As a young boy—before my misadventure in the woods—I remember playing in my grandfather’s leather travel bag. It had a similar look and I remember the straps and particularly the sparkling buckles that tink-tink-tinked when you slapped them together. I was small enough—or the bag was big enough—that I could sit inside and pretend it was a submarine. When the captain gave the order to dive, I’d pull the flap over the top and plunge the inside into darkness, which usually lasted no more than four or five seconds before we resurfaced for air and light.
The smell was the same.
Adventure. Misadventure. Trouble and travel.
When I saw this particular bag on eBay five years ago, the lump in my chest decided for me. I probably overbid—I know I overbid—but I had to have it. When it arrived on my doorstep three days later, I was amazed at how it had shrunk since I was a kid. But this isn’t the same bag as Grandfather’s, I reminded myself.
But the smell; it was all over the bag.
Dusky. Musky. Earth.
Sweet and dry and sharp, tickling the nose.
Some, upon receiving such a memory-jolting item, a face-slapper, might have tried to once again sit inside the bag as they did in their earliest years. Others might have sat quietly in the dark during the longest hour of night and held the bag to their chest, breathing in the leather, a thousand memories of a grandfather lost too early rolling around in their head until finally condensed into a small company of soldier tears.
Some might have.
Pulling the bag from the half nook that the hotel tries to pass off as a closet, I set it on the bed, unbuckle the straps, and start fishing around at the bottom. I’ve become a Zen master of packing over the years, so it takes only seconds to find it.
It’s light in my hand; heavy on my conscience.
Removing the Walther P22 semiautomatic from its plastic carry case, I set it naked upon the bed. Next I retrieve the holster, followed by two loaded magazines. Closing the bag, I stuff it back into the half nook. After checking the load on each magazine, I slide one into the grip and chamber a round.
There’s something about the shushing sound of a slide ramming home, driving a round into the chamber, prepping it for a flight it may or may not take. It’s both reassuring and frightening in one metallic whump.
Some of my compatriots in law enforcement laugh at my Walther P22. That’s okay. I don’t mind. Sure, a Glock has more stopping power, and it looks really cool and intimidating, but I like the feel of my P22. I’m comfortable with it. Yes, it only fires a .22-caliber round, but if you use the right ammo it can be a nasty little gun. And I always use the right ammo.
Like my life depends on it.
Fortunately, I’ve only had to fire the Walther once in the line of duty. Usually Jimmy’s there to handle that sort of thing, but in this case he’d stepped away for a few minutes—too much coffee; another reason I don’t like the stuff.
I remember it was early November, but the name of the area escapes me. It was in Vermont, though. I remember that. The air was crisp as glass, so cold that it burned your throat on the way to punishing your lungs. White mist poured from your mouth with each breath, followed by a sucking sound and then more white mist. You could feel the cold biting through one layer of clothes after another, working its way in.
I remember it well.
And the shine: calico tapioca. Like something a cat would hhwoolps up on the carpet. Though in this case the carpet was made of snow and the hhwoolsping cat was a six-foot-six Irishman named Pat McCourt.
The remote lakeside cabin might have been mistaken for abandoned save for the thin column of gray smoke pulling at the chimney. We hadn’t expected to actually find him there … meaning our backup was an hour away … meaning we had to hunker down in the cold and just wait … and wait … and wait.
Good times.
Then Jimmy’s coffee decided it wanted out—and now, dammit!—and about ten seconds after he disappeared behind a thicket to relieve himself, Pat McCourt trudged out of the woods with a recently expired pheasant dangling from one hand and an over-under double-barrel in the other.
He was so close I could smell the Jack Daniel’s on his lips and the stench of his clothes, rank from cold perspiration.
For a slow-motion second we just stared at each other; each startled in a different way. I’m sure that’s the only reason I was able to draw down on him and fire first, though I felt the air move over my head as the shotgun unloaded. When it was all over, I remember standing in snow pulling the trigger over and over again, but nothing was happening. The magazine was empty and Pat McCourt was sprawled motionless on red snow.
I later learned that my first shot took off McCourt’s trigger finger, three more shots went wild, another found his right arm, another his left eye—that was the money shot, the death blow, the eye for an eye. Where the remaining rounds went I never learned.
It didn’t matter.
Jimmy likes to tell people about my shoot-out with Pat McCourt, how I shot the guy’s trigger finger right off. A million-dollar shot! he tells them, like I was Wild Bill Hickok or Wyatt Earp. I’m guessing Hickok and Earp didn’t puke their guts out into the steaming snow after a shooting. Or maybe they leave that part out of the history books.
Regardless, my gun saved me that day.
Clipping the holster to my belt, I slide the Walther home and lock it down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
July 1, 10:39 A.M.
“It’s a first-edition, first-printing,” my brother’s voice drones over the phone. “I asked him twice. He said it’s got the six blurbs on the back and no price on the front flap.”
“And it has the eighteen lines of text on the copyright page?”
“That’s what he said,” Jens replies.
I’ve been looking for a true first edition of The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy’s debut novel and the book that launched a new genre of techno-thrillers. It was also the first work of fiction published by the Naval Institute Press.
The first printing consisted of five thousand copies, and the book quickly proved popular with submariners in particular, and sailors in general. As such, these early copies had a rough life. Ripped and stained dust jackets, broken spines, water damage, and missing pages were just a few of the horrors that awaited them. Finding a mint copy at a decent price has been a challenge since Clancy died.