“The Marine?”

“Yes. He was supposed to be dealt with; by some freak he survived a point-blank chest shot. Must have missed his heart by a hair. And now he’s back, teamed up with an FBI agent.”

“This Marine. A good man?”

“The very best.”

“As good as you are? I understand you’re quite the warrior.”

“Better.”

“But you have a plan?”

“That’s correct. It’s our feeling that he’d be unusually responsive to something from shooting culture. For example, he may have identified the rifle of yours that he used in Maryland. It’s our idea to put an ad in The Shotgun News for a book of some sort, a privately printed volume as is common in the culture, on famous target rifles or shooters or some such, and if he sees it, he’d want to approach the author. And we nail him.”

“Why do you need my permission?”

“Well, sir, in this business, we find that as close as we can come to the authentic when we fabricate, the better off we are. We can’t just make stuff up. We’ve got to build a legend that he can verify himself from other sources. This is a very careful man. And that’s why we need…well, information as well as permission.”

Lon Scott nodded.

“My past? My family? That sort of thing?”

“Yes, sir.”

Scott seemed to have a funny moment here; it was an odd shiver, something between a shudder and a snort. As if he almost laughed or almost choked.

“My father,” he finally said. “My poor old father.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see,” said Scott, following intently.

“There are alternatives,” said the colonel, who had now, with much effort, mastered the blank look in the face of Lon’s infirmity. “We can hope to ride this out while Swagger and this FBI agent peck away at us. Our tracks have been hidden well, but…but they’ve consistently surprised us. Eventually, they just might stumble onto something, and possibly by that time it would be too late. My theory of war has always been aggressive offensive operations. I was once called a meat grinder. But I believe you ultimately spare lives by responding aggressively.”

Lon listened raptly, only stopping momentarily to hawk up a wad of brackish phlegm from somewhere in his throat to dribble it into a spittoon that the colonel had not until then noticed.

“There are risks, of course. The first is that we must feed him your name. I understand your privacy is important to you.”

“My name has not been in public print since I stopped bench resting in the early sixties. I’m sure I’m forgotten now. It frightens me, of course. It’s such a small thing…but of course it opens up the faint possibility of inquiries that might lead to associations and linkages…well, who knows? Pandora’s box. These things take on a life of their own.”

“Yes, sir. It’s just that I feel there’s no other way. Swagger would see through everything else. He’d nibble us to death for years. We’d be stuck. We must eliminate him, or everything will be gone.”

Scott sighed. Melancholy seemed to overtake him, too.

“My, my, my,” he finally said. “After all these years.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I suppose if this man isn’t stopped, he puts Hugh at risk as well.”

“Yes, sir,” said Colonel Shreck.

“Well, I owe Hugh a considerable debt, Colonel Shreck. He’s a great man. How long have you known him?”

“Since 1961, sir, when we were training the Bay of Pigs invasion force in Guatemala. He’s watched over my career ever since.”

“That’s Hugh. He takes responsibility. He cares. He lets you become what your talents allow. Without him, I’d have lost myself in my bitterness. I made a deal with Hugh Meachum and it’s paid dividends to both of us. I’m with you. Whatever you say, whatever you require. I’m yours.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. As I say, Mr. Scott, your name, your family, his – ”

“Well, you know, you’ve certainly hit the jackpot there. My father was a famous man, a celebrity back in the thirties. The story of what he accomplished with the Tenth Black King and what it led to…well, it would make a great American book. And in the shooting world, his name even to this day is instantly recognizable. Yes, I’ll get you some things that you’ll find helpful.”

“Thank you.”

“But I want something from you in return.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I want in all the way. If I’m bait, then let him come to me. To me here. We’ll go all the way. I’ll do my part. This place is perfect; remote, access to a mountain, everything you need. Your boys can drive him up Bone Hill.” He gestured over his shoulder and Shreck could see the Blue Ridge foothill out back, its flanks covered in scrubby vegetation, its knob bald. “That’s where he’ll die, atop Bone Hill.”

This was exactly what Shreck had been playing for. Once again, the great Lon Scott had hit the bull’s-eye.

“That’ll make it much easier, sir,” Shreck said.

“Now what?” asked Nick. “We’ve got over a thousand names here. One of them may be phony, the pseudonym of a man who disappeared himself close to thirty years ago. How are the two of us going to winnow them down?”

“He can change a name, Memphis. He can change an address, an appearance, a way of talking. One thing he can’t fake. He can’t fake legs.”

Memphis looked at him. Bob crouched in the half-dark of the motel room, his face lost in shadow.

Nick had to admit it; yes, it was very neatly thought out, elegant perhaps. But he had to take it a further step.

“Is there some kind of register of handicapped persons I don’t know about? I mean, we can’t call a thousand men whose addresses from thirty years ago we have and ask them if they’re paralyzed?”

“There is. We break it down by state, get a list for each state. Then you call each state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. You call and you find out who on the list has a handicapped license plate. State computers ought to be able to shake it out real fast.”

“Damn!” shouted Nick. “Goddamn right, yes, yes. Then, in fifty phone calls we’ve winnowed the thousand down to just a few. How many can there be? And we can check them out.”

“That’s it, Pork. I’d bet a dollar against tomorrow one of those men will be Lon Scott. Be nice to find out how come he’s been hiding all these years, and how it was his famous rifle ended up in the hands of an outfit that kills important people for a living.”

Nick began calling the next morning in a rented loft space in downtown Syracuse, near the university, as soon as the phone company got the phones hooked up. Using his federal identification code number, which authenticated him to the supervisory personnel, he was able to begin the computer searches in six states in a couple of hours. But it was exhausting, excruciating work and Nick was astonished to find in himself something he’d never allowed before – dreaminess.

He saw himself on the road, he saw himself somewhat like Bob: free, beholden to nobody. It occurred to him: Could I invent my own life instead of allowing the Bureau to invent it for me? He’d been a man of many masters and eager to do their bidding; now he considered that he could be his own master.

Meanwhile Bob took the calls that came back on the other line.

“Agent Fencl, FBI,” he’d say, trying to subdue his Arkansas twang. “Yes, sir, but Agent Memphis is on another line. May I take your information please? I’ll see that it reaches him. Yes, ma’am. Yes, could you spell that please? Yes, and is there an address? Thank you very much, you’ve been very helpful.”

It took three days. In the end, they had seven names – that is, seven men who were among the first thousand subscribers to Accuracy Shooting and who had been issued handicapped license plates by their state department of motor vehicles sometime between 1964 and today.

“Wow,” said Nick. “All that work for seven names. Now, if I were in the damned Bureau, all’s I’d have to do is call up the offices in the states of these guys, and have them check them all out. I’d get reports back in thirty minutes. But I suppose our next move is to individually check these seven guys out?”