Then I started thinking maybe this guy was some kind of a sadist. A caliber of .50 is a decimal fraction, just another way of saying half an inch. A lead bullet a half inch across is a big thing. It weighs about two ounces, and any kind of a decent load fires it close to two thousand miles an hour. It could catch a supersonic jet fighter and bring it down. Against a person two hundred yards away, it’s going to cut him in two. Like making the guy swallow a bomb, and then setting it off.
I said, “You want a spectacle, I could do it close with a knife. You know, if you want to send a message.”
He said, “That’s not the issue. This is not about a message. This is about the result.”
“Can’t be,” I said. “From two hundred yards I can get a result with anything. Something short with a folding stock, I can walk away afterward with it under my coat. Or I could throw a rock.”
“I want you to use the Barrett.”
“Expensive,” I said. “I’d have to leave it behind. Which means paying through the nose to make it untraceable. It’ll cost more than a foreign car for the ordnance alone. Before we even talk about my fee.”
“Okay,” he said, no hesitation.
I said, “It’s ridiculous.”
He said nothing. I thought:
I said, “Who’s the target?”
He said, “A horse.”
I was quiet for a long moment. “What kind of a horse?”
“A thoroughbred racehorse.”
I asked, “You own racehorses?”
He said, “Dozens of them.”
“Good ones?”
“Some of the very best.”
“So the target is what, a rival?”
“A thorn in my side.”
After that, it made a lot more sense. The guy said, “I’m not an idiot. I’ve thought about it very carefully. It’s got to look accidental. We can’t just shoot the horse in the head. That’s too obvious. It’s got to look like the real target was the owner, but your aim was off and the horse is collateral damage. So the shot can’t look placed. It’s got to look random. Neck, shoulder, whatever. But I need death or permanent disability.”
I said, “Which explains your preference for the Barrett.”
He nodded. I nodded back. A thoroughbred racehorse weighs about half a ton. A .308 or a NATO round fired randomly into its center mass might not do the job. Not in terms of death or permanent disability. But a big .50 shell almost certainly would. Even if you weigh half a ton, it’s pretty hard to struggle along with a hole the size of a garbage can blown through any part of you.
I asked, “Who’s the owner? Is he a plausible target in himself?”
The guy told me who the owner was, and we agreed he was a plausible target. Rumors, shady connections.
Then I said, “What about you? Are you two enemies, personally?”
“You mean, will I be suspected of ordering the hit that misses?”
“Exactly.”
“Not a chance,” my guy said. “We don’t know each other.”
“Except as rival owners.”
“There are hundreds of rival owners.”
“Is a horse of yours going to win if this guy’s doesn’t?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“So they’ll look at you.”
“Not if it looks like the man was the target, instead of the horse.”
I asked, “When?”
He told me anytime within the next four days.
I asked, “Where?”
He told me the horse was in a facility some ways south. Horse country, obviously, grand fields, lush grass, white fences, rolling hills. He told me about long routes through the countryside, called gallops, where the horses worked out just after dawn. He told me about the silence and the early mists. He told me how in the week before a big race the owner would be there every morning to assess his horse’s form, to revel in its power and speed and grace and appetite. He told me about the stands of trees that were everywhere and would provide excellent cover.
Then he stopped talking. I felt a little foolish, but I asked him anyway: “Do you have a photograph? Of the target?”
He took an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. Gave it to me. In it was a glossy color picture of a horse. It looked posed, like a promotional item. Like an actor or an actress has headshots made, for publicity. This particular horse was a magnificent animal. Tall, shiny, muscular, almost jet-black, with a white blaze on its face. Quite beautiful.
“Okay,” I said.
Then my guy asked me his own question.
He asked me, “How much?”
It was an interesting issue. Technically we were only conspiring to shoot a horse. In most states that’s a property crime. A long way from homicide. And I already had an untraceable Barrett Ninety. As a matter of fact, I had three. Their serial numbers stopped dead with the Israeli army. One of them was well used. It was about ready for a new barrel anyway. It would make a fine throw-down gun. Firing cold through a worn barrel wasn’t something I would risk against a human, but against something the size of a horse from two hundred yards it wouldn’t be a problem. If I aimed at the fattest part of the animal I could afford to miss by up to a foot.
