A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set: I, Sniper, Night of Thunder, 47th Samurai

by Stephen Hunter

  “What’s the word?”

  There was silence, as if neither Vern nor Ernie wanted to bust the news. Finally it was Ernie, who said, “Rumor here in the crowd is that some punk kid shot it out with two armed, masked desperados. Killed ’em both deader n’ shit.”

  The Reverend looked for other possibilities.

  “Don’t mean a thing. No sir, first off, no punk kid is besting Carmody and B.J. Grumley, no sir, not now, not ever. It has to be coincidence, you know, that brought some Joe Blows into the kid’s gun sights, even if Carmody and B.J.’s off roaming around to make a job on someone so as to make it look robbery-like. I know the good Lord wouldn’t take two Grumleys from me, no sir, not with this big thing coming up two days off, and me needing every damn man. So you just—”

  And then he sort of ran out of words.

  “Sir,” Ernie finally said, “thing is, I think that’s Carmody’s car in the lot, I can make it out. And it’s impounded and they’re dusting it for prints even now and a tow truck is here.”

  “Oh, damn. Damnation, hellish damnation, flame and spark, damnation. It just can’t be.”

  “Sir, I am only telling you what I see.”

  “Was there anything about another fellow? There’s a shootout, our two boys, they gone, but they got another fellow, right, tell me that’s what it’s about.”

  “Sir, ain’t heard nothing about no other fellow. Only about this clerk, what a sad-sack shmo he was, only this time he came up aces, a mankiller of the first rank, chest to chest and muzzle to muzzle, he shot it out, and they’re down and gone and he’s a hero of the highest damned order.”

  The Reverend let out an animal howl of rage and pain, deep soul ache, the blues, whatever you may call it. A Grumley—no, two Grumleys—had passed. His scream so rent the air that from the rec room, where they’d been lounging, playing cards, watching TV on fuzzy black and whites, drinking, just palavering, his progeny and kin came to see him and take the message of despair and vengeance he was putting out.

  “You learn what you can, boys, then you head on home,” he told Vern and Ernie.

  “Yes sir.”

  The Reverend looked up at his flock.

  “We lost ’em, boys. Both ’em gone to the maker. It ain’t right.”

  “What happened, sir?”

  He told the story as he’d heard it.

  “No way, uh-uh, no Grumley going down in a fight with that pudding-ass kid,” seemed to be the consensus.

  “Pap,” a voice came, “this boy, he couldna gotten the goods on Carmody and B.J. Carmody’s a good shot. He had a knack. He’d shoot the ankles off a fly.”

  “B.J. ain’t no slouch either,” said another. “Remember in 0 and 6, he shot it out with two big black dudes in an alley in St. Louis, and though he got punctured himself, he made sure he’s standing and they’s bagged by the time that fight’s done.”

  Several of the wilder Grumleys wanted to lock and load and head out for hot-blooded vengeance that very second.

  “We got the machine guns, we can blast the holy Jesus out of that town in a minute and a half. With that big gun we can blow down all their church steeples, we can take that fat sad clown and hang him upside down in burning tar in the town center.”

  It was at this time that Vern Pye and Ernie Grumley returned from their melancholy mission, and they got there in time to hear all the talk of rage and vengeance, of burning the flesh of the Grumley killer, of razing the municipality that spawned him, or wreaking biblical vengeance on the transgressors. Through it all handsome Vern kept himself calm. Finally and calmly he spoke.

  “Now you listen up, boys. Listen to Vern. I am the oldest and the most experienced. I am maybe the most accomplished. I have three homes, three wives, gals, money in the bank, and know some country-western stars. So let me share some wisdom. May I speak, sir?”

  The Reverend considered, then said, “Son Vern, you may speak your piece in the Grumley fashion.”

  “Thank you, Reverend. You boys, you’s all a-rage and full of the fires of hatred and vengeance. You want to go in and flatten that place, and teach every last man and woman in it the fear of Grumley justice, and I don’t blame you a bit. But we are men of a certain creed who live by a certain code and have certain responsibilities. That is at our center and is as fierce to us as our Baptist faith and our willingness to shed and spill blood. So I say hold it in, cousins and brothers. Hold it in cold and tight and squeeze it down.

  “Now we have a job we’ve contracted to do. We’ve worked hard on it. We’ve prepared and sacrificed. We’ve taken a stranger into our midst—” he indicated Brother Richard, who was slouched beneath his Richard Petty cowboy hat and fake sideburns at the rear of the room—“and let that stranger use his waspish words against us, as if he’s some kind of high and mighty. We do that because it’s part of our contract. We are professionals of a creed, brothers and cousins, and we will be true to that creed. So for now, it is my conclusion there should be no blood spilling, and that clerk should be left alone to enjoy his few minutes of glory.

  “But I swear to you, and you know that Grumley to Grumley, Grumley word is holy, I swear to you that when this done finished, then we will get to the bottom of this. We will have a nice long chat with that lucky boy and we will find out what transpired and we will ascertain blame and we will pay out justice, eyeball for eyeball, earhole for earhole, heart for heart. We will inform the world that Grumley blood is too precious to be spilled, and when it is, hell visits in due turn.”

  This did not mollify the Grumleys. It was not what they wanted to hear. They turned back to their father and spiritual leader.

  “Is that it, Pap? Is that what you want?”

  “I have considered. I see deeper into this. It’s not about that clerk. I agree he be no match for any Grumley, much less two. I see another hand at play.”

  He paused.

  “Who, then, Reverend?” asked Vern. “Who is the master in all this?”

  “I think that goddamned old man, that gray-headed fella come in earlier, the father of that gal? You seen that fella? Something ’bout him I didn’t like. No, can’t say I didn’t like him, wasn’t no issue of liking. Was more like, he’s too calm for what he says he was. I shot a coupla clay birds for him and he said, ‘Ow, it’s so loud.’ He said, ‘Aw, I don’t like guns.’ He said that but he’s in my vision when I’m shooting and he didn’t jump none when the gun went off, as if he’d been around the report of a firearm a time or two. And he told me this odd story about how he’d got cut up in Japan, his hip laid open, but there was no point in suing the fellow what cut him, and he told that story, which made no sense without a further explanation, almost for his own private pleasure. He’s takin’ pride in it. He’s taking pleasure in some memory of some event of triumph.”

  “He some kind of undercover man, sir? Is that what you’re saying?” a Grumley wondered.

  “I don’t know whose agent he is, if he really is that gal’s daddy, or he’s playing a game or what. But I have done this work many a year and have developed a nose for certain things. And I got a peculiar aura off him—it’s what now I see is mankiller’s aura. There are some born to kill with a gun. They have the steel for snuffing out life with a piece of flying lead, don’t feel nothing about it. There was a breed of lawmen like that once, mankilling cops, old timers who weren’t afraid of going to the gun. I didn’t think there’s men around like that no more. Thought the last of them died years ago when they stopped calling killing a man’s job and made it like a sickness, so a man who wins a fair gunfight should feel ashamed and go into a hospital. That’ll drive your mankiller into retirement or the graveyard faster’n anything. That’s the only enemy he can’t never beat, except maybe a Grumley boy. But this old man’s one, you should know his kind has been the kind to hunt our kind since ancient days. Never thought I’d see his like again, thought that breed was vanished from the earth, but I think he’s back and hunting us.”

  “So what’ll we d
o, Reverend?”

  “Well, only one thing to do. Now we hunt him. Grumley business come first. Without Grumley, there’s nothing but chaos. Family matters most. So we must hunt and kill this bastard, and I want y’all out on the streets so as to mark him down and then we’ll finish him but good. Maybe we get done in time for the job, maybe we don’t. But Grumley come first.”

  NINETEEN

  Bob realized as he left Lester’s Grocery and the clerk that without his keepers, he now had a free shot to Knoxville, could check on his daughter, talk to his wife, and pick up some firepower. He turned right out of the parking lot, drove up 167, ignoring whatever mysteries lurked behind the locked gates of the Baptist prayer camp, hit 67, and soon crossed from Johnson to Carter County, on the way west to 81, which would take him south.

  Immediately it was apparent that Carter was a richer county by far. It had a man-made lake, marinas bobbing with pleasure boats visible even in the dark, bars, restaurants, vacation homes, nightlife. At one point a couple of Carter County sheriff’s cars roared by him, sirens blazing, lights pumping, and now and then a Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle sped by, all of them clearly headed to the site of the shooting, where that boy had to hold his line for at least a few more days. Maybe when this straightened out, Bob would speak up, explain himself to Detective Thelma Fielding, take the kid off the spot and face what consequences there might be. But it seemed to him that there should be none, besides his leaving the scene of—well, of what? A crime? Not hardly. Fair, straight shooting in defense against armed men who had masks on who were moving aggressively toward him. Pure self-defense if the law was applied right.

  Other things on the to-do list. Make sure to check the press accounts and see who these boys were. The second fellow had moved well and intelligently, brought fire, clearly a veteran of previous firefights of one sort or another. A professional, to be sure; he’d have tracks, associations, a record, all that which could tell an interested party a thing or two.

  And then there’s the issue of Eddie Ferrol, Iron Mountain Armory owner. Talk to him and someone tries to kill you. Who is he? Why is he in this? He doesn’t seem smart enough, tough enough, ruthless enough to be a big part in anything criminal, yet for some reason he has an amazing influence on events. Why is that? What does his knowledge of the Bible, particularly Mark 2:11, have to do with anything? Why does even abstract, useless knowledge of this passage equate to an instant murder attempt? Eddie looked like the sort who’d spill his beans easily enough. But almost certainly, he’d go to ground and make himself hard to find. He certainly wasn’t going back to the gun store, that was for sure.

  And what was his own next move, after his time in Knoxville? Should he come back to Mountain City and continue to ask questions in hope of coming across a Mark 2:11 explanation? Would he be targeted again? Would people pick up on him, report on his presence, help a new squad of hunters locate him? Should he go on to Bristol, return to Nikki’s apartment, spend some time there, at least through the weekend’s big race activities, then hire a private eye, stop improvising, do this thing like a grown-up with a mind toward clearing it up and making sure it was safe for his daughter to resume her life?

  He got into Knoxville at midnight, realized it was probably too late to call his wife in her motel—the call would awaken Miko and wouldn’t be appreciated. So he found an Econo Lodge off the big highway and paid in cash. He hadn’t realized how tired he was and that he’d been going hard without sleep or food. The food could wait. He went to bed in the small, cheap-but-clean room after a shower, and fell into a sleep full of portents of children in jeopardy and himself in various gaudy, symbolic shapes, unable to do anything about it.

  You wouldn’t associate the word “coma” with Nikki. She looked rosy and merely asleep. Everybody was full of hope. The doctors reported that her vital signs were strong and that she stirred, showed normal brain activity, and responded to her mother’s and sister’s voices. They all thought it would be a matter of days, maybe even hours before she awoke.

  “She is such an angel,” Bob said, holding Miko close.

  “Daddy, maybe she’ll wake up today.”

  “I hope she does, sweetie. I hope and pray she does. You and Mommy, you’ll stay here and watch over her.”

  “Yes, and the Pinks will guard her so nobody can harm Nikki.”

  “Yes, honey, they’re very good men.”

  He put Miko down.

  “Now Mommy and I have to talk. Honey, you stay here for a minute, okay?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  He and his wife walked wordlessly down the hall to a visitor’s lounge, where they bought bad coffee in Styrofoam from a vending machine and sat at a blank table in a blank room.

  The first thing he said was, “I have satisfied myself that this thing did not come upon Nikki out of something I did some years ago, when I was off doing this or that. It seems that she cut trail on some kind of plan—I don’t know what it is. But somewhere in Johnson County there’s a group of very bad fellows who are planning something equally bad, and Nikki picked up on some aspect of it, and they had to finish her as she was going about her business, trying to do an overall story about methamphetamine use in the county. She’s innocent; she was just a young woman full of life who ran afoul of bad customers. She may not have even known what it is, but it has to be something she was close to figuring out and that’s why it’s so dangerous. Now I know what the clue is, and now people are coming for me.”

  He told her his story, each discovery at a time, each event at a time, including Mark 2:11.

  When he told her he’d killed two men the night before, her gaze showed nothing. She had changed. It was her daughter; her rage and instinct had been aroused and now she understood that she could not allow anyone—anyone—to harm her daughter.

  “You can’t go to the police?” she finally asked. “Wouldn’t that be the wisest thing?”

  “Well, I’m not sure how they figure into it. I think this Detective Thelma Fielding is okay, but the sheriff is a pompous son of a bitch with his eye on something else. Loves publicity, won’t stop talking about his time in the war. But the real problem with them is they got it all figured out to be a bad kid on a binge, looking for somebody to squash. That’s all they see, that’s what they want to see, that’s the file it’s in. They think it’ll just be a day or so till somebody snitches him out, and meanwhile they got other fish to fry. So if I go to them, I have some kind of institutional inertia working against me to begin with. Then I have to explain why I ran out after the shooting, what my suspicions are, and their minds aren’t equipped to deal with any of that yet. It’s too much information, too fast, and it challenges the way they do business. It’s like the Marine Corps used to be on snipers. They just don’t want to know about it. Took a war to change their minds.”

  “What about the FBI? Can you call Nick Memphis? He’d drop anything to help you. At least he can put Bureau resources behind you, and your learning curve will be much quicker.”

  “Hmmm,” said Bob. “You sure you haven’t done this before? That’s a great idea. No, that didn’t occur to me because I been so goddamn caught up in my own drama and not thinking straight. Yeah, I will call him first thing, and see what he can get me.”

  “Can you handle this? You’re older, Bob. Maybe not so fast. Maybe your mind is a little slower than it once was, as well as your hands. And maybe this time you’ll run out of luck, you know that. You’ll end up face down, shot by some kid with a .22 who has no idea he’s just murdered Achilles.”

  “I may run out of luck, sure. And I ain’t too happy to be a hunted man once again, and to have to go to guns once again. But it’s come, and I told you, I will do with it what I must. I need you behind me.”

  “But it seems since Japan you’ve had doubts, even fears. I know. You thought I was asleep, but many’s the night you woke with a start, all asweat. In this kind of game, you can’t have doubts. You’ve said that many times.”

  �
��If I was working for a government or a sheriff’s office, I might have doubts and they might get me killed on the job. But I am working for my daughter. So those doubts don’t count. They went away. I have no doubts, and last night, it was the same old Bob Lee back, gun in hand, shooting for blood, making the right moves. I do need one thing. I need you behind me.”

  “I am behind you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a set of car keys with a Hertz emblem on the ring. “It’s a blue Prism, Tennessee LCD 109953. I parked on the fourth floor, where there’s fewer cars, but not on the roof, where somebody in an office could see you. You pull up to it, trunk to trunk. There are some goods inside. I went to Meachums and asked Mr. Meachum what kind of rifle he recommended for self-defense in a ranch house. He was very helpful. Didn’t have any trouble on the flight. Locked case, declared firearm, the gal at the counter didn’t even want to look inside. The handgun was yours, under the mattress. I bought ammunition for it and the rifle and spare magazines. It’s all in the trunk. I spent last night loading magazines. The rifle is supposed to hold thirty but I could only get twenty-eight in.”

  “Twenty-eight is fine,” said Bob. “It’s better. Less pressure on the spring. More reliable that way.”

  “The handgun magazines loaded fine. Ten in each, ten of them.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now I’m going to go. I think I have to get back to Mountain City. I can’t let them think they’ve run me. They have to know they’re in for a fight and if they’re scared, maybe they’ll make a mistake.”

  She said, “You find the men who tried to kill our daughter. You take care of them.”

  He kissed her, took the elevator down, went to the garage and moved his car up to hers. Satisfying himself there were no other people on the floor, he opened her trunk.

  The rifle was in a Doskocil plastic travel case. He unlatched it to see what Meachum had come up with. His first thought was “Shit,” because it was an M16. Well, an AR-15, as the civilian variant was called. As a man of the .30 caliber, he’d always despised the pipsqueak .223 of the classic AR platform with its tendency to bore tiny holes in people, keep going and kill the talented orphan-kid piano-prodigy while the bad guy didn’t blink an eyelash and kept shooting. And he noticed it had all sorts of gizmos bolted on—an EOTech holographic sight that looked like a TV set, a forward vertical grip with a Surefire flashlight built into it at six o’clock, just under the muzzle. And the muzzle—well, it looked a little wider. He bent close, tried to make out the barrel marking in the dim light, and saw that it read DPMS 6.8mm REMINGTON SPC. As he transferred the gun and case to his trunk, he saw a few extra boxes of ammo, Black Hills 6.8, cracked one and discovered a short round that had a big bullet. Let’s see, 6.8, that meant about .270 caliber. And then he remembered hearing that in the sand, the Special Operations people were so pissed at the poor one-shot, takedown ratio they were getting from the .223, some of them worked with some people at Remington to come up with a bigger, more powerful cartridge. It functioned in a system using an AR lower, and only required a new upper, thus saving the government millions of dollars. If the government adopted the cartridge, it only had to buy the top half of five hundred thousand new weapons. Maybe that would happen, maybe it wouldn’t, but the cartridge had been combat-tested and was said to put ’em down and keep ’em down. That pleased him. She had done well.