Time to Hunt bls-1

by Stephen Hunter

  But he felt nothing, it could have been happening to someone else. It was unrelated to him.

  At last, with a tiny tug, Lopez pulled the bloody pincers out of the wound and held the trophy up for Bob to see: the bullet was crusted in gristle, white and fatty, and the doctor cut it free with his scalpel. It had mangled when it had met his bone, its me plat collapsing into its body, so that it was deformed into a little flattened splat, like a mushroom, oddly askew atop the column of what remained. But it hadn't broken into pieces, it was all there, an ugly little twist of gilding metal sheathing lead, and its original aerodynamic sleekness, its missile ness was still evident in the twisted version. He could see striations running down it, where the rifle's grooves had gripped it as it spun through the barrel so long ago on its journey toward him.

  "Can you weigh it?"

  "Yeah, right, I'll weigh it and then I'll wax it, and then I'll gift-wrap it while you quietly bleed to death. Just hold your horses, Bob."

  He dropped the bullet into a little porcelain tray, where it tinkled like a penny thrown into a blind man's cup, then went back to Bob.

  "Please weigh it," said Bob.

  "You ought to be committed," the doctor said. He irrigated the wound again, poured in disinfectant and inserted a little sterile plastic tube, for drainage. Then he quickly and expertly sewed it up with coarse surgical thread. After finishing, he restitched with a finer thread.

  Then he bandaged the wound, wrapped an inflatable splint around it and blew hard until the splint held the leg stiff, nearly immobile. Then he loosened the Velcro on the tourniquet and tossed it aside.

  "Pain?"

  "Nothing," said Bob.

  "You're lying. I felt you begin to tense five minutes ago."

  "Okay, it hurts a bit, yeah."

  Actually, it now hurt like hell. But he didn't want another shot or anything that would drug him, flatten him, keep him woozy. He had other stuff to do.

  "Okay," said the doctor.

  "Tomorrow I'll rebandage it and remove the tube. But it'll relieve the pressure tonight.

  Now--" "Please. I have to know. Weigh it. I have to know."

  Dr. Lopez rolled his eyes, took the porcelain cup to a table where a medical scale was sitting, and fiddled and twisted.

  "All right," said the doctor.

  "Go on," said Bob.

  "It's 167.8 grains."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm very sure."

  "Christ!"

  "What's wrong?"

  "This thing just got so twisted it don't make 'no sense at all."

  He slept dreamlessly for the first time in weeks in one of Doc Lopez's spare bedrooms, the pain woke him early, and the unbearable stiffness in the leg. The doctor redressed the wound, then replaced the inflatable splint.

  "No major damage. You ought to be able to get around a little bit."

  He had some crutches lying around, and advised Bob to seek professional medical help as soon as possible. Bob could not walk or bathe, but he insisted on going to the airport, on the power of ibuprofen and will alone. Whitefaced and oily with sweat, he was pushed to the ten-fifteen plane in a wheelchair by a stewardess, and used the crutches to get aboard. He got to enter the plane early, it was like being important.

  No one was seated next to him, as the flight was only half full. The plane took off, stabilized and eventually coffee was brought. He took four more ibus, washed them down with the coffee, then at last took out his grisly little treasure in its plasticine envelope.

  Well, now, ain't you a problem, brother, he thought, examining the little chunk of metal, mushroomed into the agony of impact, frozen forever in the configuration of the explosion it had caused against his hip bone.

  One hundred sixty-eight grains.

  Big problem. The only 168-grain bullet in the world in 1972 was American--the Sierra 168-grain Match King the supreme .30-caliber target round then and, pretty much, now. He was expecting a 150-grain Soviet bullet, for the 7.62mm x 54, as fired in either a Dragunov or the old Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle.

  No. This boy was working with an American hand load as the

  168-grainers weren't used on manufactured bullets until the services adopted the M852 in the early nineties.

  Nor was it the 173-grain match American bullet, loaded equally into the M72 .30-06 round or the Ml 18 7.62 NATO round.

  No. American hand load tailored, planned, its last wrinkle worked out. A serious professional shooter, at the extended ranges of his craft. That meant this was a total effort, even to somehow obtaining American components in RSVN to get the absolute maximum out of the system.

  Why?

  He tried to think it out.

  T. Solaratov has lost his Dragunov. The fieldexpedient choice would then be an American sniper rifle, presumably available in some degree within the NVA supply system, after all, half their stuff was captured.

  Bob bet it was an M1-D, the sniper version of the old M1 Garand rifle that the GIs won World War II with.

  The more he thought about it, the more sense it made, up to a point. Yes, that would explain the almost subconscious familiarity of the sound signature. In his time, he'd fired thousands of rounds with an M-1. It had been his first Marine rifle, a solid, chunky, robust, brilliantly engineered piece of work that would never let you down.

  This is my rifle, this is my gun.

  This is killing, this is for fun.

  Every recruit had marched in his underwear around the squad bay some indeterminate number of hours, a ton of unloaded Ml on his shoulder, Parris Island's sucking bogs out beyond the wire, his dick in his left hand, that primitive rhyme sounding in his ears under the guidance of a drill instructor who seemed like a God, only crueler and tougher and smarter.

  Yeah, he thought, he uses a Garand rifle with a scope, he works out the load with the best possible components, he takes me down, he's the hero.

  Looking at the striations imprinted in the copper sheathing of the bullet by its explosive passage up the barrel that day, he guessed closer examination by experts would prove them to be the mark of a rifling system that held to ten twists per inch, not twelve, for that would prove the bullet was fired from a match grade Ml and not an M14. He saw the logic in that, too. It made sense to choose a .30-06 over a

  .308 because downrange the .3006, with its longer cartridge case and higher powder capacity, would deliver more energy, particularly beyond a thousand yards. It really was a long-range cartridge, as so many deer had found out over the years, the .308 was a mere wannabe.

  But here's where he hit the wall.

  If in fact he decided to go with the .30-06 cartridge, then why the hell wouldn't he have used a Model 701', a bolt gun? That was the Marine sniper rifle of the first five years of the war. There had to be plenty of those still around, hell, even Donny had come up with one of them in that one shot at Solaratov they'd had.

  Why would the Russian use the less accurate, considerably more problematic semiauto instead of one of the most classic sniper rifles in the world? Carl Hitchcock, the great Marine sniper of 1967, with his ninety-two kills, he'd used a 70T, with a sportsman's stock and an

  8X Unerti externally adjusted scope. That would be the rifle to use.

  What the hell was this Russian bird up to?

  Could it be: no Model 70s available?

  Well, he could check out combat losses through friends in the Pentagon, but it seemed impossible that the Russian wouldn't be able to pick up a Model 70. He could probably have gotten one of Bob's own Model 700 Remingtons if he'd wanted it.

  What was there about the Ml that made it mandatory for the Russian's selection?

  It was indeed a very accurate rifle. Maybe he'd wanted the semiauto capacity to bracket the target, to put three or four shots into the area fast, in hopes that one would hit.

  Nah. Not at that range. Each shot had to be precise.

  The problem with the Garand as a sniper rifle was it was at its best with national match iron sights. It ruled
in service rifle competition in which telescopic sights were not permissible. But the weapon became difficult when a scope was added, because its straight-down topside en bloc loading and straight-up ejection made it impossible to mount the scope over the axis of the bore. Instead, through a complicated system never really satisfactory, the Ml had worn a parallel scope, one mounted a little to the left of the action. That meant at a given range, the scope was intersecting the target but it was not on the same axis as the bore, which made rapid computation very difficult, particularly when the target was not exactly zeroed, or moved, or some such.

  Yet he chose this rifle.

  What the hell was going on?

  Bob mulled, trying to make sense of it all.

  He had the feeling of missing something. There was a thing he could not see. He could not even conceive of it. What am I missing?

  What in me prevents me from seeing it?

  I can't even conceive it.

  "Sir?"

  "Oh, yes?" he said, looking up at the flight attendant.

  "You'll have to put up your lap tray and straighten your seat back. We're about to land at Boise."

  "Oh, yeah, sorry, wasn't paying any attention."

  She smiled professionally, and he glimpsed out the windows to see the Sawtooths, the down-homey little Boise skyline, and the airfield, named after a famous ace who'd died young in war.

  CHAPTER thirty-four.

  Bob drove to the hospital straight from the airport.

  During a brief gap in the power of the ibuprofen, his incision began to knit in truly exquisite pain. He knew bruising would start by tomorrow and the thing would be agonizing for weeks--but he didn't want to stop.

  He drove through the quiet, bright streets of Boise, as unpretentious a town as existed anywhere, and finally reached the hospital where the crutches got him in, the ibuprofen got him beyond the agony again and an elevator got him to his wife's room, outside of which his daughter and Sally Memphis waited.

  "Oh, hi!"

  "Daddy!"

  "Sweetie, how are you?" he said, gathering up his daughter and giving her a big hug.

  "Oh, it's great to see my gal! Are you okay? You doin' what Sally says?"

  "I'm fine, Dad. What's wrong with you?"

  "Sweetie, nothing. Just a little cut on my leg, that's all," he said, as Sally shot him a disbelieving look.

  He chatted with his daughter for a bit and with Sally, whose response to him was cool. It seemed that Julie was sleeping now, but there hadn't been any real complications from the surgery. They thought she'd get out sometime soon and Sally had made arrangements to go to the small ranch in Custer County as Bob had planned. She agreed with him that it was a safe security arrangement, at least until the situation clarified.

  Finally, Julie awakened and Bob went in to his wife.

  Her torso was in a full-body cast that supported the arm on the side where the collarbone had been shattered.

  His poor girl! She looked so wan and colorless and somehow shrunken in the cast.

  "Oh, sweetie," he said, rushing to her.

  She smiled but not with a lot of force or enthusiasm and asked how he was and he didn't bother to answer her, but instead went on about her, caught up on her medical situation, checked on the security arrangements, finally told her he thought he was on to something.

  "I could tell, you're all lit up."

  "It's a long story. There's something I can't figure out, and I need help."

  "Bob, how can I help you? I don't know anything. I've told you everything I know."

  "No, no, I don't mean about it. I mean about me."

  "Now you've lost me."

  "Honey, I got this thing I have to figure out. It doesn't make no sense to me. So either it's wrong, or I am wrong.

  If it's wrong, there's nothing I can do about it. If it's me that's wrong, then I can figure it out."

  "Oh, Lord. I get shot and it's all about you."

  He let the cut simmer, not responding.

  Finally he said, "I'm very sorry you got hit. I'm very happy you survived. You should concentrate on how lucky you were to make it through, not how unlucky you were.

  You handled yourself well, you took control, you were a hero. You got your life, you got your daughter, you got your husband. It ain't no time to be angry."

  She said nothing.

  "It ain't about me. It's about us. I have to figure this thing out."

  "Can't you let the police, the FBI do it? They're all over the place. That's their job. Your job is to be here with your family."

  "I have a man hunting me. The more around you I am, the more danger you're in. Don't you see that?"

  "So you'll be off again. I knew it. You weren't there when I got shot, you weren't there when I lay in that gulch for three hours, you weren't there when I was operated on, you weren't there when I came out of the operation, you haven't been taking care of your daughter, you're evidently not going with us to the mountains, I hear you've been drinking, you've obviously been in some kind of fight or something, because of the terrible way you're limping and the way your face is completely sheet-white, and all you want to do is go off again. And .. . somehow, you're happy."

  "I wasn't in a fight. I had a bullet cut out of my leg, that's all. It's nothing. I'm sorry," he said.

  "This is the best way, I think."

  "I don't know how much of this I can take."

  "I just want this to be over."

  "Then stay here. Stay here, with us.""I can't. That puts you in danger. He'll know soon enough, if not yet, that I wasn't the man he hit. So he'll come back. I have to be able to move, to operate, to think, to defend myself. Not only that, if he comes after me again, and you're there again, do you think I can defend you? Nobody can defend you. Let him come after me.

  That's what he was trained to do. Maybe I can get him, maybe not, but I sure as shit ain't going to let him go after you."

  "Bob," she said.

  "Bob, I called a lawyer."

  "What?"

  "I said, I called a lawyer."

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "It means I think we ought to separate."

  Certain moments, you just feel your chest turning to ice. It just freezes solid on you. You have trouble breathing.

  You swallow, there's no air, then there's no saliva in your mouth. Your ears hammer, your head aches, blood rushes through your veins, pumping crazily. You're that close to losing it. It had never happened to him when the shit was flying in the air and people were dying all around him, but it happened now.

  "Why?" he finally said.

  "Bob, we can't live like this. It's one thing to say we love each other, we have a family, we take care of each other. It's another when you go off every so often and I hear rumors that people are dead and you won't talk about it. It's another when you're so angry all the time you won't talk or touch me or support me and you snap at me all the time. I can just make so many excuses to our daughter. But then the next thing, the worst thing, the war comes into our house and I'm shot with a bullet and my daughter sees a man die before her very eyes. And then you go off again. I love you, Lord, I love you, but I cannot have my daughter going through that again."

  "I'm--I'm very sorry, Julie. I didn't see how hard this was on you."

  "It's not just the violence. It's that you somehow love it so. It's that it's always in you. I can see it in your eyes, the way you're always searching the terrain, the way you're never quite relaxed, the way there's always a loaded gun close at hand, the way you drive me out. You're not a sniper anymore, that was years ago. But you're still over there. I can't compete with the war in Vietnam, you love her more than us."

  Bob breathed heavily.

  "Please, don't do this to me. I can't lose you and Nikki. I don't have anything else. You're all I value in this world."

  "Not true. You value yourself and what you became.

  Secretly, you're so happy to be Bob the Nailer, different from all men, better
than all men, loved and respected or at least feared by all men. It's like a drug addiction. I feel that in you, and the angrier you get and the older you get, the worse it becomes."

  He could think of nothing to say.

  "Please don't do this to me."

  "We should be apart."

  "Please. I can't lose you. I can't lose my daughter. I'll do what you want. I'll go with you to the mountains. I can change. I can become the man you want. You watch me! I can do it. Please."

  "Bob, I've made up my mind. I've been thinking about this for a long time. You need space, I need space. The shooting business just makes it more important. I have to get away from you and get my own life, and get away from the war."

  "It's not the war."

  "It is the war. It cost me the boy I loved and now it's cost me the man I loved. It cannot take my daughter. I've thought all this through. I'm filing for separation. After I recover, I'm returning to Pima County and my family. We can work out financial details. It doesn't have to he had or ugly. You can always see Nikki, any time, unless you're off at war or in the middle of a gunfight. But I just can't have this. I'm sorry it didn't work out any better, but there you have it."

  "I'll go. Just promise me you'll think it over. Don't do anything stupid or sudden. I'll take care of this business--"

  "Don't you see? I can't have you taking care of this business and getting yourself killed. I can't lose someone else. It almost killed me the first time. You think you had it hard in your traction and your VA hospital? Well, I never came back. There isn't a day I don't wake up and not remember what it felt like when the doorbell rang and it was Donny's brother, and he looked like hell and I knew what was happening. It took me ten, maybe twenty years to get over that and I only just barely did."

  He felt utterly defeated. He could think of nothing to say.

  "I'll go now," he said.

  "You need to rest. I'll say goodbye to Nikki. I'll check on you, stay in contact. That's okay, isn't it?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "You be careful."

  "We'll be all right."

  "When this is all over, you'll see. I'll fix it. I can do that. I can fix myself, change myself. I know it."