Matt had heard rumors of the torture chambers under the complex, and was extremely surprised with Natasha lead him down endless dark damp stairs right to the bottom.
She was casually dressed in jeans and a button-up shirt. One more button was undone than yesterday, showing off her ample cleavage. Matt reluctantly glanced away from the view, feeling that it would be better to keep some distance from this woman, despite the undercurrent of attraction that he felt, and hoped was mutual.
There was a steel door that Natasha opened with two keys and they found themselves at the start of a long stone corridor with what looked like cells on each side.
Next, she opened the second door on the left and the cell was full of heavy filing cabinets. Once again Natasha selected the correct key, and he pulled open the old cabinet which groaned under the weight of the drawer that slid out.
"Matt, what sort of weapon do you normally carry?" asked Natasha.
"My regular sidearm is a Browning 9mm, what do you prefer?" queried Matt.
"I like my Russian Yarygin, it is the most advanced pistol ever designed, seventeen rounds per clip" said Natasha proudly, as she rifled through the drawer. She found a used Browning 9mm and threw it to Matt.
Matt nearly dropped the pistol in surprise, but managed to grab on to it at the last second, and stuff it under his belt behind his back. Natasha also passed Matt a box containing ten empty magazines, together with and a box of Winchester hollow point ammunition.
"Thanks Natasha, I was not sure I would be permitted to carry a weapon in Russia" said Matt.
"Actually, you are not permitted to be armed, but since it will just be you and me, I want you armed so you can back me up if we get into and trouble" explained the Russian girl.
Matt was beginning to become concerned, he was expecting to just be the U.S. eyes and ears, he was expecting Russians to do the dirty work.
"The people we must track down will be easily spooked so we will work alone" said Natasha in perfect colloquial American.
"Where did you ever learn to speak English with a US accent, did you study in the U.S.?"
"No, actually I am an honors graduate from University of Moscow, where I majored in U.S. culture, it has the best US program in the world!" said the Russian proudly.
"Wow" chuckled Matt "that is a well kept secret".
Without a word, Natasha led Mat into another cell further down the hall and opened an unlocked door. Inside about six cells had been opened up to create a state of the art pistol range. There were individual shooting bays with baffles in between and motorized wires to take the targets down range.
"Before we leave Moscow, my American friend, you must prove to me that you are capable of being my backup. We start now." she explained.
"Look Natasha" said the bored American, "I regularly qualify on the CIA range, in fact, I have the top scores in my section, I grew up in Texas, and my dad owned a gun shop, I could shoot before I could ride a bicycle."
"Excellent, then this will not take too long. Show me what you can do."
Natasha inserted a man sized cardboard target into a bulldog clip on the top. Then she pressed a button and the target ran out to about fifteen yards on the wire. She then sent another three down range in the other empty bays.
Matt grabbed a pair of earmuffs off a hook and tossed another set to Natasha. Then he thumbed eight rounds into an empty clip, inserted it into the butt of the Browning, then pulled back the slide to insert a round into the chamber and cock the firing pin.
He took careful aim. Then he slowly fired all 8 rounds into a three inch circle, all in the heart region of the target.
"Not bad" said Natasha, "now do it faster."
Matt repeated the procedure, he fired all eight rounds in twelve seconds. The group of shots had widened considerably, into about a six inch circle. One just made paper.
"What do you think Natasha?" said the American proudly.
"I think we are dead" whispered Natasha. "Watch me, I will demonstrate."
She turned around facing away from the targets, took two slow breaths, then in a blur, she spun around, drawing her Yarygin from the holster under her arm, cocked the weapon, and fired six shots through the head of the target in less than four seconds.
Then she screamed and bent over, swearing loudly in a foreign tongue. Matt had no idea what was happening.
"Are you ok Natasha?"
"Shut up and turn around!" screamed Natasha.
Matt did as instructed.
Matt could hear her rearranging her clothes but politely faced away from her until she told him that he could face her again.
"You can turn around now" said Natasha.
When Matt noticed her doing up her top button as he turned, he asked what happened.
"One of the hot bullet casings bounced off the baffle and fell down the front of my shirt. It burnt my tit!" Natasha grimaced in pain "I have heard of this happening before, but I never imagined it could happen to me, especially now." She trailed off, embarrassment now taking over as her anger abated. She blushed slightly as she realized that her hand had found its way into her shirt and was cradling her injured breast.
Matt could not hold back his amusement at her predicament and laughed. He was becoming increasingly awed by this woman, the blend of subtle femininity and profound professionalism that she embodied was an enigma and he knew he was going to enjoy working with her.
Natasha, on the other hand was not amused "How about I put a hot casing in your shorts and see if you think that is funny."
In her eyes however, Matt saw a glimpse of mischief which betrayed her angry expression.
"Ok, I am sorry. Occupational hazard for female officers I guess," suggested Matt.
To ease the tension, Matt pushed the button and Natasha’s target came back towards him.
He was jerked back to reality when he realized what he had just witnessed. Matt had often observed the best CIA marksman on the range at Langley, but he had never seen anything even close to what the beautiful Russian girl had just done.
All Mat could mumble was "Oh my God! Teach me to do that!"
"Only if you teach me how to use my computer, I have heard you are an expert" said Natasha.
"You have a deal" said Matt as he stuck his hand out to seal the arrangement.
He passed the Browning back to Natasha "can I get a Yarygin too, that thing is awesome?"
"Sorry but these are hard to get" mentioned Natasha.
"It would be safer if we both used the same weapon so we could share clips in an emergency."
Natasha could not find fault with Matt’s reasoning.
"Ok, I will find one for you before we start here again tomorrow. In the meantime, try mine."
"Hold on target for the first shot, then hold lower for the rest. That way when you lower the gun back on target and pull the trigger, you will jerk it back to the right place. It sounds stupid, but it works."
Matt was a willing student, but changing his whole style of shooting was quite a battle. By the end of the day, he had perfected getting the weapon drawn and getting the shots down range in a hurry. The bad news was that most shots missed the target completely!
It took four days and nearly a thousand rounds of lead down the range before he could put all the rounds consistently on the target, but the spread of the bullets was still quite embarrassing.
"That will do" said Natasha, "it is time to go hunting."
"But my shots are still pretty widely spaced" mused Matt.
"Don’t worry. You are doing much better than most agents. I am usually quite modest, but I won the gold medal for the rapid fire event at the last Olympic Games."
"Wow! I don’t think I would like to have you as an enemy!"