“Here’s something I thought of,” said Russ. “A theory. Let me just throw it out.”
Bob said nothing, just waited. They were cruising along the Taliblue Trail, a two-lane blacktop that ran along the crest of the Ouachitas and had just blown by the crossroads with Oklahoma 259. Ahead of them stretched empty road, gritty and dusty from poor upkeep here in Oklahoma. On either side, the mountain fell away, not a cliff but a steep slope; beyond, on either side, the valleys were deep and green; to the right, he could see the lesser ranges of the Ouachitas, the Jack Forks, the Kiamichis, the Winding Stairs. He heard something somewhere, on the far edge of his consciousness, that he couldn’t quite place. He ignored it.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“In the movies or in books, there’s no such thing as coincidence. No one’s going to pay to see or read about some guy who just finds something or something just happens to him.”
“No, no, I mean
“Russ, I was just joking. Don’t you got no sense of humor anywhere?”
“Well,” said Russ, thinking, No, no, he probably didn’t. “Anyhow, in real life, however absurd and irrational, coincidence occasionally happens. And I can’t help but notice you have an army night-shooting program that’s trying to develop tactics around night-vision devices in roughly the same area as the one where your father got hit at night. Maybe it’s not a conspiracy; maybe it’s one of those insane, ridiculous coincidences.”
“You saying Forrest Gump did it?” Bob laughed.
Russ breathed out his frustration.
“Now, suppose,” he continued, “they had a patrol or something and they got lost, got turned around. And they’re off post: and they watch this gunfight through the infrared scope where the details aren’t clear. They watch as one guy kills two others. And then he gets in a car; he’s going to get away. Maybe the sniper can’t help himself: he pulls the trigger and that’s that.”
“Won’t work,” Bob said. “He was in a tree. Had to be, otherwise he couldn’t have seen through the corn. And there wouldn’t have been that slight oval shape to the bullet hole.”
Russ nodded. He thought,
“Okay, okay. Now, maybe, well, you know the attitudes were different then, there was very little press scrutiny, they all thought they were on some kind of crusade against the communists. They
“Not bad,” said Bob after a pause, “not bad. Wrong, but not bad.”
“Why wrong?”
“I’ll tell you why. You remember that short little guy in the photograph, the one Preece couldn’t remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Couldn’t remember, my ass. I knew that little prick. And anybody who knew him would remember him.”
“Who was he?”
“His name was Frenchy Short. He was CIA all the way. A cowboy. On my second tour I was detached TDY to lead recon teams in liaison with the Agency up near Cambodia. The Frenchman was hanging around; it was an outfit called SOG, Studies and Observation Groups. Lots of very nasty boys. Frenchy had a little war going on in Cambodia with some mercenary Chinese called the Nung and a marine officer named Chardy as the XO. Frenchy thought he was Lawrence of Cambodia. He was one of those goddamned screwball showboat guys, the rules didn’t apply to him, he was bigger than the rules, he was bigger than the service or the Agency. Hell, he was bigger than the fucking war. He just happened to work for us, but he’d have worked for anybody. It was the work he loved, not no cause. The point is, I put out the question earlier: who could put together the kind of operation fast and on the fly that connected the criminal world, Jimmy Pye, a well-planned robbery, a daring escape, and brought it all off with my father getting whacked as the end result and nobody knowing any better? Well, maybe two or three men in the world. One of them being Frenchy Short. That was his goddamned specialty. And there’s one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“When I DEROSed out of SOG and headed back to the world, Frenchy drew me aside and asked me to ship him five hundred rounds of civilian ammunition.”
“I don’t—”
“He carried a Colt automatic in a tanker’s shoulder holster over his tiger suit. I just assumed it was a .45, same as mine. No, it was a .38 Super. He told me how he loved the .38 Super, it had so much less recoil than a .45 for the same killing power, plus extra rounds in the mag. He called it a pro’s gun.”
“Jesus,” said Russ.
“It’s more than—”
But Bob stopped.
A plane. That was it. The sound of an airplane engine, steady, not increasing in speed, just low enough and far enough away, almost a fly’s buzz.
“Go on,” said Russ.
“Just shut up,” Bob said.
“What is—”
“Don’t look around, don’t speed up, don’t slow down, you just stay very calm now,” Bob said.
He himself didn’t look around. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened, trying hard to isolate the airplane engine from the roar of the truck, the buffeting of the wind, the vibrations of the road. In time, he had it.
Very slowly he turned his head, yawning languidly as he went along.
Off a mile on the right, a white twin-engine job, maybe a Cessna. Those babies went 240 miles per hour. Either there was a terrific headwind howling out of the east, or the pilot was hovering right at the stall speed to stay roughly parallel and in the same speed zone with the truck.
“It’s more than coincidence,” Bob said, “that you got the one man in America there who could do such a thing and that he’s a great believer in the .38 Super, just what Jimmy was shooting. I smell Frenchy all over it. I think Frenchy threw it together, real smart, very fast, a fucking Agency home run the whole way. Not for the Agency, maybe, but for someone else. Someone powerful, that I guarantee you.”
He glanced quickly out the window. The plane was turning lazily away.
“Yeah, well—it’s okay? I mean, you tensed up there, now you’re relaxed. Everything’s okay, right?”
“Oh, every goddamn thing’s just superfine,” said Bob, yawning again, “except of course we are about to git ambushed.”
“Air to Alpha and Baker,” said Red, holding steady at 2,500 feet, running east, loafing again, dangerously near stall.
“Alpha here,” came a voice.
“What about Baker?”
“Oh, yeah, uh, I’m here too. I figured he said he was here, you’d know I was here.”
“Forget figuring. Tell me exactly what I ask you. Got that?”
“Yes sir,” said Baker contritely.
“Okay, I want you in pursuit. He’s about four miles ahead of you, traveling around fifty miles an hour. No Smokeys, no other traffic on the road. You go into maximum pursuit. But I am watching you, and on my signal you drop down to fifty-five. I don’t want him seeing you move superfast, do you read?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then step on it, goddammit.”
“Yes sir.”
“You hang steady there, Mike and Charlie. No need you racing anywhere, they are coming to you. I see intercept in about four minutes. I’m going to let Alpha and Baker close in, then I’ll bring you and Baker into play, Mike. You read?”
“Yes sir.”
