"I don't know about that," Bedderson said slowly. "I think Flanagan may have signed his own death warrant on this one."

Cindy Caswell had no idea exactly how prescient this final comment would prove to be.

June 25,1994 "In preparation for our landing in New York, please make sure your tray tables are stowed and locked and your seat backs are returned to their full upright position. To speed your clearance through U.S. Customs, please have your customs declaration cards ready to present to the Customs agent, and follow the signs to the proper aisle."

Ray Johnson looked around the airplane as the stewardess repeated the message in German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He absentmindedly wondered how long it would take three hundred passengers to clear customs. Ray had not been to the United States for many years, and then he had travelled with only a carry-on. He glanced at his declaration card to make sure he'd filled out each portion, then tucked it back in his shirt pocket.

"That real?" the Customs agent asked with a scowl as he tilted his head toward Raymond. Why does he think I might be wearing a toupee? Ray thought, mystified by the man's question. "Let me see it." The Customs agent waited, and Ray belatedly realized the man was talking about the hat Ray was wearing. The battered bush hat had kept the sun out of his eyes for almost twenty years.

Ray handed the hat to the man, and the agent inspected the worn, dirty, leopardskin band at the base of the crown. "Can't let you in with this," he said with a note of finality. He set the hat on a table behind him. "Wait a minute!" Ray exclaimed. "What's the problem?"

"Leopards are protected, sir," the agent said with forced politeness. "Whoever sold you this obviously didn't tell you that you can't bring it into the United States."

"No one sold it to me," Ray said immediately, letting his irritation show. "I shot that leopard fifteen years ago. Leopard are not prohibited from being hunted." There're so damn many of them in some areas, they've cut the trophy fees to encourage people to shoot them he thought but did not say.

"I am a professional...hunting guide," Ray explained reasonably, in terms he hoped the man would understand. "Surely you've had leopard hides come through Customs before?" The agent nodded. "Got your paperwork on it?" the Customs man asked in a bored tone.

"For a fifteen-year-old hatband?" Ray asked in exasperation. It was the wrong reaction, and Ray immediately realized his error, but the words were already out of his mouth.

"I'm sorry, sir," the agent said in a tone that made it clear that sorrow was the one emotion he did not feel. "You can talk to my supervisor, but I can tell you right now what his answer will be. U.S. Customs cannot allow this in the country without the proper documentation." Ray took a deep breath, but before he could apologize, the agent added, "Let's take a look at the rest of your luggage." He motioned to the gun cases and the large duffel.

Ray Johnson unzipped his duffel bag and the agent began inspecting his clothes. While the man was doing this, Ray selected a key on his keyring and unlocked the padlocks on his three welded aluminum gun cases. The cases had been made on an Indian reservation in Montana. Henry Bowman had had a set of them sent over after Ray had admired the ones Henry had brought with him on safari in 1978. They bore the luggage tags of several African airlines and all showed evidence of much use. Ray opened the first one, which contained his Holland & Holland .600 Nitro double rifle. The agent was feeling around the foam that lined the case as Ray opened the other two rectangular aluminum boxes.

Finding nothing else in the case, the Customs man lifted the big English rifle out of the foam padding and began to examine it carefully. He paused in his inspection when his gaze fell on the muzzle end. A small smile crossed his lips and he laid the gun down on a table behind him, next to Ray's hat.

"What else we got here?" he said as he moved to the other two cases.

"What else we got here?" he said as he moved to the other two cases. year-old rifles lay facing in opposite directions. The .338 was scoped with an out-of-production threepower Leupold, while the .458 wore only open sights. Both guns were well cared-for but showed the longterm effects of constant use. Again the agent felt around in the foam. After finding nothing, he gave the rifles a brief inspection, left them where they were, and moved on to the third and final aluminum hardcase. "Semiauto FAL and two Smith & Wessons," Ray announced as he opened the metal container. The inspector stared at the guns.

"Did you buy these guns overseas?" he asked. Ray shook his head.

"No, I've had them since I left the United States in '63."

"Got your registration papers on them?" the man asked. Ray looked blank.

"Registration...?"

"If they were already imported into the U.S. when you left in 1963,1 can let them back in, but you have to show proof that they were already in this country." The agent picked up the FAL and the .38 Smith & Wesson and laid them next to the .600 double rifle and the hat on the table behind him.

"You mean you want me to pay import duty on my own guns?" Ray asked. He was starting to get irritated again. The agent smiled humorlessly.

"No, sir. These three guns," he said, indicating the .600 Nitro Holland, the FAL, and the S&W .38 Chiefs Special, "they're prohibited from importation. They're contraband. I can't let them in the country at all, unless you can prove you already had them here in the United States before you left."

Ray Johnson was dumbstruck.

"Contraband? Prohibited from importation?" he said when he finally found his voice. "How is that possible?"

"The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits importation of handguns that do not meet certain size criteria. This .38 Smith & Wesson cannot be imported unless it has a three inch barrel on it."

"But it obviously was made in the United States...in Springfield, Massachusetts, to be exact," Ray pointed out.

"That may be, but it is in your luggage and you are getting off a flight from a foreign country. I have to assume that this was a gun that Smith & Wesson sold for export, and you are now trying to import it in violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968." The agent switched his attention to the Belgian rifle on the table.

"This assault rifle has been prohibited from importation since 1989," the Customs agent said with a note of satisfaction.

"No, it isn't," Ray said immediately. "It's not a machine gun-it's the civilian version. It fires semiauto only, just like a kid's twenty-two. I can demonstrate," he added, starting to walk around the table. The Customs agent held up his hand and stopped him.

"President Bush signed an executive order in 1989 banning all imports of rifles that look like military machine guns. We get a lot of people trying to sneak them in in their luggage," he added. "I'm not trying to sneak anything in!" Ray exploded. "I bought that gun in late 1962, and the serial number will prove that FN made it over thirty years ago!"

"If you can prove you had the gun here in the United States prior to 1989, I'll be glad to release this weapon. Otherwise..." he let the sentence drop unfinished. Ray took several deep breaths, and forced himself to remain calm before speaking.

"And my Holland & Holland double rifle?" he asked finally. "Did the President ban that, as well?" "There is a ban on the importation of elephant ivory, sir. And I see that the gun has an ivory front sight."

"So you want to take the front sight off my eighty-year-old English gun because the bead is a piece of ivory half the size of a grain of rice?" Ray asked incredulously. One of Ray's last hunting clients, a jeweler from Milwaukee, had offered Ray forty thousand dollars for the rifle when he had seen it. The idea of knocking the front sight off the beautiful Holland and Holland rifle offended Ray greatly. Again the Customs agent shook his head.

"U.S. Customs has a policy of zero tolerance. That front sight is an integral part of the rifle. The whole gun is contraband." Ray saw that the hint of a smile was starting to appear on the agent's face. Suddenly a memory from thirty-five years ago came flooding back. Gene Corson at East Bay Sports in Boston had issued him a warning on the day he had decided to spend his college graduation money on the big rifle, and Ray now recalled his words with almost perfect clarity: "You got to realize, Ray, a lot of people operate on envy. Guy like that jerk would never spend the money to buy a rifle like this, let alone the cost of a s afari, no matter how much he had in the bank. Even if someone gave it all to him, he wouldn't have the nerve to go, which is also why he'll never have any real money in the first place. He works for some steady wage, and always will. Guy like that gets very uncomfortable at the notion of someone who makes things happen for himself. Suddenly he feels like his own life is pretty shabby. Problem is, people like him, they get half a chance, they 'II do their level best to screw it up for anyone else. You got to watch out for them all the time. Envy and resentment are terrible things."

Ray Johnson had not practiced law for over thirty years, but his legal instincts finally took over. His face was impassive, and he chose his words carefully before he spoke.

"I see that there are several things that need to be resolved here. As I say, I have been out of the country for some time and was not aware of the current procedures involved with clearing Customs. Will you please put my things aside for a moment and handle some of these other travelers while I use a phone? I think I will be able to produce the kind of documentation or authorization you're looking for."

"All right, sir," the Customs agent said with forced civility. "You can use one of the phones behind you." Ray nodded as the agent shoved his bags to the side and turned on his heel to find the bank of pay phones. There was one person he knew in the United States that he thought might be able to help him.

Ray glanced at the clock on the wall as he stepped up to a vacant phone. Almost midnight. That's eleven o'clock in Missouri. I hope he's home and not over at some girl's house. Raymond poked through his wallet and found the slip of paper he was looking for, then dialed the operator and told her he wanted to make a collect call. He heard Henry Bowman pick up the phone on the second ring. He sounded wide awake.

"I have a collect call for anyone from a Mister Raymond Johnson. Will you pay for the call?" the operator asked.

"Yes, I will," Henry said immediately.

"Go ahead," the operator instructed.

"Ray!" Henry exclaimed, sounding not at all sleepy. "Where are you? Here in the States?" Henry knew that Ray was moving back to America, but he had not known exactly when.

"Yeah, I'm at LaGuardia in New York, and I've got a problem. Did I wake you up?"

"No, not at all. Spent all evening doing some geo shock-wave chart analysis, and now I'm down in the shop resizing some bullets before I go to bed. What's the trouble and how can I help?"

"I'm at Customs, and they won't let my guns through."

"Shit," Henry said immediately, but his voice showed no surprise. "You don't have any papers showing you left the U.S. with them thirty years ago, so they're trying to stick you with the duty on them, right?" "Worse than that. My Holland has an ivory front sight, which the agent says makes the whole rifle contraband-"

"Jesus!" Henry almost shouted. He knew that the .600 Nitro was currently worth more than a new Corvette, and rising in value by the month.

"-And he says they have to confiscate it. Then there's some kind of ban on my FN, so I can't bring that one in either. My Chiefs Special is too small, or something like that, so they have to take it, too. And they're taking my hat," he added.

"That beat-up old thing you always wore?" Henry asked.

"Yeah. That's how this whole mess got started. The man told me he was taking my hat because of the leopardskin band on it, and things went downhill from there." While Ray had been talking, Henry had been scribbling on a pad of paper.

"Okay. Let me get this straight. They're trying to steal your Holland, your FAL, your Smith & Wesson, and your hat. Anything else? Particularly guns?"

"No. The only other guns I've got are two old Model 70s."

"And they didn't say you had to pay duty on them? Claim they were Winchester exports you were bringing back in, or some shit like that?"

"Not yet."

"How many guys did you piss off?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is there a whole division of Customs agents standing over your stuff, rubbing their hands together and telling you you're about to spend the rest of your life in Leavenworth, or have you got one semi-literate GSthree with a high school equivalency degree telling you 'no' because that's his answer to everything?"

Ray Johnson chuckled despite the situation. In the middle of the night, in response to a completely unexpected phone call, his geologist friend was sounding like a lawyer. It was a good sign.

"Ah, closer to the latter, I should think," Ray answered. "I was only dealing with one fellow. He may have gone to get his boss when I went to make this call, but I think he was busy processing some of the other passengers on my flight."

"Good. Okay-first things first," Henry said, thinking rapidly. "Let's look at each thing individually and see what we can do about it. Your Holland is worth forty to fifty Gs, so it's priority number one. Holland and Holland keeps records of all the guns they've ever made, but unless the original buyer was an American, which is possible but not terribly likely, that won't do you any good with the feds here. Didn't you tell me you found that rifle in a Boston gunshop back in the late '50s?"

"Yes. Gene Corson's East Bay Sports."

"I can find out if they're still around, and I can probably locate Gene Corson if he's still alive, and I bet he'd remember that gun even if he doesn't have any records left, so he could sign a statement." Henry took a deep breath and continued. "But that's our fallback plan, which I'll elaborate on in a minute.

"Number two, your FAL is a Belgian G Model you bought in-what? Sixty-three? Sixty-four?" "Sixty-two. Before I left the United States."

"Okay. That's one of the early ones that Browning brought in and sold for about a hundred fifty, hundred sixty bucks, right?"

"Exactly."

"Those bring three to five thousand now, depending on whether they're mint or have been beat to shit. I know a guy at Browning, so there's a chance that I can get you the import recor-"

"It's worth how much?" Ray demanded in astonishment. Henry laughed.

"Browning brought in a few FALs guns with semiauto parts in them, and had a bitch of a time selling them. Hundred sixty bucks was a lot of dough in '63. That would buy you a Model 70 Match rifle, which was a lot more accurate. If semiautos were your thing, you could have four or five Garands for the same dough, and '06 ammo was more powerful and lots cheaper. If full autos turned you on, you could pick up six or eight good ones from Fenwick's or Interarmco for a hundred and a half total, and all of them shot cheap surplus ammo, remember?

"Anyway, that first batch of FALs came in, and it took a long time to sell 'em all. Then, years later, when Browning decided to try to sell a few more, our old friends at the ATF decided the guns were too easy to switch back into machineguns. So FN redesigned the receiver so it wouldn't take the full auto parts without major surgery.

"The guns out of that original batch are legal semiautos with full auto receivers, with Browning's import markings. They get military collectors all excited. They're more valuable than the registered full auto FALs that are in the country.

"The reason Customs won't let you bring it in is because five years ago, King George decreed there would be no more imports of guns that looked like military rifles, even though they couldn't fire full auto. All imports were stopped overnight, and only those factories that were willing to put stupid-looking thumbhole stocks on their guns so they wouldn't look like military issue could resume shipping. Krauts and the Chinese went along with that nonsense, other countries decided the U.S. civilian market wasn't worth the trouble, and said screw it.

"So, they're going to confiscate your G-model, or at the very minimum make you stick on a stupid-looking stock so that it won't look like an FAL any more, unless we can show that it was here prior to '89." Henry sensed that Raymond was about to protest the senselessness of this policy, and quickly went on.

"Don't ask me to justify this crazy shit-I'm just telling you the score, okay?"

"Right," Ray said, and clamped his mouth shut. He's a hell of a lot more on top of this than I am Ray told himself.

"Now, your Chiefs Special is on the Customs shit list because of the Gun Control Act of 1968. That law followed in the tradition of the National Firearms Act of 1934 by using physical dimensions as determining criteria for legality."

"What do you mean?"

"The '68 Act decreed that any handguns whose aggregate sum of certain specific dimensions fell below a certain total could not be imported. I forget what the minimum total has to be, but a Chiefs Special with a two inch barrel falls just below it. The same gun with a three inch barrel is okay.

"So what that means is that foreign companies can only import Chiefs Special copies if the barrels are three inches or longer. So what they do is bring in three-inch guns, ship in a bunch of two-inch barrels, switch them in this country, and re-export the three-inch barrels so they can do the whole thing over again."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

Henry chuckled without humor. "Then you haven't read many of our country's present gun laws. Anyway," he said, returning to the primary subject, "I'm telling you this so you'll understand how you can get that Smith back in the country if all else fails, by swapping barrels. It shouldn't come to that, because Smith might have records showing that gun was not exported." Henry took a breath.

"But personally, I'd let the Customs guy steal it if it would get him off my back about the other stuff. Chiefs are decent guns, but they're less than three hundred bucks, and the quality difference between early-sixties J-frames like yours and present day ones isn't enough to worry about like it is on N-frames. I can have one or a hundred in your dealer's hands in Aspen long before your five-day waiting period is up-"

"What five-day waiting period?"