Darwin's Blade (31 page)

Dar showered a third time, dressed in chinos and a blue Oxford-cloth shirt, and tried to wake up as he studied the dossiers before driving up to Camp Pendleton. Yaponchik's file was thicker than Zuker's, but most of it was official information obtained through tapping unclassified Soviet army sources. The KGB-related material was largely blacked out—Dar always loved that Freedom-of-Information-sort-of aspect to dossiers—but the outline was there for both men: Russian army snipers active in Afghanistan, KGB paramilitary during the last years of the regime, Russian mafia ties through the mid-1990s, no recent information. There was the blurry picture of Zuker—Dar was convinced that they had photographed the wrong man—and one labeled “Yaponchik and Zuker with rifle platoon,” which appeared to have been taken in Afghanistan with an Instamatic camera from about a mile away. Even with enhancement, the photo was nothing but grain, the faces mere blobs.

Dar smiled at this page. The previous page would serve his purposes. Right now, he realized, his purpose was to get his ass up to Camp Pendleton before he was late for the appointment.

Odds were that the U.S. Marines would entertain you on the drive up the I-5 beyond Oceanside, and today was no different. Light Marine tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles—followed by the occasional dune buggy with a .60-caliber mounted machine gun—roared along the camp side of the fence to the east of the interstate, kicking up dust before following ruts back into the barren hills. On the ocean side, landing craft were standing a mile or two offshore while hovercraft filled with Marines roared toward the beaches, up the beaches, and then into the dunes and scrubby woods beyond the dunes.

There were no interstate exits between Oceanside and San Clemente beyond the northern end of the huge base, but Dar had exited at the Hill Street/Camp Pendleton exit and used one of the southern entrances to the base. Before he reached the administration complex, he had been stopped three times: twice at gates complete with pop-up steel and concrete obstacles where it was confirmed that he had a 3:00
P.M.
appointment with Captain Butler, and once by a Marine traffic cop who held him up a minute while three tanks roared across the access road at forty miles per hour and disappeared back into the dunes.

There were more security checks in the admin building, but by the time Dar strolled toward the last set of undistinguished concrete office huts, he was wearing his visitor badge and stepping a bit more lightly than usual.

The U.S. Marine captain did not keep Dar waiting. The secretary showed him in and Captain Butler, a tall, thin black man in desert camo-fatigues that were starched to a razor's edge, jumped up from his desk and gave Dar an uninhibited bear hug that was very much non-Marinelike.

“Damn, it's good to see you, Darwin,” said the captain, grinning broadly. “We've missed a few of our monthly nights on the town.”

“Too many,” agreed Dar. “It's good to see you, Ned.”

The captain always kept a cool pitcher of iced tea and a bowl of freshly picked lemons in his office—his one self-indulgence, Dar knew—and they went through the ice-clanking, pouring, lemon-cutting, and toasting ritual.

“Absent friends,” said Ned.

They both drank and then took their seats—Dar on the worn leather couch, Captain Butler in the even more worn leather chair near it. Ned's grin remained.

After Dalat, when Dar had been rotated stateside, he used his first leave to visit his spotter's widow and two-year-old toddler in Greenville, Alabama. He had met Edwina before, during the long training when Ned Sr. and Dar had fought each other for every point in marksmanship and fieldcraft. This time Dar simply showed up and said that anything either of them ever needed, he would try to provide.

At first Edwina had thought it was just a gesture, but when she'd phoned to tell Dar she was moving with the baby to California to be closer to her family, it was Dar who paid for air tickets and a moving van rather than let them travel by bus. When Ned showed an early aptitude for math, it was Dar who quietly arranged for enrollment in a private school in Bakersfield, where they lived. When Dar had moved to California after Barbara and the baby's death, it was Edwina and the high-school-aged Ned whom he'd spent several weeks with before getting on with his life. Dar had been ready, willing, and able to help Ned—whose SAT scores were phenomenal—get into any college or university in the country. Dar had been thinking Princeton. Ned had been thinking Marines.

Ned Jr. had won three battle ribbons during the Gulf War, leading a recon platoon ashore while the Iraqis waited for the massive Marine invasion from the sea that never came. General Schwarzkopf had used the thousands of Marines poised for amphibious assault as a bluff, a distraction, holding the rapt attention of the hundreds of thousands of occupying Iraqi troops. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of coalition army troops and tanks did their amazing two-hundred-mile left lateral shift, without enemy detection, before beginning the “Hail Mary pass” of an offensive that broke the back of the Iraqi army.

Ned Jr. had turned nineteen during the 1991 Gulf War, precisely the age his father had been at Dalat.

Since the rising young officer's posting to Camp Pendleton five years ago, Dar and Ned tried to have drinks and dinner together at least once a month. It had been Ned's frequent deployments to places unmentioned that had interfered in recent months, not Dar's schedule.

They talked a few minutes about family and mutual friends. Finally Ned set down his iced tea and said, “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

Dar briefed the captain quickly and succinctly on the Alliance, Dallas Trace, and the Russian snipers, and then, uncharacteristically, found himself unable to finish. Even though Ned had not taken up his father's specialty in the Marines, he waited now with a sniper's patience.

“If you do me the favor I'm about to ask, it may endanger your entire career, Ned,” said Dar. “I will not only understand if you say no, I'm almost hoping that you'll say no. It's not just an unusual request, it's illegal.”

Ned smiled very slightly. “Disclaimer noted, Corporal,” said the captain. “Three good friends—you've met them all—and I have some leave time coming. Whom do you want us to kill and how much do you want them to hurt first?”

Dar laughed politely and then realized that Ned was not joking. “No, no,” he said hurriedly, “I was just hoping that I could unofficially borrow some hardware. I can return it before it goes missing on anyone's manifest.”

The captain nodded slowly. “We don't have any extra Abrams M1A1 battle tanks here,” he said, “but would a Bradley armored fighting vehicle do?” Ned smiled when he said this, but it was the smile of a carnivore, not a jokester.

Dar sighed. “I was thinking of a rifle.”

Ned nodded again. “It seems to me that despite regulations way back then, you came home from that Vietnam fracas with a rifle as a gift of the 7th Marine Regiment.”

“The Remington 700,” said Dar. “Yes. I still have it.”

“Does it still fire?” said Ned.

“It's been a few months since I had it on the range, but it was still able to put five rounds into the five-and-a-half-inch-square target head at six hundred fifty yards.”

The captain frowned. “Six hundred fifty yards? What's wrong with the thousand-yard range?”

“I'm old,” said Dar. “My eyes are old. I use glasses now when I read for long periods.”

“Fuck that,” Ned said, and added, “Sir.” The captain ran his fingers along the knife edge of his fatigue trousers. “All right. This sniper attempt against you at home—what was the opposition using?”

Dar described the Tikka 595 Sporter.

Ned shrugged slightly. “It's not expensive, but it's a pretty good weapon. Domestic accurate high-power rifles like that tend to start at about $2,000—European sniper weapons run up from $8,000 or so—I think the Tikka retails at about $1,000. I don't think that would be the main guy's first choice in weapons.”

Dar nodded in agreement. “They sent the spotter after me. I suspect that the weapon was meant to be disposable in case of problems.”

Ned grinned again. “The spotter, huh? They don't think much of you, do they?”

“There are some brilliant spotters,” Dar said softly. “I used to know one who was a better shot and braver man than any top shot I've ever met.”

Ned looked at him for a minute. Then he gestured for Dar to follow.

The warehouse was huge. Somewhere off in the shadowy distance, a forklift was humming, but other than that, they were alone.

Ned opened a crate. “If you're looking to update your old M40, Darwin, this is a nice toy.”

Dar reached in to touch the weapon set in its foam lining.

“H-S Precision HSP762/300,” said Ned. “Comes with barrels and bolts for both calibers—regular NATO 7.62 rounds or .300 Winchester Magnums. The stock is made of Kevlar graphite and fiberglass, of course—no more splinters in Marines' cheeks, thank you—and it comes with a bipod and adjustable butt plate much like our updated M24s. Look here—see how the fluted barrel is locked into the receiver by an interrupted screw thread and matching bracket plate? You can pack this away in a light twenty-three-by-seventeen-inch carrying case and essentially have two different weapons on hand when you unpack it.”

“Very nice,” said Dar, “but I was thinking of using the old Remington 700 and Redfield scope for regular work.”

Ned frowned slightly. “Why don't you just go buy a bow and a couple of arrows, Darwin?”

It was Dar's turn to grin. “Not a bad idea. I hear they're quieter and a lot cheaper than suppressors. No weapon is ever really obsolete.”

The captain nodded at that. “Not if it still kills,” he agreed. “You set for cutlery?”

“K-Bar,” said Dar.

Ned closed the crate and repadlocked it. “OK, you use your antique M40 for regular work up to the limits of your failing old codger-vision…What did you say that was?”

“I didn't say,” replied Dar, “but ten yards would be about right.”

“Buy a shotgun,” said Ned. “Or better yet, a big, mean dog.”

“A lady friend gave me a nice Remington shotgun,” said Dar. “Well, loaned me one…”

Ned's eyebrows shot up, not at the mention of the shotgun but at the phrase
lady friend.
Dar never spoke of lady friends. The captain said quietly, “All right, what was the special work you were interested in? Perhaps you were thinking of point-five-inch punch?”

“I've heard good things about the McMillan MI987R,” said Dar.

“I've used it,” said Ned, his voice serious now. “Very accurate. At twenty-five pounds it's one of the lightest .50-calibers around. It's got a recoil that would give an elephant hemorrhoids, but most of it's absorbed by a pepper-pot muzzle brake and lots of recoil pads. We even stock the U.S. Navy SEALs' ‘Combo 50' variety with a folding stock. But it's a standard five-round magazine bolt action. Do you envision needing any rapid fire in addition to your Remington's slow work?”

Dar hesitated. Snipers were trained to think of one bullet, one kill. That was why the most modern Kevlar/fiberglass sniper rifles had largely reverted to single-shot bolt-action form that would be quite familiar to a sniper from the trenches of World War I. But he had the Remington for long-distance, light-caliber work…What would be his best choice for rapid fire? Ned's father had saved Dar's life several times in the forty-eight hours at Dalat with his accurized M-14 firing on full auto.

Ned put his arm around Dar's shoulder and walked deeper into the corridor of crates. “Would you like to see something my fire team used in the Gulf War? It turned out to be very handy.”

“Sure.”

Ned opened a long box. “We called it the ‘Light Fifty' over there in the desert. Officially, it's the Barrett Model 82A1 Sniper Rifle…12.7-by-ninety-nine-mm Browning, just like the .50-calibers of old. It's got a short recoil—the barrel is actually sent back two inches every time it's fired and it has a huge muzzle brake. It weighs twenty-nine and a half pounds without a sight, comes with a ten-power Leupold and Stevens M3a Ultra scope, and—here's the important part, Dar—it has an eleven-round detachable box magazine. It's the only semiautomatic .50-caliber sniper rifle on the market.”

“What would it cost me?” said Dar. “Out the door, taxes, warranty, undercoating, and optional leather seats?”

Ned's eyes looked very much like his father's when he gave Dar a long, searching look. “You bring it—and yourself—back in one piece and it's yours. I'll even throw in a modern flak vest, three thousand rounds of regular ammo, and five hundred SLAPs.”

“Holy shit,” said Dar. “Three thousand rounds…and Saboted Light Armor Penetrators. Christ, Ned, I'm not going off to war.”

“Aren't you?” Ned said, closed the long box, locked it, and lifting the box off the stack, handed Dar the key.

Dar was in heavy traffic on the I-5 heading back into town, wondering whether to stop and pick up a burger or just go straight home to sleep, when Lawrence rang him.

“They found Paulie Satchel, Dar.”

“Good,” said Dar. “Who's they?”

“Eventually the cops,” said Lawrence, “but first it was the Hampton Quality Preprocessing people.”

“Who the hell are the Hampton Quality Preprocessing people?” said Dar. “And can this wait?” He felt like a thief with the Light Fifty and boxes of ammo under a tarp in the back of the Land Cruiser. He had sweated through his Oxford-cloth blue shirt during the routine drive out of Pendleton and he still expected Marine guards to come roaring after him any second.

“No, it really can't wait,” said Lawrence. “Can you meet me at this destination?” He gave an address in an industrial section on the south side of the downtown.