Black Light

by Stephen Hunter

  He spat a gob into the undergrowth. He listened. His only connection to what lurked around him was through his hearing. He knew: no news is good news. The sniper worked silently. If Peck started hearing things, happiness wasn’t just around the corner.

  And so far, he had to admit, so good. He heard the whisper of air, now and then the scream of something small and furry dying before its time, the hoot of the occasional owl, but nothing metallic or mechanical. That was good. That was very good. He knew sound traveled miles in this place under these circumstances and his worst fear—Bob silently dispenses with the sniper and then comes hunting him—couldn’t come true.

  He dreamed now of a simple pleasure: a world without this Bob Lee Swagger. That was the world he wanted, because in that world, with the patronage of Mr. Red Bama behind him, he at last had found his place, his niche. No redneck deputy with little education, gambling debts, dental bills, zero savings and an amphetamine habit. No sir: he would count. He could have a nice woman, a place. He’d be part of what he had always seen as “it,” meaning people who knew what to do, people with friends and possibilities, instead of, as he was now, a little man out on a limb all by his own lonesome, no one to catch him if he fell, no one to care. He was on nobody’s agenda: he was just an angry white man, and if he didn’t take care of himself, who would?

  Thus, when the first sound arrived, he went into denial. He convinced himself it didn’t come. He had heard nothing. It was some trick of nature, out to hornswoggle him. But then it came again, this time classifiable by direction: it was from the north and it was the sound of metal striking metal, familiar but still unidentifiable.

  He fought a bit of panic: what was it? He tried to search through his memory and the only image that seemed to associate itself with the sound was ludicrously automotive. It sounded somehow like someone working with a car in some way, possibly opening a trunk, then throwing things around inside the trunk.

  He waited, listening so hard he thought his brain would explode. How could there be a car nearby? And how nearby was “nearby”? Then he remembered the dirt road north of here, about half a mile. He knew that Bob and the boy would have come by car and would have parked somewhere before they moved into the forest.

  He looked at his watch: 9:43 P.M.

  Could Swagger have made it all the way back to the car in that time? He waited for the sound of an engine, to signify that whoever it was, was moving out of the area, leaving him to his own mission.

  But then he heard, louder than anything before, the solid crunch of metal locking into metal. He knew it instantly: a trunk lid being slammed.

  Shit and goddamn.

  He suddenly felt achingly vulnerable. The ATV was out of the question: he couldn’t be bopping around the woods on a four-wheeled motorcycle, generating noise and exhaust, easy meat for all and sundry. Instead, he dropped off the vehicle and quickly calculated the point where the noise originated and the point where the sniper hid and thought to intersect them. If Bob was moving around in the woods he would be hunting a sniper, not any old poor nobody-gives-a-shit-about-him Duane Peck, with a chance to make his way in the world.

  He didn’t want to do it, but sometimes, as Duane well knew, wants don’t have nothing to do with it. He flipped off his hat and began to night-navigate through the woods. He drew his Glock, repeating to himself what that Neechee had said: that which does not kill you makes you strong.

  Bob tried to recall the terrain. Why do you never pay attention to the things that become so goddamned important? But he willed himself to recollect, and had a memory of what he thought would work best if the plan he’d cooked up were to have a chance. Wasn’t there a place he’d noticed on the left, maybe half a mile in, where the trees thinned for a bit, opened to a clearing, possibly left over from a logging operation some years ago at the base of a ridge. Or was that from some goddamned dream? Would he just bumble around until he placed himself before the sights of the sniper, who would nail the Nailer?

  He tried to press that out of his mind. He tried to think: What will Preece do? Will he follow me? Yes, he has to: but how aggressively? He’ll dawdle, scanning the woods, afraid to get too close for risk of an ambush, knowing that he’s got all the advantage if he doesn’t blow it with overaggressiveness.

  That’s what I’d do.

  Now: how to draw him toward me.

  There was only one answer. He drew the Mini-14 to his shoulder, aimed it pointlessly into the dark and fired three times fast.

  The gun cracked and flashed, spitting empty brass, lighting the vault of trees that curved overhead, kicking ever so slightly. The noise was loud, and in its echo a few sleeping birds screamed or flapped airborne, uncorking a sense that the night had been disturbed.

  Bob wondered: is he close enough to see the flashes?

  He didn’t know, but now he’d informed his antagonist that he was armed. On dead reckoning he started to move to the left, praying that up ahead, just where he dreamed it was, the clearing waited.

  Preece heard the shots, three fast ones, much less than a mile away. Though they were flat taps, without texture or resonance, he knew by the whipping crack that followed in their wake that they were supersonic, and therefore rifle bullets, not pistol bullets.

  It had to be Swagger. He’d gotten to his car, gotten a rifle. From the swiftness of the fire, a semiauto, not a full auto, for they weren’t quite fast enough and didn’t have the deadening mechanical regularity of a machine gun. It sounded like an M-16 or a Mini-14, nothing big like an ’06 or .308.

  But more: Bob had panicked. He thought he saw something move and ventilated it. Now he cowered breathlessly, afraid that he’d missed, probably afraid to go forward. He’d move laterally, knowing that whoever was stalking him would move toward the sound. Or he’d fired deliberately, to attract whoever was hunting him.

  Didn’t really matter: the solution was the same.

  You move left or right of the source of the noise, then set up, anticipating a target to come to your new front. If he’s moved left, he comes right to you. If he’s moved right, he’ll come around you. But he’ll be making the noise.

  Preece drew a compass from his pocket and shot an azimuth to a tree on a ridge two hundred yards away. He flicked on the scope and took a last scan of the area, looking for movement in the black light of the infrared. Nothing but the shimmer of vegetation.

  He left his position and moved swiftly to the tree. Setting up on the ridge, he scanned again, this time for several minutes. Nothing. Ahead, through the trees, he saw another ridge. He shot another azimuth to another tree, and moved to it, not rushing, not making undue noise, feeling relaxed, confident and aggressive. He was the only one who could see in the dark.

  At the ridge, he looked down: a clearing. The trees ended halfway down the slope and yielded to a kind of meadow or something, where perhaps once there’d been a forest fire or some logging operations. Hmmm. It scared him. In the forest, he was invisible, but out there, possibly an experienced man might read his darker textures against the texture of the grass and send a shot home, even without night vision.

  This perplexed him. Maybe Bob was playing some extremely subtle game on him. Whatever, the trees cut off a good view of the ridge. After scanning for several minutes to convince himself that Bob wasn’t hiding on this side of the clearing, he moved stealthily over the ridgeline and, keeping trees between himself and the clearing, moved down toward the edge.

  He was almost there when krak krak, two shots lit off across the clearing and he could see the vivid flash, not a hundred yards away. Was Bob shooting at him? But no rounds came whipping through the trees, and the supersonic whisssh-crack of bullets overhead didn’t sound. He dropped behind the tree, scooted back into a solid prone and quickly brought the rifle to his shoulder, simultaneously going to IR. The rifle rested on the girders of his bones, not the uncertain power of his muscles: it was solid, and the reticle didn’t drift or wander.

  In the green scope he could s
ee it all: the high grass of the clearing, undulating in the breeze just like the corn, the blunt verticals that were tree trunks and … yes, there he was … the man.

  Bob the Nailer. He was on the other side, about as close in as Preece was, moving back and forth, evidently trying to decide whether or not to move across the field.

  Preece put the crosshairs on him.

  Mmmm, no. No, it was a hard shot, because he was wandering back and forth between the trees, visible for only fractions of a second between them.

  What the hell was he doing?

  Now that he’d fired, he’d know Preece would be on him, but he couldn’t know Preece was already here. Had he gone mad? Had he flipped out?

  Then it occurred to him that he was hoping his fire would draw Preece and that maybe he could lure him into the field and gun him down there, where he was marginally visible.

  Sorry, Bob: I’m already here. I have plenty of battery time, hours more. I can just watch you and when you get impatient and step out from the trees, I can take you down. It was that easy.

  He watched now as the glowing man settled behind a tree. He kept peering nervously out. He was waiting for Preece.

  I can wait longer than you, Bob. I’m not going anywhere at all.

  Peck heard the first three shots from far away, a dry sound, almost like a tapping. He gauged that they came from his right. Slowly, he began to move in that direction, scuttling between trees, taking up a good observation position before moving on.

  He moved across the night terrain steadily, growing in confidence. That was Bob shooting, but not at him. Had he hit Preece? He didn’t think so. The shots had more the sense of panic in them than anything.

  He moved through the trees from ridgeline to ridgeline, taking cover at the top of each crest and scanning beneath him for signs of movement. But he saw nothing.

  He was halfway up another ridge when he heard krak krak, two fast shots, maybe a quarter mile off and over to his left still farther. He climbed the ridge and could see nothing. But instead of descending, he decided to traverse the ridge and moved along it for a bit, until at last he saw, what, light? No, not light: openness. There seemed to be a clearing or something ahead. He scurried along the ridgeline and at last came to rest overlooking the field. This should be where the shots came from. He had a feeling that if something were going to happen, this is where it would happen.

  Bob peeked around the tree. He had no indication that any human eyes or ears were within a hundred miles of him. He felt alone on the face of the planet.

  No, he told himself. He’s there. He’s tracked me by the shots, he’s seen me move among the trees, he’s there. He’s all set up. Right now he’s in a good, solid prone a hundred-odd yards out, he’s got this tree zeroed, he knows he’s got me.

  But there was no snake to announce the sniper this time. That’s because there aren’t snakes everywhere in the forest. He had gotten a snake in the draw. He wasn’t getting one here. He’d used up his snake luck. It didn’t matter. Preece was there. He had to be. There was no other place for him to be.

  He looked at his watch. It was close to ten. That’s when my father died, didn’t he? At ten, after a running fight. Some guy in the trees a hundred yards out puts the scope on him, pulls the trigger and goes home to cold beer and rare steaks.

  Well, let’s see what happens this time.

  He pulled himself out, darted quickly between the trees, back and forth, drawing the sniper’s scope to him, until he felt the crosshairs. But he was relatively confident the man wouldn’t fire, because the trees interfered with his sight picture. Why should he shoot between them, when in seconds his target would step out into the open?

  How long would it take? How quick would he shoot? Would he shoot fast? Yes, he’d shoot fast. He’d be on him like a flash, put the crosshair center mass and with a champion’s long-honed trigger control, fire in a second.

  One second.

  No, two seconds.

  He won’t rush. There’s no need to rush. He has it all, right there before him, there’s no need to rush.

  Two seconds.

  You have two seconds, he told himself.

  Bob leaned the rifle against the tree and picked up the gallon can of Coleman fluid. With his fingers he explored the can until at last he found the bottom. He took out his Case XX pocketknife, pried open the blade. Quickly, holding the can upside down, he punctured its metal skin right at the bottom three times on each side. The sound of the blade plunging into the sheet metal had an odd thrum of vibration to it.

  He tossed the can out beyond the tree, where it hit, tipped, but gurgled as the volatile liquid inside poured out of the holes and soaked into the brush. He seized the rifle, listening as the fuel chugged out. It formed a pool and its vapor began to rise in a palpable mist, its stench washing over him. It would linger for a second or two, a balloon of gas without a skin.

  Time to go, he thought, and stepped out.

  It felt so familiar.

  It was so like the first time. He’s waiting, a hundred yards away, for a man to emerge. Except not from the trees but from the corn.

  The weather was almost identical, and so was the time. It had the ache of déjà vu to it.

  He knew it was close to time. Bob couldn’t wait any longer. He had to move.

  In the scope, against the green of the infrared, Preece saw him behind the tree, fiddling with something, possibly checking his rifle. An odd banging came, metal on metal, signifying what? He watched as something was launched from the tree and landed with a thud beyond.

  Now, what the hell was that?

  He grew impatient.

  Come on, marine, he thought. Let’s do this. Let’s finish it. It has to be done.

  At last Bob stepped out into the black light, which was green in Preece’s scope, faced him frontally and appeared to step toward him.

  Got you, thought Preece.

  He placed the crosshair dead center of the chest and felt the trigger begin to slide back of its own volition, encountering just a whisper of resistance as it pressed against the internal mechanisms straining for release. It was a five-pound trigger; he had two pounds of weight against it, then three, then—

  It was all gone.

  The black light wiped white in harsh incandescence. What the hell?

  He blinked hard, involuntarily drew his eye from the scope and looked into the heart of fireball that vaporized his night vision, detonating his optic nerves, filling the eyes in his brain with pinwheels, skyrockets, illumination rounds of sheer wild color.

  Bob stepped out, his rifle in his left hand, his .45 held behind him in his right.

  Hold it, he told himself, smelling the vapors.

  One.

  Hold it again, he told himself, as the vapors rose around him.

  He felt crucified. He was on the cross. There was no help.

  He fired the pistol.

  It bucked in his hand: its muzzle flash ignited the column of vapor behind him as he dropped it. He felt the whooosh as the darkness ruptured with a blade of light so fierce and radiant that it bleached the colors from the forest and the field even as it briefly exposed them. Starburst, nova, supernova, the universe ending in fire.

  The heat rolled across him and he felt his back pucker and blister as he fell forward.

  Across the clearing, like a dog’s eyes caught in the full light, two lenses captured the radiation from the fireball and reflected it back at him. They were stacked circles: the lens of a light-amplifying scope and the lens of an IF search-light. But still they were the eyes of a beast.

  Bob fired over his sights, not through them, aiming out of instinct, following the illuminated trajectory of his first round. The tracer flicked fast and a little low, kicking up some dirt. In a nanosecond he corrected, fired again, the tracer skipping across the distance so fast, a whipsong of illumination, and it went to the eyes and struck between them.

  Fire for effect, he thought. That’s in the book of counter-sn
iper operations: locate, then overwhelm with superior firepower.

  He jacked ten fast rounds into the eyes, the tracers snaking over the clearing and plunging into the position across the way, a sleet of light. He threw darts of light, bolts of light, missiles of light, as he burned through the rest of the magazine, a controlled burst, three shots a second, walking the rounds across the position where the now vanished eyes had proclaimed themselves. The tracers struck and sunk, or they bounced crazily away, like flecks of an exploding star.

  He looked and all about him, fires burned.

  But he was done.

  Jesus H. Christ.

  Peck drew back, astounded at what he saw before him.

  A column of flame, like the detonation of a bomb, gushed upward through the trees.

  Then in a second, someone was shooting tracers. They dashed across the field fast, low and ugly, snapping remorselessly at the base of a tree on the far side.

  He had a terrible suspicion that Jack Preece was on the receiving end of the fireworks.

  His night vision was shattered, but enough of it came back in time to see a dark shape rush from the tower of flames, cross the clearing and close on the far position and bend to probe a body.

  It was enough.

  Peck knew he was overmatched.

  Time to get the hell out of there.

  Bob found Preece in his ghillie suit, looking like a sofa that had exploded. He lay on his belly, and Bob almost put a shot into him, but held up. The body was still, the fingers relaxed.

  Fuck you if you can’t take a joke, he thought.

  He turned the body over. In the illumination of the fires flaring across the clearing, he saw that the man had taken at least four or five shots in the head and upper torso. Blood everywhere, the face smashed and broken.

  Bob flipped the body aside; Preece was the ultimate step-on. Bob knelt to examine the weapon and saw quickly that it too was destroyed. A bullet had smashed the scope and another had shattered the lens of the infrared searchlight.