Time to Hunt

by Stephen Hunter

  “Yes, sir, but there’s more.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “We have been in contact with Idaho State Police authorities. Just to make things worse, there’s been a double homicide at the phone company. A supervisor and his secretary, coming on to run the snow emergency shift, were shot and killed. Whoever did it got completely away. Nothing was stolen, nothing taken. Maybe it was domestic, but they say it looked like a professional hit.”

  “It’s him,” said Bob. “He’s there. He probably had to get the final location out of the phone company files or something. He got surprised by these two people and he did what he had to do.”

  “Cold,” said Bonson. “Very cold.”

  “I’ll tell you what we need real fast,” said Swagger. “We need an extremely good workup on the terrain there. Let’s figure out, given the time of the shootings, if he’d have a chance at making it on foot to a shooting position. Where would he dump his car, how far would he have to go, what kind of speed could an experienced mountain operator be expected to make? Then double that, and you’ll know what this guy is doing. What time will he make it there? Where would he likely set up? He’d want the sun behind him, that I know.”

  “Get cracking,” said Bonson.

  Nikki watched the snow.

  “It’s pretty,” she said. “But I never knew it could snow in June.”

  “That’s the mountains,” said Aunt Sally. “It snows when it wants to.”

  “When we get back to Arizona,” said her mother from the sofa, “you’ll never see snow again, I promise.”

  “I think I like snow,” said Nikki, “even if you can’t ride in it.”

  She watched in the fading light as the world whitened. Outside, she could see a corral and beyond that the barn. There were no animals way up here, so there was nothing to worry about. The highway was about a half mile away, and it was her job to follow the long dirt road each day and check the solitary mailbox that stood where Upper Cedar Road, that high, lonely ribbon of dirt which connected them to Route 93, passed by.

  But the mountains dominated what she could see. The house was in a high meadow, surrounded by them. Mount McCaleb was the closest, a huge brute of a mountain; it loomed above them, now unseen in the driving snow. Farther to the north was Leatherman Peak; farther to the south, Invisible Mountain. These were the peaks of the Lost River Range, dominated farther toward Challis by Mount Borah, the highest in Idaho. There was the sense of their presence, even though they were invisible. On an evening like this, it was much darker; you could feel them through your bones, dark and solid, just beyond the veil of the seen.

  “Brrrr,” Nikki said. “It looks so cold out.”

  “This snow’ll be gone by the end of the week,” Aunt Sally said. “That’s what they said on the radio. Unseasonable cold front from Canada, but it’ll be in the seventies by Monday. It’ll melt away. Maybe it’ll cause some flooding. It does feel like midwinter, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” said Nikki’s mommy, who was at least ambulatory now. Her left arm and collarbone were secured in a half-body cast, but the abrasions and cuts had healed enough so that she could move about. She wore a bathrobe over jeans. She looked thin, Nikki thought.

  “You know what?” said Aunt Sally, who with her spunky personality and Southern accent had quickly become Nikki’s favorite person in the whole wide world, “I think it’s a soup night. Don’t you girls? I mean, snow, soup, what else goes together better? We’ll do up some nice Campbell’s tomato with crackers, and then we’ll settle down and watch a video. Not Born Free, though. I cannot sit through that again.”

  “I love Born Free,” said Nikki.

  “Nikki, honey, let’s let Aunt Sally pick the movie tonight. She’s a little tired of Born Free. So am I.”

  “Welllllll…,” Nikki considered.

  “What about Singin’ in the Rain?”

  “That’s a good one.”

  “What is it?” said Nikki.

  “A musical. About these people who worked in old-time movies and how much fun they had. There’s a lot of great singing and dancing.”

  “A man dances in the rain,” said Sally.

  “Ew,” said Nikki. “Why would he do that? It’s stupid.”

  Solaratov worked the maps by comparing his crude drawing with the U.S. Geologic Survey maps he had back in his motel room just north of Mackay. He tried to work quickly because he knew it would be a matter of time before the police began checking motels for strangers, and who knew if anybody had seen him come in half an hour after the murders? But at the same time, too much haste was no help at all. He tried to find the zone: that smooth place in his mind where his reflexes were at their best, his brain most efficient, his nerves calmest. He pushed his brain against the whirling topographic patterns of the map, located Route 93 and traced the path from his drawing to the map. He saw that the ranch house site was farther out 93, at the Mackay Reservoir. But there you turned right, drove across the flats and began to climb up FR 127, an “unimproved road,” by the map symbol, which mounted the Lost Rivers and penetrated them, following Upper Cedar Creek. There was a natural fold in the rise of the mountains as the road went deeper, and at the end of that stood the ranch, surrounded on three sides by Mount McCaleb, Massacre Mountain and Leatherman Peak. The mountains were represented on the map by dizzying twirls of elevation lines, and the denser they were the more sheer the rise. He saw that the fast way in would be along Route 93, but that would not work, for the road was now officially closed, barely passable, and probably being monitored by the police. Who else would be driving through such a storm on such a night except a murderer fleeing the scene of his crime?

  But he was a mere few miles from the south slope of Mount McCaleb, and the way was well marked, as it followed Lower Cedar Creek. The creek, protected from drifting snow by the furrow it had cut in the earth, would not be frozen this quickly, but it might be low, and no snow would adhere to it. Therefore, it might be surprisingly easy walking, even in the dark. When he got to McCaleb, he’d climb about two thousand feet—the slope didn’t turn sheer for another five thousand feet—and could then just follow the ridge around and site himself above the ranch house. Again, the drifting snow could make it difficult, but he knew that on promontories, the snow doesn’t drift or collect; in fact, that way might be easy too. He calculated the trip would take about six or seven hours; plenty of time to set up, lase the range, and get to his soft target in the morning, when the sun was due to break through. Then he could fall back, continue around McCaleb toward Massacre Mountain deeper into the Lost River Range, call in his helicopter, and be in another state by noon, leaving nothing but an empty motel room and a truck rented under a pseudonym.

  He picked up his cellular and called.

  “Yes, hello,” came the answer.

  “Yes, I’ve located the target,” he said, and gave them the position. “I am moving out tonight to set up.”

  “Isn’t it snowing, old man?”

  “That’s good. The snow doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’ve seen snow before.”

  “All right. What then?”

  “I’ll be completing the deal sometime tomorrow morning whenever the client becomes visible. The husband isn’t around. She’ll be the one whose arm is in the cast. I’ll execute cleanly, then fall back through the mountains about two miles and scale a foothill between McCaleb and Massacre. You have the map? You are following me?”

  “Yes, we have it.”

  “Your helicopter pilot can navigate to that point?”

  “Of course. If the sun is out, he’ll have no problem.”

  “I’ll call when the deal is closed. He’ll be flying from… ?”

  “You don’t need to know, old man. He’s relocated close to your area. We’re in contact with him.”

  “Yes, I’ll call when I reach the area of the pickup. When I see him, I’ll pop smoke. I have smoke. He can come in and take me out—and then it’s done.”

  “And the
n it’s done, yes.”

  The working party met at 2330 with the best available intelligence. It felt so familiar, like a battalion operations meeting: stern men with dim but focused personalities, a sense of hierarchy and urgency, the maps on the wall, too many Styrofoam cups of coffee on the table. It reminded Bob of a similar meeting twenty-six years earlier, where the CIA and Air Force and S-2 Brophy and CO Feamster had met with him and Donny as they mapped their plans to nail Solaratov then.

  “All right,” said the map expert, “assuming he’s located somewhere in the greater Mackay area and the roads are closed and he’s going to go in overland, it’s actually well within an experienced man’s range, if he knows where he’s going, he has good harsh-weather gear and he’s determined.”

  “What time?”

  “Oh, he can make it well before light. If he finds an exposed ridge, he won’t have much snow accumulation, given a fair amount of wind. If he gets a tailwind, it could actually help him, though we don’t have the wind-tendency dope in yet. He’d almost certainly make it before light. He could set himself up without much difficulty. I don’t know where—”

  “He’ll be to the east,” Swagger said. “He’ll want the sun behind him. He won’t want any chance of the light hitting his lens and reflecting down into the target area.”

  “How soon can Idaho State Police or park rangers make it in?” asked Bonson, who was running this show with glaring ferocity. He was apparently something of a legend in these precincts, Bob could tell; all the others deferred to him and at the same time were subtly eager for his attention and his approval. Bob had seen it in staff briefings a thousand times.

  “Probably not till midmorning. They can’t helicopter in; they can’t navigate with snow mobiles or tracked vehicles at night.”

  “Can’t they walk in?” said Bonson. “I mean, if Solaratov can walk, why can’t they?”

  “Well, sir,” said the analyst, “don’t forget they have a civil emergency on their hands. They’re going to have people stuck along highways in snowdrifts for fifty miles each way, they’re going to have accidents, frostbite, wires down, messed-up communications, hypothermia, the whole shebang of a public safety emergency. Sir, you could call the governor and get him to divert some people; that might work. But I don’t know how it would play in—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Bob. “If he runs into cops or rangers, he’ll just kill them too and go on about his business. It’s not a problem for him. These guys have no idea what they’re up against. He can take them out, take out my wife, then escape and evade for weeks until pickup. That’s how good he is. That’s what his whole life has been about.”

  “Sir, with all due respect,” said the young analyst, “I’d like to make a point which I’d be more comfortable making in private. But I have to make it here and now, so I hope Sergeant Swagger will understand that it’s not about personalities, it’s about responsibilities.”

  “Go ahead,” said Swagger. “Speak freely. Say what has to be said.”

  “Well, sir,” said the young analyst, “I have to think that it might be wise to concede the Russian his mission. We ought to be thinking about contingency plans for taking him down on the out route. He’s an incredible asset. The information he has! Our first priority ought to be to take him alive and absorb the casualties—”

  “No!” boomed Bonson, like Odin throwing thunderbolts. “Sergeant Swagger’s wife is obviously in possession of valuable knowledge. You’d let that go? They think she’s important enough to run this high-risk, maximum-effort mission, and you’re going to let them get her? And you’re saying to Sergeant Swagger here, we’re just going to let your wife die? It’s more important that we get some information on old ops? We’ll just let him do his little thing, then we’ll pick him up in the afternoon?”

  “Sir, I’m trying to be realistic. I’m sorry, Sergeant Swagger. I get paid to call them as I see them.”

  “I understand,” said Bob. “It ain’t a problem.”

  “How fast could we get FBI HRT in there, or Idaho State Police SWAT?” asked Bonson again.

  “It’s a no-go for stopping the shot,” said the analyst. “It just can’t happen. We can’t get people in there fast enough. Man, this guy’s really caught some breaks!”

  Bonson turned to him.

  “I am not willing to concede him his mission. I absolutely am not. Will one of you bright young geniuses solve this problem? That also is what you’re paid for.”

  “I’m just thinking out loud, but you could target the sniper’s likely location with cruise missiles,” someone said. “They’re very accurate. You’d have a pretty good chance of—”

  “No, no,” someone else said, “the cruises are low-altitude slow-movers, with not a lot of wing to give them much maneuverability. They’d never get through the inclement weather. Plus, they have to read landforms to navigate and we don’t have time to program them. Finally, the nearest cruises are on a nuclear missile frigate in San Diego. There’s no mission sustainability in the time frame.”

  “Could we smart bomb?”

  “The infrared could see through the clouds, but the landforms in the mountains are so goddamned confusing that I don’t see how he could pinpoint the target area.”

  “No, but that’s promising,” said Bonson. “All right, Wigler, I want you to run a feasibility study, and I mean instantaneously.”

  Wigler nodded, grabbed his coffee and raced out.

  It was quiet. Bob looked at his watch. Midnight. Solaratov was well on his way. Six, maybe seven hours till daylight out there. He’d take his shot, Julie would join Donny and Trig and Peter Farris, and whatever secret she had would be gone forever. Maybe they could take Solaratov alive. But that was an illusion too. He’d have an L-pill. He was a professional. There was no way to stop him or take him. He was going to win. Again.

  Then Bob said, “There is one way.”

  The banks of the creek shielded the shallow lick of water and Solaratov built a good rhythm as he plunged along, as if on a sidewalk that led to the mountains. He wore night-vision goggles, which lit the way for him as he walked through green-tinted whiteness, following the course of the creek bed as it wound along the flats. The wind howled; the snow cut down diagonally, gathering quickly or swirling.

  But he felt good. He wore a Gore-Tex parka over a down vest, mountain boots, mountain pants, long underwear, a black wool knit cap. The boots, expensive American ones by Danner, were as comfortable as any he’d ever worn, much nicer than the old Soviet military issue. He had a canteen, a compass, forty rounds of hand-loaded ammunition, the 7mm Remington, the Leica range-finding binoculars, his night-vision goggles, and the Glock 19 in its shoulder holster with a reloaded fifteen-round magazine, and two other fifteen-rounders hanging under his other shoulder. He’d improvised a snow cape from the motel room sheets.

  After two hours of steady pumping, he reached the place where the creek bed petered out as it went underground. Above him soared the lower heights of Mount McCaleb, barren and swept with snow and light vegetation. The mountains were too new, too arid to hold much life. He looked upward at the hardscrabble escarpment. Then he looked back across the flats into the center of the valley.

  It was if the world had ended in snow. There was a foot of it everywhere and it had closed down everything. No lights, no sign of civilization or even human habitation stood against the whiteness of the landscape and its hugeness and emptiness, even in the green wash of the ambient light.

  Solaratov had a brief moment of melancholy: this was the sniper’s life, was it not? This, always: loneliness, some mission that someone says is important, the worst weather elements, the presence of fear, the persistence of discomfort, the rush always of time.

  He began to climb. The wind howled, the snow slashed. He climbed through the emptiness.

  “I’ll bet this is good,” said Bonson.

  “HALO,” said Bob.

  “HALO?” asked Bonson.

  “He’d
never make it,” said the military analyst. “He’d have no idea what the winds would do. The terrain is impossible; the drop would probably kill him.”

  “I didn’t say he,” said Bob. “I wouldn’t ask another man to do it. But I’d do it.”

  “What the hell is HALO?” asked Bonson.

  “High Altitude, Low Opening.”

  “It’s an airborne insertion technique,” said the young man. “Highly trained airborne operators have tried it, with mixed success. You go out very high. You fall very far. It’s sort of like bungee jumping, without the bungee. You fall like hell, and in the last six hundred feet or so, the chute deploys. You land hard. The point is to fall through radar. You’re falling so fast you don’t make a parachute signature on radar. Most Third World radars can’t even pick up a falling man. But I’ve never heard of anyone doing it in the mountains in a blizzard at night. The winds will play havoc all the way down; you have no idea where the hell you’d wind up. You could be blown sideways into a face. SOG tried it in ’Nam. But it never worked there.”

  “I was in SOG,” said Bob. “It didn’t work there because the problem was the linkup after the drop. We never could figure out how to reassemble the team. But here there ain’t a team. There’s only me.”

  “Sergeant, there’s real low survivability on that one. I don’t think this dog hunts.”

  “I’m airborne qualified,” said Bob. “I did the jump course at Benning in sixty-six, when I was back from my first tour.”

  “That was thirty years ago,” someone pointed out.

  “I’ve made twenty-five jumps. Now, you guys have terrific avionics for night navigation. You got terrific computers. You can pinpoint the drop location and you can get there easily enough by flying above the storm. You can plot a drop point where the odds of my landing in the appropriate area are very high. Right?”

  The silence meant assent.

  Then someone said, “Instead of a smart bomb, we send a smart guy.”

  “Here’s the deal. You get me there, over the storm. I’ll fall through the blizzard. I can’t chute through it, but I can cannonball through it and my deviation won’t be that bad. I can open ’way low, to minimize wind drift, maybe as low as three hundred feet. If you liaise up an Air Force jet and a good crew, you can have me there in six hours. I can’t think of another way to get a countersniper on the ground in that circumstance. When I’m on the ground, you can triangulate me with a satellite and I can get an accurate position and I can move overland and get there in time.”