He had one moment of clarity, and at the subliminal level willed all he knew of shooting into the effort: the relaxation of the finger, trained over the hard years, the discipline of the respiratory cycle, and the rhythm of deeper and shallower exhalation, the cooperation of rods and cones in the back wall of the eye, the orchestration of pupil, eye and lens, and the overall guidance and wisdom of the retina, but most of all, that deep, willed plunge into stillness, where the world is gray and almost gone, yet at the same time sharp and clear.
Nothing matters, the man coached himself when things mattered most.
And then it was gone as the rifle fired, kicked against him, blowing the sight picture to nothing but blur, and when he came back on target he saw a mushroom of snow mist floating from the vibes where the bullet had blasted through the wood.
The pistol settled down, she saw the hugeness of its bore just feet away from her and then felt-Splatter in her face, a sense of mist or fog suddenly filling the air, a meaty vapor.
Mixed into this sensation was a sound which was that of wood splitting.
In it too was a grunt, almost involuntary, as if lungs gurgled, somehow human.
She found herself wet with droplets that proved to be warm and heavy: blood.
The sniper transfigured before her. What had been the upper quadrant of his face had somehow been pulped, ripped open, revealing a terrible wound of splintered bone and spurting blood. One eye looked dead as a nickle, the other was gone in the mess. Even as these details were fixing themselves in her memory, he fell sideways with a thump, his head banging on the cement floor, exposing the ragged entry wound in the corresponding rear quadrant of the skull, where the bones now seemed broken and frail.
A single light beam came through the cellar door where the bullet had passed.
She looked down, saw the stumpy little man fallen like a white angel into a red pool, as his satiny blood spread ever wider from his ruined face.
She turned to her daughter and her friend, who regarded her with mouths agape, and horror, more than relief, registering in both their eyes.
Then she spoke with perfect deliberation: 'Daddy's home.'
CHAPTER forty-nine.
He had not fired a second time because he had no more ammunition. But in another second, the cellar door had been flung open and he recognized Sally, leaping to signal him that it was over.
By the time Bob got to the house, three Air Force Hueys and a state police helicopter had landed and more were on their way. Then another Air Force job, a big Blackhawk, arrived and disgorged still more staff. It almost looked like an advanced firebase when the war was at its hottest, the way the choppers kept ferrying people in.
He got the news immediately: everybody was all right, though medics were attending them. The sniper was dead.
His own wounds were tended: an emergency technician re sewed with anesthetic, the gash in his thigh that had opened up under the pressure of all the moving and jumping, and then picked stone and bullet fragments out of his face and eye for half an hour, before disinfecting, then covering the raw cuts with gauze. Nothing appeared to have hit the eye proper, more shooter's luck.
There was little to be done about the back wound. It had penetrated his camouflage and grazed the flesh of his back, scoring both burn and bruise. But other than disinfectant, only time and painkillers would make it go away.
A cop wanted to take a statement, but Bonson pulled rank and declared the ranch a federal crime site, until corroborating FBI agents could chopper in within the hour from Boise. In the cellar, a state police crime team worked the body of the dead sniper, hit twice, once through the left lung, once in the back of the head.
'Great shooting,' said a cop.
'You want to take a look at your handiwork?'
But Swagger had no desire to see the fallen man. What good would it do? He felt nothing except that he'd seen enough corpses.
'I'd rather see my daughter and my wife,' he said.
'Well, your wife is being treated by our medical people.
We've got to debrief her as soon as possible. Mrs.
Memphis is with Nikki.'
'Can I go?'
'They're in the kitchen.'
He walked through a strange house full of strangers.
People talked on radios, and computers had been set up.
A squad of uninteresting young people hung about, talking shop, clearly agitated at the prospect of a big treat. He remembered when Agency people were all ex-FBI men, beefy cop types, who carried Swedish Ks and liked to talk about 'pegging gooks.' These boys and girls looked like they belonged in prep school, but they sure made themselves at home, with the instant insouciance of the young.
He walked through them, and they parted, and he could feel their wonder. What would they make of him: his kind of war was so far from their kind it probably made no sense.
He found Sally in the kitchen, and next to her, there was his baby girl. These were the moments worth living for. Now he knew why he bothered to survive Vietnam.
'Hi, baby!'
'Oh, Daddy,' she said, her eyes widening with deep pleasure. He felt a warmth in his heart so intense he might
