He saw that Swagger was still upright but that he was in the standing shooting position, elbow out, head perfectly steady, knees locked like steel bolts, but before he could even process that information, he saw the bright spurt of muzzle flash-

Swagger watched him come, holding steady, feeling the wind lick a little at his face, then go away. He had adjusted his stance slightly and was standing bladed to the approaching man, still such a long way out, though enlarging steadily as he came. He tried to shake his mind free of the past and not put any thought into Carl, with his brains blown out in his underwear, going underground in the rain as witnessed by seven people, or Denny Washington, that good man, his head blown open so that he’d never return to his wife and daughters. He wanted the past to go away but it wouldn’t and then it did, and a mercy came to him, as it came to all snipers great and small, who put themselves not at the point of the spear but way out there beyond it, lonesome and duty-driven but also-what was that word again, goddamnit-expressing themselves, and he felt a wave of peace and from that a confidence rocketing skyward as the palsy fell from his limbs and the pressure from his heart and he wound down in his mind until he was nothing but rifle.

He saw Anto pause, even if Anto himself didn’t feel the pause, and he knew that this was the moment, and he drew the rifle up to him and tight, but not cinched because a stander doesn’t cinch, since he’s linked to nothing solid but instead holds the beauty thing in a light command, as if it’s alive in his hands. The reticle was there before him exactly as his heart seemed to stop pumping and the universe itself froze between instants, and the crosshairs exactly trapped the man far off, who was now himself moving into a kneeling position, and without his telling it to, his trigger finger decided, the rifle somehow was fired by it, and Bob held the head still-it takes years to learn this-in follow-through and held the trigger squished flat back, and waited as the scope came down from its hop, neither hearing report nor feeling recoil.

– somewhere in his mind howisthispossible? seemed to emerge at light speed as the question of the day, and the next thing Anto’d been hit by a shovel and sent pinwheeling through the air.

He landed in a stunned jumble, blinking, thinking to get back to the rifle, but he didn’t see the rifle. He felt no pain at all but his body was somehow not right, and he looked and saw that his left arm had been split away from his body at the root. It hung grotesquely and rivers of blood rushed in black, ceaseless torrent from the astonishing tear that progressed from clavicle down deep into chest. He rolled, instinctively, to his still-whole side, with the inborn mandate in his brain to crawl to safety but, with only one arm to pull him along, made no progress at all, and he tucked his boots up close to his ruptured torso, rolling sideways to the final fetal position.

How the fuck did he make that shot? he wondered as he died.

Swagger got out his cell and punched a key in his menu.

In a bit, Chuck McKenzie answered.

“Gunny? You’re okay?”

“I seem to be. Don’t see no blood. Let me give you my coordinates.”

He looked at his GPS and read them off.

“We’re leaving right now.”

“Did you give that package-”

“Yep. It’s gone now. The jet took off an hour ago. How are you?”

“Tired. I’m too old for this shit.”

“That last Irishman?”

“What’s the Irish word for toast?”

“I think it’s toast,” said Chuck.

When that was done, Bob put in a call to Nick.

“The package is on the way.”

“I know. And we are all set up here. I’ve got a film restoration team to supervise the process, but they’re sure we can get good clear images off it without damage. I’ve got search warrant teams laid on in three states to hit Constable’s headquarters after we get warrants and subpoenas, and I’ve got a team in Chicago to take possession of the hard drive of Jack Strong’s office computer and the safe in Strong’s office. And I’ve got the Cook County state’s attorney people here; they can issue warrants and we can serve them. I’ve got a guy from the Nyackett, Massachusetts, prosecutor’s office to issue his warrant. If this is everything you say it is, we’ll be all legaled up sometime tomorrow and pick him up at a speech he’s going to give tomorrow night in Seattle.”

“Cool,” said Bob.

“You don’t sound excited.”

“I’m just tired as hell,” said Bob. “Are you sending people here to the ranch?”

“Yes.”

“Make sure to hit the security team headquarters. That’s where his sniper team was based. They all had laptops and were very professional. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff there, and if you track back to wherever they lived privately, there’s even more.”

“Got it.”

“And you should send some people out into the wilderness area. I’ll give you the coordinates tomorrow. There’s some bodies to be bagged and pickled. Long story.”

“Jesus Christ. No wonder you’re tired. Get some sleep. Then get in here by-this is Saturday-by, say Tuesday?”

“Sure. Out.”

Bob rested a while but then gathered up his rifle and dragged his weariness to the ATV. He climbed on and gunned it to life and covered the yardage to Anto.

There lay his foe. The 150-grain Scirocco would be banned in land warfare because of course the point that kept it so accurate was only black polycarbonate and meant for streamline and accuracy, but it hid a hollow point and a lethally blossoming design. When it struck flesh, the polycarbonate tip was driven back into the bullet body itself, and that dynamic intrusion, plus the self-destructing design of the bullet, caused the missile, traveling through flesh at about 2,500 feet per second, to open like a flower, its petals yawing wide. They yawed, they sawed. They went through meat like a butcher’s keenest blade, opening a temporary cavity on the power of velocity that was the size of a football. Even when, by the elasticity of the flesh, that cavity closed up some, it closed up on organs that had been gelatinized, literally turned to viscosity. At the same time, the bullet’s impact shattered bone and sundered skin along predictable fault lines, which is how the splitting effect came to be.

Anto lay curled up on his right side, his left body half so damaged it made no anatomical sense. It didn’t even look real.

You stupid Irish bastard, Bob thought, remembering the long evenings at the Mustang Bar in Wyoming and what a happy time that had been. So much talent, so much guts, so much charm, and you end up in the high grass with your body blown in two, and for nothing but some rich asshole’s benefit, and he’s going down too.

By this time, the helicopter Chuck had hired was closing in. He raised a hand, not that it was necessary, as he stood out on the slope in a vastness of nothing. The chopper, a familiar old Huey, set down a hundred yards away, flattening the grass, lifting small stones and a haze of prairie dust, seeming inappropriate in a place otherwise so still. Its racket drowned all sound and made chatter impossible. Chuck ran over and gave Bob a nice thump on the shoulder, grabbed the gear, including the ghillie and his own Remington Sendero, while Bob carried Anto’s AI. They made it to the chopper, tumbled in, but not before Bob pulled his friend close and whispered, “Man, do I need to change my goddamned diapers.”