Black Light

It had to be Swagger. He’d gotten to his car, gotten a rifle. From the swiftness of the fire, a semiauto, not a full auto, for they weren’t quite fast enough and didn’t have the deadening mechanical regularity of a machine gun. It sounded like an M-16 or a Mini-14, nothing big like an ’06 or .308.

But more: Bob had panicked. He thought he saw something move and ventilated it. Now he cowered breathlessly, afraid that he’d missed, probably afraid to go forward. He’d move laterally, knowing that whoever was stalking him would move toward the sound. Or he’d fired deliberately, to attract whoever was hunting him.

Didn’t really matter: the solution was the same.

You move left or right of the source of the noise, then set up, anticipating a target to come to your new front. If he’s moved left, he comes right to you. If he’s moved right, he’ll come around you. But he’ll be making the noise.

Preece drew a compass from his pocket and shot an azimuth to a tree on a ridge two hundred yards away. He flicked on the scope and took a last scan of the area, looking for movement in the black light of the infrared. Nothing but the shimmer of vegetation.

He left his position and moved swiftly to the tree. Setting up on the ridge, he scanned again, this time for several minutes. Nothing. Ahead, through the trees, he saw another ridge. He shot another azimuth to another tree, and moved to it, not rushing, not making undue noise, feeling relaxed, confident and aggressive. He was the only one who could see in the dark.

At the ridge, he looked down: a clearing. The trees ended halfway down the slope and yielded to a kind of meadow or something, where perhaps once there’d been a forest fire or some logging operations. Hmmm. It scared him. In the forest, he was invisible, but out there, possibly an experienced man might read his darker textures against the texture of the grass and send a shot home, even without night vision.

This perplexed him. Maybe Bob was playing some extremely subtle game on him. Whatever, the trees cut off a good view of the ridge. After scanning for several minutes to convince himself that Bob wasn’t hiding on this side of the clearing, he moved stealthily over the ridgeline and, keeping trees between himself and the clearing, moved down toward the edge.

He was almost there when krak krak, two shots lit off across the clearing and he could see the vivid flash, not a hundred yards away. Was Bob shooting at him? But no rounds came whipping through the trees, and the supersonic whisssh-crack of bullets overhead didn’t sound. He dropped behind the tree, scooted back into a solid prone and quickly brought the rifle to his shoulder, simultaneously going to IR. The rifle rested on the girders of his bones, not the uncertain power of his muscles: it was solid, and the reticle didn’t drift or wander.

In the green scope he could see it all: the high grass of the clearing, undulating in the breeze just like the corn, the blunt verticals that were tree trunks and … yes, there he was … the man.

Bob the Nailer. He was on the other side, about as close in as Preece was, moving back and forth, evidently trying to decide whether or not to move across the field.

Preece put the crosshairs on him.

Mmmm, no. No, it was a hard shot, because he was wandering back and forth between the trees, visible for only fractions of a second between them.

What the hell was he doing?

Now that he’d fired, he’d know Preece would be on him, but he couldn’t know Preece was already here. Had he gone mad? Had he flipped out?

Then it occurred to him that he was hoping his fire would draw Preece and that maybe he could lure him into the field and gun him down there, where he was marginally visible.

Sorry, Bob: I’m already here. I have plenty of battery time, hours more. I can just watch you and when you get impatient and step out from the trees, I can take you down. It was that easy.

He watched now as the glowing man settled behind a tree. He kept peering nervously out. He was waiting for Preece.

I can wait longer than you, Bob. I’m not going anywhere at all.

Peck heard the first three shots from far away, a dry sound, almost like a tapping. He gauged that they came from his right. Slowly, he began to move in that direction, scuttling between trees, taking up a good observation position before moving on.

He moved across the night terrain steadily, growing in confidence. That was Bob shooting, but not at him. Had he hit Preece? He didn’t think so. The shots had more the sense of panic in them than anything.

He moved through the trees from ridgeline to ridgeline, taking cover at the top of each crest and scanning beneath him for signs of movement. But he saw nothing.

He was halfway up another ridge when he heard krak krak, two fast shots, maybe a quarter mile off and over to his left still farther. He climbed the ridge and could see nothing. But instead of descending, he decided to traverse the ridge and moved along it for a bit, until at last he saw, what, light? No, not light: openness. There seemed to be a clearing or something ahead. He scurried along the ridgeline and at last came to rest overlooking the field. This should be where the shots came from. He had a feeling that if something were going to happen, this is where it would happen.

Bob peeked around the tree. He had no indication that any human eyes or ears were within a hundred miles of him. He felt alone on the face of the planet.

No, he told himself. He’s there. He’s tracked me by the shots, he’s seen me move among the trees, he’s there. He’s all set up. Right now he’s in a good, solid prone a hundred-odd yards out, he’s got this tree zeroed, he knows he’s got me.

But there was no snake to announce the sniper this time. That’s because there aren’t snakes everywhere in the forest. He had gotten a snake in the draw. He wasn’t getting one here. He’d used up his snake luck. It didn’t matter. Preece was there. He had to be. There was no other place for him to be.

He looked at his watch. It was close to ten. That’s when my father died, didn’t he? At ten, after a running fight. Some guy in the trees a hundred yards out puts the scope on him, pulls the trigger and goes home to cold beer and rare steaks.

Well, let’s see what happens this time.

He pulled himself out, darted quickly between the trees, back and forth, drawing the sniper’s scope to him, until he felt the crosshairs. But he was relatively confident the man wouldn’t fire, because the trees interfered with his sight picture. Why should he shoot between them, when in seconds his target would step out into the open?

How long would it take? How quick would he shoot? Would he shoot fast? Yes, he’d shoot fast. He’d be on him like a flash, put the crosshair center mass and with a champion’s long-honed trigger control, fire in a second.

One second.

No, two seconds.

He won’t rush. There’s no need to rush. He has it all, right there before him, there’s no need to rush.

Two seconds.

You have two seconds, he told himself.

Bob leaned the rifle against the tree and picked up the gallon can of Coleman fluid. With his fingers he explored the can until at last he found the bottom. He took out his Case XX pocketknife, pried open the blade. Quickly, holding the can upside down, he punctured its metal skin right at the bottom three times on each side. The sound of the blade plunging into the sheet metal had an odd thrum of vibration to it.

He tossed the can out beyond the tree, where it hit, tipped, but gurgled as the volatile liquid inside poured out of the holes and soaked into the brush. He seized the rifle, listening as the fuel chugged out. It formed a pool and its vapor began to rise in a palpable mist, its stench washing over him. It would linger for a second or two, a balloon of gas without a skin.

Time to go, he thought, and stepped out.

It felt so familiar.