The Master Sniper by Stephen Hunter Page A

government matter. Now Ihaven’t taken any names. Please, miss, let go. I don’t want to take any names.”
    He stood back. He was ill at ease, a big, strong type, with police or military written all over him. He was trying to be kind. It was a distasteful business for him.
    “Who can I see?” she said. “Jesus, tell me who I can see?”
    The man took a nervous look around. Outside, a horn honked. Quickly, his hand dipped into his coat, came out with a paper. He unfolded it, looked it over.
    “See a Captain Leets,” he said. “American, like you. Or a Major Outhwaithe. They’re behind it all.” And he was gone.
    “The Jews,” Dr. Fischelson was saying, over on the chair, looking bleakly at nothing, “who’ll tell about the Jews? Who’ll witness the fate of the Jews?”
    But Susan knew nobody cared about the Jews.
    Leets, alone in the office, waited for her. He knew she’d come. He felt nervous. He smoked. His leg ached. He’d sent Roger out on errands, for now there was much to do; and once Tony had called, urgent with a dozen ideas, with several subsidiary leads from the first great windfall. But Leets had pushed him off.
    “I have to get through the business with Susan.”
    Tony’s voice turned cold. “There is no business with Susan. You owe her nothing. You owe the Jews nothing. You owe the operation everything.”
    “I have to try and explain it,” he said, knowing this would never do for a man of Tony’s hardness.
    “Then get it over with quick, chum, and be ready forbusiness tomorrow. It’s first day on the new job, all right?”
    Leets envied the major: war was simple for the Brits—they waged it flat out, and counted costs later.
    He heard something in the hall. Susan? No, something in this ancient building settling with a groan.
    But presently the door opened, and she came in.
    He could see her in the shadows.
    “I thought you’d be out celebrating,” she said.
    “It’s not a triumph. It’s a beginning.”
    “Can we have some light, please, goddamn it.”
    He snapped on his desk lamp, a brass fixture with an opaque green cowl.
    Because he knew he was dead to her, she seemed very beautiful. He could feel his cock tighten and grow. He felt a desperate need to return to the past: before all this business, when the Jews were little people in the background whom she went to see occasionally, and his job was simple, meaningless, and London a party. For just a second he felt he’d do anything to have all that back, but mainly what he wanted back was her. Just her. He wanted to know her again, all of her—skin, her hands and legs. Her mouth. Her laugh. Her breasts, cunt.
    She wore full uniform, as if at a review. Army brown, which turned most women shapeless and sexless, made Susan wonderful. Her brass buttons shone in the flickery English light. A few ribbons were pinned across the left breast of her jacket. A bar glittered on her lapels, and a SHAEF patch, a sword, upthrust, stood out on her shoulder. One of those little caps tilted across her hair. She was carrying a purse or something.
    “I tried to stop you, you know,” she said. “I tried. I went to see people. People I know. Officers I’d met in the wards. Generals even. I even tried to see Hemingway, but he’s gone. That’s how desperate I was.”
    “But you didn’t get anywhere?”
    “No. Of course not.”
    “It’s very big. Or, we think it’s big. You can’t stop it. Ike himself couldn’t stop it.”
    “You bastard.”
    “Do you want a cigarette?”
    “No.”
    “Do you mind if I smoke?”
    “I was there when they came and took him. ‘Special Branch.’ There was nothing we could do.”
    “I know. I read the report. Sorry. I didn’t know it would work out that way.”
    “Would it have made any difference?”
    “No,” Leets said. “No, it wouldn’t have, Susan.”
    “You filthy bastard.”
    She seemed almost about to break down. But her eyes, which had for just a flash welled with tears, returned quickly