“But it’s empty, for Christ’s sake. There’s not even a clip in it!”
“Doesn’t matter—and it’s a ‘magazine,’ not a ‘clip.’ A clip is a device that holds a number of rounds; a magazine is a box that feeds rounds into a chamber.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Sure—like EDO and FPM memory chips are the same thing.”
“No—those are totally different.”
“You are such a nerd, Major,” Ari admonished him playfully. “We spent more time on gun safety today than anything else, and I learned so much.”
“Oh yeah? What else did Doug say?” Jason asked, emphasizing the sergeant’s name like a grade-schooler does to a friend on Valentine’s Day.
“Grow up, J. Doug says pretend there is a laser beam emanating from the muzzle at all times, and if it hits anyone they will die. If you can’t point it in a safe direction, point it at yourself. You always treat a gun like it’s cocked, locked, and ready to rock unless you personally verify it otherwise.”
“ ‘Cocked, locked, and ready to rock’—what in hell does that mean?”
“Jesus, J, I thought you were in the army! Which army might that be—Captain Kangaroo’s army? Didn’t you ever learn how to handle a gun?”
“Seven years ago at OCS, a nine-millimeter Beretta, for one week.”
“You’re pitiful.”
“Why are you carrying it around?”
“Doug said I should get used to carrying it,” Ari said. “I’m going to get my concealed carry permit for New Mexico. I spoke with Kelsey and asked her to help me get a federal carry permit, but after this afternoon I don’t think she’ll give me the time of day. I might have to go to Jefferson.”
“What do you want to carry a gun for?”
“Wake up, J,” Ari said. “The terrorist threat is the highest it’s been since 9/11, and we’re right in the thick of it. I’m surprised you aren’t carrying a weapon. You’re active-duty military—Chamberlain can probably get you authorization in a snap.”
“I’m here to employ CID, not shoot it out with bad guys with pistols,” Jason said. “I think I impressed Jefferson out there in the range today. He asked me again about the argument between me and DeLaine.”
“You both clammed up when he asked you together—makes sense that he’d want to ask you individually too.”
“Yeah, but what was most interesting: I don’t think Jefferson told Chamberlain anything except us having a disagreement about something other than CID.”
“So?”
“So it means that maybe Jefferson isn’t spying for Chamberlain after all,” Jason said. “If he was, and Jefferson then finds out we’re tapping FBI servers and satellite datalinks, he’d have us kicked off this project so fast our heads would spin. Jefferson is a fossil, but one thing’s for sure—he has a personal code of conduct, and he follows it to the letter, no matter who he’s talking with. He may be Chamberlain’s shill, but his loyalty is with the task force.”
“He probably figures you’ll shoot yourself in the foot anyway—no need to rat you out,” Ari said.
“You’re the one who’ll shoot herself in the foot, once you start carrying bullets in that thing.”
“You pansy—guns are perfectly safe once you learn a few basics on gun safety and learn how it works,” Ari said, holstering the weapon. “I’ve field-stripped this gun and put it back together three times today, and the third time the gun was under a towel—I did it by feel. It’s one hundred percent safe even with a round in the chamber. Hundreds of police units and dozens of nations use this gun as their primary sidearm.”
“To tell the truth, Sergeant Moore seemed a little like a mama’s boy the first time I met him.”
“He got this gun from his mother, as a birthday present.”
“Doug gave you the gun he got from his mother? Sounds like you two are engaged to be married already!”
“Bite me, J.”
A woman walked up to the table, notepad in hand. “Anything else I can get for you guys?” she asked.
“Just the check, please,” Jason said, finishing off the last of his barbecue sandwich.
“Nothing else at all? A doggie bag, a refill on your sodas—or how about a damsel in distress that was rescued by a robot knight in shining armor?”
Jason’s eyes bugged out in surprise, and his eyes snapped up at the waitress—only to find Kristen Skyy standing there, smiling at him, pretending to be a waitress with a reporter’s steno book in her hands. She was wearing a faded leather bomber jacket, a gray scarf, faded blue jeans, snakeskin boots, and an Albuquerque Isotopes minor league baseball team cap, obviously dressed to look like one of the locals. “Hi there, Major Jason Richter, Dr. Ariadna Vega. Good to see you two again.”
Jason got to his feet and gave Kristen a hug, and she returned it with a kiss on his cheek very close to the corner of his mouth that sent a shiver of electricity through his entire body. He led her to his side of the booth as Ari moved over to let him sit beside her. “This is quite a surprise,” Jason said after he and Kristen locked eyes for a few moments after they were all settled in—long enough that no one noticed Ariadna’s amused grin as she watched the two unabashedly gazing at one another. “What a coincidence. What in the world are you doing here?”
“Are you kidding me, J?” Ari interjected, rolling her eyes in mock disbelief at Richter’s apparent naivete. “This is no coincidence. She tracked us down.”
Kristen looked into Jason’s eyes, trying to figure out if Richter was baiting her or not; she decided not to test him. “Yes, I did track you down,” she said with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind. I should have called, I guess, but when I got the information I decided to come right away.”
“How did you find us?”
“I have my sources,” Kristen said. “But I assure you, it wasn’t hard. My producers don’t even really have to lie—they usually mention that they work for Kristen Skyy or SATCOM One News and that’s enough. But most of the civilized world saw us together on television, and they might figure we’re already an…item?”
“And you want to know more about CID?”
“Of course,” Kristen said. “Your technology is simply amazing. It could revolutionize not just armed combat but policing high-crime neighborhoods, search and rescue, relief activities…”
“Sounds like the usual spiel from our public affairs office,” Ari said suspiciously. Kristen shrugged, admitting the fact. “What’s the real reason you’re here?”
Kristen smiled at him and nodded, apparently deciding to tell him everything—she obviously figured Ariadna would challenge her on anything she thought might be spin. “My sources say that the White House is planning on starting a secret terrorist-hunting unit, in response to the Kingman City attack,” Kristen said. “They’re preparing some sort of major antiterrorist policy statement, and they want this secret unit ready to go once the President makes the announcement.
“Now, if I was going to build a secret military antiterrorist force, I’d start with CID. You’re not at Fort Polk anymore; the Army Research Lab says you’re on temporary duty but they won’t say where, and not available for interviews. But while we’re at Fort Polk’s visitor’s center waiting to talk to someone who can tell us more about you, one of my staff members observed two civilian tractor-trailer trucks, which looked like they were loading gear up from the building where your office is. The trucks are from a moving and storage company in Shreveport, and they headed north on Interstate 49 toward Shreveport—Barksdale Air Force Base, I’m guessing.
“I have a source who’s an Air Force reservist, flies A-10 Warthogs out of Barksdale, and he tells me that each of the trucks had two twenty-foot steel army camo cargo containers that were loaded aboard an Air Force C-130 transport. He says that Base Ops said the C-130 was heading to Cannon Air Force Base but was not accepting space-available passengers. I head out to Cannon. I can’t get onto the base and public affairs won’t talk to me, but the locals tell me about the secret test ranges west of the base, almost as secret and well guarded as Area 51 in Nevada. They also say this place is a popular hangout for Air Force types. We’ve been watching it for a couple days now. Suddenly—poof, here you are.”
“You’d make a good intelligence officer—or spy,” Ari said. Jason looked at her but with a weird expression— not anger or exasperation, but with surprise at her comment.
“I’m a good investigative TV journalist, which most times is the same as being a spy,” Kristen said. “Anyway, here we are. So, what can you tell me?”
