Game of Snipers

by Stephen Hunter

  “That’s really not an address. It’s not actionable.”

  “No, but a good man could infiltrate sometime when the next shipment is due. He could locate the point of arrival and mark the pickup. If it was impossible to follow to the source, he could ask around. Surely someone has noted a lone guy, quite prosperous, living in the far desert, doing a lot of shooting.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Bob. “If he’s as smart as you say he is, he’ll have snitches scattered throughout the town. If anyone shows up asking questions, that’s the signal to find new digs. He’ll move fast, and be chastened by his near miss and double up on his security. Maybe he’ll stop receiving the heavy ball or find another source. He’s probably worried because he’s been getting it from SouthStar for so long. Have you gone to the Agency with this?”

  “No. They’ve had me kicked out of so many countries it’s funny. They think I’m the Madwoman of Baltimore. I’m nothing but trouble to them. They’ve even gotten me on the no-fly list, so I’ve had to become an expert at clandestine identity. That’s why no emails, no phone calls, no announcements. I just show up and count on my pathos to get me an audience. I have no shame. So, no, I won’t go to them. I want to handle it the same way I’ve handled everything else, which is on my own. I still have relatives, I can still pay a substantial amount. But it has to be fast, because he’s skittish, he moves a lot. That’s a pattern of his I’ve come to recognize.”

  “I see,” said Bob, considering. “And you think I’m the fellow who could get in there, find him, and put him away?”

  “Now that I’ve laid it out for you, I hope you’ll alter your position. I can get you in on a very good phony passport. I’d get you a guide and translator, someone I trust. You won’t even be in country more than a few days. You find him in the Iria area, then you smoke him. One shot, one kill. Not only is it righteous, it’s profitable. And you’ll be doing the world a favor.”

  Of course it wouldn’t go as planned, but, still, to end up with Juba in his sights and to see the shattered face sink into oblivion forever: that was quite an enticement. Everything about it felt right, no denying. But it was still wrong.

  “No,” he said, “I won’t do that. Murder, not war. Revenge, not justice. Of no intelligence value, of no strategic value. May save some lives of some diplomats somewhere, but I don’t care.”

  “There’s nothing—”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. You’re some piece of work, Mrs. McDowell. American suburban woman becomes her own CIA and outperforms the professionals. Outguts them too. Understands she’ll get degraded and beaten and perhaps even killed, but goes ahead. You’ve got some sand in you. I respect sand. What do they call it? True grit.”

  “I’m not a hero. I just had to do something or the pain would have killed me. I only had Tommy.”

  “I’ll tell you what I will do. None of it involves money on your part.”

  “That’s a first,” she said.

  “I agree on staying away from the Agency. That was smart. It’s full of idiots who think they’re playing the long game. They’ve convinced themselves they’re the masters of chaos. In this case, they wouldn’t action this guy, they’d track him, see where he led them. If he led them to somebody bigger, maybe they’d sell that information, maybe they’d kidnap and debrief, but they’d do something so smart it would be stupid. And not to beat jihadi, but to outsmart the guy in the next cubicle, who’d be working on the same thing but from a different perspective. It’s a mess. It’s like an eighth-grade classroom with too many smart kids and a wobbly teacher.”

  She said nothing, but her silence suggested she’d reached a similar conclusion.

  “Here’s what I’m offering,” he said. “I have a contact with a guy who’s very high in the Israeli outfit, the Mossad. Never met him, but he ran an operation that kind of dovetailed with something I got involved in a few years back. So I heard he looked into me, and, as it turned out, I was his inadvertent benefactor. I know this because my daughter was a Fox correspondent in Tel Aviv, and he reached out to her and became a friend and a source. So I think, through her, I can put this before him. I’d guess this Juba operated against them too, and unlike our fellows, the Israelis take everything personal. So let me go to Tel Aviv and see if I can get them interested.”

  “I should pay your expenses.”

  “Guess what? I’m rich. Not sure how, but I’m just spending my dough on guns and an occasional trip to Cracker Barrel with my wife. It’s an honor to invest in the takedown of Juba the Sniper. You pay me by sitting back and relaxing and not getting yourself beat up and raped no more.”

  3

  Near Iria, southern Syria

  It was the same dream. He’d had it for years, he’d have it forever. Allah would not intercede. Allah had commanded it, and for a purpose: it kept him smart, scared, aware. And it reminded him of the hard reality of the world he had chosen to occupy and the price that he’d have to pay to dominate it.

  In this dream, he crouched in the rubble. He imagined Americans in front of him. He imagined his Dragunov against his shoulder, braced solid against wall or fallen column or automobile fender, his eye to the reticle, his hand to the grip, the butt against the shoulder.

  He had been thus many times. He imagined the scurry and twist of the Americans. The helmets were turtle-shaped, sand-colored, flanged to protect the back of the neck. They wore so much gear, it was a miracle they could even move. They looked like Crusaders, lacking only the flapping white tunics emblazoned with the Templar cross. In their armor, and with rucksacks and an abundance of weapons, they seemed to be a new crusade, and, in the way his mind worked, it wasn’t hard to go from there to cities in flame, men burned at the stake, mosques desecrated, women raped, towns pillaged, despair everywhere in the land of Muhammad. All that had happened ten centuries ago meant nothing. Time was meaningless; there was no “then,” as there was no “now.”

  The rifle was marvelous to his practiced touch. No tremble afflicted the chevron that dominated the center of the broad encirclement of his scope image. He put the point of the chevron where it had to be, gauging distance, adjusting the hold up a bit, down a bit, perhaps a bit to the right or left if heavy winds blew sand across the lens. Then the squeeze, almost automatic at this point, as the trigger resisted him slightly as he pressed it back, toward himself. No torque, no twist, the regularity of a robot’s press, and the gun issued death in the form of Bulgarian heavy ball, which to Juba felt like a bit of smash to the shoulder and looked like a blur. Followed by the recovery of the system as it fell back to steadiness after its adventure in recoil.

  Each one reacted differently when hit. You could never tell what was going to happen. Some went instantly still, some fought against the penetration of the bullet—that is, the penetration of death itself. Some manifested fury, some resignation, some even relief, as they went down into eternal sleep.

  In this dream, the world was rich with targets, even if in the real world it was seldom so. Marines crouched everywhere, rigid with fear, trying to find cover, twisting their bodies into cracks and fissures in the rubble, trying to insert themselves into doorways or vehicles, anything to get away from the anger of the sniper. But the world was a kill box. His finger spoke for God. It nursed a bolt of heavy ball from the Dragunov without upset to the reticle image in which the infidel was pinned atop the chevron. He had lost track of how many times he’d sent infidels on their voyage to wherever Allah sent them.

  But, every time, the dream turned. Each time, he encountered his own fate. As he sought targets, he came at last to settle on one sunk in shadow, not quite clear. He paused a fatal second, waiting for smoke to clear, and as the wind took it and spread it thin, he saw exactly what he knew he would see in life someday: a man, such as himself, hunched calmly behind the stock of a scoped rifle, its muzzle supported and, hence, stilled by the double vectors of a bipod. At that mo
ment, the flash, a smear of disorganized radiance, lasting but a fraction of a second as the cartridge’s unburned powder consumed itself. He knew he was doomed.

  O Allah, hear me. I have served you with all my being and spirit and request humbly absolution for my sins and a welcome to Paradise.

  He knew that’s how he would die. Sooner or later, having been hunted his whole life, first by Israelis and then by Iranians and then by Kurds and then by Russians and then by Israelis again and finally by Americans, he would become the trophy to a man as skilled as himself.

  He jerked awake—as always—in sweat, fighting panic. The desert night was calm. He rolled from the bed and went to the window to see the broad, empty plain outside. Far off, a light burned, a police station on the other side of the valley. Downstairs, his guards were quiet, though one of them was purportedly on duty. No point in checking, as nothing would happen today.

  But his mind wouldn’t settle down. Perhaps what lay before him had him unsettled—it still happened, even after so many years—and his biology was responding. No prayer could still it. He thought of a pipe of hashish, but that left him logy and imprecise in the morning.

  Instead, he focused on his moment of glory. It was a gift from God. It was Allah sending him recompense for all that had been taken from him, for the humiliations and the disgrace and the echoes of a pain that never went away.

  He thought of the bus.

  4

  Tel Aviv

  Swagger found the address—less than a mile from the beach, and less than a mile from his hotel—which was a certain café with tables outdoors in the sunlight. He sat at one, and the waiter came by, and Swagger ordered an iced tea, though he didn’t like iced tea. He had been told to order iced tea. He sat for a while, figuring that one team was observing him by means of binoculars while another examined passersby for threats. No bombs exploded, no machine guns sounded, no one noticed, no one moved.

  Finally, from inside the restaurant, a man came out and joined him.

  “Sergeant Swagger? I’m Gershon Gold.”

  “Sir,” said Swagger. “Please sit down.”

  The man slid in. Like Swagger, he wore sunglasses. Like Swagger, a short-sleeved shirt, open at the neck, pale and gossamer, loosely woven for comfort. Swagger wore a Razorbacks ball cap, while Gold wore a tropical fedora with a black band. He had on dark pants, shined loafers, and a Breitling watch with a green band. No color showed on his face, an ovoid specimen of milky whiteness built around a prim and unexpressive mouth. He looked like the rare man whose tombstone might read “I wish I spent more time at the office.”

  “Thanks for the chat,” Swagger said. “I hope you find what I have for you useful.”

  “I’ve seen the FBI file on you,” said Gold. “You have contributed much. Myself, I’m really just a clerk. For me, courage is not a job requirement. But I consider myself, nonetheless, of some utility.”

  “I was told by my daughter that you’re the George Smiley of your organization. I guess that means ‘a famous spy.’”

  “Something like that. I lack a beautiful wife, however, and an encyclopedic memory. And unlike Smiley, I’m not a cynic, I’m still a humble pilgrim. By the way, I found your daughter extremely bright. I’m sure you’re very proud.”

  “I am.”

  Gold nodded. “Please proceed.”

  “Is this place secure? Can I say a certain name that might be classified?”

  “You are actually surrounded by young members of our counterterror staff. This is their favorite kind of assignment.”

  Swagger took a single breath before beginning. “Let me begin by asking, do you have familiarity with the name Juba? As in Juba the Sniper.”

  Gold sat back coolly, betraying no surprise. Yet the microlanguage of his facial architecture—so subtle, few would have noticed—communicated a response. A stimulation. Then it was gone.

  “A very interesting gentleman.”

  “Ain’t he just?” said Swagger.

  “I must warn you, much of what has been offered to us in re Juba over the years has turned out sourly. He is surrounded by misinformation. The man himself is quite clever in his security arrangements, as are his masters. This includes false trails, inaccurate leaks, bogus sightings, and the like. We have gone up many alleys to find them blind. He knows many things which we would like him to share with us—and I’m sure we could persuade him—but he seems more a myth than a man. A phantasm.”

  “You’re telling me I could have been suckered, and this is just mischief, meant to eat up energy and leave everyone frustrated in the end.”

  “It might even be a distraction. You can never be sure. A whisper of Juba’s presence orients us in a certain direction, and he operates in the opening left by our commitment to that lure. It has happened before.”

  “In other words, in this game I am an amateur and may be full of shit.”

  “With all due respect, at this stage anything is possible.”

  “Well, let me tell you the story and all about the remarkable woman who is its hero.”

  “Please.”

  Swagger narrated as succinctly as possible the odyssey of Janet McDowell, the one-woman CIA who’d gone from suburban matron to deep-cover penetration agent. The Mossad professional listened intently, occasionally sipping lemon water, but did not interrupt.

  Finally, he said, “Is any of this backed up on paper? Do you have copies of the various documents in play, photographs of the individuals mentioned—proof, say, of her mistreatment on her journeys? Does this hold up to elemental scrutiny?”

  “All of it, here in this briefcase. Moreover, I hired a private detective. Please, if you should meet her, don’t tell her. I had the same questions. I also ran her paperwork by a friend of mine who’s a retired FBI agent and extremely practiced in this business. In both cases, she passed the test brilliantly. Her zygoma was indeed fractured into four pieces in 2010, and she spent seven months in the hospital. Even then, the bones didn’t quite heal properly. Her finances indicate funds coming in from relatives, an ex-husband, the sale of property. She doesn’t have much left or much future to look forward to. She’s two million in debt, with no end upcoming.”

  “So she is legitimate, though you wouldn’t be offended if we double-checked?”

  “Help yourself.”

  “But her legitimacy doesn’t prove her information is legitimate. Perhaps this is another Juba game, conjured by some Iranian Ministry of Intelligence genius. I could name several. The brilliance of it would be discovering the woman on one of her trips, feeding her false information artfully disguised as the truth. Her belief—and she would have a need to believe, a need to achieve some justice for the poor lost boy—might be exactly the tool they’d put to use in order to achieve some sort of leverage over us.”

  “Sure. I guess,” said Bob. “But it seems more likely that if they knew about her, they’d put a bullet in her head instead of going to all this trouble.”

  “And, other than being a nuisance, she is not under active CIA control or even in their awareness?”

  “I don’t know anybody there like I once did. But the mess that place is in now—again, it seems unlikely. Maybe this genius could play a game using her uniqueness, but right now everybody in the Agency seems really pissed off.”

  Gold nodded.

  Finally, he said, “Why don’t you let me run some checks. I’ll call you in a day or two. Please enjoy our town. I will put everything on a Mossad account.”

  “That’s very kind, but to keep myself untouched by financial interests, I prefer to pay my own way. I can afford it. Why should I just leave it to my kids?”

  Gold’s eyes crinkled briefly. “Ha. Why indeed?”

  * * *

  • • •

  For two days, he enjoyed the sights and flavors of Tel Aviv, admiring the scenery, the women, the live
-for-today ethos that seemed to animate the place. It had a gay living-on-the-bull’s-eye quality to it, familiar from Saigon toward the end. They probably felt the same in Troy. He developed a liking for pomegranate juice and soda taken on the hotel veranda with the Med a blue pool in one direction and, in the other, scrub mountains sustaining what appeared to be thousands of apartments, all of this in splendid sunshine. Only occasionally did the percussion of what might have been an explosion jar his eardrums. Sometimes, but not always, sirens. He felt his face darkening in the rays from above, and his own step turning jaunty.

  On the third night, his phone rang. It was not Gershon.

  “You will be picked up tomorrow at nine,” the voice informed him, then vanished.

  And indeed at 9 a black Citroën pulled up, driven by a boy.

  “Mr. Swagger?”

  “Yep.”

  “If you please . . .”

  The car wound through town and eventually made it to the suburbs, where, after a bit, it seemed to set a course toward a black cube of a building, looking all sci-fi in the light, gleamless, obdurate, implacable. He knew it was Mossad headquarters, a six-story glass block whose dark surface evoked the idea of being watched from the inside while remaining impenetrable from the outside.

  Security was thorough, his documents vetted, his body scanned, even the labels on his clothes checked. The boy stayed with him the whole way, ultimately depositing him on the sixth floor in a shabby conference room, where he was awaited by what appeared to be a committee.

  Gold didn’t bother to introduce him to them or them to him. Names were irrelevant. The men were as somber as Gold, some bearded, some not. All had the game written on faces that might not have smiled in the past few years. Each of them had a folder in hand, and Gold seemed to be in charge.

  “Sergeant Swagger, my colleagues and I will put certain questions before you. We do so in the interest of efficiency and probity. In some cases, you may think they are hostile. You might be right. I’ve asked my colleagues to divide themselves between advocacy and prosecution. No disrespect is meant, so please take nothing personally. Especially from Cohen.”