called things like Blackmail Lane, or Stitch Them Up Big Time Street.
I carried on along Yadkin until it took me off base, past Kim's No. I Sewing, Susie J's (I wasn't too sure what service she was offering) and whole blocks of military supply shops. There was one I remembered, called U.S. Cavalry. It had been a complete department store for the start your-own-war nut, glass counters displaying sharp, pointy things, racks of BDUs, military T-shirts and combat helmets, rows and rows of boots, and shelves of posters and books with such politically correct titles as Ragnar s Big Book of Homemade Weapons and The Advanced Anarchist Arsenal: Recipes for Improvised Incendiaries and Explosives--always good for that last-minute Christmas present.
I drove past shop fronts displaying murals of airborne assaults. One had a giant poster of John Wayne in uniform in the window. After another mile I saw the store I wanted and drove into the car park. Jim's was the same size as a small super store; the front had a wooden ranch look about it, but the rest was whitewashed cinder block. The front windows looked almost cottagey from a distance, with lots of little square panes, but as you got nearer you could see the panes were just white painted bars behind the thick plate glass. And the anti-ram barriers one third of the way up the windows weren't there to tie your horse up to either. Through the foyer I could see keyboards, VCRs and rows of TV screens all showing Jerry Springer. It was to the left of all that, however, a place where there were no windows at all, that they kept what I'd come here for.
I walked onto a small verandah where a large red sign warned me, 'Before entry weapons will be unloaded, actions opened and thank you for not smoking.'
The inside of Jim's Gunnery was L-shaped. To my right was a pawnshop;
the rest disappeared around the corner to my left, past a counter selling magazines and sweets. Opposite was a small shop within a shop, selling jewelry. The place smelled more like a department store than a pawnshop.
It was very clean, with a polished, tiled floor.
I turned left toward a series of glass display cases, all containing pistols hundreds of them and behind them, in wall racks, rifles, with something to suit every taste, from bolt action to assault. After I picked up a wire basket, I was greeted by a very well-fed white guy in his mid-thirties, wearing a green polo shirt with Jim's logo on it, a Glock .45 in a pancake holster on his belt and a big smile.
'Hi, how are you today?'
In my bad American I replied, 'I'm good, how are you?'
I wasn't worried; the transient military population made it a lot easier to get away with a dodgy accent. Besides, they'd only think I was Australian Americans always do.
'I'm good, sir. Is there anything I can do for you today?'
'Just having a look around, thanks.'
He beamed.
'If you need anything, just holler.'
Heading toward the weapons counter, I passed shelves stacked supermarket fashion with boxes of ammunition and everything for the hunting man, even down to Barbour jackets and shooting sticks, which surprisingly didn't look out of place.
Antimugging sprays hung from racks. I couldn't decide whether to have the CS gas or the pepper spray, so in the end I put both in my basket.
The footwear section sold camouflaged Gore-Tex boots and an assortment of Wellingtons and leather footgear. What I wanted, and eventually found, was a normal pair of high-leg assault boots, a mixture of cross trainer and boot. The Gore-Tex and go-faster boots were all well and good, but I could never really be bothered with trying to keep my feet dry. Once they were wet, which they would be tonight, that was it, I just got on with it. I didn't bother to try the boots on; it wasn't as if I were going to be tabbing for six days across the Appalachians. I got them in a size ten; I was size nine, but remembered from a very painful few days in a pair of new U.S. trainers that their sizes are one up from those in the U.K.
I went over and had a look in the weapon cabinets. There were hundreds of revolvers and semiautomatics to choose from. I could see what I wanted and waited my turn to be served.
Next to me, a woman in her early thirties had a two-year-old in a carry-rig on her back. She was being helped by one of the assistants to choose a new nylon holster for her Smith & Wesson .45 CQB, and they were also chattily discussing the pros and cons of various models. The one she was carrying was the stainless-steel version. As she was saying to the assistant, the matte-black, alloy version was lighter, but the steel one was more noticeable and therefore a better deterrent. It was a fantastic weapon, and would always have been my weapon of choice were it not for the fact that I preferred 9mm because the magazines carried more rounds. Mind you, if she needed more than the seven in the mag plus one in the chamber, she was in the shit anyway. The conversation moved back to the new holster as opposed to keeping it in her handbag.
A bit farther along, a young black guy in a blue tracksuit was being briefed on the merits of a .38 revolver over a semiautomatic.
'With this baby y'all don't even have to aim,' the sales pitch went.
'Especially at the range y'all be using it at. Just point it like your finger at the center mass and it will take them down.' The customer liked that; he was going to take it.
The woman had gone and the assistant came over to me.
'Hi, how can I help you today?'
It was bad accent time again.
'Can I have a look at your Tazers on the bottom shelf there?'
'Sure, no problem.' The assistant was black, in his mid-twenties, and dressed in the house green shirt. He was also 'carrying.' It was a Sig 9mm, held in the same sort of nylon pancake holster the woman had been interested in. He bent down and pulled out the tray of Tazers.
They were selling all different types, from little handheld ones, to the sort that fire out prongs on a wire that you can use to attack someone from a five-meter range, right up to big ones that resembled police truncheons.
I was tempted by a handheld one called 'Zap-Ziller the monster of stun guns!' mainly because of the slogan. There was even a picture of a dinosaur on the box that told me it packed 100,000 volts of stopping power.
I read the packaging to make sure it suited my needs: 'A short blast of a quarter-second duration will startle an attacker, cause minor muscle contractions and have a repelling effect. A moderate length blast of one to four seconds can cause an attacker to fall to the ground and result in some mental confusion. It may make an assailant unwilling to continue an attack, but he will be able to get up almost immediately.
'A full charge of five seconds can immobilize an attacker, cause disorientation, loss of balance, falling to the ground and leave them weak and dazed for some minutes afterward. Note: Any blast lasting over one second is likely to cause your assailant to fall. If you do not help them down, gravity may injure them.' I hoped so. They'd certainly done the business in Syria.
In the clothing area I picked out a set of woodland camo Gore-Tex, choosing one two sizes too big so it was nice and baggy. Gore-Tex had changed a lot since it was first invented by God in answer to every infantryman's prayers. In the early days it had made a rustling noise as you moved, which wasn't good if you were moving on target, and as a result we'd had to wear it under our combat clothing. But nowadays it was much more like textile than plastic.
I cruised around the aisles and filled my trolley with a few other bits and pieces I thought I'd be needing. I didn't think I'd need a weapon, but seeing them all made me feel strange about being on a job without one. It would take too long to apply for a gun legally. The U.S. laws aren't as crazy as people in Europe imagine, and I didn't want to take the risk of stealing or buying one illegally. Normally, if I knew I was going to need one, I would plan to obtain it in-country, because that meant I wouldn't have to worry when traveling on commercial flights.
If that wasn't possible, I'd put one in the diplomatic bag, along with any other special kit I needed, and then pick it up at the embassy. This wasn't happening on this job, however; the timings hadn't allowed it.
Besides, I was carrying out a PV review; what would I need a weapon for?
The hunting-bow section at the rear of the store caught my eye. Three customers in their early fifties, baseball caps on their heads and beer bellies hanging over their belts, were trying to outdo each other with their war stories. I overheard, 'When I was in Da Nang there was a whole week I thought the good Lord was going to take me away ...'
