I, Sniper

5

Through the night-vision binoculars, the Econo Lodge just off 83 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, looked calm enough. It dozed under a clear if cold night sky. A few lights blazed greenly in the amped fields of vision, slightly pixelated in distortion, as if painted by a mad Dutchman who’d just cut off his ear. It was the kind of detail that shouldn’t have come to Nick but did anyway, and he exiled it from his mind, just kept the lenses screwed on the first-floor window, sixth down from the office, which was dark.

“Any sign of movement?” Fields asked.

“Nothing. Captain, how are they coming?”

“I’m sure they’re almost done, Special Agent,” said the Michigan State Police SWAT commander, a burly guy in combat gear from head to toe, like some kind of medieval knight. He wore an MP5 submachine gun in a cinch sling tight to his body armor and a black watch cap.

He was referring to the slow evacuation of the Econo Lodge by state policemen. They were moving stealthily, almost creeping, knocking softly and emptying the motel, herding tired travelers to a nearby high school for safekeeping. Meanwhile several observation posts had been set up, one in a truck across the way in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, one in a civilian household behind the motel, and two others farther out with good angles to the motel. Three heavily armed and armored SWAT operators had taken over the room next to Carl Hitchcock’s, inserted an optic tube through the duct system, and got a good look-see into his room, where they saw-nothing. Nick again checked the image as it was broadcast to a vid monitor in the command vehicle. He too, and all the men about him, saw nothing, just what appeared to be the shapes consistent with a generic motel room, low-end: a bed, a bureau, a TV on a TV stand, a small bathroom. No sound of breathing was picked up by the microphones.

“He either sleeps still or he’s dead,” said the SWAT captain.

“These guys are trained in stillness,” said Nick. “He can control his breathing, hold it down to nothingness almost. We can’t assume he’s out.”

A call came.

The captain took it, muttered into the phone.

“Okay,” he said, “that’s the last of ’em. The motel is empty, all the houses on the street beyond are evacked too. Just him and us.”

“Okay,” said Nick.

“You know, my people can blow the wall between the rooms and be on him in one second, behind a flashbang,” said the captain. “Might be the safest, surest way.”

Nick didn’t like it. He knew the SWAT mentality. He knew the most aggressive officers applied, the ones who liked to shoot and had a little hero fantasy at play behind their eyes at all times. Dress ’em up like Delta commandos and give ’em fancy weapons and tools, and you all but tickled their trigger fingers. For some reason he couldn’t understand, Nick wanted desperately to take Carl Hitchcock alive. The old guy deserved their best efforts.

“Negative, but thanks and noted. No, my team will apprehend. It’s a small room, I don’t want a lot of people in there rushing and crowding. Three’s enough. Body armor, helmet, backup shotguns but primary perso

He went ahead with further tactical details: all SWAT teams cocked and locked at the holding point, the helicopters in orbit a mile out, roadblocks in place, medical teams on standby-everything was checked off until there was nothing more to do except the thing itself.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They scampered through the darkness, hit the hotel office, where a squad of cops waited breathlessly. They nodded, did a last checkoff, and slid down the hallway, passing cop sentries every few feet. The approach to Carl’s room, however, was clear, and they slid to it.

Nick looked at his watch, saw that it was 5 a.m.

He nodded to his two colleagues. Ron Fields slipped by him. He had a Mossberg entry gun, a short-barreled pump-action shotgun with a breaching round in the chamber. Next to him young Chandler, her Glock holstered gunfighter style in a low rig strapped to her thigh under her body armor, had a flashbang in each fist. With the thumb of each hand, she pulled the pins, holding the levers down. Fields squirmed to the doorknob, braced the muzzle of the short-barrel against it, made a visual check with each teammate, pushed the safety off, and made a last visual check with Nick.

Nick nodded.

Fields took a deep breath and fired.

The breaching round detonated in the narrow space of the hallway, splintering the door at the knob. Fields gave it a kick, and it flew open brokenly, and then he stood aside as Chandler tossed in each distraction grenade. In three seconds, the two detonated with a stu

Nick went through the door hard, his Glock in a steady two-hand grip, trigger finger indexed above the trigger guard, a SureFire light mounted on rails beneath the barrel burning a hole in the smoky turmoil conjured by the flashbangs. His beam showed nothing, and he advanced quickly, screaming, “FBI, hands up, FBI, hands up, FBI, hands up!”

But there was nobody there with hands to raise. Penetrated by Nick’s, then Fields’s, then Chandler’s beams, the darkness yielded no image of a man struggling to come awake and grope for a gun. The room was empty, the bed unmessed, nothing strewn about to signify human occupation, just the sterile neatness of an undisturbed motel room. The three rotated quickly to the bathroom, kicking the ajar door fully open and again revealing nothing. The shower curtain wasn’t even drawn, so there was no concealment behind it. Other cops arrived, forming up in the hallway; outside, shadows moved, where SWAT teamers from stations beyond the motel got close and laid their muzzles on a window to prevent any escape. But no target emerged.

The lights came on, revealing what was now nothing more than a room of overexcited policemen with guns drawn.

One last door remained. It was to the closet, just this side of the bathroom, and a cluster of guns zeroed it. Someone dipped in, pulled it open.

The many weapons-mounted lights captured the still Carl. He was in his underwear, a plaid pair of shorts and an OD T-shirt. His legs were stretched out, pale and glowing, the dark hair on them standing up bristling in the merciless lights. He held his rifle, which Nick numbly noted was the inevitable Remington 700 with a heavy barrel; his hand lay relaxed upon his thigh, where it had fallen from its awkward stretch to reach the trigger. In fact, because of the extra length of the barrel with the eight inches of steel suppressor affixed, he’d had to push the trigger with a straightened-out hanger. The hanger had fallen to the floor. The weapon ran up the length of his body to his mouth, almost as if cradled, a loving thing till the end, but at the mouth, the muzzle of its suppressor had nested, though in recoil it appeared to have knocked a few teeth out. He’d fired his last shot through the roof of his mouth in the closed closet, and the bullet had tu