The Godless One by J. Clayton Rogers

Author:J. Clayton Rogers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: assassin, war, immigrant, sniper, mystery suspense, us marshal, american military, iraq invasion, uday hussein

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Sid and I used to go hunting at the Powhatan WMA every week during season," said Ben as he turned his pickup truck off of 288 onto Route 711, a narrow road that led west into a countryside booming with new housing developments. "Some of the guys in the club used to call him 'Sid Vicious'. It wasn’t just the hunt that he enjoyed. I can’t put my finger on it, but it wasn’t anything psycho."

"Club?" Ari asked.

"The Paxton Hunt Club. All of them good guys who like a little sport, who like guns, and who would have had nothing to do with Sid if he was a loon."

"But they called him ‘vicious’."

"It was a joke! I won’t say it was too easy for him to kill something, or that he enjoyed killing too much. I guess there was some of that in all of us, or we wouldn’t have been out there in the woods. There was never any waste, by the way. Ever have groundhog stew?"

"Probably," said Ari, summoning up Iraqi equivalents he had consumed while in the field.

"It’s open season on groundhogs all year round, so if you’re ever hard up for a meal, groundhog’s the ticket. What was strange about Sid was…" Ben braked as the car ahead of them stopped to make a turn. He pulled out a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket. Ari took out his Winstons.

"Uh, guys, would you mind not doing that?" Karen complained from the Datsun’s narrow back seat. "I’m almost suffocating as it is."

A comforting frisson swept over Ari. It was like being back home, where a woman’s place was in the back. The only difference was that neither he nor Ben were related to Karen.

Ben made a sound of self-criticism and returned the Marlboros to his pocket. After some hesitation, Ari followed suit, deciding not to test the deputy’s patience. It had taken only one minute to cajole her into joining him for this drive into Goochland County, and a full ten minutes for her to get over Ari’s confession that he had blown his cover, in a twisted sort of way. But the mention of Sid Overstreet as a possible suspect in the Zewail killings overthrew her doubts. She would show Grainger her badge (and, as it turned out, show Becky her gun) so long as Ben agreed to identify Ari as an Italian to anyone else that they met. Ari had anticipated that she would see this as a priceless opportunity to make amends for recoiling from the headless Mustafa. No slave to rules and regulations (when it suited her), she did not call for backup.

"You said there was something odd about the way Sid hunted?" Ari said to Ben.

"It was like his duty to kill those animals," Ben answered, pulling ahead once the car had turned. "He would laugh and share a beer with the rest of us—"

"Booze and guns," Karen snickered.

"—but there was something grim behind it. Even when we were kids he talked about joining the Army.

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