"She's hit and the bullet has gone down through her thoracic cavity and exited the other side," said Thatcher. "But it's not stopping her. It's not even irritating her. This happens all too frequently. You may recall the famous 'Miami Shootout' of May 1987, where a creep named Michael Platt was hit ten times, once through the lungs, mostly with Winchester 9mm hollow-tips and kept firing long enough to kill two and wound five FBI agents."

"I thought the point of a hollowpoint bullet," said Colonel Shreck, "was to open up and rip the shit out of the tissue and organs."

"It didn't open," said Hatcher. "If it had, he'd have never made it to the car, much less dumped that FBI agent. We know because Payne's report says he saw blood on the back of the shirt. It had to go through without opening up."

"Why didn't it open up?" Shreck asked.

Finally, Hatcher answered. "In our research, we've found that most of the stopping problems with 9mm Silvertip came with first-generation ammunition. They first started manufacturing it in the mid-seventies. The real bad stopping problems took place then; subsequently they changed the circumference of the cavity and the composition of the copper sheathing the lead, and since then the results have been much better, up to about seventy-three percent one-shot kills. But Timmons had to draw his ammo from police sources. Otherwise, there'd be reason to suspect some kind of frame-up. And we think the police issue was an older lot, purchased back in 1982. But we had to go with police issue, because if he used an unauthorized load it led to very dangerous ground. We simply trusted him -- or Payne, who insisted on doing the actual shooting -- to place a mortal round. If he'd hit the heart, it wouldn't have mattered. If it had opened up and he missed the heart, it wouldn't have mattered. Unfortunately he missed the heart and it didn't open up."

"Shit," said Shreck. "And why did Payne miss the heart?"

"You'd have to ask Payne, Colonel Shreck."

"I did."

"Bear in mind, sir," said Hatcher, "that in the expanse of the chest, the heart is a fairly difficult target. It's much smaller and to the right of where people think it is. I talked with him about anatomy, but in the dark, and the crisis of the second, he..."

Hatcher let the sentence end.

"You're a doctor, Dr. Dobbler. What's the medical prognosis?"

Dobbler cleared his throat. He'd researched this.

"Swagger could die of blood loss or infection. But it's possible that the bullet just rushed through doing minor tissue damage and left him largely intact. If he was smart enough to stanch the bleeding right away -- and clearly he was, having been wounded before -- he'll heal up and if he doesn't get infected, he'll be good as new in two weeks."

Shreck looked as if he were going to laugh.

"Now," said Hatcher, "let me just show you, by contrast, a later 9mm."

"Of course," said Shreck.

"This is a Federal 147-grain Hydra-Shok, with a post in the center of the cavity, to help expansion. I think you should see some dramatic results."

Suddenly, Dobbler was nauseous. He didn't want to watch the man shoot the animal and then talk about the weight of the bullet and the angle of the wound and the size of the temporary stretch cavity. It seemed obscene to him: it was killing, after all, not to any ends, not to purpose or point, but just to satisfy some arcane curiosity.

Dobbler looked away. Outside, through the barn door, he could see the rolling Virginia hills.

"Just a second," said Shreck. "Dr. Dobbler, would you mind paying attention?"

Dobbler smiled and turned his face to watch. The bullet was fired. She kicked, an amazing burst of energy from so stolid an animal. Then her heavy head twitched once. Subtly, her lines changed as she shuddered, and her knees went as the bullet, a ragged nova of hot metal, ruptured her heart, and she surrendered. The great head slid forward and lay atilt, eyes blankly open. She was still in a dark and spreading pool of blood.

Dobbler smiled weakly, afraid he'd lose face in front of Shreck, but thought for just a second he was all right. Then he vomited all over his clothes.

But Shreck did not even notice. Instead he watched the animal die, then turned to Hatcher and said, "Now at least I know what to tell them."

"Ahhh," said Howdy Duty, regretfully. He looked up at Nick over half-specs, his face haggard with fatigue. He'd been working like the rest of them, eighteen on and six off, and was beginning to wear a bit thin. But he would be polite, Nick knew.

"Come on, sit down, Nick."

Nick sat down. The gray light of the office turned Howdy Duty's skin the color of old parchment; his eyes were lost behind the crescent specs. He had a slightly distracted air.

"Oh, Nick, what are we going to do with you?"

Nick didn't know what to say. He'd always suspected that he didn't prosper in the Bureau because he'd never been much at coming up with charming answers to rhetorical questions agents in charge tended to ask at awkward moments. So, as usual, Nick said nothing; he just parked his considerable bulk into the chair, breathing hard.

"Nick, tell me about the Charlie thing to begin with. The Secret Service is making all kinds of trouble. You know what an asshole that Mueller can be."

"Well," said Nick, swallowing as he began, "maybe I did screw up. But Jesus, Howard, there were over sixty names on the Charlie list, and they were way down in importance. The Secret Service guys themselves said that; they won't admit it, but they made it seem like it was strictly business as usual. But I worked it real hard, Howard. What's his name, Sloane, he told me himself I'd done a good job. I located most of them or accounted for them; I recommended three be moved up to Beta classification, and they didn't like that one bit, because it meant they had to do more work."

"But you did miss Bob Lee Swagger?"

"Not really. I picked him out, and made inquiries. I called Sheriff Tell in Polk County to find out if he'd had any recent troubles. He'd been sitting pretty, off by himself. They say the pattern with these guys is they begin to destabilize in the days before they make a hit. There was no sign of that. He didn't fit any pattern and his sheriff vouched for him. Also, the only reason he was on the list was for that letter and the only reason the letter got him there was because it had four exclamation points. Four exclamation points! It seemed like a safe call to me. I can't say I'd make it any different way now."

"All right, Nick. I suppose you performed adequately. We can't expect distinction twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Nick, I think I can save you from Secret Service, because they want some Bureau blood to let them off the hook. It was really their operation, and they got beaten."

"They sure did."

"But, I've talked to the director and we feel our position is strong. They could complain that we didn't do a good job on the Charlies and we could complain that they were so poorly managed they couldn't deal with the Charlies themselves. Mexican standoff, and I think they'll back down. Now, Nick, I have to say, that arrest; it was badly bungled."

"I know, Howard. I screwed up."

"It looked so bad in the newspapers. And it looks bad inside the Bureau, too. We're supposed to be able to handle situations like that."

"I don't know what to say, Howard. It was a desperate situation. Maybe I -- I just don't know, Howard."

"Nick, you were in a desperate situation in 1986 in Tulsa and you mismanaged that, too."

Nick was silent. Then, finally, he said, "Howard, I just want to be an FBI agent. That's all I ever wanted."

"Well, Nick...the director has left this call to me."

Nick hated the fact that he was begging. But he tried to imagine a life without the one thing that mattered as much as his wife, which was the Bureau. He had to live a life without Myra now; but he couldn't imagine one without the Bureau.

"Please don't fire me, Howard. I know I haven't been sharp lately. But I just lost my wife a few months ago...it just hasn't been an easy time."

"Nick, we need bodies on this thing. I'm going to suspend you without pay for a week, but it won't go into effect for three months. Then I'm afraid it'll have to."

Nick nodded. It meant that within a month afterwards he'd be rotated back to the sticks and he'd never get out. It had taken him years to get to New Orleans. But it also meant, however provisionally, he'd be able to stay.

"I suppose I'll be transferred then."

"Nick, you know how it works. And I'm going to have to put a letter in your file. Like the other one."

"Yes."

"Nick, I don't want to."

"Okay, Howard."

"I'm trying to cut you as much slack as I can."

"Sure, I appreciate it," Nick said.

Sure, I appreciate it! You prick, if you'd have kept your fucking trap shut six years ago, I'd have nailed that fuck right between the eyes and I'd be where you're sitting and you'd be on your way back to Tulsa.

"You're still in the Bureau, Nick."

"I appreciate that, Howard."

"But, Nick, no more mistakes. Do you understand. There can't be another slipup."

"There won't be, Howard. I promise."

Chapter SIXTEEN.

When Bob crawled from the water just before dawn on the day after the shooting, his head seethed with rage and flashing pictures and hallucinations. His body was numb as the log under which it had floated and slightly swollen and soft from the long immersion; he smelled of diesel oil from the barge scum that coated the surface of the river below New Orleans. He reckoned he'd drifted fifty or so miles; around him were scrub pines, an infinity of them, and boggy marshes, a maze of them, and dense, interlocking cypress trees. Small things scurried and then went silent; far off, a bird made a strange and mournful sound, a screech of pain; then it went silent too.

You're going to die, he thought.

There was nothing here but the sameness of jungle, its merciless face. And there'd be men in it too, soon enough, hunting him.

You're back where you started, only you're older and weaker.

He stumbled a few feet, went to his knees. When was the last time he'd eaten? Must have been yesterday, breakfast. He'd been shot twice, used his last drop of adrenaline in getting out of there, and floated in the sullen river for eighteen horrible hours, slung upside down under the goddamn log, only his nostrils flaring above the water.

So there it was: eat or die.

Didn't matter if the wound was infected or not; if he didn't eat he'd wear down fast, and the jungle would feed off him in a matter of hours.

Been in tougher fixes, yes I have, I do believe.

But he hadn't. There was no chopper waiting to air-evac him if he could just make the LZ. There was nothing but this jungle and outside it a whole world set to do him in.

It must have been a bit after dawn. The air was very crisp and clean and smelled fresh as baby breath. The sun was still weak. It was feeding time, he knew it soon enough.

Then Bob happened to feel something hard against his leg, and realized the hardness had been there all night. He slid the pistol from his jeans pocket. It was a big stainless Smith & Wesson .45 automatic, their new Model 4506. No. No, by God, it wasn't, it was that fancy new 10mm the FBI had started using. He wondered about the round. He'd trust his life to a .45, having fired a hundred thousand .45 cartridges in his time through a variety of Colts. But this new thing, a 10-mil? He didn't know.

Man without a gun has got no chance, Bob thought. Man has a gun, he has a chance.

With a thumb as big as a brick, he pawed the magazine release. The mag fell out and he saw the agent had it loaded brimful with hollowpoints, like little brass Easter eggs down there. He sneaked a look to see if the man had the chamber stoked, and the gleam of brass from the seated cartridge answered him. Would they stand up under a soaking? Only one way to find out. He slid the magazine back, felt it lock and with a same brick thumb got the hammer back and locked.

He sat back, wishing he had more strength to find a position, or a trail, some place to hunt from, a good place to shoot from, a brace, anything. He had none of it. Only the gun. Overhead, the sun filtered through the dense tree cover, thin, not yet eight he reckoned. The shadows were blurry. Or was it his eyes going? Was he sliding off into nothingness, bled out like a deer shot quickly and not well.

He was hallucinating again. Strange, at this time he thought of Donny Fenn and all the scary moments in the boonies, and how at the real crazy-ass seconds, Donny'd begin to laugh a little, a hysterical giggle.

Donny, boy, you'd be laughing today if you could see old Bob and what's become of him, sitting on his wet ass in some bog waiting on death or a creature.

But Bob couldn't laugh. He tried to settle back. Seemed like there was a dim memory of sitting in the rain a while back a whole night through, waiting on Tim, the whitetail buck with the twelve-point spread. That was a long wet wait, wasn't it? Oh, that was a hunt! He remembered the way Tim came blasting out of the foliage, like a ghost or a miracle, and how the rifle came up to him and he fired and knew how well he'd fired. That was a night, wasn't it? Hit Tim above the spine with a bullet cast from epoxy; must have weighed less than 25 grains, atomized when it hit the flank but the shock knocked the sense out of Tim for a good five minutes.

He remembered sawing the antlers off.

Nobody going to kill you to hang your head on a wall, he thought.

Go on, boy. Git.

He remembered the creature leaping away when it came out of its coma, full of juice, crackly with life.

He laughed crazily.

They sure tried to hang my head on a wall.

Then Bob looked up and there it was. Late, it was drinking late. Maybe so deep here in the swamp there were no men and so there was no fear. Bob didn't know. He just heard the rustle of twigs snapping, saw a flash of color.

It was some sort of ugly spotted pig. Bob watched it emerge from the dapples of the trees maybe seventy-five yards out. It was ugly as an outhouse on a hot day, and yet when Bob saw it he almost cried for the second time in his life, the first being when he was alone at nine and had gone off onto the hill after Major Benson had come to tell them his daddy was dead out near Fort Smith.

But Bob didn't cry. He made ready to shoot.

The damned gun was new; suddenly it felt different than his old Colt automatic, as if it were fighting him. Squeezing his left hand around the right, printing down on his right thumbnail with his left, his elbows locked between his pressing knees as he sat in a modified isosceles, fighting the tremors of exhaustion that nuzzled through his wrists and tried to betray him in their treacherous way.

Front sight. Front sight. Front sight.

That was it. That was the key, the rock upon which the church was built. You had to see the front sight with a pistol, and let the target be a kind of hazy blur in the far distance. Otherwise, nothing good happened at all.

Front sight, front sight, front sight.

In the notch of the rear sight, a frame, he saw the huge red wall of the front. There was only front, rock steady, big as Gibraltar or Mars, Bob bending into it with every last thing, and the pig a kind of soupy blur, its details lost in the distance, just a splotch of movement against the stability of the greenery.

He hoped that damn cop had zeroed it well. He hoped the water hadn't deadened the primers or ruined the powder in the case.

Bob was so poured into the shot he didn't hear the noise at all or feel the recoil, as the big pistol whacked back. What he saw was the pig speared through the spine by the lead, which, entering its tough hide, ruptured; it hit and broke the spine.

The animal squealed as death closed it down, then a spasm of fury rocketed through it. It tried to climb to its now stunted and shaky legs but, having a broken spine, was unable to direct the last part of its body to obey. Then, with a last quiver, it went quiet.

Bob got himself up. Still woozy, still soaked, he felt death in his own limbs, stalking through his body, hunting him. But he walked onward, dazed, kept sane only by the smell of the burned powder that his nose picked up in the riotous odors of the swamp, a familiar thing onto which he could lock. He wobbled to the pig, then collapsed as he reached it.

It weighed about forty pounds. It was about three feet long. It smelled of manure and offal. Its snout was curiously delicate, as if designed by an angel; its lashes, fleecy at the closed slots of its eyes, were also delicate, like a child's.

The bullet hole was an ugly blister over the shoulder, but there wasn't a lot of blood seepage. It hadn't come out, unlike the bullet Payne had put into him, which is why he had lived and the pig had not. Served Payne right for using something tiny like a nine. Payne had broken the one true moral law of hunting: use enough gun.

Some day, I'll use enough gun on you, Payne.

Swiftly he got out his Case XX, still secure in the watch pocket of his Levi's, thanking God for a good Case knife that would hold an edge all down the many years and thanking God also for his own stubborn ways that made a small knife as much a part of daily dressing as boots and socks.