“Pretty interesting,” said Fields.
“And see, here’s the funny thing. Everybody thinks this guy is a big, lovable, loyal lunkhead, but if you look at his tests, his IQ maxes out, as do all his other tests. See, everybody thinks he’s a jovial door kicker, but maybe he’s the smartest of them all, smarter than his own boss, because he figures getting known as an egghead isn’t going to get him Sniper at Quantico.”
“Nick, you have some imagination. You ought to write a book.”
“Nah,” said Nick. “Nobody’d believe it. As I say, it’s dropped now.”
Then a bailiff came and called Fields as next to testify, and he rose, and Nick reached out to shake his hand and said, “You are the best, big guy, the very best,” and Fields smiled and was off.
Here’s another possible ending: a notice that appeared on page A-2 of a recent issue of the Times in the Corrections Box.
On October 29 of last year, a photograph appeared on page one of this newspaper purporting to show a federal agent in the company of executives from a firearms company attempting to land a federal contract with the agent’s employer, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Times has since learned that the photo was a fraud and its publication was in violation of the newspaper’s own code of professional ethics. The Times regrets the error.
Still another ending could have been the marriage of Bill Fedders to Jessica Delph, who was younger than his youngest child. Bill had quite a run on the strength of his multiple testimonies against Tom Constable and emerged as some kind of media hero. He was also smart enough to make phone calls to a half dozen or so representatives and senators at his earliest convenience and warn them ahead of the curve that Constable was going down hard and that they ought to begin this second to distance themselves from the sordid spectacle. All were grateful, all did favors in return, and Bill prospered beyond belief. He finally decided that, for some reason or other, it was time to retire the first wife and be seen about town with the trophy more than once a month. It just shows that in Washington, you can’t keep a bad man down. Perhaps God will punish him by giving him a few more children.
But maybe the best ending was the reinterment of the marine sniper Gny. Sgt. Carl Hitchcock (Ret.) in the consecrated ground of the USMC Cemetery at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Unlike his first interment, it didn’t take place in a heavy rain and it wasn’t sparsely attended. In fact, among the two-thousand-odd attendees, almost the entire shooting community turned out, from writers like Ayoob and Bane and Huntington and Taffin to editors like Brennan and Venola and Hutchcroft and Keefe; to the sniper researchers Peter Senich and Maj. John L. Plaster; to shooters like Tubb and Leatham and Enos and Wigger; to dozens of aging grunts who made it back from ’Nam because of Carl and the few men like him; to some of those men themselves, such as Chuck McKenzie and the other great marine sniper who never sought fame or recognition, Chuck Mawhinney, likewise the Army sniper Bert Waldron, even the widows of posthumous Medal of Honor winners the Delta snipers Randy Shugart and Gary Gordan; to gun rights authors and advocates like Cates and Gottlieb and Kopel and LaPierre; to SWAT sharpshooters from all over the nation; to the FBI team of Task Force Sniper, who in the end labored so hard and risked so much to bring this moment to life; to Marine officers and NCOs from the commandant on down; and finally to ordinary people who happened to be lovers of courage. And because reality is often trite and doesn’t acknowledge that thing the intellectuals call “the pathetic fallacy,” it followed that the sun was bright, the leaves green, the wind fragrant, and not a dry eye remained, no matter how battered and grizzled the warrior, especially when the ceremony closed down and that last, mournful note of taps hung in the air. It was sad, it was sad, it was so sad, but at the same time it was, for all of them, a happy time.
There was one other difference between this ceremony and the first one.
Swagger was not there.
And where was he?
It is known that after a week of depositions and debriefings in Washington, he took a train to Chicago and presented Detective Sergeant Dennis Washington’s widow with her husband’s firearm. It was all he could do after missing the funeral. He and Susanna and the three girls had a good time together and it was kind of all right but not nearly as good as it would have been if the big guy was there. They all promised to keep in touch.
Then, all presumed, he retired to his place in Idaho. But no one knows for sure, because he stopped answering his phones.
After all, he is the sniper. You’re not supposed to know where he is.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To begin with, two confessions of literary license: There is no such thing, yet, as iSniper911. I’m anticipating developments by a few years, as all the components exist and have been proven in the field, but no one has figured out quite how to pack them into one instrument, at least as I write now. Perhaps as you read that next step will have been taken.
Second, I am aware that the FBI’s marksmen’s rifles are built by H-S Precision; I chose to attribute them to Remington because it saved me the effort of explaining to readers who and what H-S was and because Big Green, as Remington is known, has provided the world with such weapons for 25 years, through its brilliantly engineered 700 bolt action.
On to thanks: Gary Goldberg, of course, was my majordomo throughout the writing of the book. If I had to know how a Garmin GPS worked or where the possessions of the intestate are taken in Cook County, Gary was the go-to guy. Through Gary, I reached the following: Amy Jo Lyons, Special Agent in Charge of the Baltimore office of the FBI; Jennifer Haggerty of the Cook County Public Administrator’s Office; John Stephens, for technical information on photo forgeries; Dr. John Matthews, founder of SureFire LLC, the great flashlight manufacturers, for information on modern suppressors; and Lew Merletti, former Director of the U.S. Secret Service, for fast, accurate feedback on equipment and tactics. I’m grateful to all and of course all errors of fact and judgment are mine and mine alone.
My readers’ circle provided helpful ideas and suggestions: Jay Carr, the former great film critic of the Boston Globe; Lenne Miller, my solid good friend since 1966; Bill Smart, late of the Washington Post, now of Montana, for info on Cowboy Action; John Bainbridge for skillful proofreading; Roger Troup, a great gun guy; and in L.A., my good friend Jeff Weber.
Kathy Lally, now of the Washington Post and the editor who invented me at the Baltimore Sun, introduced me to her cousin, the Irish actor Mick Lally, for a long discussion of the Irish accent in Dublin. Hmm, I think some drinking was done.
Weyman Swagger, now in ill health, for unflagging enthusiasm; and also, thanks for the use of the name, guy.
My wife, the journalist Jean Marbella, who rolls her eyes when the books on arcane subjects begin to pile up in the bedroom and announce the arrival of a new Swagger adventure, but hangs in through it all. Hey, at least they weren’t swords this time!
Otto Penzler provided me with le mot juste at le moment juste.
Michael Bane, for his enthusiasm and support via his great blog.
The professional researcher Dan Starer who set me up with Special Agent Royden R. Rice of the Chicago office of the FBI.
In the professional realm, my agent Esther Newberg, my publisher David Rosenthal, and my editor Colin Fox stood foursquare behind me all the way through this one. That makes it so much
easier.
And of course the great Marty Robbins, for providing the Ur-text to Chapter 55.
And for the record: I love Turner Classic Movies!
Table of Contents
COVER
Contents
The 47th SAMURAI
ALSO BY STEPHEN HUNTER
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
1 : ISLAND
2 : THE SCYTHE
3 : THE BLOCKHOUSE
4 : A REQUEST
5 : THE OLD BREED
6 : THE BIG WHITE HOUSE
7 : NARITA<
br />
8 : THE YANOS
9 : NII OF SHINSENGUMI
10 : BLACK RUST
11 : STEEL
12 : SAKE
13 : KONDO ISAMI
14 : RUINS
15 : TOSHIRO
16 : KIRISUTE GOMEN
17 : INO
18 : THE SHOGUN
19 : DR. OTOWA
20 : THE YOUNG MEN
21 : THE COP
22 : YAKIBA
23 : THE TOKYO FLASH
24 : THE EIGHT CUTS
25 : THE FLOATING WORLD
26 : KATA
27 : THE SAMURAI
28 : DRAGONS
29 : THE SHRINE
30 : SWORD OF LIFE
31 : BATTLE
32 : KONDO
33 : ORDERS
34 : THE TAKING
35 : FACE-TO-FACE
36 : THE WHITE ROOM
37 : STRATEGY
38 : NII’S DREAMS
39 : THE KENDO CHAMPION
40 : THE BIG SHOTS
41 : THE STAGING
42 : MOON OF HELL
43 : CHUSHINGURA
44 : EDO JUSTICE
45 : STEEL TO STEEL
46 : OFFICE POLITICS
47 : NOTO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NIGHT OF THUNDER
ALSO BY STEPHEN HUNTER
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
PART I : PRELIMS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
PART II : RACE DAY
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
PART III : LAST LAP
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I, SNIPER
ALSO BY STEPHEN HUNTER
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
6
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set: I, Sniper, Night of Thunder, 47th Samurai Page 104