Ellis looked grim. “Stay on this, son. It’s a big deal. We can’t have folks attacking our bases, blowing things up, and hurtin’ people. See my aide, get the contact information for our computer people.”
The general stood. The audience was over.
Jay also stood. Well, he had gone up against a lot of clever bad guys, and he had always come out on top. He figured he’d manage to run this one down, too—well, maybe once he got a nice, long nap in, anyway. . . .
Net Force Shooting Range
Quantico, Virginia
“What you shooting there, General? An old hogleg?”
John Howard smiled at Abe Kent. “Well, General, sir, it is a revolver, but it’s not exactly an antique.”
Kent moved over to stand next to Howard, and the two men looked at the handgun Howard had just put on the shooting bench. Before he had moved on, Howard had held the position Kent now had—head of Net Force’s military arm. Though now that they were being run by the Marines instead of the National Guard, it was a horse of a different color, sure enough. Kent and Howard went way back. The reason Kent even had the job was that John had gone to bat for him.
Howard lifted the pistol and held it out to Kent. It was deeply blued, almost black, and had a barrel that appeared to be rectangular rather than round, with some fancy engraving on the cylinder, which was unfluted. The grip was carved wood, with finger grooves.
“Nice.”
“It’s a Skorpion,” Howard said. “Made by Roger Hunziker and finished by Gary Reeder. Reeder puts out some of the best custom guns in the country, if not the world. This one is multicaliber. It’ll shoot .38’s, .38 Special, 9mm, .357 Magnums, even .380 auto if you’re desperate—got these neat spring devices in the chambers, lines the ammo up properly. The original design was a little different, called a Medusa, from Phillips & Rodgers, down in Texas. They got into other things—our electronic hearing protectors? Those are made by Hunziker, same guy who built the Medusa. They realized they could do better by producing parts and electronics. Most of the DoD’s headphones come from them. Crank up the electronics, you can hear a mouse sneeze across the street, yet still cut off the noise of a shot. Great if you’re a hunter out in the woods listening for game. Smart move on his part, given the diminishing gun culture. But the revolver design was good enough that Reeder picked it up for a little while. I had a Medusa, but I lent it to a friend in the Army who got posted to South America as an advisor in one of the drug wars.”
Howard paused for a few seconds. “He didn’t make it back,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“How it goes when you put on the uniform.”
Kent nodded. He knew.
“Anyway, I went looking for a replacement, and found this. Captain Fernandez is always giving me a hard time about old tech, but I’m a wheelgunner.”
“Nothing wrong with that. If it comes down to side arms in battle, you’re gonna be in deep shit anyhow, doesn’t much matter which one you have.”
“I dunno. You ever read Ed McGivern’s book Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“He was a trick shooter, back in the 1930s. He could throw a big juice can up in the air, nail it six times with a double-action revolver before it hit the ground. Used to have two guys throw up two cans each at the same time, he’d hit all four of ’em on the way down. Could cut a playing card thrown at him edge-on in half in the air. When he was in a real hurry, he could crank off five rounds into a hand-sized target in two fifths of a second, using a standard S&W .38 Special right out of the box. Not nearly as much gun as this one.” He waved at the Skorpion.
“No kidding?”
“That was just the fancy up-close stuff. With a little more power—a .357 Magnum or a .38-44? He could keep all the hits on a man-sized target at more than two hundred and fifty meters. Man says he can’t hit anything with a handgun? Not the gun’s fault, nor God’s.”
“Don’t start that again,” Kent said, but he smiled to show it was a joke.
Howard returned the smile. “I’m telling you, Abe, our church is different.”
“I’ve heard that one before. Right up there with people trying to set me up on a blind date saying, ‘She’s got a great personality.’ ”
Howard laughed. “Speaking of which, my wife has this friend. . . .”
Kent groaned. “Don’t go down that road, John. Please.”
Howard laughed again.
“So, let’s see if you can shoot this here antique.”
“You ain’t got much room to talk, old son. That slab-side Colt has been around for a while, too.”
Both men laughed.
Gunny’s amplified voice said, “You better leave that fancy shootin’ iron with me to get the smart-gun electronics installed, General, sir.”
“Bullshit I will,” Howard said under his breath. “Mess up a perfectly good gun with all that safety crap?”
“I heard that, sir,” Gunny said. “It’s regulations.”
“Not for me, it isn’t!” Howard yelled. “I don’t work for you anymore. The rule doesn’t say any piece that comes into the range has to be screwed up, only the ones that Net Force ops carry! And I’m not even sure that applies to the military anyhow!”
“I don’t think you have to yell, John,” Abe Kent said. “I do believe our shooting bench is bugged.”
“He’s right,” Gunny said. He added a nasty smoker’s laugh.
“Them cigarettes are going to kill you, Gunny, if I don’t beat them to it!” Howard said.
“Let’s shoot. We can pretend the targets are Gunny.”
“I heard that. Sirs.”
3
University of Maryland Sports Center Annex
University Park, Maryland
With Marissa Lowe seated next to him on the bleachers watching the fencers, Thorn was about as happy as he figured a man could get. A beautiful woman who loved him and was willing to marry him, a warm seat watching a bunch of top competitors fencing with foils, épées, and sabers, and no place else he had to be. Life was good.
“When is Jamal supposed to come up?” Marissa asked.
“Pretty soon,” Thorn said. “Ah, there he is now—over there.” He pointed.
“He’s black,” she said.
“So are you, last time I looked.”
“You didn’t mention that before.”
“You didn’t know you were black?”
“I will hit you, Tommy.”
“Okay, okay, I didn’t want you overcome with adoration.”
He smiled, but she punched him in the shoulder anyhow.
“Ow. You CIA types are all brute force and violence, aren’t you?”
“With a word in the right ear, I can have you knee-capped, Tommy.”
He laughed. Funny. Smart. Beautiful. Couldn’t get much better than that, could it? She even liked fencing, though she had just started learning herself.