“I can only offer you an outlet to talk about what you’re feeling, help you understand why you’re feeling it, and let you know it’s okay. But I can’t get rid of the pain.”
Uzi sat down heavily in his chair. “You mean you’re giving me permission to feel guilty?”
“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that, but I guess the answer would be, yes.” Rudnick tilted his head. “Tell me about her.”
Uzi blew air through pursed lips. “Her brother was killed by Hamas in an ambush.”
“So you two have an instant bond, common ground. You can feel what she feels. Such bonds can make for a solid foundation on which to base a relationship.”
Uzi looked away.
“Tell me more about her.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Sounds to me like you aren’t ready to admit you’re attracted to another woman.”
If only it were that simple. “It’s more than that, doc. We… made love. Last night.”
“I see.”
“I mean, how can I tell the difference between love and just being hard up? You can talk about ‘bonds’ and ‘solid foundations,’ but maybe I’m just horny after not having been with a woman for six years. I mean, I let down my guard and I’m suddenly in bed with a woman.”
“Letting down your guard is a good thing. Sooner or later, it had to happen. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Who would’ve thought six years later the guilt would still be so fresh?”
“Some people go through their entire lives lugging around excess baggage, never learning how to let go. Never coming to terms with it. You’re just now finding out how. You might want to feel proud of yourself rather than guilty.” Rudnick put the palms of his hands together in front of his nose. “I make it a point not to tell my patients how to feel, but rather steer them, help them figure out how to feel on their own. So I apologize for steering you a little bit strongly there.
“But I want you to view your actions positively, not negatively. We only get one go-round in life, Uzi. You’ve seen how fleeting it can be. Here today, gone tomorrow. Don’t let yesterday’s pain become tomorrow’s sorrow. It’s healthy to move on. Not to learn how to forget, but to learn how to remember. Remember constructively, Uzi, not destructively.” He stopped to appraise his patient. “But I think you’ve finally figured it out for yourself.”
Uzi sat there, absorbing every word Rudnick was saying. Learn how to remember. Maybe that’s the key. He sucked in his breath, rose from the chair and extended a hand to his doctor. Rudnick stood and shook it.
“Thanks,” Uzi said.
“I’m just here to listen and give you some perspective. The rest you’re doing on your own.”
Uzi arrived at the Hoover Building shortly after eight. Moments later he was exiting the elevator on the fourth floor, where the lab was located. He entered the sprawling facility and saw Tim Meadows sitting in front of a monitor, clicking through a pictorial catalog of rifles and rounds. An iPad sat propped up a smidgen to the right of his screen, a writing stylus lying beside it and electronic notes scrawled across the virtual yellow pad.
As Uzi neared, he noticed that Meadows was wearing a pair of small headphones with a molded band that conformed to the back of his head. Uzi pulled them off and slipped them over his own ears. “What is this?”
Meadows grabbed back his headphones. “You’re shouting.”
“You’ve got the volume cranked.”
“You crank rock music,” Meadows said. “This is New Age. By turning up the gain, the ethereal sense of being in the woods, or lounging by the ocean, is that much more sensual.”
Uzi scrunched his brow, then indicated the screen. “Can we put the forest and ocean aside for a moment and talk about more gut-wrenching topics, like large-caliber rounds?”
Meadows frowned. “You’ve got a violent streak, you know that? A lot of bottled up hostility. Ever consider taking meditation classes?”
“I’ll put it on my To Do list. After I break this case. But that’s got no chance of happening if you don’t start talking.”
“You should cut a guy some slack. It’s Sunday, okay?”
“Tim. The rounds.”
“Okay, the rounds. Here’s what I’ve got.” He swiveled in his chair, facing Uzi head on. “Wait. If I give you this, and it’s real helpful, you owe me dinner, remember?”
“For doing your job?”
“Doing my job means you get the report in a couple of weeks, not overnight.”
Uzi grabbed a chair to his left and sat down. “Dinner, fine.” Didn’t I already agree to that?
“O-kayyy,” Meadows said gleefully, spinning in his seat like a kid on a counter stool in an ice cream shop. He faced his monitor, then hit a few keys. A highly magnified image filled the screen. “This, my friend, is a bullet.”
Uzi’s gaze shifted from the high-resolution photo to Meadows. “No shit.”
“Not just any bullet, Uzi. It’s your bullet. It’s what would be inside the brass casing you recovered at the scene last night.”
“And what does it tell you?”
“Well it brought up some very interesting challenges. First of all, it’s Russian.”
“Russian. You sure?”
Meadows gave him a look. “Yes, I’m sure. Look at the shape of the cartridge. Right here,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Russian cartridge has a rimmed case. American doesn’t.”
Uzi nodded. “Okay. So it’s Russian. Type of weapon?”
“Traditional army-issue Russian sniper rifle is the Dragunov SVD. It’s not considered to be the best choice because it’s a semi-auto, and inherently less accurate than a bolt action. A new high-quality Russian bolt-action rifle was designed in 1998, the SV-98. Here’s where it gets interesting. The SV-98 is chambered for either 7.62 x 54mmR or 7.62 x 51mm NATO rounds. The 54 mmR round isn’t used in many other rifles. The 51 NATO, however, is very common.”
“And my casing fits… which?”
“The fifty-four.”
“Less common. Good,” Uzi said. “But how rare are we talking about?”
Meadows struck another key. A different photo appeared. “The fifty-four is common to only two rifles, the SV-98 and the obsolete Russian/Finnish Mosin-Nagant. The Mosin-Nagant was the Eastern Block sniper rifle in World War Two. Both rifles have four lands and grooves in the barrel, and the rifling in both rifles twists to the right. The difference between these two rifles is that the SV-98 has a barrel twist rate of one in twelve-point-six inches, and the Mosin-Nagant has a twist rate of one in nine-point-five inches.”
Uzi looked at Meadows again. “How do you keep all this shit straight — I mean, how many hats do you wear?”
Meadows leaned close. “I gotta confess, Uzi. You know me, mister honesty. When it got down to the nitty-gritty I had to ask a buddy of mine next door. I got the Mosin-Nagant but I couldn’t accept it. It didn’t seem to fit. I was racking my brain till he told me about the SV-98.”
“So a Russian SV-98,” Uzi said, rubbing his chin with the back of his right hand.
“Probably. I did some checking with the ME, found out the round he recovered from your friend Bishop had a one-to-twelve-point-six twist ratio. That’s why I say ‘probably,’ because it’s possible to have a gunsmith change the chambering on a rifle to almost anything within reason. Just to throw us off.”
Uzi chewed on his lip. “What’s the most likely?”
“Depends on who you’re dealing with, but if you’re looking for ways to focus, I’d say you’d have to be dealing with someone who really knows his shit — and who doesn’t want to get caught.”
“None of ’em want to get caught, Tim. But maybe they’ve got significant exposure — in other words, they’re easily connected to the rifle. This is a way of disguising themselves.”