Bob knew. The kills were a lot more than the official tally. A lot more.

“So anyway, I thought the right thing to do after the news came out was try to reach Carl. I wanted him to know that nothing of this had anything to do with me. I wasn’t behind any of it. I’m just minding my business, takin’ care of my kids and wife, that’s all. Someone else thought it was a big deal, not me. Of course I didn’t know how to reach him, so I sent him a letter care of Ballantine Books, which had printed Marine Sniper, that biography of him that fellow wrote. Didn’t think there’s a chance in hell it’d reach him. I suppose I did it for myself. Anyhow, I just said, ‘Hey, look, Sarge, just so you know, it wasn’t me behind ‘Who’s number one’ that everybody’s talking about, it means nothing to me, I haven’t thought about it in thirty years. You were a great marine sniper, the greatest. I just got a little luckier because a few more assholes saw me pull the trigger, that’s all.’ I felt a little better after sending the letter.”

“You got a response?”

“Well, yeah. It took a while. It took close to two years, but goddamn if I didn’t get a letter just a couple of days before all this craziness started. That’s why all this is so strange.”

Bob knew he’d be offered a chance to read the letter. He also knew he shouldn’t.

It was over, it was finished, it was gone. Put it behind you. Walk away from it. It means nothing. It’s the dead past. You have a life, a family, kids, the world. You have everything. No man has more than you, plus you got to be a marine sniper and you saw a lifetime of stuff no other man ever saw, much less survived, and you’ve got the scars and steel bones to prove how close the calls were over the years.

Chuck got the letter out, unfolded it.

“It just don’t make no sense to me. Here, read it.”

Bob took the letter, and read.

Of course. How could he not? He had to read. He owed it to Chuck, he owed it to Carl, he owed it to all the boys under the ground. You can’t walk away from certain obligations.

“Dear Chuck McKenzie,” the letter read, in Carl Hitchcock’s big, looping penmanship, not the slick handwriting of a man who wrote a lot.

Thanks so much for your letter and I’d heard you were no part of this deal, so it’s no problem for me at all. Don’t you worry about it. You were a hell of a marine and it’s a shame you didn’t get the medals and the rank you deserved, but then that was the way the thinking went in those days. But like me and all the other snipers I know, I figure you realize your true reward is all the boys walking around today who wouldn’t be if you hadn’t done your duty. I suppose I had a rough time for a while, because I’m as dumb a bastard as there is. And the “number one” thing put beer in the fridge and bait on the hook. I thought that might be over. Funny thing is, ever since the news came, I been busier than ever. I thought it would go away and instead it got louder. In fact, I have more bookings at more shows this year than any of the past five. And I told the promoters I’d have to up my fee because the cost of gas was so high, and that turned out to be fine with them. So as I sit here, damned if it don’t seem to be working out. It’s really the attention, more than the actual meaning. Being number two makes me somehow more interesting than being number one and I don’t know why. Civilians! But I do know a good thing when I see it and I will run with it all the way to the bank, or at least the bait shop. Semper Fi, marine, and best to you and yours,

Carl Hitchcock

“Hmm,” Bob said, a sound he made involuntarily which seemed to have the meaning, That’s interesting but I will have to think harder about it.

Then he said, “He sounded pretty healthy.”

“That’s it, Gunny. He doesn’t sound like a depressed fellow about to go off on some kind of killing rampage, obsessed with getting his number one ranking back.”

Bob looked at the date. It was dated two weeks before the killing of the movie actress in Long Island.

It teased him.

“You show this to anybody?”

“No. The FBI asked questions about me, I hear, but no one ever contacted me directly and I never had a sit-down face-to-face, so I didn’t have a chance to bring it up.”

“Yeah, they asked questions about me too,” said Bob, remembering a call from Nick before it was clear what all this was about.

“Now,” said Chuck, “I’m not sure what to do. Should I call the FBI? I’m hoping to get some advice. Is this anything? I just don’t see how Carl could write this and just a few weeks later blow a hole in Hanoi Joan’s rib cage. It doesn’t add up.”

“No,” said Bob. “It don’t.”

“Yet the FBI, they say categorically, over and over, it’s been in all the papers, that yep, Carl did it, all the proof is in, they going to release a final report with all the evidence, case closed, and that’s it, that’s what the history books’ll say.”

“Yeah,” said Bob. “They’ve clearly committed to that interpretation and it’ll take something to get them off it. I know a little about how this stuff works. Once the big guys make up their mind, you can’t change it. Just like a sniper program. Took years for the brass to see the value and sanction a school, and meantime every unit on the line put one together ad hoc, because it was so obvious and necessary.”

“Should I contact the FBI?”

Bob honestly didn’t know. He had no policy.

Then Chuck said, “Here’s why I’m really here. A guy hears things, you know. And one of the things I hear is that you never really left the life. You’re a sniper still, through and through. You’ve done stuff, survived stuff; lots of people say you’re way at the top of the pyramid in terms of getting certain kinds of work done. I remember years ago you were wanted for the murder of that archbishop. Then that all went away, magically, so something not too many people know about was going on.”

“I’ve had some crazy stuff happen,” said Bob. “But I’m retired now.”

“But it’s said you have a gift. I mean, more than the shooting, but understanding the shooting. You can look at circumstances and you have some kind of feel for what happened. You can infer in ways other people can’t. You’re Sherlock Holmes, you’re CSI, Gunfight, that sort of thing.”

“Chuck, you’re way overstating it.”

“I’m just saying what I’ve heard.”

“It’s true that men of my family are natural-born people of the gun. Don’t know why. But I had it, my daddy had it in spades, and his dad-who I hear was otherwise a monster-his dad was quite the gun man as well. It goes back, off and on, through generations, since somehow a mysterious fellow called Swagger appeared in the territory that would become Arkansas in 1783, from God knows where. His son had the gift and it’s why so many of us died in wars or other violence. We’re drawn to it, fatally, our character, our fate, one side of the law or the other, I don’t know why.”

“Well, I had a favor to ask.”

“Ask it, brother Chuck.”

“It’s this. Maybe Carl did go all nuts like they say, and maybe he did all that killing, and maybe, somehow, I’m a little part responsible. If that’s the case, then I’ll just have to learn to live with it, and it’s okay, it’s what happens in the world. But suppose it’s not. Suppose it didn’t happen the way they said it did. Suppose, suppose, I don’t know what, just suppose. Anyhow, what I’d like is for someone who is sympathetic to the marine side of the story and not under pressure to issue a report to make the newspapers happy to go and look hard at it. Go to the sites, reconstruct it in your mind, see what you see without prejudice. Look at it fair and square. If all the facts point to Carl, then that’s where we are, that’s it. At least there’s no worry in it, nothing to keep you up nights.”

“Chuck, I-”

“Now, I have a check here for five thousand dollars. That’s not a payment. But you shouldn’t have to gin up the expense money on your own. I’d like you to take it for travel, for hotels, for this and that, anything that might come up. Just take a week and satisfy yourself that everything’s on the up and up.”