Hot Springs es-1

by Stephen Hunter

  "You can't both go first and carry the Thompson. That's agin the rules."

  "The rules!" cursed Frenchy, as if he'd run up against this one before. "The goddamned rules! Well, fuck the rules!"

  The address was Building 3-3-2, in a sea of deserted barracks that spilled across the hardscrabble Texas plain. It looked no different than any other barracks, just a decaying tan building, its paint peeling, its wood drying out, a few of its shingles flapping in the ever-present wind.

  That was the target. The twelve officers took up positions in a barracks three doors down, made a preliminary recon, studied their objective, and drew up plans. Stretch, the oldest at twenty-six, a Highway Patrolman from Oregon, was nominally in charge, and he was steady and wise, and knew the wisdom in keeping it simple. It seemed so easy, if only everybody would listen and cooperate.

  But almost immediately Frenchy began to undercut him. Frenchy knew belter. Frenchy figured it out. Frenchy, charming, loquacious, willful, kept saying, "I'm the best shot, I ought to go first. Really, why not let the best shot go first?"

  "Short, can you give somebody else a turn?"

  "I'm just saying, the best way is to utilize your best people up front. I'm a very good shot. Nobody has shot as well as I have. Isn't that right? Correct me if I'm wrong. So I ought to be the first-entry guy."

  He had very little shame, and no quit in him at all. Finally, to shut him up and get on with the planning, Stretch gave Frenchy the okay to be first man on the rear-entry team, with his partner.

  That said, other assignments handed out, and the men suited up, sliding on the heavy armored plates over their suit coats, then donning their fedoras. They got into three cars―two old Highway Patrol Fords, painted all black, and a DeSoto that had once belonged to the State Liquor Control Board―and drove through the deserted streets of the barracks city until they came at 3-3-2 from different angles.

  "All teams," said Stretch, into his walkie-talkie and consulting his watch, "deploy now!"

  The cars halted. The men rushed out. Immediately one fell down, jamming his Thompson muzzle into the Texas loam, filling its compensator with muck. Another, as he ran to the door, banged his knee severely on the swinging steel of the vest, which was really more a sandwich board of heavy metal; he went down, painfully out of action.

  But Frenchy, in the lead from the rear car, made it to the door first and fastest. He carried the tommy gun. Carlo, less graceful and more ungainly in his armor, struggled behind.

  Frenchy kicked the door.

  It didn't budge.

  "Shit!" he said.

  "Goddammit, you're supposed to wait for me!" Carlo said, arriving, followed by the last four men on the team.

  "The fucking door is jammed."

  Frenchy kicked it again. It didn't move.

  "We ought to―"

  But Frenchy couldn't wait. He threw off his heavy armor, smashed in a window, climbed into the frame and dove through it, rolling in the darkness. He stood up.

  "Prosecuting Attorney's Office," he screamed. "This is a raid! Hands up!"

  "Wait for me, goddammit," huffed poor Henderson, still on the other side of the door.

  Frenchy heard them banging. It never occurred to him to unlock it. He did not wait for anybody. He headed down a hall in what was surprising darkness, feeling liberated in the absence of the twenty pounds of armor. The hall led to a wider room, and he raced in, pointing his empty tommy gun at menacing forms which proved to be old desks and tables and chairs. At once the room filled with smoke. The smoke billowed and unfurled, completely disorienting him. He coughed, ran further into the room, all alone, and stepped into a wider space, where the smoke was thinner. All around him things seemed to crash. Before him, he saw shapes. Without thinking about it, he dropped to one knee, put the tommy gun sights on them, and pulled the trigger. The gun's bolt flew forward with a powerful whack.

  He recocked, knowing in reality he'd just mowed a few people down, and suddenly a figure appeared before him.

  WHACK! he fired again, and a second later noted the surprised face of Carlo Henderson, whom he had just killed. He lurched to the left to a stairwell, kicked it open and raced up it.

  "Short!"

  He turned. Earl stood behind him, 45 leveled straight at his face for a perfect head shot, and snapped the trigger.

  Then Earl said, "Congratulations, Short. You killed three of your own team members, you killed your partner, and you got yourself killed too. Just think of what you could have done if you'd have gotten to the second floor!"

  D. A. gathered the young men in the dirt road out front of 3-3-2, invited the fellows to shed the body armor, stack the guns, take off the hats and coats and loosen the ties and light 'em up if they had 'em. It was blazing hot and most of the men had sweated through their clothes. They were a pretty sad-looking bunch: dampened and dejected.

  "Now fellows," he said, "I'd be lying if I told you you did a good job. Frankly a bagful of coons locked in a cellar with ten pounds of raw meat might have behaved better. Basically what I saw was a series of mistakes compounding mistakes. I don't know what happened to your communications. Front-entry team at least hung together; too bad you got wiped out by the rear-entry team. Now, as I told you, the deal is simultaneous entrance. That's the trick. You have to be coming from two directions at once with overwhelming force. They have to understand that there is no possibility of victory and that resistance is futile.

  "I will admit that we threw you some ringers. Mr. Earl popped a smoke grenade just to confuse the issue. I would say it confused you plenty. Would anyone disagree with me? The back door was locked. Did anybody think to look above the doorjamb? That's where the key was. Instead, at that point, rear-entry team just fell apart. Did rear-entry team walkie-talkie front-entry team? Nah. I was monitoring the radios upstairs. You were out of contact, and when you're out of contact, all kinds of hob can play. Finally, fellows, you can't let yourself get too excited. We had an unfortunate experience where one team member became separated, and got extremely aggressive with his weapon. He was supposed to be in support, but he rushed ahead, brought fire on die other team, then shot his partner, then rushed up a stairwell without securing the zone behind him and got shot by Mr. Earl. Fellows, you have to stay calm. If you let your emotions get the best of you, you become dangerous to your team members. This is about teamwork, fellows, remember. Teamwork, communications, good shooting skills, controlled aggression, sound tactics. That's the core of the art. You got anything. Earl?"

  "Only this. I learned this one the hard way. The fight is going to be what it wants to be. You got to be ready to go with it, follow it where it goes, and deal with it. Remember: Always cheat, always win."

  Fire and movement.

  It was the most necessary training and the most dangerous.

  "I saved this for last," said D. A., "because you have to work on your gun-handling skills and your self-discipline before you can even think about such a thing. This is the one where if you screw up, you kill a buddy or a bystander."

  The course, as D. A. designed it, was set up in a tempo office building that administered the ranges back when the depot was turning out men for war. Now it was scheduled for destruction when the government's budget would allow it. It could be shot up to everybody's content and all walls but the front one were declared shootable. That gave the men a 270-degree shooting arc.

  "You move through in two-man teams, just like on a real raid. The man on the right takes the targets on the right. The man on the left the targets on the left. Short, controlled bursts. Remember, trust your buddy. And, for God's sake, stay together!"

  That was Earl. He would walk behind each team as they ran the course, as a safety measure.

  The guys waited their turns as each two-man team ran the course. Inside the house, they could hear the quick stutters of the tommy guns and the bark of the.45s as each team popped its targets. One by one the teams emerged intact, joyous, and Earl would call up another team.


  Finally, it was Frenchy and Carlo's turn.

  "Okay, guys, you just take her easy. Short, you listening today?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Good. Okay, who's on the big gun?"

  The two hadn't discussed this. They looked at each other.

  "Henderson, you're bigger. You run the big gun. Short, you're a damned good pistol man. You work your.45. Remember, controlled speed, make sure of your targets, keep relating to your partner. Know where he is at all times, and nobody has to get hurt."

  "Gotcha," said Frenchy.

  The two young officers locked and loaded their weapons under Earl's supervision, then bent and got into the heavy armored vests.

  "All right," he said, "muzzles level, we're shoulder to shoulder, we're not rushing, we're all eyes looking for targets. You shoot the black targets. You don't shoot the targets with white Xs on them. That would be civilians. Henderson, remember, three-shot bursts on that thing, dead center. You, Short, you're responsible for the left-hand sector. Henderson, you take the right. Don't hold the gun too tightly. Okay, fellas, I'm right here for you. All set?"

  Both youngsters nodded.

  "Let's do her good," said Earl.

  Frenchy kicked the door, which yielded quickly. They entered, walked in tandem down a long corridor. At a certain point Earl flicked on a wall switch and two targets stood before them. Frenchy, his pistol out, was fast-fast-fast, putting two shots into the chest of his. A split second later Henderson's three-shot burst tore the heart out of the target on the right.

  "Good, good," said Earl. "Now keep moving, don't bunch up, don't stop to admire yourself, keep your eyes moving."

  They came to a corner. Frenchy jumped across the hall, his gun locked in the triangle of his arms and supported by the triangle of his legs as he hunted for targets. Carlo came next, dropping into a good kneeling shooting position. Two targets were before them, and Earl felt the boys tense as they raised their weapons, but then relax; the targets were Xed.

  "Clear," sang Frenchy.

  "Clear," came the answer.

  "Good decision," said Earl. "Keep it up."

  They moved on to a stairwell.

  "Remember the last time?" Earl asked.

  That was a hint. Frenchy jumped into the stairwell, covering the back zone, while Carlo fell to the far wall, orienting his Thompson up the stairs. Both saw their targets immediately. Frenchy's.45 rang twice as he pumped two shots into the silhouette from two feet away and Carlo fired a seven-or eight-shot burst, ripping up two silhouettes at the top of the stairs.

  "Clear."

  "Clear."

  The gun smoke heaved and drifted in the smallish space. A litter of spent shells lay underfoot.

  "Good work," said Earl.

  Frenchy quickly dropped his magazine, inserted another.

  "Great, Short. Nobody else has reloaded and some of 'em have run dry upstairs. Good thinking, son."

  Frenchy actually smiled.

  The team crept up the stairs.

  They did another explosive turn as they emerged from the stairwell to confront yet another empty hallway. Down it lurked a series of doors.

  "Got to clear them rooms," said Earl.

  One by one, the team moved into the rooms. It was tense, close work: they'd kick in a door, scan the room, and find targets that could be shot or targets that couldn't. The gunfire was rapid and accurate, and neither of them made a mistake. No innocents were shot, no bad guys survived.

  Finally, there was one room left, the last one.

  The two gave each other a look. Frenchy nodded, took a deep breath and kicked the door open, spilling into the room to find targets on the left. One step behind plunged Carlo, who saw three silhouettes behind a table and raised the tommy, found the front sight and pulled the―

  Frenchy had a moment of confusion when he felt he should not be moving, but an immense feeling of freedom and speed hit him. It was his armored vest; the strap had popped and the vest slipped sideways, the sudden shift of its weight taking his control from him. The second strap then broke, and the vest fell in two separate pieces to the floor, but Frenchy was too far gone and felt himself sprawling forward as his feet scrabbled for leverage, but instead slipped further on empty cartridge cases.

  It was all so unreal. Time almost stopped. The noise of the Thompson became huge and blocked out all other things. He smelled gun smoke, felt heat, even as he fell. He lurched toward the flash and had an instant of horror as he knew, knew absolutely that he would die, for he would in the next instant fall before the path of the bullets and Carlo would not expect him and that would be that.

  Shit! he thought, as he plunged toward his death in the stream of.45s.

  Yet somehow he hit the ground untouched, stars shot off in his head, and then someone heavy fell upon him and there were muffled grunts.

  "Jesus Christ!" Carlo was saying.

  "Y'all okay?" asked Earl.

  Earl was among them in the tangle on the floor. He disengaged and got up. "Y'all okay? You fine?"

  "Gosh darn it!" said Carlo.

  "Short, you hit?"

  "Ah, no, I―What happened?"

  "I almost killed you is what happened," said Carlo, his voice aquiver with trembling. "You fell into my line of fire, I couldn't stop, I―"

  "It's okay, it's okay," said Earl. "Just get ahold of yourselves."

  "What the heck happened to you? Why were you way out there?"

  "The vest broke and I fell forward and my feet slipped on some shells."

  "You are a lucky little son of a gun, Short. Mr. Earl, he grabbed the gun maybe a tenth of a second before it would have cut you up. He went through me and he grabbed the gun!"

  "Jesus," said Frenchy. A wave of fear hit him.

  "Okay, you fellows all right?" said Earl.

  "Jesus," said Frenchy again, and vomited.

  "Well, see, that's what a close shave'll do to you. Come on now, you're both okay, let's get up and get out of here."

  "You saved my―"

  "Yeah, yeah, and I saved myself three weeks of paperwork too. Come on, boys, let's get our asses in gear. No need to get crazy about this. Only, Short: next time, check the straps. Do a maintenance check each time you go on a raid. Got that?"

  "I never―"

  "It's the 'never' that gets you killed, Short."

  But then he winked, and Frenchy felt a little better.

  There was no officers' club for Earl and D. A. to go to that night, and since neither man drank anymore, it was perhaps a good thing. But D. A. invited Earl out to dinner, and so they found a bar-b-que joint in Texarkana, near the railway station, and set to have some ribs and fries, and many a cold Coke.

  The food was good, the place was dark and coolish, and somebody put some Negro jump blues on the Rockola, and that thing was banging out a bebopping rhythm that took both their minds away from where they were. Afterward, the two men smoked and finished a last Coke, but Earl knew enough to know he was being prepared for something. And he had a surprise of his own he'd been planning to lay on D. A. sooner or later, and this looked to be as good a time as any.

  "Well, Earl, you've done a fine job. I'm sure you're the best sergeant the Marine Corps ever turned out. You got them whipped into some kind of shape right fast."

  "Well, sir," said Earl, "the boys are coming along all right. Wish we had another two months to train 'em. But they're solid, obedient young men, they work hard, they listen and maybe they'll do okay."

  "Who worries you?"

  "Oh, that Short kid, of course. Something in that one I just don't trust. He wants to do so well he may make a bad judgment somewhere along the line. I will say, he learns fast and he's a good pistol hand. But you never can tell about boys until the lead starts flying."

  "I agree with you about Short. Only Yankee in the bunch and he sounds more Southern than any man born down upon the Swanee River."

  "I noticed that too. Don't know where it comes from. Any South in him?"

  "Not a li
ck. He told me he had a gift for soaking up dialects. Maybe he don't even notice that he's doing it."

  "Maybe. I never saw nothing like it in fifteen years in the Marines."

  "Anyhow, I'm asking you because I got some news."

  "Figured you did."

  "Mr. Becker is getting very restless. He's under a lot of pressure with anonymous phone threats and such-like and townspeople wondering when the hell he's going to do something other than go to his office and close the door without talking to nobody. And his wife is followed by Grumley boys everywhere she goes. We got to deal with that. We got to move, and soon. Are we ready?"

  "Well, you're never ready. But we are ready on one condition."

  "I think I know what this is, Earl," said the old man gravely.

  "So did my wife. She said it was my nature."

  "She knows you, Earl. And I know you too, even though I first laid eyes on you three weeks or so ago. You're the goddamned hero. How you made it through that war I'll never know."

  "Anyhow, I have to go. The boys have made a connection to me, and they'll be frightened if I ain't there."

  "They'll get over it."

  "Mr. Parker, I have to be there. You know it and I know it. They need a steady hand, and you've got too much to do setting the raids up with Becker and then dealing with the police and the press afterward."

  "Earl, if you get hit, I'd never forgive myself."

  "And if one of those kids got hit while I'se sitting somewhere sucking on a Coca-Cola, I'd never forgive myself."

  "Earl, you are a hard man to be the boss of, I will say that."

  "I know what's right. Plus, no goddamn hillbilly with a shotgun is going to get the best of me."

  "Earl, never underestimate your enemy. You should know that from the war. Owney Maddox was called 'Killer' back in New York. According to the New York District Attorney's Office, he killed over twenty men in his time. Once this shit starts happening, he's going to bring in some mobsters who've pulled triggers before. Don't kid yourself, Earl. These will be tough boys. Get ready for em.

  "Then you'll let me go?"

  "Shit, Earl, you have to go. That is as clear to me as the nose on my face. But I want you to go home and talk to your wife first. Hear me? You tell her like a man. So she knows. And you tell her you love her and that things will be okay. And you listen to that pup in her belly. Look, here's twenty-five bucks, you take her out to a nice dinner at Fort Smith's finest restaurant."