"You could get lost. Evety year hunters enter the pines and are never seen again. And I don't mean never seen alive, I mean never seen again, period."

  The creepy feeling in Jake graduated to uneasiness.

  "What happens to them?"

  "Who knows? Get lost, most likely. And these are experienced hunters and trackers. I tell you, son, you lose your bearings in here and you can wander for days without seeing another human being. As a matter of fact, there's areas in the Pines that human beings have never laid eyes on. As for those hunters, they probably starve to death."

  Jake inched closer to Sarge as he followed him. But not too close. The more he thought about this situation, the less he liked it. Anything could happen to him out here— anything. And who'd know? The state agency was supposed to screen all the foster homes but sometimes they screwed up. He'd heard horror stories about kids who'd been buggered by foster fathers. Jake fingered the bulge of the pocketknife in his jeans. That wasn't going to happen to him.

  He'd been prett}^ luck^ so far, he guessed. Nobody'd beat him or groped him in all the homes he'd been in—he'd lost count of how many there'd been. As far back as he could remember he'd been in foster homes. Nobody seemed to know who his parents were and Jake had stopped caring a long time ago. At least nobody'd put him to work on a farm or in a sweatshop or the like. He didn't want trouble and he didn't cause it; he'd learned not to expect love or kindness so he didn't miss it when he didn't find it. He learned not to feel much of anything for anyone, and above all not to get attached to anyone because sooner or later—sooner, most likely, if past experience meant anything—they'd be out of his life and he'd be shunted somewhere else. So he kept to himself All he wanted was a roof over his head, a place to sleep, and enough food to keep him going until he was sixteen and could strike out on his own and get off this foster-home merr'-go-round.

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  Adoption? Forget it. Walking into a Leave It to Beaver or Donna Reed Show household and being taken under the wings of the Cleavers or the Stones and being given their last name and coming home to smiles and home-cooked meals and being tucked into bed at night with a kiss on the forehead—what a joke. That dream had been dead so long he barely remembered it had ever existed. Hard to believe he'd been such a little jerk to believe it might come true someday, and to hold on to it for so long despite shifts from one foster home to another. Besides, he was fourteen now. Nobody adopted eight-year-olds, let alone fourteen-year-olds.

  Sarge stopped at the edge of a stream with water the color of iced tea.

  "Don't let the color put you off if you get thirsty," Sarge said. "That's cedar water. You won't find anything purer."

  He took Jake's case and removed a stubby telescope. He set it up on a short tripod and swiveled it around until he found what he wanted. Then he motioned Jake over.

  "This here's a spotter scope. Take a look."

  Jake peered through the lens and pulled back as the branch from a tree hundreds of yards upstream seemed to jump at his face.

  "Whoa!"

  "Yeah. That's a dandy, ain't it.> Now check out the crosshairs, son. What's in them.>"

  Jake squinted into the scope. "A pinecone."

  "Right. Now keep your eye on it."

  Jake tried, but he couldn't resist keeping a wary eye on Sarge as he slipped the rifle from its traveling case, dropped into a cross-legged position, adjusted the telescopic sight on the gun, twisted the sling around his arm, and took aim.

  Jake knew it was coming as he refocused on the pinecone, but still he jumped when the shot cracked the silence. Through the lens he saw the cone explode.

  "Wow!" The rest of his vocabular}^—except for the four-letter words that he was afraid to say around Sarge—had vanished like smoke. Only one word left. ^'^Wowl^^

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  23

  Sarge grinned at him. "Courtesy of the United States Marine Corps. Want to see me prune the branch it was on.>"

  As Sarge turned back to his rifle, Jake squinted again into the scope. Another crack and the end of the branch pinwheeled away.

  "That's so great!" Jake said. "Can you teach me to do that.>"

  Sarge's grin broadened. "I was hoping you'd say that."

  The next morning, Sarge took Jake into an oversized closet, almost like a windowless room off the big bedroom, and showed him his rifle collection. He stood Jake before a glass case on the wall.

  "See that baby.>" he said, pointing at the rifle within. "That's a Garand MIC with a Lyman Alaskan two-point-two hunting scope. Back in 1942 the marines taught me how to shoot with that, and hit anything I could see through the scope. Not the greatest rifle in the world, but pretty damn effective, let me tell you. I did good work with that."

  "You shot people.^" Jake said. He'd never met anyone who'd actually killed another person. "How . . . how many did you—.>"

  "Never you mind about that," Sarge said. "This ain't no time for war stories."

  He lifted a slim-barreled rifle with a glossy stock from the bottom of one of the wall racks, hefted it, then thrust it toward Jake.

  "Here. This one's yours to use."

  Jake hesitated, thinking Sarge was putting him on. But when he saw that the man wasn't kidding, he took the rifle into his hands like a priest receiving a chalice.

  "A gun.> For me.>"

  "Not a gun, Jake. Never call a rifle a gun, least not in my hearing. It's a rifle or it's a weapon, but it's never a gun. A pistol can be a gun, but never a rifle. Got that.^ This one's a Ruger 77 bolt-action .22 chambered for long rifles. You'll learn to shoot it, you'll learn to assemble and disassemble it blindfolded, you'll learn to clean it. And you will clean it. Every time you use it. You'll treat

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  it as your own. You'll be responsible for it. If you aren't good to it, you're outta here. Get it.>"

  Jake nodded reverendy as he balanced the weight of the rifle in his hands, felt the lighdy oiled finish of the smooth stock, watched the light from the overhead fluorescent stretch up and down along the gleaming blue-black finish of the barrel.

  This one^s yours to use.

  I've died and gone to heaven, he thought.

  "When can I shoot it.>" he asked without looking up, having eyes only for the rifle.

  When Sarge didn't answer right away, Jake dragged his gaze oflf the Ruger and looked up. Sarge was staring at him with a faraway look, as if seeing a younger version of himself and remembering his own first rifle. Finally, he grinned.

  "We start today. Slip your weapon into one of those carrying cases in the corner and we're off."

  Another jaunt into the pines, but this one was shorter. Sarge stopped the jeep at the edge of a small clearing and pointed to a fallen tree.

  "There's a good spot."

  He pulled a blanket from behind the front seat and led Jake into the clearing, where he spread the blanket on the sandy ground.

  "What's this for?" Jake said.

  "To catch your brass."

  "Brass.>"

  "Your empty shells. One of my rules is never leave your brass behind. Never."

  That was the first of many rules Sarge would hand down. Jake made a point of memorizing each one.

  Sarge sat him down and showed him how to load the rifle, how to wind the sling around his left: arm military style to help steady the rifle in his hands, how to line up the target in the open sights—

  NIGHTKILL

  25

  Sarge promised him a telescopic sight when he was ready for it— and how to squeeze the trigger instead of pulling it.

  For his first shots Sarge had Jake rest the stock of the rifle on the fallen trunk.

  "The first thing I want you to do is get to learn how the sights work. Later on we'll work on the different firing positions and steadying your hands. But for now, just pick out a pinecone on that tree over there and take a shot."

  Jake could feel his hands trembling. His sweaty palms slipped along the stock. This was the moment he'd been waiting for through all the talk, all those practice shots on an empty chamber. He was loaded up now. This one was for real. He picked out a cone, the biggest one he could find on the nearest tree, lined it up in the sights the way Sarge had told him, and pulled the trigger.

  Missed.

  Damn.

  He tensed, waiting for Sarge to start yelling at him. But the voice at his side was unperturbed.

  "What're you waiting for, son.> Try again."

  Jake chambered another round, aimed again, pulled the trigger again, and missed again.

  Double damn.

  But still no shouting from Sarge.

  "You're pulling the trigger instead of squeezing it like I told you. Squeeze it. Squeeze it so slowly that the shot comes as much of a surprise to you as it does to me."

  Jake put his cheek back against the stock, sighted on the cone, and squeezed the trigger as gently as he could, squeezed with such excruciating slowness that he began to think it would never fire, and then suddenly there was a crack and the pinecone spun away out of sight.

  "I did it!" Jake whispered. "I got it!"

  Sarge slapped him on the back. "Okay. You killed your first

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  pinecone. Now let's get some more. Lots more. Don't be shy. One thing we sure as hell got no shortage of out here is pinecones."

  Sarge took Jake shooting every day he could, afternoons after school and early morning on weekends and during the summer. The only exceptions were rainy days and those occasions when Sarge had to go away on business. Jake didn't know what that business was; in fact, Sarge was home far, far more of the time than he was away. But still, even when he was away for only a day or two, Jake counted the hours to his return.

  Shooting wasn't all he learned. On rainy days he'd have to practice breaking down and cleaning his .22. After he'd mastered that, Sarge made him learn to disassemble and reassemble every rifle in his gun room. Rainy days were also a time for making reloads. Sarge showed him how to reuse old brass, how to customize the charge in each cartridge and tailor the rounds for different uses.

  And along the way, Jake became a crack shot. So good, in fact, that shooting at pinecones began to get old. And that got Jake into some trouble.

  It happened when they were out in the pines at a new clearing on a chilly after-school afternoon. Jake was still braced in the sitting position, the strap twined around his left arm, his elbows resting on his knees, as Sarge took a break from picking out the cones he wanted Jake to hit. Suddenly something small and gray with a bushy tail popped into view. A squirrel. Winter was coming and it probably thought it had struck gold with all the shattered pinecones littering the ground. Jake watched it duck behind a bush, then saw it hop onto a log and start nibbling at something clutched in its paws. Without a word he swung the barrel left, quick-sighted, and popped off" a shot. The squirrel tumbled off" the log.

  "Got him!"

  "Got who.>" Sarge said, looking up.

  "A squirrel." Jake was fairly bursting with pride. "He was over there on that log. I just popped him."

  NIGHTKILL

  11

  "You shot a squirrel?"

  Something in Sarge's eyes, in his voice, took the edge off Jake's exhilaration.

  "Yeah. Quick-shot him. Like you've been showing me."

  Sarge held out his hand. "Show me."

  "What do you mean.>"

  "Give me the rifle and go get him. Show me this squirrel you think you killed."

  Jake passed the rifle over and ran to the log.

  The squirrel lay on its back on the other side. Its left hindquarter had been blown off" by the .22 LR. The stump was still oozing. Blood was puddled around its limp tail. It was dead, but its bright black jelly-bean eyes stared up at him. Suddenly, Jake's pride didn't seem quite so fierce as it had a moment ago, but he'd been right. He'd hit it. He took a breath, picked the squirrel up by its blood-soaked tail, and brought it back to Sarge.

  "Told you I got it," he said, holding up the prize.

  "That you did," Sarge said, but he wasn't smiling. "Now tell me why you shot it."

  "Well, I saw it and I wanted to see if I could get it before it ran off"."

  "Well, you got it all right," Sarge said. "But you do surprise me, Jake. I never took you for a squirrel eater."

  "Squirrel eater.^ What are you talking about.>"

  "Out here in the woods, the only time we kill something is if we're gonna eat it."

  "I'm no squirrel eater."

  "You are now, son." Sarge took the dead squirrel from Jake and dropped it into one of the plastic bags he used to store their used brass. "You are now."

  Despite Jake's protestations, Sarge made Jake dress the squirrel, stood over him and talked him through the gutting and skinning. And all the while those beady black eyes kept staring up at him,

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  making him feel sick inside. Finally Sarge took over and stripped the bloody meat from the squirrel's flanks and remaining leg. He brought that in to Mrs. Nacht while Jake washed the blood off his hands and tried to scrape it from beneath his fingernails. And tried not to think about the coming meal.

  For dinner there was niblet corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, and meat—steak for Sarge and Mrs. Nacht, and . . . something else for Jake. Ragged chunks of browned meat.

  "I'm not eating this," he said.

  "You are eating it," Sarge said. His voice had a flinty edge to it that Jake had never heard before. "You kill an animal, you eat it—that's the rule around here."

  Jake stared at the plate and all he could see were those two black eyes staring at him. He glanced at Mrs. Nacht for maybe a little help but she was concentrating on her own plate, slicing her steak as a cigarette burned in the ashtray by her elbow.

  "I can'tr

  "You'll eat it or you're outta here. You're the fourth boy I've had through here in two years and the first one to show any talent, but damn it I'll kick your ass back to the state first thing tomorrow morning if you don't clean that plate."

  For the first time in longer than he could remember Jake thought he might cry. But he swallowed the sob, picked up his fork, jabbed it into a piece of the meat, and shoved it into his mouth. He tried to swallow without chewing but it was too big. He had to bite into it, grind it down. It was chewy and stringy and had no particular flavor. It was just there. Without swallowing he shoved another piece into his mouth, then another, and another and another until all the fried squirrel flesh was packed between his jaws and he was chewing and chewing the gristle and fat and meat with his eyes closed and finally there was nothing left to do but swaUow but it was so big and he wanted to gag but he didn't dare so he forced it down in one long greasy swallow.

  Then he sat there breathing hard, sweating.

  "There," Sarge said with a slow smile taking shape. "I knew

  NIGHTKILL

  29

  you could do it. Look on the bright side. It could have been a skunk."

  That did it. Jake's stomach lurched and he was running from the table. The bathroom was too far so he fled through the back door and heaved up the squirrel meat over the back porch railing. It tasted worse coming up than it had going down so he kept on retching until his sides ached and his gut burned and there was nothing left to come up. As he hung there gasping, he heard Sarge come out on the porch and stand behind him.

  "I hope you learned something today," Sarge said softly.

  Jake said nothing, didn't even turn around.

  "Shooting's fiin," Sarge said. "Lots of fun. But killing's serious. That rifle gives you power—the power of life or death over any living thing in your sights. You don't take that power lighdy. Any time you kill something, you have a reason for doing it. Are we clear on that, Jake.>"

  Jake nodded, but still did not turn around.

  He heard Sarge step closer, felt a gende hand on his shoulder.

  "You got talent, Jake. You're a natural. I didn't tell you, but that was a great quick-shot kill on that squirrel. With practice and dedication, you could become one of the best shots I've ever seen. But you've gotta follow the rules. And that's a rule you must never forget: Don't kill just for the heck of it. Ever. If you can remember that, I'll work with you till we're both ready to drop. What do you say.>"

  Finally Jake turned and faced Sarge. He saw that the man had his hand extended.

  "Deal.>" Sarge said.

  Jake took the hand and they shook.

  "Deal," Jake croaked—the only word he could manage. He was filled with emotions he had never known before. He realized he loved this man called Sarge.

  He had finally found a father.

  Jake's "No way" to Fredo eventually became "Okay" to Mr. C, a man whose offers could not be lightly refused, and three weeks after the meeting in Leonardo's Jake was tooling north on the Garden State Parkway, heading for Manhattan.

  He listened to the weather as he drove. A huge high-pressure system was swinging down from Canada. A clear, bright weekend with lower-than-usual humidity lay ahead. In fact, this Sunday was shaping up to be one of the ten best days of the year.

  He smiled. If the weatherman was right, the day after tomorrow was going to be a beautiftil day for a hit.

  It had taken awhile—weeks, in fact—but Mr. C finally had come to terms with him. Jake would do the senator at a free-speech rally as requested but it was going to cost Mr. C a flat million—half up front, half after the senator was officially pronounced DOA.

  Whiny wasn't the only guy with a Swiss account.

  And Jake knew he was going to need his account. He wanted to be out of the country when all the heat came down. That was why he'd held out for seven figures.

  Of course, plenty of the Boys would have done it cheaper— tried to do it, anyway. But they'd have screwed it up. Mob

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  soldiers were fine for street shootings of informants and uppity rivals and run-of-the-mill deadbeats, great for meat-hook tortures and dumping bodies in trunks or rivers, but when it came to finesse, they couldn't cut it. The Boys weren't snipers. And ever since Gotti went down on murder, the surviving bosses had become very touchy about that litde pastime. The Feds weren't dicking around with tax evasion and extortion or racketeering charges anymore, they were devoting their investigative muscle to murders.