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Friday, Oct. 11, 2002 - 11:14 a.m.

The most dangerous game

When I was younger, occassionally the darkness would get the better of me. Back in those grade-school days when my parents first started letting me be home alone and darkness fell on my quiet town of Little Silver, I'd walk through the house and feel my heart race as I passed a window, nothing but blackness on the other side. I remember being particularly wary of the one in the bathroom upstairs, where when standing at the toilet, my head and shoulders were visible across the backyard � and to four or five houses adjacent to ours and along the sidestreet nearby. Occassionally, I would have a moment of ridiculous panic and imagine someone far off in the darkness training a gun on me.

That must be what it feels like in and around Washington lately. (As I went to find that link, by the way, I clicked on a different one in error � and read of another shooting a little more than an hour ago.)

Reading the story, I tried to imagine what residents of the area are going through, not knowing if it's safe to get gas, wash the car, mow the lawn, even simply sit on a bench. With the exception of one shooting just barely within the boundaries of The District (i.e., Washington, D.C.), each attack has come in the suburbs, in the bedroom communities of middle-class people going about their daily lives. None of the victims have been officials of any kind, up-front and obvious pillars of the community. They haven't even been any of the employees at the various establishments � three gas stations, a craft store, a school, a car wash � they've been customers, and a student. It's like shooting a deer as it approaches a stream to take a drink.

And that's what this sniper is doing: Hunting. I used to think that Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game was one of the best stories I'd read in grade school. I thought it was a fascinating piece of fiction.

Not so much anymore.

With � apparently � a white-panel minivan as his duck blind, someone is stalking the people of the Washington Metro area in their natural habitat. Only, whereas the woods are quiet and serene and the smallest step can crack a twig and startle nearby wildlife, this hunter hides among the "mundane chaos" of everyday life. Ordinarily, a vehicle as banal as a white minivan wouldn't be noticed. Around Washington this past week, such a ride is as noticable as a lemon-yellow Lamborghini. White vans are getting pulled over left and right; police cars are screaming down residential streets.

A friend of mine left his job in publishing over the summer to take classes and begin preparing for a life in law enforcement, perhaps with an eye toward joining the FBI somewhere down the line. He told me the other day that his classes have been noticably emptier this last week, with even some students out in the field � literally � crawling around in the grass looking for clues.

If cop shows � and their technical consultants � have taught us anything since Hill Street Blues (though these events seem to come right from a storyline of Homicide: Life on the Street ��episodes 41 and 42, season four), it's that as time goes on and these criminals get overconfident, and then careless. If the tarot card left at the scene in Bowie, Md., is legit, now he's getting cocky. If he's still driving around in a white minivan, he's getting careless.

Eventually, he will be caught.

Hopefully, it will be soon.

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