Black Light

by Stephen Hunter

  “Get out of here now, Peck. You meet me at the staging area at midnight; if I’m not there, check each hour.”

  “Yes sir,” said Peck.

  The general turned and headed up the slope, hearing the low buzz of the engine as Peck’s ATV lurched off and slowly faded away.

  He walked for ten minutes and saw before him a broad, flat, needle-carpeted forest floor, broken by the vertical maze of the trees, lit at one edge by the setting sun on the other side of the clearing. He moved through it fluidly, advancing twenty or thirty feet at a time, then melting into the earth, and listening intently. He reached the edge and, placing himself beside a pine tree with the lowest possible profile, peered downward. He could see figures behind the window, speaking animatedly. It was hard to make out. Binoculars would bring them out, but the sun was just low enough to present the possibility of a reflection. Instead, he brought the rifle up and with a snap of his thumb first to light and then to scope, went to infrared.

  The cabin, two hundred yards away, was a bit out of range for the reach of the searchlight, so he didn’t get great illumination. The lack of total dark also eroded illumination. But he got enough: in the murky green light, he could see three figures. They seemed animated. Details were lost; one appeared to be tall and thin and could match up easily with the Bob Lee Swagger who had visited him two weeks ago. Another was the boy.

  Do them, he thought.

  Right now, why wait? Do them, be done with it. He could put nineteen rounds through the window in less than two seconds, and the .223, though not a powerfully heavy and accurate long-range round, was a true speed merchant and still offered more than 2,500 feet per second of velocity at that range. They’d be dead before they hit the ground.

  But Jack was professional. You go by the plan, which you’ve rehearsed painstakingly. When you improvised, the law of unforeseen accident always took its toll.

  He snapped the beam and the scope off and withdrew, snaking along the ground until he was lost in the trees. He stood then, and traced his way back along the ridgeline, making no noise, raising no dust. By the time he got to the hide, it was nearly full dark.

  A thatch of plastic greenery which would never give itself over to dead brown and thereby reveal its position lay across it. Jack pulled it aside. The hide was not so much a conventional spider hole as a long narrow trench scooped out of the earth, deep enough to conceal a prone man, but easy enough to bail out of if the shit hit the fan. The dirt the digging had uprooted had been meticulously spread through the woods to attract no attention.

  Preece slid into position, pulling the screen atop him. Quickly enough, he found a solid shooting position, bracing the weapon against the sandbag.

  He went to infrared and instantly it all lit up before him in fishbowl green: the white winding ribbon of the path, the wavering wands of the vegetation, the lighter tonal quality of the rocks. The path passed before and below him a mere fifty yards away: that’s where he’d take them, putting the reticle on the taller figure’s chest, pumping one silent round out, then pivoting ever so slightly to the other figure. He’d done it a hundred times in practice.

  He snapped the light off. It had a good eight hours’ worth of battery but he knew he’d hear them as they came up the path and there was no sense wasting power. You leave nothing to chance in this business and the one thing he could not control was the length of time it took for the two targets to get into range.

  He settled back, slipping the camo band back to reveal the face of his watch: 7:10. He guessed another hour or so. But maybe longer and he had to stay alert.

  Preece was really more a visionary, a leader, an administrator, a trainer and a coach than any real sniper. But even in Vietnam he believed a commander should endure and face the same chances that his men did, if only to understand their problems more fully. Thus he went on the missions on a weekly basis. Over his two years, he’d accumulated thirty-two kills, none officially recognized, of course, because officers were not supposed to do such things. Still, the thirty-two men were all unquestionably dead. One night, he even got four in about two minutes. Incredible occurrence, incredible sensation.

  But they say you remember your first kill best of all and that was true with Jack Preece. And as he lay there in the hide in the intensifying darkness and the night forest was beginning to come to life all around him, he remembered perching in that deer stand in the dark of another Arkansas forest (not far from here, less than twenty miles as the crow flies). He hated the weapon: impossibly heavy, with a huge infrared spotlight bolted underneath the barrel and a huge scope atop, and a huge battery pack on his back, its straps cutting into him, all this for a puny .30-caliber 110-grain full metal jacket that hit with just a little more force than a .38 Special. It was the good rifle, of the three working M-3 sniperscope units, and he had it loaded with the most accurate lot of ammunition. And, as Frenchy Short had explained, he probably wouldn’t have to shoot. He was backup.

  “Bubba, you got to do us a job,” Frenchy Short had said to him. “We got us a goddamned bad-ass state cop who’s acting as cutout to the Russians.”

  “Huh?” said then-twenty-four-year-old First Lieutenant Preece, still an unformed boy whose celebrity as the author of “Night Sniper Operations: A Doctrinal Theory” in the Infantry Journal was beginning to fade.

  When he thought about it later, Preece recognized what a load of bullshit the story Frenchy sold him had to be. But to a twenty-four-year-old infantry officer seething with anticommunist bacillus as inculcated by the political culture of the year 1955, who worshiped Joe McCarthy and had just—dammit!—missed Korea, it made a kind of sense. And part of it too was Frenchy, who had that weird psycho’s gift of utter conviction. Frenchy could sell Stalinism in the gulags. Frenchy had the odd chameleonlike ability of absorbing your personality, of becoming you, and so in effect entering your subconscious as he ground you down with furious and one-pointed eye contact, smothering, ass-kissing charm, and a bandit’s utter ruthlessness.

  “We thought we’s years ahead of the Reds in IR,” Frenchy, who was originally from Pennsylvania, breathed in the assuring tonalities of Preece’s own South Georgia accent, “but goddamn, we’re gittin’ reports they got IR working on an experimental sniper rifle, combat-effective out to two hundred yards.”

  “Shit,” the young man said.

  “Now, you know they ain’t that good and I know they ain’t that good. How come they that good?”

  “Spies,” said Preece.

  “You got that right. Seems this old-boy state trooper got his ass in a little gambling trouble, so some old Red Army spymaster sniffs him out and makes his ass a proposition-he’s got to git inside BLACK LIGHT or he’ll go down. So this old boy arrests a corporal on a fag charge and threatens to destroy his life. But the cop’ll let him go if he supplies certain documents. CID got the kid’s statement and the kid in the hoosegow. Now we got to send the Reds a message: this is what happens when you go against the U.S. Army. We don’t take no prisoners.”

  If Preece believed it, it was because he wanted to believe it and because it was, of course, well known that Red Army intelligence had penetrated the entire establishment, lurked everywhere and was capable of anything. As Frenchy pointed out many times, “Them boys don’t even b’lieve in God and once you give up your spiritual heritage you’re capable of doing anything.”

  So it was that four nights later he found himself in the deer stand, watching a drama play out before him. As he understood it, Frenchy had gone to some lengths to set up an arrest scenario where the real shooters were to take the cop down. The point was to disguise the murder as a duty-related killing, so that only the Russians would get the message. It had to be done. It was duty. But suppose the pros missed? That was Jack’s job.

  He watched from the tree as the police cruiser pulled in, backed around, sited itself. Jack put the scope on the man, snicked on the IR unit and watched the dull scene spark to incandescence. The officer sat in his car; he looked
sad, nervous. He took his hat off and rested patiently. At one point, he tested his searchlight. Jack had good elevation and saw clearly over the corn: but the corn was a problem because its leaves reflected too brightly in the iridescence. But still he knew: he could hit that shot easy.

  In time another car pulled in. It sat across from the police car as the rogue officer put his beam on them. Two young men got out, one a James Dean clone, hair slicked back in a wavy pile, an insolent cigarette dangling from his lips, his jeans tight and sexy, and the other a doughy, sullen farm boy in a T-shirt. It was too far to hear distinct words, but the two youths had their hands up; the cop got out of the car. It appeared to be some kind of surrender thing. The cop was yelling instructions. The slicker boy threw something into the dust. Preece put the scope on it as it lay there and saw at once that it was a wrench, not a gun.

  The heavy boy started across. Preece watched in grim horror. The night seemed to have stalled out. There was a terrible frozen moment and Preece at that instant utterly changed sides, his natural respect for the uniform and what it represented overriding the rational part of his brain.

  He has a gun, he wanted to scream to the cop. He put the sight on the slick boy’s chest and almost fired. Almost. Took the slack out.

  Shoot!

  No.

  He lowered the rifle and realized he was sobbing. He watched; in the next second, the slick boy pulled his gun. The flashes lit the night but the sound of the shots was flat and far away. Dust rose as men ran and dodged. Preece raised the rifle again and in the green of the scope saw the sullen farm boy flat on his back, a big dark stain spreading across the glowing greenish white of his T-shirt. Dust or gun smoke floated in the air still. The cop was down by his car, reloading. The other boy had disappeared into the corn. Stay put, Jack yelled in his head. Call for backup. He isn’t going anywhere.

  But the cop finished his reload and rose. Jack could see that he too was hit and he moved with the slow pain of a man locked into his duty by forces too broad to be understood by other men.

  Stay put, Jack commanded.

  But the cop was too bull-stubborn or proud, too much of a goddamned rare-as-hen’s-teeth authentic American hero to stay put, and he sloughed along the edge of the dirt road, one arm dead, walking the slow walk of a man losing blood but not heart, some kind of fiend for duty. Jack lost him in the reflection of the corn. He put the carbine down and waited. The minutes dragged by. Jack heard yelling, voices again indistinct. Then the crackle and flash of shots from the corn.

  It was silent. He waited. Near the car, a figure emerged from the cover of the corn. Jack watched, unable to identify him, until he at last recognized no single feature except the rhythm of the walk.

  It was the cop, now so laden with melancholy he could hardly move. He made it to his car and sat sideways in the seat. He seemed to be fumbling with something. Then Jack saw him talking on the radio. He put the mike down. He waited and tried again. A third time he tried. He set it down. Then he stirred, as if popped by something. He seized it up, spoke animatedly. Then he put it down. He’d made contact.

  The cop sat in the car.

  Jack hoisted the rifle, flicked on the scope, and the beam of black light reached out to ensnare the policeman.

  He put the crosshairs square on the center of the chest. The lawman was breathing heavily and seemed to be talking to himself.

  Do it, Jack told himself.

  He’s a Red, he told himself, though he no longer believed it.

  Do it, he again told himself.

  The rifle grew heavy. The crosshairs wavered, came off the chest, rode down the leg to the ground.

  DO IT!

  He raised them until they quadrasected the square broad chest. The trigger broke and through the silencer the rifle spoke with a cough but no flash. There was no recoil, or hardly any. Jack saw the rifle bullet strike, saw the body jack with shock, then topple sideways and catch against the steering wheel.

  He turned off the scope.

  Jack put the safety on and slung the rifle. It was only a short climb to the ground, even with the monstrously heavy battery pack. He turned and was halfway down the hill on the other side when he heard the first siren.

  Voices.

  Jack flashed back to the present.

  He snicked the scope on.

  They walked, talking animatedly, the tall man, the shorter boy. The optics were superb. They were big and clear as life, rushing down the forest path by the creek in the enfilade between the two low hills, now seventy yards distant, now sixty.

  Jack’s thumb pronged the silent safety to Off. He pivoted the rifle ever so slightly, ever so smoothly, tracking the large man, a green phantasm in the glow of the scope, lit by the infrared lamp atop. He felt the slack coming out of the trigger, as the crosshairs came onto the chest until in a magic moment they seemed locked there.

  38

  They came out of the woods into a sudden, late burst of sunlight. Russ felt liberated from the green gloom of the forest. Before them was the squalid cabin. Incongruous wildflowers lit up around its messy base and front yard.

  “He’s watching us,” said Bob. “I can feel him and I just seen something move behind that window.”

  As they approached, a man semi-emerged from the doorway and stopped, hiding in the darkness. He observed them with ancient, embittered eyes. As they approached he dipped inside and retrieved a shotgun.

  “Y’all git on out of here,” he yelled, glaring. “This ain’t no goddamned freak show. You’se on my property and you be gone or I’ll give ya some buckshot.”

  Jed Posey had the look of a man whose life had been consumed in fury. He was scrawny, leathery and toothless, and the denim overalls hung on his frame, showing an old man’s wiry body. He was nothing but sinew and hate. His bare arms wore the dapple of three and a half decades’ worth of prison tattoos, and he had two tears inscribed in the taut flesh of his face, though his eyes were tearless and fierce. His hair was the prisoner’s gray bristle.

  “You go on,” he said, bringing the gun up, “or I will by God blast you out of your goddamn boots and be damned.”

  “We have business,” said Bob.

  “We ain’t got no business, mister. You working for the niggers? Bet the goddamned niggers sent you down here. I’m telling you to stop, by God, or I’ll send you to hell where I sent that goddamned nigger.”

  “We don’t work for nobody,” said Bob. “I am Bob Lee Swagger, the son of Earl Swagger. I’m here to talk about the day my father died, Jed. I don’t care a damn about nothing else.”

  Jed lowered the shotgun. But the aggression that suffused his entire body and made it tight and shivery like a pointing terrier’s diminished not a bit; his dark little eyes narrowed in anger and if possible he got even redder and tenser. He seemed to be breathing hard.

  “Your goddamned father done socked me in the jaw,” he said. “That’s how come my face is broken. I’ve had forty years of pain on account of your sumbitch old man.”

  “If my daddy smacked you, Jed, by God, it was a smack you’d earned and I’ll bet it was a smack you ain’t never forgot.”

  Jed seemed to melt backwards a step. Something flashed through his little eyes, and told them yes, yes by God, no matter what had happened, Jed Posey had never forgot the day Earl Swagger broke his jaw.

  “What you want?” he said. “All that’s long time ago. Jimmy Pye kilt your daddy and your daddy kilt Jimmy Pye and his cousin Bub.”

  “I got some questions.”

  “Why the hell should I answer one goddamn question for a goddamned Swagger? Nothing in the law or nowhere says I got to talk to you.”

  He hawked a squirt of tobacco venom into the dust.

  “No sir, you don’t,” said Bob. “But a old goat like you understands one goddamn thing. Money. You gimme an hour of your time, I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

  “Twenny dollar! Mister, you must think I’m stupid. Twenny dollar! Cost you forty dollar, Swagger. For
forty dollar I’ll tell you any goddamned thing you want to know.”

  Russ started forward, but Bob caught him.

  “I said twenty dollars and I meant twenty dollars. I don’t bargain with scum. Come on, Russ,” and he pulled the boy back and turned.

  Russ shot him a what-the-hell look but Bob yanked him backwards and they turned and started walking back toward the woods.

  “Goddamn you, Swagger, thirty dollar.”

  Bob turned. “I said I don’t bargain with trash. You take what’s on the table or I will leave the table and that’s true today or a hundred years from today and you won’t never make no twenty dollars.”

  “Goddamn you, Swagger.”

  “Goddamn me one more time, you old coot, and I will come up on that porch and knock in the other side of your face and finish my daddy’s work.”

  “Let me see the twenny.”

  Bob pulled his wallet and removed a twenty.

  Jed considered narrowly, as if he had a lot riding on the decision.

  “You give me the twenty now.”

  “If you want to hang on to something, you hang on to your dick, you egg-sucking piece of trash. I’ll hang on to the money until I am finished with you and then I will hand it over. You know no Swagger in these parts or any other ever broke his word or welshed on a bargain.”

  “There’s a goddamned first time for everything,” said Jed bitterly. “You come on, then. But you keep your distance.”

  Bob and Russ climbed the rickety steps into the dark dwelling. Russ was always amazed at how things diverged from his imagination of them, but this time he was absolutely correct. It was one grim big surpriseless room, rank with odor. A deer’s shabby antlers were nailed to a crossbeam; the stove was old and stank of cold, ancient grease, the bed, a pallet in the corner, supported a scurvy nest of swirled blankets. One wall had been transfigured into Jed’s hall of fame by the industrious use of thumbtacks as his front page from the paper had been pinned to the wood, where it was now yellow and crackly with age—COUNTY MAN SLAYS NEGRO, it said, uniting him and Davidson Fuller in journalistic immortality. The smell of unwashed clothes, dead animals, human destitution and loneliness hung everywhere in the thick air.