Game of Snipers

by Stephen Hunter

  “The bravery is just this side of insanity,” said Gold. “No man on earth would have launched himself at this fellow without a weapon.”

  “If it was about heroism,” said Nick, “we’d win every fight.”

  “While you’re here, Mr. Gold, I’d like to run my take on the shooting by you. Maybe you’ll see something I missed.”

  “Doubtful. But please proceed.”

  “I have been thinking about his shot, because I never made one so good. Nobody has, not even Craig Harrison, the long-distance champion of Afghanistan. Hitting a dime at three hundred ain’t the deal, so it wasn’t just marksmanship. It was, I don’t know . . . They didn’t teach no words for what I mean in 1964, which was my last brush with formal education.”

  “‘Spatial imagination’?” asked Nick.

  Bob chewed it over.

  “Sort of, but not quite. What I mean is, the understanding in a flash of the forces at play and understanding how they must go a certain way, anticipating that, being ahead of it, and putting the shot where the target is going to go, not where it is.”

  “Magic?” said Nick.

  “‘Dynamic projection,’” said Gold.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s the bull’s-eye. He saw that the kid’s head was invisible behind the Marshal’s but that it was tending to emerge. By the time it emerged, other things might have happened, and if he fired on it while emerging, it might have moved too far when time in flight finally put the bullet there. But, simultaneously, he couldn’t put the bullet through the Marshal’s head because it might not make it all the way or it might get deflected. So he put it on the edge of the Marshal’s skull, above the ear, beneath the cowboy hat, knowing that it wouldn’t impact straight on and explode, deform, deflect, whatever. Basically, he shot on the deflection, like putting the cue ball off the edge to hit two walls, knocking the eight ball on the other side of the table into the sock. He deflected the bullet about fifteen degrees, and it caught Jared just as he turned and emerged, under the right eye of a target that was probably only a quarter visible. Nobody but Juba hits that shot. What does that tell us?”

  “It shows that on top of everything else, he’s creative in real time. A difficult man to outthink,” said Mr. Gold.

  “Hope I’m up to it. One other thing. You speak Arabic?”

  “No outsider really speaks it, not fully and fluently. But in the shallow sense, then, yes, I speak it.”

  “He said something to me, even as he didn’t shoot me.”

  “You must have impressed him. He doesn’t seem the loquacious sort.”

  Swagger spit out clumsily the sounds that Juba had uttered as he stood over him with the recovered Krink.

  “Majnun jiddo,” clarified Mr. Gold. “It means ‘crazy grandpa.’”

  45

  The ranch

  The jet landed at 0345 and quickly went to blackout as it taxied toward Menendez’s private hangar. Juba had sat almost inert during the trip back, seemingly gathering strength after expending so much in the ordeal of shooting and evading.

  But when he climbed down the jetway, Señor Menendez himself awaited him and quickly escorted him to the Land Rover. La Culebra, in his sock, and of course the translator, Alberto, necessary to the grandee for many reasons, hovered close by. All climbed into the car and it pulled out, with Mercedeses, fore and aft, full of security.

  “Ah, my friend,” said Menendez, “you were superb. What talent, what skill, what a jihadi warrior you are. My god, you accomplished the miraculous, the impossible. I owe you all.”

  “I do not want all,” Juba said. “I want safe transport to my shooting site, myself by one route, my rifle by another. I want a new target to shoot, because I have to resharpen reflexes and protocols ignored for too long. All now must be to my task. And if I succeeded with your problem, it was because Allah willed it.”

  The last was a simple declaration. By inflection, it suggested that no theological disagreement could be permitted. It also suggested that further conversation could not be permitted. But Menendez was not good at picking up cues from others. He had things to say and would say them, regardless.

  “I should thank you also for exposing a traitor in my midst, and, in consequence, I have directed an intense security review. Such measures are extreme, and innocent people, alas, will die. But if we have been penetrated, the whole apparatus is at risk. The traitor must be found, and the capture and deaths of those soldiers must be answered with justice, no matter how sloppy.”

  “You infer from the law enforcement response that there was a traitor?”

  “I do. How else could—”

  “There was no traitor,” said Juba.

  “Then how were they upon you before you had even descended the dome? The newspapers were so proud of the police arrival before your escape and the subsequent gun battle. I presume that is cover story to mask the presence of a rat. There’s no way they could have—”

  “Yes, there is a way,” said Juba. “I saw it. Or him, as in this case; the way is a man.”

  “Who would—”

  “We’ll find out. After I’ve rested, I’ll contact my people, and, through them, I’ll access the intelligence files of every agency in the world that keeps records on the Americans. I’m looking for the identity of a senior sniper—sixty, seventy. He was there, and it was through his experience that he understood where the shot had to come from, and it was through his reaction that the police were so quickly on scene. He led them, and he alone understood as the action unfolded where I had to be. And, he was there. This has only happened once before. In Baghdad, when the Americans understood my strategy, they quietly countered it and destroyed it in one afternoon. In both cases, brilliant thought. And I’m guessing in both cases, though the men were different, the agency was the same: the United States Marine Corps. They are shooters. They still understand shooting, and can read it and comprehend its meaning, when so few others can.”

  He paused.

  “I saw the sniper. Weathered, from a life spent outdoors. Lithe, quick, spry, even though he was so old. Without fear. What crazy grandpa assaults an armed weight lifter thirty-five years younger than him? Only one who has been in many fights and always prevailed and believes himself invulnerable.”

  “You showed him he wasn’t.”

  “No, I showed him I could evade. That is not a victory. I should have killed him, as I believe it will save me a great deal of trouble in what comes next. But if I’d fired, the sound of the shot would have drawn police in seconds. If I’d paused to strangle him or to smash him with the gun, I would have extended my vulnerability. So even after knocking him to the ground, my first instinct was to evade. I made the right decision, but it feels very wrong.”

  46

  Meetings, Wichita, Kansas

  Swagger was released on the third day and got to the morning meeting on the fourth day.

  It was the first get-together for Chandler, Neill, Nick, Swagger, and Mr. Gold in over a week, and, as usual, Nick had Chandler—hobbling on a walker but game—go through the APB responses and other communiqués from the police net, particularly those provoked by the circularized police artist portrait of the fugitive, under Swagger’s direction.

  There were summaries from the interrogations—to no effect. And, as per usual, no possibilities from monitoring bus stations, the airport, the train station, even taxi, Uber, and Lyft drivers. Of the six or seven stolen cars reported, only one had been recovered, and it was almost certainly not Juba’s, as forensics found no trace of him in it.

  “Sooner or later, one of the commandos will disclose where they staged the operation, and we can bust and vacuum that site,” said Nick. “But everyone on the other team is operating at a very high professional level and will probably not make the kind of stupid mistake that brings down most criminal initiatives. These people are first-class. Everything is done t
hrough cutouts far from the order giver and his inner circle, always using laundered money, accounts that lead nowhere. No wire intelligence, and nobody monitored radio transmissions, so clearly they used sophisticated masking. Neill, anything in cyber? Any little thing?”

  “Sorry, no intercepts. Even put NSA on it, and they went through all their satellite stuff. I have a tech full-time in D.C. going after their fall guy. If and when a phony Brian Waters email or Dark Web site or blog hits, we’ll know.”

  “We’re fucked,” said Bob. “He’ll do that just before he shoots. Whatever he wants the world to know about Brian Waters will hit then, you can bet on it.”

  “Anything else?” asked Nick.

  “Did you find the other rifle? Meaning the rifle he used here in Wichita?” Bob asked.

  “How did you know he didn’t use the Accuracy International?”

  “No point in risking the weapon dedicated to his big shot for some sideshow.”

  “Well, you’re right—yes, a different rifle. He dumped it behind the chancel,” Nick said. “I looked at it pretty carefully before we sent it off to Firearms Division. It appeared to be straight-out-of-the-box standard, which is to say, without information.”

  “What about all the science magic you do? DNA, hairs, atoms, that sort of thing?”

  “Nothing yet. Again, it’s doubtful any microtraces will be found to lead anywhere. Maybe once we get Juba, we might be able to DNA trace, but as of now, since we don’t have any DNA on him, DNA is pointless. In all other respects it was just standard Remington 700, Police Model, with a standard Leupold in standard mounting hardware. No gunsmithing required, no trip to custom rifle specialists; ergo, no information. Firearms Division is running the number, and they haven’t come up with anything yet, but if it follows the pattern, it’ll be a straw man’s purchase in some faraway state that proves to be a dead end. Meanwhile, the rifle just sits on a rack in the Hoover Building.”

  “It’s a .308, I assume?”

  “No. It was something called 6.5 Creedmoor.”

  Bob nodded, considering.

  “Does that tell you anything?” Nick asked.

  “The fact that he’s onto 6.5 Creedmoor is an indication of how up-to-date he is. It’s the big new thing, on all the magazine covers. Supposedly more accurate than .308. The boy don’t miss no tricks.”

  “So it looks like no progress,” said Nick. “But it confirms what we know: money is behind it, big money. Again, that tells us the target is major, and we ought to get going or something bad will happen.”

  “Should you go to the White House?” asked Neill. “It seems that his target—”

  “No,” said Nick. “When you go there, it gets all sticky politically, and other agendas beyond law enforcement come into play. That is why I would prefer if you keep speculation on the ultimate target to yourself. If you make an assumption, we’re in a world of confirmation bias, and clarity is the first casualty. I want us to work in the complete context-free abstract until it’s not possible. Don’t you agree, Mr. Gold?”

  “I do entirely,” said Gold. “In Israel too, politics beclouds our efforts all too often.”

  “So, what’s next conceptually? Tell me how to use Counterterrorism’s manpower to flood a zone and flush something out. Tell me some way to aggressively proact, not just wait to pick up the pieces and hope we identify a piece of DNA or Juba’s credit card.”

  Silence.

  Gold then said, “Sergeant Swagger, his shot will be at over a mile, you think. But at a certain point, he is required to divert, and he goes on this mission, the distance being three hundred yards in a crowd. He requires a new rifle, new ammunition, a whole new program. This involves a whole new set of problems to solve. He solves them—and barely escapes. But does that mean, assuming he is back on safe territory, he’ll have to reacclimate himself to the longer shot?”

  “He will if he can, if he has time. It’s not necessary, but he’d want to do it. Do you see anything in that?”

  “Ah, there’s something in there, but it has yet to clarify.”

  “Mr. Gold,” said Nick. “Please clarify! Clarify! We need clarification!”

  “I shall so instruct my subconscious. But it seems not to work regular hours.”

  “One interesting thing,” Nick said. “Wichita Metro tells me that the AK Juba left behind, it didn’t have a magazine. That is, he removed the magazine and took it with him. Maybe to use it as a blunt-impact weapon. He could fit it under his jacket, in his belt, and it would fit flush. Of course, that would preclude commercial flight, yet another indicator he had private means out of town. But—why? Any thoughts?”

  Swagger said, “He don’t do nothing on a whim. He’s a careful bird. He’s got a use for it, and I hope I ain’t around when he comes to it.”

  PART 4

  47

  The ranch

  A day later, the pictures of known American snipers came through via email from Juba’s control. He peered at them and, of several possibilities, recognized one: a sergeant’s face like his own, something clever, alive, even wise. but without aristocratic air or expectations beyond the practical. Not interested in luxury, not softened by too much pleasure, steadfast of soul and devoted to duty, unable to relax but for the company of those who’d earned the right to stand nearby. These men—American snipers, security advisors, Green Berets, and SEALs, men of experience and talent—had all acquired the patina of an Assyrian shield, a certain cast to the eyes, surrounded by a fissure of wrinkles, a stolidity of expression, a hardness to the jawline that extended to a mouth that would never yield to gentleness or humor unless deep in the bosom of family, friends, or co-believers. But this sergeant’s face completed Juba’s nightmare portrait of the American sniper who awaited him in the future. It was the face of his death.

  He looked at the name, trying to make sense of it. Since its structural foundations diverged so from that of the Arabic, it seemed incoherent. It was simply an accumulation of sounds squished into a single utterance. It seemed to have no meaning.

  “What does this mean?” he asked Alberto. “Bobleeswagger?”

  “American names are simply labels. They don’t carry meanings and are not adjusted to celebrate an outstanding individual or origin or heritage. His name is Swagger because his father’s name was Swagger, and that is all that can be said.”

  “But I have seen this word ‘swagger’ in texts. I did not bother to look it up. But it exists independent of this man.”

  “It does. ‘Swagger’ is ‘a bold walk.’”

  “A sniper would not swagger. A sergeant might, an aviator certainly. A general, without doubt. A sniper? Never. The sniper is quiet, calm, without vanity and drama. This fellow would not swagger.”

  “They call this irony. Actually, if I understand irony, it’s not irony, it’s coincidence. But Americans love irony for some reason and they misuse the term promiscuously, as perhaps we do ‘honor.’ Irony is saying something but meaning the opposite, usually for the sake of mischief or wit. Thus, they love the fact—those who know him or of him—that his name is one thing and his character and skill another.”

  “I suppose I understand. I would not have until I had reached this stage and achieved so many infidel kills. In mannerism: sedate; in action: bold. It is the best way for a man to be. Now I know him a little, know what created the man he is today. Bobleeswagger. He has delivered much death and knows it always sets him apart—even from his children. He knows he is used, sometimes cynically, by his masters for ends of which he has no knowledge and in which he has to believe on faith alone. But he adheres to duty nevertheless and will die doing it.”

  “Is it him you are discussing or yourself?” asked Alberto.

  “We are much the same, even if our gods are at war. I should have seen it earlier, as I now see its signs everywhere. And it explains everything. This isn’t an operation
. It’s a game—the game—to be played out to the end. His death or mine.”

  Alberto nodded. “Or both,” he said.

  48

  Zombieland, a clarification

  Sleep. Dreams utterly incoherent, full of odd scenes, outliers, and rogues. Aches of old wounds and new—the cracked ribs, the spells of dizziness, for example—came and went at random. Sometimes his phantom hip screamed in pain, though in his wakefulness it was perfect. Old man, pins wobbly, struts bent, needs oil, lube, and some adjustments.

  But worse: every so often, the face of one of the lost ones—there were so many—and things that went along with them. Regret, isolation, despair, nihilism, memories of pain, memories of the comforting blur of the bottle, memories always of folly, stupidity, cowardice, ugly words, once issued, never recalled, all the times the obvious had been missed and the impossible selected as a goal, the center not holding, all systems exposed, in their illusory nature, the cheapness of their fraud, the tawdriness of their window dressing—a night, really, without much actual rest. Then, almost a mercy, the phone.

  He swam toward it.

  “Swagger.”

  It was Nick. “I want everybody in. We’ve got something.”

  That got his attention. “Has it broken?”

  “Well, I’m hoping the breaking process has started. Get in here.”

  “On my way.”

  He struggled through a shower that semi-restored him, and a cup of bad residence hotel coffee, and drove his rental down to Hoover. It was almost five in the morning, but by the time he arrived, most of his functions were functioning, his hands weren’t shaking, and the surrealism of the dream world had helpfully erased itself.

  The building operated at about ten percent hum in the off hours, and halls, usually so bustling, were ghost tunnels. Security was sparse, and each individual noise seemed to carry an echo and its reecho with it. Perhaps in the op center things were jumping. Everywhere else, there was too much room, not enough people. He elevatored to the sixth floor and turned in to the deserted hall that led to the task force office, entered, and saw they were all in, except for Gold. Someone had put a pot of coffee on, and Swagger took a cupful, his second of the day.