Time moved in atomic increments. Juba’s finger lay into the trigger, and he felt it move, move, move, yielding a tenth of an ounce by a tenth of an ounce, but he still had no goddamned target—Allah, help me! Allah, do not forsake me!—and, in a nanosecond, the man’s face began to clear, and the crosshairs exactly defined the edge of the Marshal’s head and about a third of his emerging face when the trigger, obedient to its administrator’s beliefs, went.
Blur and whirl, the odd no-noise of the suppressor turning the muzzle blast into generic muffled obscurity, the rifle rising off the tripod as it drove back just a bit by the recoil, and then falling again to stability, and since he had not come off the stock or out of the eye box during the recoil cycle, it restored the movie that was this chaotic event, and at that second Juba saw the face of the man in the flash of an instant before the great destruction.
43
There is no sound quite like the sound of a high-velocity bullet striking a human head. It’s wet yet solid, repulsive, and full of odd aural subtexts: some cracking, some sibilance of the spray phenomenon, some twisted mach-speed splats. Of the people standing next to Jared as the bullet, sliding off the skull of the Marshal, took him dead-on flush beneath the eye, only Swagger had heard it before.
He wasted no time. The sound carried terminal information. No need to look at the results, though he involuntarily snatched a glimpse of the Marshal, also toppling, also issuing copious outflow, to determine that that man was probably not fatally hit but had a year of headaches in store for him.
In the moment of suspended animation that followed, it was Swagger who screamed, “The Dome! The Dome!” and, without a whisper of pause, bolted toward the police car behind the Marshals’ SUV, yanked open the rear, piled in, and shouted again: “The Dome! The Dome!” The absurd smell of sloshed coffee filled the automobile, but indeed the sergeant at the wheel bumped into drive, squirmed out from his slot, went hard left, peeled around the lot, hit the exit gate, blew through it, sending spars and splinters of yellow-and-black-striped wood flying, cranked hard left down 4th Street and put pedal flat to floor, and the power drive of Dodge Charger Pursuit’s best 370 hammered its way through the atmosphere.
“Headquarters 10-35. Shots fired, shots fired, Fourth and Main, need medical fast,” said the other cop into his mic. “Officers down. We are proceeding to Immaculate Conception, shots may have originated there, all units, 10-35, Immaculate Conception, proceed under siren.”
“Tell ’em, suspects heavily armed, expect to receive gunfire,” Swagger said, as the two blocks of 4th Street went to a blur outside the speeding vehicle, and the g-forces tugged its occupants back.
“Be advised, all units, may encounter gunfire at site.”
“Got a gun?” Swagger said.
“There’s a shotgun in the trunk. I’ll pop it when we bail out.”
“Roger that,” said Swagger, as the car reached its destination, yielding the sudden image of two SUVs halted at the curb in front of the cathedral just as a batch of priests were scurrying toward them.
“Watch it, goddammit,” yelled Swagger, as one of the priests dipped and came out with an assault rifle.
All three of the occupants went down as a fleet of small, angry missiles nailed the windshield, reducing it to sparkles, veins, and glittering spray. Nobody was hit, but the car itself slid out of control, sideswiped a parked vehicle, came to a hard stop against another, throwing each occupant forward and into shock against whatever was ahead of them, dashboard or the back of the front seat. Swagger felt a bone crack, a rib twist, his heart go flat as a pancake, his lungs nearly split, and a rocket of bad pain go vertically from the center of his body. More fire splattered against the car, filling it with the sound of metal shearing, vibrations like a ripsaw, and the pungency of fried paint and gasoline. But at the same time, more sirens rose, meaning that the guys were incoming, and maybe there’d be enough of them to close this thing down.
* * *
• • •
Juba lost a second to amazement, then his combat brain took over. He turned, knocked the glazier to the ground, and said, “Stay for police.”
They were halfway out of the dome, on the long catwalk trek to the last remaining flight of stairs, when the dry snap of outdoor gunfire began. How could there be gunfire? How could people have gotten here so fast? How could they tell where the shot had come from, as the suppressor had diffused its origin? Was this a betrayal or some kind of terrible stroke of bad luck? He knew he could mull these issues until capture or death, but got over them in one second. That was the soldier in him: built to confront the wretched here and now.
He and Esteban reached the stairway, two-at-a-timed-it down the steep incline from the catwalk, found themselves behind the chancel, and ran down a side aisle to the west door. They stepped into firefight city. Before them, four of the first-teamers were draped over the two SUVs, all gone to full hammer on the Krinks. The sound of the guns eating ammo came as ripping, as if huge canvas shrouds were being pulled apart by mechanical devices. Around them an ever-growing crescent of squad and sheriff’s cars had arrayed themselves clumsily, and each by this time had its own assortment of sheltering law enforcement, most with pistols, some with automatic weapons. Everybody shooting at everybody, ducking, finding a new spot, shooting some more, twisting back to hasten through a reload. A shooter went down, tried to crawl away, and, halfway through his second extension, bled dry and went still. The others kept the fire up.
It was chaos. Just men with guns shooting at men with guns, trying to maneuver under fire, and, when frustrated, unleashing bullets into the crisp air at vehicles or earth to no tactical advantage. Police flashers exploded, tires went flat, steam burst from engines, lakes of oil oozed like slime across the pavement.
“Back,” yelled Juba, who, absent the abandoned sniper rifle, had no weapon.
He and his companion pulled back, even as someone noted them and sent a burst to gouge a furrow of splintered wood in the west door.
“You go,” yelled the soldier. “I’ll hold them.”
“Jihadi hero,” yelled Juba, kissed him fiercely on the lips.
“Here,” yelled the soldier, handing over the Krinkov.
As he turned back out, he pulled a Beretta and started to fire at oncomers.
Juba ran down the nave to the transept, amid slanting beams of holy light, in full view of the tortured man on the cross. He pushed his way through a crowd of frightened, bound priests, but none had the nerve to try to block him. He twisted into a hall, heard shrieks and screams from civilians in the rooms on either side, came to a corner, took a quick look back down the hall over his gunsight and saw no one. He kept moving and came to a door, pushed it open, tasted sun and air and the glories of a garden, negotiated it forcefully and saw a street before him through an archway. He put the rifle to his side, after folding the stock, and set out. Trying to walk naturally, though breathing heavily, he hit the sidewalk, was about to turn right down the street, and then a man crashed into him, the rifle clattering away, and the two went down, tangled in each other’s arms, strength on strength.
* * *
• • •
Swagger had no gun. What good was he? And each arriving officer seemed more eager to get into the fight than to pay him any attention. The FBI Ford pulled into the formation, Nick rolled out, Chandler the other way, and Neill from the rear.
He scrambled low and hard to them.
“Gun!” he yelled.
“I’m using mine!” said Nick, not really paying much attention, and leaning over the wheel well to put several Glock .40s out into the generalized target area thirty-five yards away.
Fire everywhere. The cars trembled as they were hit, the noise of the shots hit eardrums like driven spikes, the smell of burned smokeless drifted all over.
Swagger, in his quest for firepower, kept sliding car to car and reached the
last of them in the barricade around the enemy position and found two Marshals blazing away with .45 automatics. They wouldn’t relinquish a gun either.
That’s when he saw Juba.
The man wore yellow shooting glasses, and had just emerged from the entry to the cathedral. Heavyset, intense, muscular under the priest’s robes, no fear in him. Bob decided to charge. Somehow he felt that his aged body could outrun the bullets that Juba’s bodyguard sent his way and overcome them both with well-executed punches, bellicose profanity, and hard-steel U.S. Marine Corps attitude. But he saw the error of his ways when the companion saw him and raised the rifle to kill him. However, in the next second, before his death was enacted, Bob saw a burst of shots riddle the huge door, drive the two back. He took this as God’s belief in his mission and continued his charge after the momentary lull.
He quickly saw it was indeed a stupid thing to do, as the companion emerged again, this time with pistol, which he put toward Bob. As his trigger finger almost went into full press, someone just behind him shot the guy six times with a Glock. It was Chandler.
“Get back!” he screamed at her.
“You first,” she replied.
But something knocked her flat. This burst, probably from a gunman behind a car, spared Bob. No one would kill him! It seemed so wrong!
He ran to her.
“Where are you—”
“Vest,” she wheezed. “I’m okay. Just . . . ribs . . .”
He got behind her and dragged her behind the Marshals’ SUV.
“Stay here!”
“Take this!”
It was her Glock. But it was locked back, empty.
“Mag?”
“Gone.”
“Shit,” said Bob, and flicked the slide lock so that the gun clacked shut, even if empty. An empty gun could be better than no gun.
“Stay down now!” he yelled.
If she had a riposte—and she almost certainly did—he didn’t hear it, for again he took off. But this time instead of running to the building, he ran to its side, reasoning that Juba would cut through the cathedral, find a way to reach the other side, and make his break into traffic, where he’d hijack a car or maybe just hot-wire something parked nearby. Juba would know what to do, that was for certain.
Bob came around the rear of the immense building, stepped out of its shade into sunlight, and noted that on this street traffic had stopped, pedestrians had disappeared, but all the cop cars with flashing lightbars and still screaming sirens were half a block away, clustered at the intersection. He slowed, but not much, negotiating the far side of the cathedral complex, and came to an arch, out of which, at that precise point in time, came a husky priest. As priests don’t normally wear mics, yellow shooting glasses, or carry Krinkov assault rifles, he understood, in supertime, who it was. His reactions were appropriate. It was an open field tackle, low into the hips, no arms wrapping around, and, as the two crashed together, Juba’s rifle flew. Each endured a moment of spangled confusion, but each came up fast.
“Freeze!” yelled Bob, the Glock locked on Juba’s midsection.
“No shoot, no shoot!” yelled Juba, in English, his arms flying upward. “Please, sir, no shoot!”
But then, unaware or not caring that it was an empty gun that tethered him in place, he moved so fast, Bob could not keep up, even if he squeezed on an empty chamber. It was Systema Spetsnaz, the Russian Special Forces fighting system, which is not built of memorized elaborate moves—they break down under pressure—but the natural physics of the body relative to strength, balance, practice, and experience, the latter of which he had plenty. It began as a wave, a crest of energy, rushing through the body to accumulate at the point of contact, accelerated through the universe in warp drive, and was delivered at a speed that has no place in time, the limb going so fast, so soon, it rendered itself invisible. The hollow of Juba’s foot hit Bob in the head so hard, it knocked him straight to Wonderland, and Alice and the White Rabbit played chess on his ruined skull for one or two seconds, and, when he recovered, the fight was over, and Juba, having recovered his rifle, stood over him to finish things off for good and all.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he spat something in Arabic, turned, and, fleet as a deer, amazingly fast for such a big man, headed down the street.
Bob tried to rise, to look about, to yell for backup, but all the squad cars were clustered halfway down the block at the intersection, lightbars pulsing red-blue distress, men scuttling for shooting positions, though the shooting seemed to have halted.
Bob’s knees went as a new wave of dizziness came over him, and he realized he had been hit so hard, he might die, as the pavement came up in a zoom shot to smash him in the nose, setting off more lights and frenzy.
44
Hospital, recovery
He came to once in the ambulance, alone, except that his brain felt as if it had nails hammered into it. It was not pleasant, and he decided to lie back and, somewhere between the lying and the backward part, he went to black again.
The next time he awoke, it was a hospital room. Nick was there, but so were the nails.
“Welcome to the world,” said Nick.
“Ahh,” said Bob, “not sure I want to be here.”
“No, the news is not good, but I expect you’re man enough to take it.”
“Chandler?”
“She made it. Broken ribs, but the vest saved her.”
“Thank God,” said Swagger. “Tell her to sit the next one out. You’re her boss.”
“You try and tell an American woman anything these days, let me know how you do.”
He lay back, and didn’t slide under. Meanwhile, a drip passed something medicinal into his veins, his vision was somewhat lazy in its mission to put edges on things, the smell of hospitals was its own special ordeal. A nurse leaned in to perform vital life-giving tasks, the last of which was holding a cup up for a long drink of water.
“Juba?” asked Bob after the last gulp.
Nick’s expression told enough, but as a stickler for details, he then provided them.
“He got into a parking lot, hot-wired a car, and got out of town. Where, we have no idea. The report on the car didn’t come in till last night—”
“It’s the next day already?”
“Afraid so.”
“Christ.”
“Anyhow, we haven’t located it yet, though now there’s an APB out.”
“That won’t help. He’ll dump it—he’s already dumped it—and pick up another. He’ll always be a car ahead of the APBs.”
“No doubt. Smart operator.”
“And fast. I never saw anybody so fast. He put that leg into me at light’s speed. So give me the score.”
“Not as bad as it could be. No police KIA, four wounded, not including you and Chandler. Four bad-guy KIA, including their NCO, who blew his own brains out rather than be taken. Six surrenders. Counterterrorism Division people are all over them, but since they were hired by a cutout in Mexico, and handled by cutouts all the way through, there’s not going to be much. Universal soldiers, Mexican variation. Special Forces, good operators; as long as someone pays their life insurance, they’ll shut up and wait for a chance to break. Also, some guy who’s a glass expert, cut the window for Juba’s shot. He doesn’t know anything either.”
Bob nodded.
Then he said, “Anyhow, when do I get out of here?”
“There’s some recovery time up ahead. You’ve sustained a heavy concussion and skull fracture. They say not for a week.”
“By then, Juba could have whacked—”
“Not your department. Your department is, tell the artist what this guy looks like. You’re the only one who’s seen him who’s still alive and not afraid to talk.”
“Jesus, Nick, it was just for a split second before he whacked me ou
t.”
“You’re a trained observer. When you put your mind to it, you’ll be surprised what you can recover.”
“I’ll try.”
“There is no ‘try,’” said Nick. “There is only ‘do.’”
* * *
• • •
But there was no do. There was only try.
“I admit, it’s not much,” said Swagger.
A square-faced, rather generic Arab stared back at him from a universe of deft charcoal strokes. Whatever subtle nuance of geometry, weight distribution, underlying musculature, bone slope, and eye radiance that make a face a face was not there. Nothing was there.
He was still abed after three long days of working with a very decent guy billed as the best police artist in the world, but it came to only this.
“He looks like a cross between Saddam Hussein and Dr. Zhivago,” said Swagger.
“You mean Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor,” said Nick. “Well, it does have a certain standardized, even idealized, quality to it. We’ll put it out, but if it draws in over seventy-five thousand suspects, we’ll know it’s not really working.”
“He’s not a face. He’s motion. He’s speed, grace, battle talent, remorseless will. The face is nothing.”
The door opened, and Mr. Gold appeared. He looked tired because during all the time since Juba’s escape, he’d been sitting in the temporary FBI working room in the Wichita Hilton, going through reports, looking for patterns, reading the transcripts of interviews with the captured shooters and the glazier, trying to infer from the grade Z material something grade A. Again, plenty of try, no do.
He shook Swagger’s hand.
“You have survived again,” he said.
“Dying is above my pay grade,” said Bob.
Game of Snipers Page 25