The Third Bullet: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

by Stephen Hunter

  “It is. Pinch yourself, it hurts. You’re awake.”

  “I guess I am.”

  The three walked to the car. Handshakes all around. Then Bob said, “Richard, do you mind if I drive?”

  “Sure, no problem,” said Richard.

  “Great.” He got in and slammed the door behind him as Richard eased into his seat.

  Swagger pulled out, and Marty watched them go.

  And so at last the mighty day had arrived.

  My killers had infiltrated two days before and lay without moving over that long stretch of time in case any rogue surveillance had been put in place, as unlikely as that might seem. Besides movement discipline, they maintained radio silence throughout and simply lay in place, vectored on the kill zone while passing the time in isometric hell.

  Meanwhile, at no time were the approaching Swagger and Richard monitored. Part of the plan was to place no human eye upon them. Besides Swagger’s sensitivities, there were practical reasons: the super-cautious Swagger might have hired or gotten from his pal Memphis at the Dallas FBI his own team of countersurveillors to stay with him from a discreet distance and look for signs of followers. We couldn’t run that risk. But we did have Richard under control, though he had no idea for what purpose, and his constant e-mail updates by iPhone informed us that he and Swagger had flown the day before from Dallas to Hartford, secured a blue rental Ford Focus, license number given, spent the night at a Marriott in Hartford, and would leave early the next morning for the assignation. They were slated to arrive at the rural Adams estate at 9 a.m.

  I was pleased, therefore, when I received, at approximately the appropriate time, the notification from Richard: “Everything cool. Leaving now.”

  In the car they would have privacy. No need to plant a bug that Swagger might pick up on. Also, I had decided not to electronically penetrate Marty’s place. Swagger might have some kind of miniature scanner that would alert him to the possibility of electronic ears, which could give up the game; and there was the possibility that somehow, some way, whoever went in would leave a sign of his presence, and Marty might pick it up and divulge it to Swagger in casual conversation, alerting the man. Worse, he might decide not to divulge it, which would cause him to sustain a fiction over the meet, and Swagger would detect that easily enough and take compensatory measures, which could ruin everything. It was important that monitoring of Swagger, by whatever means, be kept to an absolute minimum. I didn’t have him shadowed by air, though I had the helicopter on standby; he might notice an orbiting bird, catch a glimpse of reflected sunlight off the windscreen, hear the pitch of the rotor blades changing as the craft began to descend. All these tells could ruin us.

  I settled into jittery anticipation. Two hours of travel time, then perhaps two hours of meet time. In four hours it would be finished. I watched Double Indemnity for about the six hundredth time; superb movie, with the great Fred MacMurray and that scheming little vixen Barbara Stanwyck. It ate up the time admirably, but I still had over an hour to kill. I summoned Shizuka. Finally, there was nothing left to do, or at least nothing I could do, except wait. Tick-tock, tick-tock. It was about time for Swagger to arrive at the estate.

  I lay on my veranda dressed in expensive après-M’Bongo wardrobe—I was hunting, after all—of cargo pants, boots, and a heavy dark green cotton hunting shirt with epaulets and bellows pockets. I suppose I looked ridiculous: Francis Macomber’s wardrobe lavished on a spry pink eighty-three-year-old who couldn’t weigh 135 dripping wet. At least I didn’t have one of those absurd hats with a leopard-skin band, as Preston had worn in the movie. My prescription Ray-Bans lessened the glare of the sun, but at this time of year, the day wouldn’t turn hot.

  I used my Bic and energetically updated this memoir, bringing it at last to the present, in which I now write in real time, and felt sadness. In truth, I’ve enjoyed the writing over the past few weeks. Recalling my life has been an invigorating experience, confronting my follies and misjudgments, recalling the men and women I loved, seeing them again in the middle distance of my memory. God, I’ve had a great life. Who has lived as hard and well as I, who has known such giants as I? Grand old Lon, the immensely gifted Jimmy with his nerves of steel and his bright laugh. Peggy. I miss you, old girl. You were the best. I’ll see you all soon, my friends. Not quite yet, and you’ll forgive me for not rushing, but soon enough, Hugh Meachum will join his wonderful colleagues, all of whom he was so lucky to serve with—

  The buds in my ear were linked to the commo center, where a fleet of experts bounced signals between dishes and orbiting orbs so that I could eavesdrop on the drama as it played out. Now the buds crackled to life, and I picked up the initial confirm as my commandos registered the arrival of the Swagger vehicle at the compound with a brief break of radio silence.

  “Blue Team, this is Three, I have a visual on road dust. They’re on the property.”

  “Easy, Blue Team,” said Blue Leader, “I will confirm on passage. I want all your eyes down, don’t try to see anything, don’t make visual contact.”

  “Roger, Leader.”

  There was a pause.

  Then, “This is Blue Leader, I have a confirm on vehicle, two occupants, blue Ford Focus, Connecticut license plate checks as Romeo Victor Foxtrot 6-5-1, as per intel. Target confirmed on-site. Stand down for now, I will call a weapons check within the hour.”

  “Roger, out,” came three crackly voices in simo, trying to out-abrupt one another.

  They were there. So far, so good. I lay back and enjoyed all that I saw before me. The surrounding forest was lush, and the meadow that was open a mile to the river for some reason at this late-summer date blazed green. I’d never seen such a vibrant shade. It seemed almost to shimmer as the sun rolled across it, matted only by a few clouds, all of it given animation by the persistence of a low, friendly breeze.

  There was nothing left to do, nothing left to write. I lie here, feeling the slow and easy slip of the seconds, and it seems to go by not in real time but in super-real time, and I don’t dare check my watch, for that would somehow break the spell and I’d be back to the slow tick-tock, tick-tock, instead of being privileged to experience the heated rush of seconds.

  “Blue Team, weapons check.”

  “Blue Leader, this is One, cocked and locked, sighted in.”

  “Roger, One.”

  “Blue Leader, this is Two, all samey-same.”

  “Blue Leader, Three, ditto on that.”

  “This is Blue Leader, all good.”

  More silence. It became time to add the last team member.

  “This is Blue Leader to Blue Five, let’s get airborne and to your hold.”

  “Blue Leader, this is Blue Five, I am lighting up and going airborne and will be monitoring the police channels and holding at point one for quick evac.”

  “Roger, Blue Five, notify when on point, good and out.”

  More time dragged by.

  “Blue Leader, this is Airborne Blue Five, am on point, holding at about two angels, police channel open. The Smokies are all out at some accident on the interstate, and all local roads in or out are low-volume. You are cleared to operate.”

  “Roger, Blue Five, I have you so noted, and out.”

  Silence. Tick-tock, tick-tock. If a bird cried, I did not hear. If a cloud masked the sun’s radiance, I did not notice. If the wind rose or fell, the temp rose or dropped, the shadows deepened or softened, I did not care.

  “Blue Leader, I heard a car door slam.”

  “Good work, Two. Go to guns, fire on my fire. Stay ready, Blue Five.”

  Four simultaneous “Rogers” crackled out.

  “Blue Team, I have road dust rising.”

  I could see him, Blue Team Leader, all cammied up like a beast from the bog with a ludicrous green-brown face and a full canteen, leaning in to the machine gun. I could see it all: the car suddenly visible in the trees, then it’s there, in the bright sun of the kill zone on the straightaway, coming right at Blu
e Team Leader.

  “Blue Team, on my fire,” Blue Team Leader said, and the radio picked up the ripping sound of the one and then the three other light machine guns joining as they emptied their one-hundred-round belts into the automobile.

  CHAPTER 23

  As the green tunnel of trees absorbed them, Richard babbled away happily.

  “Boy, that was great, really, this is going so well, we’re contributing something, we will be adding something to our understanding of history, we will make some, maybe a lot, of money, it’s all coming together, and the best thing is we get along, we like, we respect, each other, and it will continue to—”

  Swagger hit him in the mouth with his elbow. Richard’s head bolted back, his hands flew to his wound, and his body posture seemed to collapse as all strength left and he became instantly senile. The blow loosened some teeth and opened a two-inch gash that spurted blood down Richard’s chin.

  “Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing? Oh, God, that hurt, you madman, what is—”

  “Shut up, Richard,” said Swagger, halting the car. “Now tell me. Who’s behind this thing? What’s his name, where is he, what’s he get out of it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” yelled Richard through a snaggle of loose teeth and two hands attempting to stanch the blood flow. “Why are you doing this, God, you hurt me so bad, I never—”

  “Richard, about three hundred yards down the road, we pull into some sunlight, and about five or six guys with machine guns are going to shred this car and anybody inside it. I will clonk you again and let you stay here while they do their job. They will kill you dead as hell. Or you can scurry back to Marty’s and hide in the basement with that fat blowhard. You got one second to decide.”

  Richard needed only half a second. “I don’t know. No names. He’s rich, powerful. He talks to me via satellite phone. I report, I get instructions. It’s all professional, top-secret, well done. I have no idea who he is.”

  “Not enough, Richard.”

  “I don’t know a thing about killing. It was represented to me as some kind of stock maneuver, some high-end Wall Street thing. They want to get a house to publish the book, then they’ll expose it as a fraud, the stock of the house collapses, they buy in and use the leverage to pick up a whole cluster of related companies from a guy they’ve targeted. That’s all I know, I swear.”

  “Give me the phone, Richard.”

  Richard reached into his breast pocket and came up with a satellite phone with its stubby, folded aerial and handed it over, fingers shaking wildly. “You push one; it’s a direct line. He’s running it himself, but I don’t know anything except he knows everything and he pays very, very well.”

  “Okay, Richard, get out of here. Lock yourself in and don’t come out until the state cops arrive and get you. Cooperate with them from the get-go, or you will spend the rest of your life as someone’s boy toy in the Connecticut pen.”

  “Who are you?” Richard cried.

  “I’m the man with the nails. And this is the day I nail all you guys. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Richard hit the dirt running. He vanished in seconds, not that Swagger noticed. He got out himself, dipped into the looming woods, and came out in seconds with a dead branch about fourteen inches long.

  He drove along at twenty, no rush, no hurry, controlled the whole way. The car followed the curve of the road, which followed the curve of the hill, and before him, he saw the darkness of the canopy give way to a blast of sunlight as the trees fell back from the road for a bit. About thirty yards out of that zone, he halted and took time to precisely regulate the wheel, checking to see that the front wheels were locked straight ahead.

  He climbed from the car and hunched beside it. He wedged the branch against the seat, saw that it was a little long, pulled it out, and snapped four inches off. He re-wedged it, lowered the unsecured end to the gas pedal, took a last look, and pushed the branch down against the pedal, driving it forward perhaps two inches and holding it there. The car accelerated as he spun away, and whack, caught the rear of the door-well across the back of his right shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

  He rolled, found his feet, and began to race down the road as the car hurtled forward.

  He heard the firing, one and then three more guns, so loud that they drowned out any sound of metal shearing or glass shattering. The guns roared on for a good three seconds, then quit abruptly.

  Swagger turned left and slid through an opening in the trees, but before him, he saw only more trees, all of them vertical against the slope of the hill. Up was the only way to go.

  “The seven-six-two did great,” said Blue Two, the first to reach the wreckage. “Unfortunately, there’s nobody here.”

  “Shit,” said Blue Leader. “Any blood?”

  “Don’t see any. Just blasted upholstery and a million pieces of glass. He set the accelerator with this.” He displayed the branch.

  “Okay,” said Blue Leader. “The car couldn’t run far like that, so he set it up fifty or so yards down the road. He got off the road, he’s running hard; the question is up or down.”

  “We going after him?” someone asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Blue Leader. He pulled up his throat mike. “Blue Five, this is Blue Leader.”

  “Roger, Blue Leader.”

  “We have a running target. I want you to vector to our kill zone, then look to the south, and I will pop smoke. Orient on the smoke, then deploy your FLIR. I have to know which way the bastard is running and if he’s got a team in there waiting for us.”

  “Roger that, Blue Leader.”

  “Okay, dump the ghillies, this is high-speed stuff.”

  The team collectively shook itself free of the cumbersome branch-and-leaf constructions that had obliterated their human shapes. Now they were in digital cammo, sand-and-spinach-pattern, a weave of forest colors and shadows.

  “I want intervals of thirty yards,” Blue Leader barked, “and if Five gets him nailed and it’s all clear, we will pursue. If there’s heavy opposition, we’ll bug out. This is a kill, not a war.”

  “Roger that,” came the replies.

  The four operators hustled down the road, fingers on triggers. Their equipment bounced as they ran, the MK48s dangling on slings, the M-6s light in hands, ready for return fire in an instant if ambush came, all red-dot optics on and set to ten, smoke canisters and shoulder holsters flopping on harnesses, body armor slopping up and down at each step.

  “Fine here,” said Blue Leader. “Deploy into intervals.”

  He pulled a smoker off his belt as the boys spread themselves out, went to knee, and began to eyeball at full intensity. Blue Leader pulled the pin and dumped the signal device on the ground. It fizzed, then began to produce copious volumes of roiling yellow smoke that drifted upward, and in an instant, the shadow cut into the sunlight as the helicopter swerved over them. The machine hovered there for seconds that seemed like minutes.

  “Do you have anything in your green eye, Five?”

  “Okay, okay, I have a fast mover uphill from you, maybe a hundred yards, he’s pulling himself over rocks, he’s twelve o’clock to your line, going straight up.”

  “Anything else hot?”

  “I have no other targets, I repeat, no other targets. Only the one fast, hot one; man, he’s moving for an old guy.”

  “Can you azimuth us to him?”

  “Zero-zero degrees. Just go up, baby, he’s dead on a line for the peak and not going much farther once he reaches it unless he finds a stairway to heaven.”

  “That’s our job,” someone said, breaking radio protocol.

  Blue Leader stood, pointed upward to the three other members of the ground team, who, having heard the conversation, were rising too, and made the whirlybird hand gesture to give them the order they’d been waiting on, which was to pursue and kill.

  Swagger climbed. Jesus Christ, he was too old for this. The incline fought him, the trees fough
t him, the slipperiness of the pine needles and leaves sheathing the ground fought him, the boulders fought him, his hip fought him, gravity fought him, age fought him, everything fought him.

  Fuck! A slip and he went hard to ground, slamming his knee against the inevitable rock, sending a flare of pain up through leg to body and brain.

  I am way too old for this, he thought.

  The sweat loaded in his eyebrows, then dumped to his eyes, stinging them, turning the world to blur. He tried to blink them clear. A gut ache came, bearing the news that he’d been so immersed in this quest over the past weeks, he’d lost a lot of his conditioning. Tremors slithered through arms, dizziness through vision, and he sought handholds, anything to pull him upward. Now and then he’d find a bare spot where his New Balances would find traction and give him a boost, and he’d gain a second or two, but he knew that four young athletes in superb condition, superbly armed, guided by the chopper that floated just over the canopy of the trees, were closing on him.

  The hip. He tried to concentrate on it, to accommodate his mind to the pain, which was now severe, but in its time on Earth, that joint had been shattered by a bullet, replaced with a steel ball, then cut deep and hard by a blade of legendary sharpness at full force, and finally, just recently, the whole mess had been shot again, though at a shallow angle, and was not fully healed.

  It burned, it boiled, it seethed. It disrupted what coordination was left in his old limbs, and it eroded his will and stamina as he fought for gulps of dry air, wiped his soaking brow, ignored the dozens of raw abrasions his passage through bush and needle, over rock, and in thicket and copse, had inflicted upon him. How close were they? Should he zig? Should he zag? Was a red dot even now settling on his spine, about to sunder it and leave him flat and begging for the coup de grâce?

  Suddenly, he broke into the light, and the slope lessened. He’d made it to the top.

  Up here, the wind precluded the trees achieving any height, but the acre of hilltop was strewn with boulders, clumps of brush, patches of raw earth, and a few small, scabby trees that had managed, against all odds, to hang on.