I, Sniper by Stephen Hunter

Author:Stephen Hunter [Hunter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Thrillers, Fiction
ISBN: 9781451609639
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-07-05T23:00:00+00:00

30

Swagger awoke from ugly dreams with a start. The phone was ringing. Not his cell phone, the room phone. He blinked, trying to remember. Oh, yeah, Indianapolis. Near the Notre Dame campus, for its theoretical richness in wired coffeehouses. An Econo Lodge; it looked like the best room in Nowheresville, decorated in a nice shade of babyshit brown.

He stared at the ringing monster on the nightstand. This was not good. If it had been his cell, it could have been anybody, but if it was this phone, it meant someone was already on him. On the other hand, maybe it was housekeeping. He looked at his watch, saw that it was almost eleven. He’d sacked out here at 3 a.m. after a dreary bus ride.

He picked up the phone.

“Yeah.”

“Bob?”

It was Nick.

“You figured out where I am.”

“We are the FBI, you know. We do this kind of thing for a living.”

“I—”

“No, you just listen to me. In words of two syllables, what the fuck is going on? I have some big gunfight in Chicago with a dead officer, two dead gangbangers, and a missing witness thought by many to be an FBI undercover. That sounds like a Bob Lee Swagger operation. I have the Chicago cops, I have the Cook County prosecutors, I have my own Chicago field office all screaming bloody hell at me, and of course I have my own director furious at me because he warned me Swagger couldn’t be controlled and I assured him I could control Swagger and then I assured him I’d sent you home to rock on the porch. Oh, and I have the New York Times alleging on its front page that I’m dirty. Hmm, I think we could agree, it’s kind of a mess.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to be in your shoes,” said Bob. “Can’t help with the papers. Never read ’em. I get my news from Fox.”

“I need you in. I can have Indiana state troopers at that motel in ten minutes if it’s an issue of security. I need you cooperating with the Chicago people, playing by all the rules. Maybe, just maybe, we can make fleeing the scene of a crime go away. And when we get all that straightened out, then maybe we can see where we are on the sniper. Oh, and I need Denny Washington’s Sig back. For his widow.”

“I will personally return it to her when this is over. Right now, I may need it, even if it’s only got four rounds left. Maybe I can put ’em where they’ll do some good.”

“Swagger, listen to me.”

“Nick, if I go to Chicago I’m stuck there for weeks. I have to move fast. These people now know I’m on to them, and they will go back over their tracks and wipe everything out and I’ll be left with nothing but suspicions. And when it all dies down, they’ll come to Idaho, and just like Joan Flanders, they’ll put a little cross on me from a long way out and put a 168er dead bang center into me.

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