Savant

6

Fort Worth, Texas

Nanny is behind the wheel. She will not ride in the chauffeur-driven limo, not to a place of worship. It is not seemly. She would be embarrassed if her girlfriends would see her and the little boy get out of the rich folk's ostentatious car. And she loathes the filthy-minded chauffeur as well.

Her voice is loud in his ear as she sings the doxology in the pew at church.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow…" The words, without true meaning, run together inside his head.

They drive past Sunday lawns manicured by workers of dark skin pigmentation and she turns the radio sermon on. A preacher from some distant station in West Texas is pleading for money. Bobby gazes out the window at the lush streets lined with weeping willows, magnolias, frangipania, bougainvillea, yuccas, and their more exotic cousins, The yards are landscaped here and lawn jockeys still wait at curbside. The homes have names. Entrance archways proclaim this is Fandangle and Fandango, Twin Forks and Twin Pines, Cedars and Big Oak, Rocking R and X-IT, San Sebastian and San Ciello, Chisholm and Lazy L. The men are named Clint, Bubba, Billy Bob Ray, and Billy Ray Bob.

The neighbors here may be faceless strangers who own an immense Arabian horse stud ranch.

Dappled sunlight filters down through three-hundred year-old oak, and mighty Dutch elms that arbor the clean streets as they wait to die of Dutch elm disease, and catches in the turrets of the catty-cornered mansions.

"Hal-lay-lool-ya!" Nanny says to the radio, enthusiastically, startling the boy.

The men are real men here, and they swill down the Pearl and the Lone Star to chase their Dick'l 'n' branch wattah. There are no beauty salons in evidence. These rich suburbs are unsullied by either mine, mill, factory, plant, or other industrial blight. This is serious old-time money.

Bobby Price has his childhood memories. He was almost seventeen when he and his father's lawyers decided he'd best opt for military service.

He remembered Beaumont, the Panhandle, Big Bush, Baghdad on the Bayou, Waco, San Antone (where you could still shoot a black panther with it declawed in the cage, and call it sport), Lubbock, the Cowboys, White Rock Lake, South Oak Cliff, TCU, SMU, the Metroplex, River Crest Country Club, where a girl once reached up the leg of his swimming trunks to see what was "hidin' in that ol' hair." She had told him something he would file away forever:

"Lord, Bobby, they ain't but two things he didn't give you and both of 'em was a dick."

He recalled the doctor who had written "…it will not be possible for him to achieve penetration." He would prove that good medical man wrong a hundred times. He would do some damned flat hog wild penetrating before he was done. (In 1966 he was driving a blood-red 'Vette with dual glass packs—as phallic a ride as there was back then—the sort of kid who'd never be street legal, and he was afraid of nothing.)

"Olivia," he called his mother. She was distant and beautifully cool, and the wrinkles had fallen from her face and neck to gather on hands encrusted with platinum and rocks from Harry Winston and Van Cleef and Tiff's. "Ma'am" was the intimate form of address permitted her only child.

The dining room was a long expanse of table with the tallest throne chairs at either end. Heavy, carved, ecumenical TexMex and El Grecoesque murals, tapestries, and ancestral oils mixed among the open beams, adobe moderne, and the showpiece wall of leaded glass. Here, in these rich Texas suburbs, the "cathedral" ceiling started.

In the dining room, Bobby Price sat in solitary silence, hypnotized by the images in the colored glass, hearing the man ask him the question from the pulpit again and again:

"Bobby…have you renounced Satan?"

Kansas City

Bobby Price a.k.a. "Shooter" woke up, as he sometimes did, instantly and fully awake. The first thing that he did was eyeball DeMon, the detection monitor, which confirmed for him visually that all was well. Big Petey was status quo.

The beeper and the sensor alarm would have had him on his feet had it been otherwise, but he liked the reassuring visual confirmation. He wore his monitor the way some folks wear their wedding bands—everywhere.

He hit the cold floor and did twenty slow push-ups. Then five the hard way, one handed, his weight balanced on the fingertips of his right hand. It killed him to do those and he let himself drop to the filthy carpet for a moment, remaining in a prone nose dive for as long as he could stand it, letting the foul odor of the carpet cleaner, room deodorizer, booze spills, and the residue from a carload of tobacco ashes force him to recoil away from the floor.

Bobby was on his feet, breathing deeply. He went over and hit his weights, doing a few slow, s-l-o-w serious reps with the special fifty-eight-pound job. Arm curls that made those powerful bikes and trikes pump. As always he tried to do one with the left arm and couldn't get the chrome off the floor. He breathed some more, did a few squats, then went into the doorway of the bathroom for isos.

Bobby put everything he had into the isometrics, breaking a sweat as he pushed against the immovable forces, doing the iso groups the same way he did everything else, with total dedication and concentration.

He finished. Showered quickly, warm water then ice cold, surveying the clean, lean, mean Shooter Price in the door mirror. He didn't like himself nude, so 'he toweled off, pulling on a pair of royal blue briefs that hid the useless appendage that had controlled so much of his life.

In the mirror, he examined himself again. The reflection was that of a trim, muscular, extremely good-looking man in his mid-thirties, which wasn't bad for forty-one. Well-developed upper torso, arms, and legs. A self-confident face that could be described as "handsome," and few would challenge the adjective. Five feet six inches. Well, he would be, as soon as he dressed. He wore shoes with high Cuban heels. Short? Okay. But perfectly shaped. The 159 pounds distributed properly over his frame. And with the briefs on, he couldn't see the tiny sleeping bird that mocked him from its hairy nest, the superfluous and recalcitrant hunk of meat that was a source of great puzzlement to all.

Chisel-featured, flaxen-haired, brilliant, fastidiously well-groomed, he was and always had been tremendously attractive to women. And like so many persons who appear to have been wound too tightly, his energy force gave off a strong animal magnetism. So both his physical appearance and the coiled-spring ambience of Bobby's inner conflicts produced the expected dynamics. A long succession of beautiful and sexy women had been left unfulfilled and puzzled by the inexplicable impotence of Shooter Price.

Completing his morning ritual, he dressed in elegant Neimann's doeskin slacks, a sandy tan cashmere sweater, and four-hundred-dollar handmade Italian loafers, then filled his pockets and stepped out into the sunlight, pulling the motel door closed and locking it.

He unlocked the gleaming bone-colored M-30 and slid into the cold seat, kicking on the engine. He touched a button watching the windows disappear, as power augers released the top. It was too humid, he decided, and he raised the top back up, pulling out of the motel parking lot, the three-liter V-6 growling out into the stream of late-morning traffic.

Big Petey was a dead white blip on the OMNI, which was on Locator/Focus-lock, Automatic, and Monitor B. The OMNI paged his beeper if Big Petey, his private name for P.T.—primary target—went into motion beyond a proscribed radius of his current location.

Bobby Price flipped open his gold-trimmed alligator-hide notebook to the last entry: P.T. had been out of action since 0140. He clicked his slim gold pen and jotted down the time.

Big Petey, Shooter Price's special assignment, was none other than Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski.

For three days Petey hadn't moved and Price was getting antsy. "Get a life," he told himself, staring into the face of the OMEGASTAR. Inside his head, he had this big boy down pat and cold. One of his tricks to keep fresh and sharp over long, boring plants, which was the jargon for what the TV shows and films call "stakeouts," was to continually recite the tech manuals, running the nomenclature and specs through his mind like worry beads; his private sniper's litany:

"OMEGASTAR provides the SAVANT operator with a complete menu of sensors and monitors, tactical communications linkages, auto-paging, and EW Countermeasures, all housed within a single device to assure successful tracking and targeting. "It stared back at him: its two bright eyes as much living optics to Price as a person's; the blue DeMon and green Loclok eyes—meters—around the nose of the Mobile Tracker Paging Unit. Freq dial. Power indicator, a complex bank of tuners. All the colored lights of the intrusion detectors, channel lights, and heat detectors glowed orange, yellow, and red like the string of lights on a Christmas tree.

"User/Operator-friendly, the complete four-in-one console, housed in transit case with all fitted accessories, weighs less than twenty-five pounds. The Auto-Lock locator for the movement detector, when synced to the portable pager and sensing units, eliminates the need for hands-on operation of the tracker, as well as the need for "around-the-clock" eyeball surveillance presence." Bet your sweet taters it did.

The master on/off switches were shielded in individual hazard covers, red rubberized hoods that protected each toggle from being thrown accidentally. The mouth of the tracker system's face was a perpetually open O of glowing green, a white blip visible in the center of the OMNI's bull's-eye. There were jacks for the various commo-links that could act as message channels to the Newton Secure Sig-System, and a scrambled landline plugged into the tracker's ear.

"OMEGASTAR Mobile Tracker is manufactured by Signatech Electronics, Inc., of Davenport, Iowa, and is available in Sea Blue, Sandstone, or cream finish. Unit accessories include Mini-pager, Beeper, Light shields, Mesh net, Ghillie cover, and Cammo-fittings in Snow White, Sand, Woodland Green, Light Brown, O.D., Black, and other optional combinations, as well as the Executive Attache Transit Case into which the entire unit is housed. "

Bobby Price was Dr. Norman's ace in the hole. Bobby and SAVANT, the silent and astonishingly deadly .50 sniper weapon, with the tracker continually monitoring Daniel Bunkowski's implant signal, made it possible to let Chaingang roam and kill.

It mattered little to Price that he was an instrumental part of what was—arguably—one of the most malevolent programs ever initiated by the military or intelligence community in the name of science and/or national security. What mattered was the work. To Shooter the work was everything.

The decades since Vietnam had been long, boring ones for him. There had been moments of excitement—yes—with long, slow dry spells in between.

He'd remained with the parent company for the whole time, taking contracts during the Seventies and Eighties, but basically just sitting on his butt most of the time. He had filled his life with expensive toys, cars, babes, hobbies, books, theater, films—and travel.

He'd lived on Ibetha before the hustlers moved in; St. Tropez before the tourists came; Barbados before the rowdies found it; Puerto Vallarta before the hippies arrived; Cancun before it became a spring-break shithole.

To many persons, Bobby Price's life would seem idyllic. But without work—the work—he was a lifeless shell inside. The operational challenge of the stalk infused him with energy and purpose. He would have paid them, truth be known, to retain his position as SAUCOG's senior sniper.

The weapon system had been his baby for a quarter of a century, and in all that time the R and D guys had been unable to come up with anything that could touch it. She was still the queen of long-range killers, and would probably reign so as long as she remained operative. A second model had been contemplated, but prices had gone through the ceiling, To build her a twin for the Persian Gulf War, for example, would have cost five million dollars. She was a unique piece.

Would SAVANT ever rust or break or fall apart with age? No. Not with Price's tender, loving care and normal maintenance. She was made to function for many more years. What of the remaining hundred-and-some special rounds? Would the old ammunition begin to malfunction with time? Nobody knew for sure, and the inventor of the system itself was long dead.

In the Eighties, the company had ordered a small run of SHARP-HEX and APEX ammo manufactured-just in case. And Shooter's stash had been upgraded with two cases of new Red Rock Match Grade (Silent/Extended Range) .50 sniper rounds, hand-delivered by the arsenal's courier, But Shooter, a professional worrier, never fully trusted the new stuff and continued to use the old rounds without incident. So far there hadn't been a cough in the carload.

It had been interesting to watch Chaingang in action during the first phase of this operation, which had taken place in a small Missouri farm town. Price had been kept busy, driving the country blacktops and gravel roads parallel to the primary target's movements, as he wound along his river routes or made his way across farmland. Petey had been a busy boy.

It was funny about the relationship between a sniper and his target. When you were hunting it was one thing, you took the target down at the first opportunity of a sure shot. When you conducted surveillance, it was a test of one's professionalism. You watched the same P.T. through that Laco 40X, or across the open blade sight, over and over, and pretty soon your trigger finger got very itchy.

That's why Shooter never watched Petey too long through the weapon. He'd follow him on the tracker, stay close enough to take a shot should the order ever be issued, and be pleased to "blow him up real good," but until that time he was a big, fat golden goose. Also there was a bonding, albeit one-way, that had gone on over the years. In an odd, ironic way it was almost as if Shooter viewed Chaingang as an old pal.

Sure, he thought, examining his reflection in the mirror, Bunkowski was a repulsive slob of a psychopathic killer but…since when was killing a crime? He broke himself up, laughing inside his mind, locking the door and slamming it behind him. He was heading for the rare bookshop, doing what he always did when he was bored—looking for ways to spend money.

"Hi." The girl seated behind the bookstore counter smiled up at the face of the handsome guy who'd just walked in. What a hunk, she thought, suddenly feeling very hot. She'd been reading a romance and it was as if the guy in the book had come to life, blowing in off the scorching streets, ready to sweep her off her feet—the only difference being that the one in the novel had dark hair. She immediately scoped in on his ring fingers, and brightened at the absence of jewelry. "Anything special?"

"Just looking," he said. "I have lots of interests."

"Make yourself at home." I'll bet you do, she thought. "Feel free to browse." She put a little laugh into her voice.

"Thanks." He moved past her. Athletic-looking guy, maybe thirty-four, thirty-five. Unmarried. Probably not gay but you couldn't always tell. Really cute. She stood up and checked her image in the mirror, busying herself with a stack of books behind the counter. Touched her hair and adjusted the blouse she was wearing, a scoop-necked, off-the-shoulder peasant blouse which she wore demurely.

He zeroed in on familiar titles. Common stuff like Sniping on the Rhine and A Marksman's War Diaries. Immediately, he found a title he'd been looking for: Sniper's Journal: Bound Volumes XI-XIX. He'd heard of these but had never seen them. They were published by a small-press zine that had reproduced sections of lost material. He opened the leather-bound collection of magazines and thumbed through it. Most of it was stuff he'd seen or owned in the original, but he saw an article entitled "An Authentic Account of Sharpshooting in Mexico." Damn!

"How much is this one?" he asked the brunette girl with the nice chest.

She quoted him a price that he thought was way out of line and he let it show in his eyes.

"Wow!" he said, keeping his tone friendly. "That's pretty high—I'll have to think on that one."

"Sure," she said. He went back to the bookshelf he'd been examining, and she watched him carefully put the volume back where he'd found it, "I'm sorry about that. I don't own the shop or I'd make you a better price."

"Oh? This isn't your place then?" he asked conversationally.

"No. I manage it for the owner."

"I was in here once before—I don't think I saw you. I would have remembered," he ad-libbed. "What's your name?" He didn't care but he could never stop himself. He could smell it on them when they wanted him and it was always worth trying again.

"Melissa."

"That's a nice name,"

"Thanks."

"Mine's Bobby."

"Hi, Bobby," she said, thinking how inane she must be sounding. "I don't remember seeing you in here before either."

He bad tuned out on her. In between McBride's A Rifleman Went to War (1935) and McMullen's W.W.I Sniper (1918) was a book he never expected to see.

McLeod, W. D. Edward, Queen's Log. Jesus! Every collector wanted this one. Queen's Log: A Personal Narrative of Marksmanship Under Siege by the Zulu Nation, the full title. Five hand-drawn, tipped-in maps of the Roarke's Drift battlefield. His skin felt ice cold in the summer air conditioning.

"How much for this one?" he asked her.

"Um. That's uh—" She double-checked her typed inventory list to be sure. "Twelve-fifty." He didn't react, so to make certain he understood she said in a soft voice, "One thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars." Only the two of them were in the shop. She was sure he'd be irritated or amazed, but he nodded instead.

"Okay. I'll take this. I'll probably be getting some other books so—is it all right if I leave this here for the time being?" He had placed the book toward the back of the long counter.

"Sure. That's fine."

"That's one I've been hunting," the good-looking guy said, heading back toward the books. Obviously, he was a real collector. She wondered if he'd try to write a check and how she'd handle it when she had to tell him no.

He went back to the stacks with his heart beating. What a find, Twelve-fifty was way, way low. He was so pumped up he bought a dupe of Idriess's Sniping: With an Episode from the Author's Experiences During the War of 1914-18, a common little publication, because it was in perfect condition in the dust jacket. He was stoked.

"This is a great store. And I love the name of the place: Dog Soldiers!" He laughed and the girl made an appreciative chuckle.

"Thanks." She felt tongue-tied. One of the sides of her blouse was riding a bit low on the shoulder. She didn't care.

He looked for another ten minutes and came back to the counter with an autographed first edition of Daoust's Cent-Vingt Jours de Service Actif: Récit Historique Trés Complet de la Campagne du 65 Eme au Nord-Ouest (1886), Shooting to Survive: Indian-Fighting at Adobe Walls and Buffalo Wallow, an original FMFMI—3B manual, Memoirs of a Marksman at Peachtree Creek, and an ultrarare edition of Tagebuch: Eines Ordonnanzoffiziers Von 1812-1813 that made Bobby's ticker start thumping hard again when he saw the hand-drawn map in color! He loved this store and everybody in it.

"You must be a real collector," she said, not keeping the awe out of her voice. He had peeled off twenty-seven pictures of the late, great Benjamin Franklin, then went back and got the bound book of Sniper's Journal magazines, which brought his purchase to nearly three thousand dollars. Hardly the biggest sale she'd rung up but Bobby Beautiful paid for these as if he were buying an armful of paperbacks at B. Dalton or Waldenbooks, instead of plunking down three grand for a few books and booklets. He was gorgeous, single, and rich. She wasn't going to let him out of the store alive.

"Didn't you see anything else that you liked?" she asked him boldly, the heat evident in her voice. Not caring about what a bimbo she might appear, or how far the blouse was slipping down as she leaned forward on the counter.

"I saw a lot that I liked." He had ferocious eyes, and he ate her up with his gaze—just the way the man in the romance novel had devoured the heroine. "I didn't think I could afford it. It looked too special," he said. She thought she was going to have a heart attack.

"You're never going to know unless you ask." She colored at her own chutzpah. She boxed the books very carefully.

"I need somebody who really knows these things to act as a guide. You know what I mean? Like—well, you know this stuff. I wonder if I could get you to help me? Say, later, when you get off work? Would you have time to advise me in these collecting matters?" Why did he go through this over and over? He knew it wouldn't amount to anything but he insisted on putting himself through it. Maybe he'd get one who'd do what he wanted without having to pay for it.

"But we hardly know one another," she said, coquettishly, telling him yes in every other way but words.

"Sure we do. I'm Bobby. You're Melissa. What more do we need to know?"

"Are you married—for one thing."

"Uh-uh." What an airhead. He was already regretting it, but the blouse and bra had fallen away from her breasts and he couldn't help but notice a distinct nip in the air. "Are you?"

"Free. White. Twenty-one. Female."

"What time do you get off…work?"

"Four-thirty. I live down the street."

"Hey—that's great. Would you mind if I drop by? Take you out for dinnah?" he asked. She thought his accent was cute.

"That'd be nice."

"Seven?"

"Sure." She was used to eating at five, but for him she'd eat at midnight. "Sounds great."

"Okay, Melissa. Sounds real good. Where do you live?"

"Oh, yeah!" She snapped out of it and wrote her address and phone number down, then her name, in big, circular, loopy script, and dotting the i of Melissa with a small heart. "See you tonight, Bobby." She started to ask him his last name and decided she didn't care. Bobby Beautiful was his name.

She smiled and he blew her a kiss goodbye. She watched him through the front window, grateful the boss hadn't been here to overhear her coming on to a customer. He drove a sharp convertible—it figured he'd have great wheels—she wasn't sure what kind.

Why did he go through the motions? he asked himself again. He wasn't stupid—why do it? They wanted the same thing. He couldn't give it to them. They never liked what he liked. Why didn't he pay for it? Because it wasn't any fun to pay for it. One of these days he'd find a girl, just like the girl that …he whistled the last five syllables to himself. Loading the books in the trunk, packing them in a cammo-cover and wedging the box in with SAVANT and the tracker, the items nearly filling the small trunk of the car.

Fuck her, he thought, as he drove off. Knowing that he couldn't. His mind now on the rare books.

Bobby woke up in one of those terrible fuzzies between sleep and the fully awake stage, head pounding softly with the dull precursor to what could be the front edge of a bad dream, but he forced the thoughts through, replaying a totally real experience from his groggy memory banks.

As he pushed himself up from the carpeting he took stock of his surroundings. Melissa's place. The bedroom white with a surfeit of wicker and bric-a-brac. He got back on his bare feet and went in and urinated, splashing into the center of the bowl, flushing, running water. Melissa said something from the next room, a sleep-muffled comment, which he ignored.

Their coupling had started out as it often did, with an exchange of tender kisses and endearments, the romantic prelude to lovemaking heating up into a wild mating game. Four days of this.

She was dressed in a flimsy camisole top, spike heels, and nothing else. He loved the way the sharp heels felt against his legs and feet. He was ready to be punished.

"Stand up," he said to her, warming inside.

"Huh?" She didn't understand, What was wrong?

"Stand up in the bed. Come on."

"Right now?" She couldn't figure him out. Bobby was so weird.

"Yeah." His voice sounded hoarse. "Come on." She stood up on the bed as he directed.

"I'm going to punch holes in the bed with these heels."

"Turn around. Let me see you. Yeah. Turn—like that."

"You like me like this?"

"Put your foot here." He offered his testicles to her.

"Do which?"

"Yeah. Put your spike heel right on me there."

"I might hurt you, Bobby."

"That's okay—come on. You won't hurt me."

She tried to comply, gingerly placing her shoe in contact with his genitals. "Put your weight on it." She did and he moaned.

She thought she might have hurt him and she dropped down on her knees in the bed.

"Please, honey—let's just make love, okay?" She tried to kiss him and he pushed her roughly away.

"Make me call you Mistress Melissa and squeeze my balls real hard."

"No," she whined. "I don't want to do that. Please? Just hold me."

He held her, but he had grown very cold. She tried kissing him again, then she lowered her face over him, letting her hair sweep along his flat stomach and thighs. It was a trick of hers, and it had enflamed other men. But when she tried to take Bobby in her mouth he merely rolled over away from her. He had lost all interest.

In the bathroom mirror, Bobby Price's reflection was pale, but his face felt suffused with something akin to anger—a combination of embarrassed guilt and rage. He wanted to strike out.

Four times they'd been together and he'd get her so hot she thought she'd go up in flames—then he wouldn't do anything. She'd never been with anybody like Bobby. She knew that she had a body that turned guys on. But he never got—excited. He was so small. She wondered how big it was when it was erect. She'd been with another guy who had a small one when it was soft but it was plenty big when he got a hard-on. He was so uptight. She had to make this new man in her life respond. Maybe if he could relax…

"Bobby?"

"Huh?" He came out of the bathroom with his clothes back on.

"Don't go, honey," she said. "Let's have some wine."

"Um." He grunted, wishing he had an excuse to hit the bitch. She returned with a tray. Two wine goblets and a little plate of snacks. Cheese and crackers and stuff. "Sit on the bed there. No. I'll sit and you be the priestess." She had no idea what he was-saying. He took one of the wine goblets and sat on her bed. "Now…you put a cracker in my mouth." For some reason he started rubbing himself, trying to get turned on.

"Huh?"

"Feed me a fucking cracker. Stand in front of me and act like you're feeding me a cracker." He was a puzzle to her, but she stood in her little see-through camisole and the spike heels and started to comply, holding a cracker in front of his mouth as if he were a parrot or something. A cockatoo.

"Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuaam in vitam aeternam," he intoned. She recoiled in shock.

"Don't!" she said. "That's blasphemy."

He'd had enough of her ass. Price stood up and, for no real reason, tossed the wine into her face.

"You dirty—" Wine dripped from Melissa, her camisole, staining bedclothes and white wicker. She came at him, a tough girl and a strong fighter, and he took a couple of punches before he had a chance to clobber her a good one with that weight-lifter's power arm. She went down in a wine-stained heap on the bedroom floor and he turned and walked out, forgetting her the second the door closed.

He unlocked the car, plopped into the seat, keyed the ignition, and then the engine roared to life as he sped away from the apartment house.

He drove north in silent rage and self-pity, finally getting his shit together when a familiar street sign nudged him. He realized he was on busy Linwood Boulevard, and he drove a few blocks and turned. Bobby knew what he was going to do before he did it, and when he saw the field in back of the gas station he turned, taking a service road until he'd reached just the right isolated spot.

He parked on the shoulder and opened the trunk and got the big case out, carefully stepping over a barbed-wire fence after he'd snagged his shirt on the top strand in the darkness. With a small penlight he worked his way to a position where he could look back down the hill on a side road. There was a brightly lit tavern and another business of some kind next to it, and a few cars in the gravel lot. He opened the case.

"The U.S. M-3000.50 SHERFSAVANT Weapon System, is referred to by the abbreviated acronym SAVANT. It is a unique sniper rifle with a maximum effective range of nearly two miles, well over three thousand meters. With Laco 40X sniperscope It weighs 29.5 pounds. The rifle is equipped with a fiberglass transit case with fitted sponge rubber compartment liners. The cased weapon system weighs approximately thirty-one pounds." Bobby said his rosary as he assembled the piece by touch.

"Classification and type: silent, extended range, covert. Operation: bolt-action. Caliber: .50. Capacity single-shot. Length: 48 inches. Barrel length: 27 inches. Scope and Optics: Laco 40X, Lenses are Magni-coat. Reticle: mil dot duplex. Silencer and Flash Suppressor: Ultronics. Eye relief: 3.5 inches. Lands and Grooves: 9. Twist: right hand, I turn in 9 inches. Trigger pull: 3.25 pounds. Magnification: 40 power. Ammunition: Red Rock Match Grade (Silent S-type). Main elevation: Ballistic comeups built in. Elevation, fine-tune. adjustable Windage adjustable. Muzzle Vel: hypervelocity Manufacturer: USARCO Mfg. Division of Quad Cities Tool and Die, Rock Island, Illinois." "Tool and Die." He liked that. He always enjoyed saying that to people who asked him what line he was in. "Tool and die," he'd tell them, meaning it.

The stock and shoulder rest had been custom-molded to fit his face and body, and the finger indentations and palm moldings on the grips in back of the trigger housing and forward of the action had been cast from his hands. Sighting the piece in darkness was as simple as pulling on a pair of comfortable old leather gloves. She fit him perfectly. But the stock hurt him a little when he put his face down close to his main squeeze, and he whispered to her, "Not you, baby. Melissa hurt your daddy." He: fondled her knurled bolt, snicked it, and a big, hard sniper round filled her oily mouth.

"Anti-Personnel APEX(X) rounds consist of a full steel-jacketed shell containing propellant, Anti-Personnel EXploding projectile (extended range), high explosive, and detonator." He looked down through the calm green of her and clearly saw a man step out of the tavern and into the parking lot. There was no one else in sight. "When a round is fired and the bullet strikes the target a detonator causes the high explosive charge to explode the fragmentation material. This material consists of soft, scored penetrators that fragment like miniature bomb shrapnel, and which are designed to tumble at hypervelocities, mushrooming and disintegrating at the point of impact. This round is particularly effective against human beings and other soft targets. "

"Corpus Domini nostri—" Bobby Price whispered to the soft target below as he applied the requisite three and a quarter pounds of pressure to his favorite squeeze.

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