Sniper One

by Roy F. Chandler

  McWide was already on his radio and walking to where he could speak without intrusion. Gilbert was clearly stunned and was unsure of what to do. He waited for the trooper.

  McWide responded, "I reported what we have found, and we are to stand by until people get here."

  Bell was still poking around. "Why don't you ask them how the Colonel is doing, Mac?"

  The answer was short. "Nothing new, Clicker. He went into surgery, and everyone is waiting."

  Gilbert suggested. "You shouldn't be walking around in there, Mister Bell. Experts are on their way, and they will want an undisturbed crime scene."

  Clicker was done, anyway. He said, "I'm going to range around further out. You two want to stay here?"

  McWide said, "The Lieutenant can guard the crime scene, Clicker, I'll go with you." Gilbert didn't like it, but the scene should be protected.

  Clicker was working back on the trails of footprints coming into the shooting point.

  McWide said, "Hell, even I can follow these paths."

  "Yeah, my thought exactly." Bell kept going.

  Gilbert's voice came to them. "Hey, where are you men?"

  "We're over here, still looking for tracks, Lieutenant." McWide added, "Glad he's not one of ours."

  The various paths joined and kept going. Clicker stopped and said, "Hmm."

  "What does that mean, Mister Bell?"

  "It means that about a half mile ahead there is a power line that cuts across Sixplex property. My guess is that this trail goes there."

  "Is that a problem?" McWide missed the point.

  "Well, we can send forensic guys along here, but my guess is that all they will find is that one thousand and one four-wheelers have been roaring back and forth on that power line property, and they won't be able to get anything useful."

  McWide scratched his head. "Where'd you learn this stuff, Bell? I don't think any of our people would have found that spot even if they had looked."

  "You don't? I thought it was laid out pretty plain."

  "Yeah," McWide agreed, "after you located it I could see everything." He asked again, "Where did you learn to do this kind of tracking?"

  "I grew up in the Pennsylvania mountains, up in Perry County, which meant a lot of wild country if a boy chose it. I liked woods, and I hunted, fished and roamed a lot more than anyone else I knew.

  "I learned a lot more in the Marine Corps Scout Sniper Schools I attended, but the real man-tracking I learned from Gunny Morris, who could track a man tip-toeing down a cement road."

  "Tip-toeing down a cement road." McWide mused. "I will add that pithy description to my own descriptive repertoire."

  McWide went on. "You know that I will claim all of this information as a result of my own remarkable abilities, don't you, Bell?"

  Clicker snorted. "You might try, Mac, but our Lieutenant Gilbert will get the credit, you can bet on it."

  It was McWide's turn to snort. "How can I respond to such a certainty? You and I are doomed to the back bench of history."

  Bell turned back, and McWide hurried to catch up. "So, what else can we do? Any ideas, Clicker?"

  Clicker did not sound downhearted.

  "I can think of two things that might work out. All I'll say right now is that it would be wise to let Gilbert claim the fame just as loud and clear as he wishes. Second, I want to keep poking around."

  "What's left to find?"

  "You can't tell until you look." Somehow, Clicker Bell did not sound the least discouraged.

  TV arrived with the investigators, and Lieutenant Gilbert appointed himself as spokesperson.

  To Gilbert's satisfaction, Trooper McWide was sent back to the road, and Clicker Bell was out in the woods somewhere. Gilbert did not call either to the microphone.

  Finally alone, Clicker worked his way along the military crest of the ridge. He had not brought up the term, but that was where the shooting stand had been placed. Bell doubted that meant military people involved, but he had more to discover.

  Details about the shooting hide were bothersome. The most obvious were the left behind tripod and the cartridge case.

  On one of his passes he had heard the case identified as a 7 x 61 Sharpe and Hart. Interesting because there would not be too many of those around. Why would a sniper skilled enough to develop the shooting stand and to make the long shot, carelessly expose details of his weaponry?

  A huge insult to Bell's sensibilities was that the spotting scope had been positioned almost exactly opposite where the rifle's muzzle would have been. To be behind the scope when the rifle fired would have been deafening, and any experienced rifleman would have avoided that.

  Finally, the scrapes and scratches in the earth representing the rifleman and the spotter's toes were just not right. They left little room for the bodies. The two men would have been jammed tight together. Now why would a team have done anything like that?

  Clicker had shown the Lieutenant a boot print that was about as clear as a print could be. There was only one clear print, but it was a beauty. The tread appeared to be a typical Vibram pattern that could be found on many popular boots. One of the cleats had a distinctive wedge shaped cut in it that would make the boot immediately recognizable.

  Too many clues, too much evidence.

  The detail that had convinced him that they were looking at an entire series of false leads was the age of the hide. Others might wax enthusiastic, but Bell doubted any of the marks were less than a week old. Someone was trying to sucker them. Bell suffered serious deja vu. Where had he seen this before? Perhaps he had read something like it. From a Stephen Hunter novel? It could be.

  What Clicker Bell was looking for was another hide. A hide from which the real shot would have come. A little further along the ridge he believed.

  Bell found the real hide with the sun lowering in the west. The signs had been carefully disguised and, where practical, obliterated. The site had been visited often and recently, but the paths in and out were widely spread and indistinct with the shooters avoiding previously used approaches.

  It was clear that the shooting team had been two in number, and Clicker took their trail at a trot. He moved quickly by guessing ahead. Brambles would have been worked around, and high points would have been avoided as would damp ground. The snipers' direction was immediately clear. As straight as practical, they were going over the mountain.

  Bell crossed the mountain summit almost at a run. His lungs were heaving and sweat drenched his upper clothing. He had not run like this in too many years, and he was paying a penalty for growing older.

  Clicker's rifle was a twenty inch barreled, full stocked 30/06 Mannlicher Schoenauer, one of the old 1952 carbines. He had attached a 1 3/4 x 5X Redfield scope in a side mount to the receiver, and out to long hunting ranges the piece was as accurate as he could desire.

  Light and handy, the rifle was ordinarily of little bother, but on this run the piece hung like an albatross from his shoulder or weighted his arms like a barbell. It was worth carrying. Although he had little expectation of coming onto the shooters, with the Mannlicher he could take them on as far out as they could expect to shoot in this kind of terrain.

  The foot trails joined just beyond the summit within a particularly thick grove of tamarack. Clicker could see that, although the shooters had returned this way many times, they had followed different routes until they had reached this point on the safe side of the mountain.

  The foot trail ended at a broad path. Thereafter the route had been made by more than one three wheeler ATV.

  Well now, Clicker thought, there were not that many three-wheelers around anymore. Most had been replaced by four-wheel models which were far safer and could carry useful loads.

  Bell studied the tracks. Could he hope to identify the tire marks?

  He decided that all of the tracks had been made by two all-terrain vehicles. He looked carefully and guessed he could distinguish one vehicle from the other by the different tire tread styles. There w
ere no neat wedges cut from these tires, but if he could find a pair of three-wheeled vehicles in one garage with those kind of tires, he would have something. Otherwise? He feared he knew nothing. The police would undoubtedly do better.

  The sun was at the horizon. He could stay through the night, but he would be miserable. The best bet would be to cut north and strike Bower Road. It would be a pair of miles, he figured, and he would do a lot of it in dark.

  He would get a ride to his truck from Mary Beth and sleep the night in his own bed. In the morning, he would check on the Colonel by phone, but he doubted Maynard would be receiving guests—if he even lived, Clicker reminded himself.

  The police? Bell decided to think on that through the night. If he could come up on the shooters, he might wish the sheriff or the troopers were not around, but they would be far better positioned to search out the get-away three-wheelers than he would. If they would really try.

  Clicker turned north and strode rapidly. He tried to imagine either the sheriff or his favorite lieutenant deep into a search for the ATVs. The imagining was not good. The State Police would do better. Clicker abandoned the visions and concentrated on getting through the darkening forests and onto the distant road.

  Chapter 9

  Clicker woke with a sense of urgency. There would be much to do. It was still too early to begin calling people, so he drove to the utility buildings and loaded a four-wheel ATV into his pickup. An all-terrain vehicle could follow the snipers' three-wheelers.

  He called the State Police and got the day shift just coming on. The investigator assigned to the Maynard case groaned at Bell's false hide explanation but quickly became interested. He agreed to meet Clicker at the shooting hide they had already examined. Bell reminded him that if he brought anyone, they would be crowded on the ranch's single ATV. Detective Angel responded that he would bring a department owned four-wheeler and troopers to help where needed.

  The ranch had a telephone number for Sydney's motel room in Sheridan. Bell got her heading out the door and settled them both down for long explanations.

  The Colonel was doing better than might have been expected. The bullet had not tumbled badly, and the wound was not the crater it could have been if bone had exploded and bits of bullet had slashed through important parts.

  Maynard's doctors were a pair of Vietnam surgeons who had joked their way through the surgery, which had opened Maynard like a clam before putting him back together. They reported that they had seen worse, and that most of the lung would recover.

  How would the rest of the Colonel fare? Shoulder shrugs and a number of "No sweats." The chest cutters seemed pleased to have polished their old bullet wound skills.

  Maynard had roused before the surgeons went home, and the crudely insensitive humor exchanged among warriors both warmed and horrified Sydney.

  Clicker laughed, "You should have heard what went on between them when your tender ears weren't listening, Syd. They probably asked him to join them at golf, and they certainly volunteered to take care of his women while he was laid up. It's the way soldiers and marines make the hard things tolerable."

  Bell promised to keep checking in, but he had things to do before he reported to the Colonel. He brought Sydney up-to-date and suggested she keep her father informed because he would be wondering.

  Clicker said, "He was shot on purpose, Syd. I found where the snipers laid up, and I followed their foot trail to where they got on three-wheelers. The state cops are coming with me today, and they will take most of it from here."

  Sydney was quick. "What do you mean by most of it, Clicker? What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to keep looking, Sydney. I doubt that the three-wheel ATVs will be road registered, so they could be hard to find. Hell, Syd, those guys may have come from Montana, and we will never find anything around here.

  "Wyoming cops can't operate up there, but I can. What I'm going to do is try to think like those bastards that did the shooting, and maybe I can come up with something.

  "That's not the big problem, Syd. The main difficulty is that we don't know why these shooters were out there. They planned carefully, and they have been at it for weeks. Now why would that be? That's what I want to find out because, Syd, they could come back again."

  He sensed Sydney's shudder, so he went on. "There is a lot of mystery here. Why would people who might have slipped away undetected leave a false hide that could be easily found?

  "Another thing is that the shot they made from across the lake was a tough one. I'm going to look into how come they were successful as soon as I hang up."

  Sydney would remain in Sheridan to be at her father's side. Bell agreed to use his phone often and recorded the Colonel's extension.

  Clicker's next stop was at the wall where the Colonel had stood.

  How would he have made certain of a hit? Bell guessed he knew, and the snipers might have done the same.

  First he would have used a laser range finder to get the distance right on the money. His favorite in the Corps had been Leica's Vector 7X binoculars—good out to 2000 yards. Using the Leica he expected to have the range accurate within a yard. The snipers could have used something similar.

  Still, knowing the range was only part of the equation. Long shots were best made following careful zeroing at the same range and, if possible, on the same target. Clicker climbed over the low wall and examined the other side.

  He immediately found what he was looking for. A lighter colored stone was pocked by a number of bullet strikes. The snipers had chosen times when no one was about and had zeroed their rifle using the stone for a bull's-eye. Bell judged the group. Decent shooting. Good enough to expect to hit what they aimed at.

  Then, an idea blossomed. Bell's skin crawled, and he quickly remounted the wall and got off on the safe side.

  He was appalled that the thought had not come before. Why would the snipers have expected Colonel Greg Maynard to approach that wall. He rarely had before and...?

  And Clicker remembered the hat!

  Maynard had snatched Clicker's boonie cap instead of his usual baseball cap, and the snipers had thought they were looking at the only individual who regularly looked over that wall and who almost always wore a Marine Corps boonie. At eight hundred yards, the snipers thought they were looking at Clicker Bell.

  Holy Hell, they had shot the wrong man!

  Bell had to sit down and think about that. Why would anyone choose him as a target? He could think of no one or any reason.

  Yet, they had. Most mornings and occasionally during the day he stood close to the stone wall checking the land that rose and fell away far beyond the lake itself. He looked for fires as well as simply enjoyed the view.

  The snipers had been in place and waiting. They had seen the heads bobbing as he and the Colonel returned, and the shooter had gotten ready. Then, up popped the guy in the boonie cap, posing face-on with hands on his hips, and the shot had been fired. It couldn't have been better. A high sun and no wind, down had gone the target, and the bastards were off somewhere celebrating how smart they were.

  Clicker swore his vilest, and his lips thinned. The snipers had shot the wrong man, but they would not know that he knew it.

  The newspapers would be full of the shooting, and TV already had the story. The snipers would soon learn that they had screwed up their hit. Would they come back and try again? Not immediately, too many people would be milling about, but somewhere down the road they might return.

  Murder was serious business, but why try at all? Why leave phony clues? Why...? The irrationality plagued Clicker's concentration. He climbed in the loaded pickup and headed for the sniping site. His reasons for digging out the shooters had suddenly magnified.

  Should he report his latest finding to the police? How could his new information change their hunt?

  Well, for one thing, they would not only investigate the Colonel while looking for motives, they would search through Clicker Bell's past even more than Greg Mayna
rd's.

  That was as it should be. Bell would explain his entire theory.

  This time, there had been no Lieutenant Gilbert to stand around with his lip curled. This time, the investigators had listened, and they had taken charge as if they were going to do something. They photographed, and they cast impressions of tire and boot marks. They found cigarette butts which were immediately sealed in Ziploc bags. Someone had emptied his bowel, and that spoor was also carefully bagged. Could DNA be gathered from dung? Was there a Manure File carefully maintained at State Police headquarters? Did they have manure specialists who could mutter, "Hmm," before making a positive identification? Clicker did not ask.

  A pair of phones was constantly busy, and plans were made. Clicker Bell answered questions through most of the afternoon, but if anything new was uncovered, the investigators did not share their discoveries. Bell doubted they ever would.

  Ranch duties took up his evening. Three of the owners were heading home. Clicker agreed to keep them informed.

  Hands were waiting for him to make ranch-related decisions. Bell made them and began delegating his normal duties. Until he had exhausted all possibilities of finding who had done the shooting, the ranch would come second.

  It was too late to drive to Sheridan, so he checked in with Sydney at her father's bedside.

  The news was good. The Colonel was in a private room. He was feeling mean and was severely uncomfortable.

  Bell was glad Maynard was asleep. Another day would begin his healing, and when Clicker arrived the Colonel would be so glad to get first-hand news he might forget being a pain in the butt—for a few minutes. Bell went to bed.

  In the morning, Sydney reported that her father had slept decently but was busy with doctors making rounds. A plainclothes cop was waiting his turn to speak with the victim, so Clicker gave up. He promised to appear today—if he could.

  Between ranching details, Bell studied his maps. The Sixplex was pretty well surrounded by the Big Horn National Forest. The bad guys had headed east. If they continued in that direction long enough they would run against Interstate 90. If they went that far, the villains would have sought access to the great road.