Point Of Impact

like some kind of mad Jesuit. Didn’t have to live in a little trailer off in the misty mountains, and face each visitor with mistrust.

The world was full of things that could be. He had a flash of them together somewhere, just enjoying each other, no complications. Somehow it had to do with water; he saw them at a beach, maybe Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, or maybe outside Biloxi or Galveston or some such; anyway, sand, water, sun, and nothing else in the world.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked. “You almost had a smile on your face. What was it?”

He knew if he told her he was lost. There would be no turning back from the softness. He lay there and the temptation to give in rose and rose in him. He wanted to let it swallow him up. He could feel himself disappearing in the wanting.

“Something from the Marines.”

“That’s a lie,” she said.

“Sure. I was thinking how much I like this. It’s a life I could love. But I have to tell you square-up: maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it costs me too much or gives me too much to hold on to. I have to be able to let go of things. It’s like I’m bargaining; I have to be able to walk away from the deal at any time, elsewise I can never win. I have to be willing to die at any time, or I can’t ever win. Any man in a war will tell you that; you must be willing to give up your life at any chance. If you’re thinking about what’s at home, you lose your edge.”

She looked at him with those gray, calm eyes.

“I was right. I knew. Give me a taste. Then pull away. Go off on your crusade.” She almost laughed. “I wish I could hate you, Bob. You are a true and deep son of a bitch. But hating you would be like hating the weather. No point to it at all.”

“I’m sorry. There was never a better time. It was the best. It was special. Another time or two and I’d never leave.”

“No. That’s a lie. You’d leave. I know your type. You always leave.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’d leave. I have to.”

She found this one a laugh.

“You are a bastard.”

Bob nodded. Not much passed on his grave face.

“When?”

“I think it has to be tomorrow.”

“So soon?”

“Yeah. It’s time. I’ve got some ideas. I’ve got something of a plan, even.”

“I just never thought it would be so soon.”

“The sooner I leave, the sooner I come back.”

“You’re lying again, Bob. You’re not coming back. You’ll be dead in a week.”

“More than likely,” he said. “It’s a shaky plan. But it’s the only one I could come up with. But first, I’ve got a couple of things to do.”

“And what’re they?” she said, trying to show no pain.

“I’ve got to dig up my cache in the mountains where I’ve got thirty thousand dollars and some guns stashed, so I can pay my own way and defend myself. And then,” he said, “I’ve got to bury my dog.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Shreck never walked through doors; he exploded through them like a grenade, blowing them nearly off their hinges as he blasted through, bent forward, his gait rock-steady and determined.

Dobbler looked up at the noise, and Shreck was already on him, having crossed the ten feet from threshold to desk front in about a half a second and no more than two paces.

“Colonel Shreck, I – ”

Feeling rousted as if by a bull on a snap inspection, Dobbler made a clumsy attempt to rise but the stern man motioned him down impatiently.

“I’m running late, Dobbler. I just got in.”

“My God, Colonel, are you all right?”

“Tired. Exhausted.”

“Jet lag? You really should take your shoes off, and walk barefoot on the carpet and – ”

“Doctor, I’d asked you to consider Swagger’s disappearance. Can you summarize your thoughts for me?”

“Of course, of course,” said Dobbler, nonplussed; Shreck had never crashed into his office before; almost always, he served at Shreck’s summons.

Dobbler began to babble through his discovery of the strange florist’s bill in Little Rock, his initial dead end when he learned that the florist kept no records, and his latest initiative, which was to ask one of the technonerds in Research to run a computer search through the memory of the FTD databank if he could get into the system, in hopes of locating that elusive destination to which Bob had dispatched his flowers. But halfway through he realized that Shreck wasn’t focusing.

“That’s very promising. But I want some feeling of what’s going on in his head. What’s he going to do?”

“Oh,” said Dobbler, somewhat taken aback at being denied the compliment he expected. “Well, Payne says the FBI has now moved its base of operations to Arkansas. His home area. They believe he’ll head there.”

“What do you think?”

“Oh, he will,” said Dobbler vaguely.

“Why do you believe that?”

“Because he has to do what we expect, and still beat us.” Dobbler smiled. “That’s really what’s going on now. Bob’s vanity. His desire not merely to survive but to triumph. To punish us for our delusion of superiority. He must now prove to us who is the alpha-male.”

Shreck nodded, intently.

“Suppose the FBI takes him alive. What will he be able to tell them?”

“Ah, I doubt he will be taken alive. He’s in a very volatile state. The pressures on him are incredible. He – ”

“But if he is?”

“If he is – it may make him insane. They won’t believe him, of course, the trap is too tight, too well constructed. It may actually destroy his mind. I don’t know if he can function under those circumstances.”

Shreck followed this carefully. Then he said, “All right, good. That’s very helpful.”

“Why, thank you, Colonel Shreck,” said Dobbler, pleased.

“It’s good to have a Harvard man on the staff, Dr. Dobbler. Because I can count on you for consistency. You are full of shit. Always. Completely. That’s a gift, Dobbler.”

Dobbler was stunned.

“I – ”

“You stupid asshole, don’t you know a thing about how men’s minds work? Or Swagger’s kind of man? Don’t you see the fucking joke in this? You see, we planned his death, but maybe we gave him his life. We have engaged him. He is back among the living, and he’s got himself a war to fight, and all his skills and talents may be fully deployed. That’s the terrible thing, the longer this goes on, the more he enjoys it, the stronger he gets. And he’ll love it. He should pay us for it. We’re giving him more fun than he’s had since the war.”

It was morning of the last day. She got up at four and made breakfast so that it was ready when he awoke at five. But he wanted to make love – so soon, after last night, and what she had thought would be the last time – so the breakfast waited. It tasted wonderful when they got to it.

Then he showered and she dressed his wounds.

“Jesus, but aren’t you a stud-puppy?” she said. “I’ve never seen multiple trauma gunshot recovery so fast.”

The arm wound was the ugliest, a raw welt at the outside of his left bicep about three inches above the elbow.