Jade contemplated the remark, then thought about Butch, their first encounter, his laundry list of eccentricities, and what little she really knew of him. “I should probably rephrase; loaned would be the more suitable term. And generous might be an overstatement…but our benefactor is a handy guy. His help was invaluable in getting your dad home.” A pause. “Two days after leaving Camp Hill, we rendezvoused with one of Valerie’s…contacts, this old warhorse by the name of Butch. He proved to be very resourceful, but a bit of an oddball.”
Jade gestured to the Marauder. “This monstrous rig belongs to him, as does most everything inside, and he wouldn’t waver a microsecond to remind you of it. He equipped us well—food, snacks, water, survival gear, some of his offensively shitty coffee, radios, Harris NODs, FLIR thermal optics…and a few guns, of course. What we’re gazing upon now are Butch’s goodie bags, customized renderings. He put them together and stashed them in the Marauder before we left; I’m surprised he didn’t take the time to autograph them.” She began extracting firearms with care, one by one, from the duffel closest to her as Lauren observed. “This M4 is mine.” She pointed at another swaddled within the duffel. “Her fraternal twin there belongs to Ken, and there’s an M249 LMG stashed in here somewhere. They’ve been our companions since we left the cavern.”
“The cavern?” Lauren asked.
“Your dad hasn’t mentioned it?” Jade explained in minor detail about the underground facility in Washington, DC, where she had initially met Alan Russell.
Lauren welcomed the chapter. Knowing more about her father’s plight to get home was almost as comforting as having him back. Every blank filled in cancelled an unknown, and there were a lot of unknowns, most of which Alan still couldn’t piece together on his own.
Her eyes boggled at the lineup of mil-spec rifles, carbines and pistols now strewn amidst myriad examples of tactical gear. A bare-bones bolt-action rifle with a predominantly thicker barrel than others in its company stood out from the rest. It had a matched suppressor, a unique scope with a sunshade, and touted a fully adjustable folding stock. “I’m familiar with most of these, but that one looks alien to me.”
After a function check, Jade set her M4 down and reached for the mystery rifle. “That makes two of us.” She examined the receiver’s markings. “Nemesis Arms LMR, Park City, Kentucky. Hmm…6.5 Creedmoor. Nice addition, Butch.” Pushing out her lower lip, she admired the rifle before handing it to Lauren. “That has to be the lightest precision rifle I’ve ever held in six-five, and it’s a takedown. Sexy Cerakote, too.”
Lauren went through the motions with it. “It’s definitely bare bones, but it balances well. Weighs a lot less than the M40 I trained with.”
Jade tilted her head. “You…trained with an M40?”
“Mm-hmm. Qualified with one. An M40A6.”
“Qualified at what level and distance?”
“Sharpshooter. Five hundred meters,” Lauren boasted, deprived of sounding conceited. “Not officially though, by any means; and I muffed expert by a hair. Sanchez, my instructor, has never failed to let me live it down.”
Jade smiled, not expecting any of these answers nor the direction in which the exchange was going. “Not bad. 7.62 is pretty much the industry standard, and its trajectory is fairly straightforward to learn. I’m not saying you’re among them, but even amateurish shooters can learn to nail distance targets with practice. The Creedmoor was developed specifically to rival the magic bullet in long-range competitions. The projectiles are longer, the muzzle velocity is a tad higher, and the round has a big-time higher ballistic coefficient. Wind drift is next to nothing. I’ve seen virgin shooters send multiple shots through targets at distance without punching new holes.”
Lauren’s brows drew in. “It’s that accurate?”
“A .22 rimfire can be crazy accurate at distance, subject to the gun and the person behind the trigger.” Removing her holstered Glock, Jade slipped the canvas belt from her belt loops and switched it with a nylon inner belt shrouded in looped fabric. Securing it, she wrapped a rigid combat belt around her waist, the hook fabric on its inner side mating with the inner belt’s looped material.
Mounted to the combat belt’s MOLLE webbing was a holster for her sidearm on her right, stacked magazine pouches for both rifle and pistol on her left, and a dump pouch on the back. A pair of Mechanix M-Pact gloves hung from a carabiner near the cobra buckle.
After securing the buckle, Jade adjusted the belt for a better fit to her shrinking waistline, removed the loaded magazine and chambered round from her Glock, and switched holsters. She dug out a minimalist Crye Precision plate carrier, black in color, from the other duffel. “The plates inside are polyethylene, not steel. They’re half the weight, offer the same ballistic protection, and they’re buoyant. If you find yourself going for an unexpected swim, they’ll keep your head above water instead of drowning you.” Jade slipped into the carrier, snapped it secure, then raised her M4, ducking under the two-point sling. “Most importantly, they’re not rigid. Rounds won’t spall, glance upward into your neck, and make you dead.”
“Good to know.” Lauren looked the other woman over in gentle admiration. Jade reminded her of one of the fictional female army combat characters paralleling a G.I. Joe, though less animated and truer to life, or perhaps a fictitious female movie character, such as Alice from the Resident Evil flicks. Jade’s eye-catching features were worthy of her recently added tactical adornments, and those enhancements went a long way to making her appear flat-out intimidating.
Lauren couldn’t help but be impressed, though she held back from openly admitting it.
“So,” Jade said, “you’re on. Give me the rundown on how this Gauntlet works.”
“Right. Are you familiar with the origin of the phrase ‘running the gauntlet’?”
Jade sent a nod. “I believe I am.”
“Okay. The unit’s Gauntlet is similar, but different. Enemy targets are lined up not just on either side, but on all sides, forcing the shooter to rotate
