ready for Armageddon, crouched against one wall. Nick and a fleet of commo assistants with radios up the ass were just off the entrance to the cooler, whose door was jammed open.

  Swagger could see more evidence that Bogier knew what he was doing. The beer cooler: genius touch. No sniper could go for the head, nobody could flank, and a pro like Bogier wouldn’t be fazed in the least by flash-bangs or any other distractors. There was only one way in.

  Nick frantically gestured them over.

  “Okay,” he said, whispering hoarsely into Cruz’s ear, “here’s what it is. He has a hostage, some poor woman who happened to be in here. He says if you don’t go in, he’ll shoot her in the head and come out blazing. It’s your call, Cruz. No man would say a thing if you say no. I have to tell you, your survivability in there is slim to nothing.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Memphis, you can’t send him in there, goddamnit,” Swagger yelled. “Bogier just wants his kill and he’ll check out happy.”

  “It’s his choice,” said Nick. “Say the word, Cruz, and I’ll send SWAT in behind a wall of flash-bangs. Maybe he’s bluffing, maybe he’s out of ammo, maybe in the end he can’t drop the hammer on some innocent woman, and he goes down like Jimmy Cagney and it’s a happy ending.”

  “You can’t blow the vault?” said Swagger. “Come in from the outside?”

  “Old building, thick walls. Enough explosive to get through the walls would kill them.”

  “Where’s my little friend?” screamed Bogier from inside. “I want to see my little friend. We served together in Afghanistan, did you know? We’re war buddies!” and his shout ended in a dry, harsh laugh, the laugh of a man who had the pedal on the metal and knew that his long-dreamed-of movie ending was just a second away.

  “It’s bitch-whacking time if little Ray doesn’t come through that door,” he yelled again. “Ka-pow, it’s the end of Chatsworth Osborne’s mother. I know Cruz is here. I heard the car arrive.”

  Ray stood, peeled off his body armor, tossed the stupid fucking Kevlar helmet away.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m going in.” He turned to Swagger. “Sorry, old guy. A world where she dies so I can survive isn’t a world I choose to live in.”

  He turned.

  “Bogier, hold fire. This is Cruz. I’m coming in.”

  Bob reached out to touch his son, thinking, irrationally but helplessly, No, it’s not right, I just found him, and feeling a surge of pain and fear from a well so deep he never suspected it was there, but then Ray dipped in and was gone.

  This was the worst hell of war, Swagger thought. He’d shot and been shot at, killed with blade, slithered in fear, ridden himself to exhaustion, seen boys following on his orders blown to pieces, been hit hard a half dozen times, felt the fear when the blood pooled out in lakes, ceaselessly, felt panic, begged God for life, clenched tight as incoming blasts searched him out, seen human wave attacks, done it all. But nothing was worse than sending a son off to die. He started, very quietly, to cry.

  BEER COOLER

  HERE-4-FOOD

  2955 WISCONSIN AVENUE

  LOWER GEORGETOWN

  WASHINGTON, DC

  2048 HOURS

  Cruz could see nothing at first. For some reason, a light fog lay across the cooler. All he saw was shoulder-high shelves and a glittery display of world beers. But he heard the breathing, followed it to its point of origin. Peering around a last shelf, he saw Bogier and the woman in a twisty heap against the back wall.

  The woman’s face had gone to stupor. She had given up and seemed barely conscious. Bogier had her in a tight wrap, his legs clamped around her pelvis. The SIG, cocked, was an inch from her ear. Bogier leaned out from behind her head, and Cruz saw him for the first time: an astonishingly handsome man, with a somewhat grown-out thatch of blond hair, rugged, wide-boned face, thin cheeks under the bed-knob bones, and fierce or crazed warrior eyes.

  “Bogier, let her go, goddamnit. She’s—”

  “Shut up, junior, this is my dance, I paid the band.”

  Ray froze, felt Bogier’s eyes on him.

  “For so much trouble, you’re a scrawny rat. Goddamn you, if I’d have been a microsecond faster three separate times, you’d be among the permanently dead. You must have fucking reflexes like a cat. Think you can dodge this, sucker?”

  The SIG came off the woman’s ear channel and floated onto Ray, dead zero for his center chest. Bogier’s finger teased the trigger.

 
“This isn’t war,” said Cruz. “This is execution. Some soldier you—”

  “Shut up, motherfucker. I lost two very fine men trying to whack your ass. You know how hard it is to find men that good?”

  “I knew one once. Billy Skelton, lance corporal, USMC. Some fucker blew him in two.”

  “It wasn’t his day. You know what I fucking hate about you? I can feel it even now, at the very end. It’s your fucking moral certitude. You sit there, knowing I’m going to blow your heart out in three seconds, and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you still think you’re so holy because you worship some bitch named Duty, and you don’t get it that she’s a whore and will fuck you up the ass any time she has a chance. Oh, yeah, you have a code. Duty, honor, country. Semper Fi, all that good bullshit, true believer, patriotism, Fourth of July, apple pie, all that war movie crap from the forties. Oh, you’ve got a code, Sergeant Cruz, that makes you morally superior.”

  There was nothing for Cruz to say to this mad barrage.

  “Look at me! Look at me,” Bogier screamed, and Cruz brought his eyes into total connection with the man.

  “Guess what, junior. It’s easy to die for something you believe in. I’ve seen it ten thousand times and it ain’t that fascinating. You know what’s hard? Here’s hard: dying for a code you don’t believe in. That’s what the samurai knew. They died for the master they knew was corrupt, cowardly, venal, and pitiful. They died anyway. That was their code, and I’d say it was a hell of a lot tougher than that show tune you call patriotism.”

  Bogier’s eyes bored into him.

  “Here’s our code, asshole. These in the day when heaven was falling, when earth’s foundations fled, followed their mercenary calling, took their wages and are dead.”

  He smiled, raised the SIG to his own skull, and happily blew his brains out.

  GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKWAY

  NORTHERN VIRGINIA

  2219 HOURS