From the Barrel of a Gun

Jeff C. Carter

 

Throngs of people waited outside the courthouse to see Hathcock. Reporters lined the steps while chimerics and protesters filled the street. The sky was clear and Lars Wilson, the superhero known as The Red Wraith, could feel the light breeze through his body. It was a perfect day to make his return. He hadn’t been solid out in public once since Hathcock’s reign of terror began, and Lars couldn’t wait to see the look on the old man’s face.

A huddle of police officers surrounded Hathcock and led him down the wide white steps. Hathcock almost looked like a super villain with the black bulletproof vest wrapped around his orange prison jumpsuit.

Lars thickened into a red fog inside the formation of police. The panicked officers jumped back, exposing their prisoner. Hathcock stood his ground.

“Greetings citizens! The Red Wraith is back! You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Evil will never go unpunished as long as I am here.”

Lars plunged his hand effortlessly through the bulletproof vest and closed it around Hathcock’s heart.

#

12 hours earlier…

Everyone stood when the judge entered the crowded courtroom, everyone but Lars. He hovered among the eager crowd, unseen and immaterial. Tonight the photographers will scour their pictures for his faint image. By then it will be too late.

Lars looked down at Timothy Hathcock. The accused man’s close-cropped silver hair faded into a bald spot and heavy bags drooped beneath his eyes. Lars couldn’t believe how old he was. The old man’s eyes flicked upward, grey and hard as flint. A stab of panic shot through Lars. Could the old man see him?

Lars tucked himself into the concrete floor to hide. Even with Hathcock in cuffs and his own body intangible, Lars felt exposed. He clenched his fists and cursed. Today he would finally stop cowering like a kicked dog. He emerged from the ground and approached the counsel tables.

The slick prosecutor, Alec Glabrous, stood and buttoned the jacket of his pinstriped suit. He was wide and doughy, but his tailored suit made him look robust. He delivered his opening statement with a slow confident metronome, letting each fact sink into a well-placed pause.

“The defense will tell you that Timothy Hathcock is not a ‘supervillain’. He never donned a costume, nor used an alias. He was just a man with a gun. Do not be fooled.”

He stretched an arm out to the jury and closed one eye.

“When Timothy Hathcock looks through the scope of a high-powered rifle he can see you from a mile away. He can kill you with the twitch of a single finger. He used this extraordinary power to take twenty-three lives. He struck fear into the hearts of everyone in this city, chimeric and citizen alike.”

The jury didn’t blink. They knew what Hathcock had done. This trial was empty ceremony, performed by a prosecutor hoping to further his career. Still, it was good for the people to be reminded of Hathcock’s sins.

The public defender, Jean Ryu, was the D.A.’s opposite; skinny and fidgety. The only thing holding her together was the tightly wound bun in her hair. Her opening statement was feeble, a desperate attempt to obscure Hathcock’s sins with a geyser of words. Lars was sickened she could defend him at all. Not a single friend sat behind the mass murderer, not even his son.

The prosecution started strong, using the medical examiner’s testimony and gory posters of the victims to shock the jury. An enlarged photograph showed a pile of shattered black rock in a puddle of congealed blood.

Jean Ryu continued to grill the medical examiner, picking through each report for inconsistencies.

“You said earlier that your medical training did not cover chimeric biology. Would you agree that some of these so-called ‘victims’ were not even human?”

The medical examiner, a short Filipino woman with thick glasses, squirmed in her seat.

“Objection!” The prosecutor interrupted. “Chimerics are afforded all the rights and protections of the legal system. The charges of homicide still apply.”

The judge nodded. “Sustained.”

Ms. Ryu flicked open a folder on her desk. “How did you determine the cause of death for the rock creature known as Obsidian?”

The nightmare that haunted Lars’ mind resumed its endless loop. It was dumb luck that he’d been intangible when the first bullet came his way. He was taking a short cut through a brick wall when an angry lance of air pierced his body.

The bricks behind his head exploded in a cloud of red shrapnel. He flailed backwards in shock. A salvo of bullets tore through the wall, tracing the path of his head. He saw and heard nothing but shattering bricks. He dove through the wall and escaped.

He returned three sleepless days later to look for clues, with his teammate Obsidian. The stone-skinned giant laughed, “You can hide behind me, sissy.”

Lars was still intangible, a nervous red silhouette looking over his shoulder. He had seen Obsidian catch a live grenade and punch his way out of a burning high-rise. He took solace in the mountainous man’s gruff humor and felt safer in his large shadow.

Obsidian’s head erupted into a scarlet waterfall. His body toppled backwards onto Lars, who was frozen with shock. His friend’s corpse passed through him and shattered on the sidewalk. Lars stood hip-deep in blood-drenched stone.

The medical examiner scanned a copy of the report. “The victim, Benjamin Grimes, sustained a wound to his left eye with a corresponding larger exit wound in the base of the skull. Metallic fragments were lodged inside the skull, which forensics matched with a type of armor-piercing SLAP round. This evidence is consistent with a gunshot wound.”

Ms. Ryu held up her own copy of the medical report as if to show the jury. “On page six you stated that its skin was completely covered in stone. You write that it is unknown how it could move, avoid hyperthermia, or function like a real human body. How can you say for certain how it died…if you do not even understand how it was alive?”

The prosecutor tried to shout her down.

Lars shook his head, the bitter tang of disgust souring his face. Ben had died a hero. She was arguing like he wasn’t even human. It? He scanned the jurors. Were they swayed by her ignorance? Were they truly Hathcock’s peers, hating and fearing what they did not understand?

Rage flared through his body and his concentration wavered. He flickered into a semi-tangible form. His friends all died in front of him and he could do nothing but watch. He abandoned his team and avoided his friends. He became a prisoner inside his own house. He was unable to sleep, terrified that a bullet would smash through a window at any instant. He desperately clung to the safety of his intangible form. He was grief-stricken and powerless as an actual wraith.

Lars swooped around the courtroom and perched behind the judge to stare down upon Hathcock. The old man was now at his mercy.

Glabrous pulled the medical examiner out and brought up a ballistics expert to hit Ms. Ryu with cold hard numbers she wouldn’t be able to refute. It didn’t stop her from trying. They were finally going to debate the issue of Magnetar.

In his absence, Lars’ arch-nemesis Magnetar wreaked unchecked havoc upon the Anchor City. He uprooted bridges and held the commuter trains hostage until the Red Wraith showed himself. When that failed, he peeled the roof off the local TCA branch and jeered the fallen heroes. Mere recruits in training, nothing more.

Lars watched it all play out on the news from his home. This was the miracle he had waited for. He cackled with glee, waiting for the sniper to seal his own fate. He fantasized about the moment that Magnetar swatted a bullet aside, rooted out the sniper, and skewered him on his own smoking rifle.

“Mister Machowicz, you testified earlier that the criminal known as Magnetar was shot, yet the self-proclaimed ‘Master of Magnetism’ was infamous for deflecting bullets, even stopping them in mid-air. How, then, could my client have killed him with a single bullet?”

Lars had screamed that same question at his television and then curled up on the floor in tears. He didn’t mourn his old foe, but his death had been surprising on many levels. He shook off the memory and gave his full attention to the witness.

The tall ballistics expert leaned back and rubbed his bald head. “The only videos we have of Magnetar were from police encounters. They always announced themselves, never shot first, and used small caliber weapons. The sniper, on the other hand, did not announce himself. He did shoot first. He used a Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber rifle, which is bigger than you are.”

The defense attorney flailed her hands as she spoke. “So you believe Magnetar heard the rifle and chose not to block a single bullet?”

Mr. Machowicz stifled a quick laugh. “He never heard the shot. It came from over a mile away at three times the speed of sound, Ms. Ryu. And that single round was one of these.” He held up a round of ammunition that was nearly half a foot long. The gleaming rocket didn’t need a rifle to be intimidating. “A Raufoss MK 211. A combination armor-piercing, explosive, and incendiary round designed to take out armored vehicles.” Machowicz leaned forward and arched an eyebrow. “Even if Magnetar somehow sensed it instinctively, with his ‘magnetic field’ or whatever, it was too late. Deflection is still impact; impact detonated the high explosive payload and projected a cone of incendiary fuel at five-thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The guy was Rice Krispies.”

Poor bastard, Lars thought. He remembered the looping news reel of Magnetar gloating one moment and plummeting like a shooting star the next. He looked at Hathcock, expecting a cruel or gloating smile, but the old man merely nodded with dry, academic satisfaction.

Mr. Machowicz cleared his throat and sat straighter. “Finally, a tungsten carbide penetrator was launched from the round at 4,000 feet per second. As tungsten carbide is a non-ferrous metal blend, it was immune to magnetic fields. Any or all of these effects would have been lethal.”

Ms. Ryu stooped to read a question scrawled onto a legal pad by her wet-behind-the ears assistant. She stood and faced the jury. “How could my client possibly get military-grade ammunition, which you state is designed for destroying armored vehicles?”

He shrugged. “You can get it online, Ms. Ryu.”

A burly sheriff led the next witness to the stand, a sullen-looking girl with choppy black hair and drooping shoulders. Her hands were bound in cuffs and her delicate neck was encircled with a thick shock collar. She looked familiar, but Lars couldn’t place her. Her orange prison jumpsuit made it hard to remember what her original costume might have been.

The prosecutor jumped into his examination as soon as she hit the chair.

“Will you please state your name?”

“Crystal Waters.”

Someone in the jury chuckled softly. Her frown deepened.

“Before your present incarceration, you worked for Steven Ashler, the criminal who called himself Ocular, is that correct?”

“Yeah. Like an accomplice I guess, yeah.”

“And what was your alias?”

“You can call me Neptuna.”

The photographers quickly raised their cameras. She allowed herself a smile.

“You were with Ocular on May 27th of last year?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember Mister Ashler’s last words?”

“Sure, I mean…how could I forget? We were pulling a job uptown. Captain Mercury had found us, he was beating the crap out of Inferno. Steven and I were about to jet when he noticed something. He was always getting distracted because he could see for miles, right? So anyway, he tugged my arm and said, ‘Hey ‘Tuna, see that flash? There's an old fart on the Holtz Tower with a gun!’”

Her face fell. “Yeah, those were his last words.”

Lars clenched his jaw. Even in his spectral state he could feel his heart racing again. Each murder was carved into his senses and preserved like scar tissue. The angry wet slap. The crimson spray. The roar of thunder that rolled across the skin. Then came the portraits in scarlet, those final glimpses of his friends as their faces were warped into monsoons of ruptured tissue.

“Thank you, Ms. Waters. That will be all.” The sheriff escorted Neptuna away. Her dark eyes lingered on Hathcock. Lars toyed with the idea of snapping her shock collar to see what she would do to the old man. The thought was obliterated by a delicious thrill of anticipation. Vengeance belonged to The Red Wraith alone.

Alec Glabrous plucked a phrase out of the air and held it between his hands to focus the jury’s attention. “Holtz Tower.”

He peered at the jurors. “One of several high-rise office buildings in the downtown area, all managed by Madison Properties.” He pointed dramatically at the defendant. “All supervised by Facilities Manager Timothy Hathcock.”

He called the detective in charge of the sniper investigation to the stand. Detective Khan’s black suit and tie were as somber as his clean-shaven face. Lars glared at the monolithic figure with contempt.

Khan was the poster boy for the metro police. Civilians and chimerics had unleashed a blistering storm of outrage and criticism against the department. The frothing media poured gasoline onto the firestorm of hysteria. The DCD swamped the investigation in red tape. The crimes themselves had been unpredictable and unstoppable. In the end, Detective Khan accomplished what Lars could not.

The prosecutor pounded the facts home like coffin nails. “Since March 8th, twenty-three chimerics have been murdered, all of them killed by a high-powered rifle, correct?”

Detective Khan leaned forward into the microphone. “That is correct.”

“When did the police realize there was a sniper at work?”

“The first regular human fatality was the caped vigilante Desmodus. It was easily identifiable as the work of a high-powered rifle. We went back and searched former murder scenes, namely those of Arrow, The Cocoonist, and Human Tornado, for more evidence. We recovered .50 caliber slugs or shrapnel at each location.”

“And how did your department close in on the sniper?”

“Ballistics data indicated that the shots were fired from distances of one half-mile to one mile away, from the upper floors or roofs of tall buildings. These findings were consistent with a military scout/sniper team using a .50 caliber rifle. We compiled a list of all city residents from foreign and domestic police or military units with sniper training.”

Lars paced the audience and fumed. The polished detective made it sound as easy as filling out a crossword puzzle. He wasn’t a chimeric. He had not been splashed with his friend’s blood. He did not have to live with the feel of crosshairs on the back of his neck.

The prosecutor pointed at the old man. “And was Timothy Hathcock on your list of suspects?”

“Yes, sir. Timothy Hathcock is a sniper.”

“Objection!” Ms. Ryu glared at the prosecutor. “My client’s service was over forty years ago. That does not mean he is currently a sniper.”

The judge leaned in with interest. “Sustained.”

The prosecutor smoothed his suit jacket. “Tell us about Timothy Hathcock’s military record.”

Detective Khan recited from memory. “Mister Hathcock enlisted in the U.S. Marines at age 18. He attended the 1st Marine Division Scout/Sniper School at Camp Pendleton and graduated with top marks before shipping out to Vietnam.”

Lars loomed behind the old man. This trial was taking too long. The court was supposed to condemn Hathcock, not list his life history and achievements.

“How many confirmed kills did Mister Hathcock have?”

Ms. Ryu sputtered. “Objection! I don’t see how this is relevant!”

“Your Honor, I am establishing character and Modus Operandi. If Mister Hathcock was a conscientious objector or a lousy shot it would certainly have bearing on the case.”

“Overruled.” The judge regarded Mr. Hathcock with morbid curiosity.

Alec Glabrous turned and gave Ms. Ryu a wink. She clenched her fists at her side but kept her face neutral. The prosecutor gave Detective Khan the nod.

“Sergeant Hathcock had 92 confirmed kills.”

A gasp went through the crowd. Hathcock awkwardly folded his handcuffed arms across his chest. Lars gaped at the old man. He’d killed a hundred and fifteen people?

The prosecutor smiled. “And isn’t it common knowledge that military snipers have far more unconfirmed kills than confirmed kills? How high do you think Hathcock’s body count really is?”

“Objection! Conjecture!” Ms. Ryu shouted.

“Sustained,” the judge said with a hint of disappointment.

“In addition to his 92 confirmed kills, what else did Sgt. Hathcock achieve during his time in the military?”

“He pioneered the use of the Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun as a sniper weapon.”

The crowd murmured and the jurors nodded. Ryu became a tornado of activity, scribbling notes on yellow pads and hissing to her assistant, who was juggling folders and spilling documents. Hathcock sat still as a statue.

The prosecutor continued. “Tell us about the day you apprehended Timothy Hathcock.”

“We got an alert on the Shot Spotter, the microphone network that detects gun shots. We responded to the roof of the Markway Plaza building. There we found Mister Hathcock with a .50 caliber sniper rifle.”

A chorus of creaks and shuffles spread through the courtroom as murmuring people shifted in their seats.

Alex Glabrous sauntered to the jury box and spoke softly. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Timothy Hathcock, expert sniper with 92 confirmed kills, found by police at the scene of the crime with a smoking gun. We have not touched upon Mister Hathcock’s motive for committing these atrocities. He has chosen not to take the stand in his own defense, so we have only a final piece of evidence to present.”

Mr. Glabrous held up a photo of a silver-haired woman. “Mary Anne Hathcock, devoted wife and doting mother, tragically killed last year by the chimeric Magnetar, leaving behind a grieving husband and son.”

Lars shook his head. Magnetar had caused all this? How strange that his old nemesis had signed his own death warrant and found a replacement in the same stroke.

“Revenge is the oldest motive in the world. I sympathize with Mister Hathcock, as everyone here surely does. What I can’t understand is why he kept reloading that rifle. I can’t understand why there were twenty-two more victims. Those were not crimes of passion. Those were methodically-planned and executed murders. He was hunting people. This was revenge on a Biblical scale, by a man who perched on the highest tower, looking down on us and deciding who lives and who dies.”

Hathcock stood up, and the entire courtroom jumped. The bailiff lurched forward, almost dropping his weapon in alarm.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man said, freezing the prosecutor with an icy stare.

Ms. Ryu and her assistant tried to guide him back into his chair, but he shook them off. “Your Honor,” Hathcock said to the judge, “I’d like to set the record straight.”

Ms. Ryu whispered urgently in Hathcock’s ear. He shook his head no.

“Very well,” said the judge, then told the bailiff to escort Mr. Hathcock to the witness stand. Everyone in the courtroom sat still, afraid the old tiger might still pounce. The marine sat straight as he was sworn in.

Lars floated to the front row. This was the closest either of them had ever been to the other. How many times had Hathcock watched him through the scope of a rifle? Did the old man know that now he was the one being watched by an invisible enemy?

Ms. Ryu spoke slowly for the first time that day. “Mister Hathcock, you had a correction for the record?”

Hathcock glared at Alec Glabrous. “Yes. Magnetar killed my wife, but he wasn’t alone. He was in that bank fighting The Red Wraith. Magnetar threw a vault door at the so-called ‘hero’ and he turned intangible. That’s what killed my Mary Anne. That’s why I still hold the Wraith responsible for her death.”

Lars remembered it had been an epic brawl. He can’t say he remembered the old woman, though.

Ms. Ryu seized on his words. “The prosecution alleged that your motive was revenge, yet you haven’t been accused of killing The Red Wraith, have you?”

“No. But I certainly tried.”

Lars nodded with grim satisfaction. Hathcock had revealed his murderous face to the public at last.

The photographers jostled for position. Ms. Ryu begged for a recess. Alec Glabrous shed his smooth exterior and went after her like an unleashed pit bull. Hathcock sat patiently at attention and waited while the legal system twisted and thrashed around him. When order was eventually restored, the judge informed Hathcock of his options.

The old marine nodded. “I’ll change my plea, but not until everyone hears me out. Anchor City used to be one of the safest in the country, until the first muscle head put on a mask and declared himself a superhero. That opened the floodgates. Overnight the criminally insane started flocking here to compete for the limelight. The level of crime went through the roof.”

Lars watched the jury nod and nearly screamed. Hathcock had all of his facts wrong. Had they forgotten his confession? Did they agree with this mass murderer?

“None of these ‘heroes’ prevented crime,” the old marine went on, “they just fought it. They disrupted society, marginalized the forces of law and order, and used that chaos to justify their presence. It was a quagmire. The police couldn’t arrest my wife’s murderers. The legal system couldn’t give me justice. My son and I suffered just like you. We were all left powerless, forced to cower in awe and fear. That’s why we…why I… chose to engage the enemy.”

Mr. Glabrous grinned as the clerk typed every word of Hathcock’s confession. Ms. Ryu sat at her desk and wilted.

Hathcock looked at the jury. “I tried to send a clear message when I killed Magnetar, but it didn’t matter. The villains weren’t afraid because they were crazy! Finally, I put a couple rounds into the heroes and the whole game changed. They all went into hiding and, just like that, the crazies stopped wearing masks. We cleaned up the last few stragglers, and when it was done I waited for the police to pick me up.”

The prosecutor approached the witness box. “You knew what you had done was wrong, so you allowed yourself to be caught?”

Hathcock scowled. “It was illegal. I never said it was wrong. I got justice for humanity the only way I could. When the mission was over, I didn’t want people to be afraid. I wanted normal people to turn on the news and see that their police had caught the sniper. I wanted a court of law to decide my fate. That’s all I have to say. I plead guilty to all charges.”

Lars trembled in anticipation. Should he do it now? No, pleading guilty wasn’t enough. Hathcock needed to be judged as a terrorist and mass murderer. He would wait until the man was publicly condemned.

#

Throngs of people waited outside to hear the verdict. Reporters lined the steps and pressed against steel barricades. Mobs of supporters waved signs over their heads and shouted slurs at the costumed chimerics that patrolled the scene. The Anchor City skyline flared orange and unfurled its shadow across the courthouse as the sun set beneath a clear sky and gilded the marble steps.

A circle of police officers formed a blue wall around Hathcock. His back and neck were straight and his grey eyes were focused. He wore his bulky bulletproof vest and starched orange jumpsuit like a soldier marching in his dress blues. He looked like the commanding officer of the group, not a condemned prisoner.

Lars congealed into a shimmering red silhouette inside the huddle of police. The officers jumped back or fell in panic. Hathcock did not flinch.

“Greetings, citizens! The Red Wraith returns! You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Evil will never go unpunished as long as I am here.”

Lars slipped his hand through the bulletproof vest and the flesh and bone beneath. He curled his vaporous fingers around Hathcock’s heart and made himself denser, crushing the squirming lump in his fist. People in the crowd recoiled and crashed backwards against reporters, who were pushing to get closer. Chimeric heroes came from all directions, and a woman screamed.

Hathcock’s lips struggled to form his last words. “Do it, son…T-take the…”

“Who are you talking to, you murdering bastard?” Lars sneered.

Hathcock’s bloody mouth flickered with a brief smile. “My son…my s-side-k…”

Sidekick?

The Red Wraith’s head exploded into a crimson mist. The crowd watched in mute horror. Then a sharp report echoed across the courthouse steps like the peal of thunder.

Lars and Hathcock collapsed together and tumbled down the stairs.