linger. Better. That one would have gone through the bastard's left eye, and the second round, again half a second later, made the first between-the-eyes hole into a cute little figure-eight.
'Excellent double-tap, Mr. Chavez.'
Ding turned to see Dave Woods, the range master.
'Yeah, my first was wide and low,' Ding admitted.
That it would have blown half the bastard's face right off was not good enough.
'Less wrist, more finger,' Woods advised. 'And let me see your grip again.' Ding did that. 'Ah, yes, I see.' His hands adjusted Chavez's left hand somewhat. 'More like that, sir.'
Shit, Ding thought. Was it that simple? By moving two fingers less than a quarter of an inch, the pistol slipped into a position as though the grip had been custom-shaped for his hands. He tried it a few times, then reholstered again and executed his version of a quick-draw. This time, the first round was dead between the eyes of the target seven meters away, and the second right beside it.
'Excellent,' Woods said.
'How long you been teaching, Sergeant Major?'
'Quite some time, sir. Nine years here at Hereford.'
'How come you never joined up with SAS?'
'Bad knee. Hurt it back in 1986, jumping down off a Warrior. I can't run more than two miles without its stiffening up on me, you see.' The red mustache was waxed into two rather magnificent points, and the gray eyes sparkled. This son of a bitch could have taught shooting to Doc Holliday, Chavez knew at that moment. 'Do carry on, sir.' The range master walked off.
'Well, shit,' Chavez breathed to himself. He executed four more quick-draws. More finger, less wrist, lower the left hand a skosh on the grip… bingo… In three more minutes there was a two-inch hole right in the middle of the instant-incapacitation part of the target. He'd have to remember this little lesson, Ding told himself.
Tim Noonan was in the next lane over, using his own Beretta, shooting slower than Chavez, and not quite as tight in his groups, but all of his rounds would have driven through the bottom of the brain, and right into the stem, where instant kills happened, because that was where the spinal cord entered the brain. Finally, both ran out of ammunition. Chavez took off his ear-protectors and tapped Noonan on the shoulder.
'A little slow today.' the technical expert observed, with a frown.
'Yeah, well, you dropped the fucker. You were HRT.'
'Yeah, but not really a shooter. I did the tech side for them, too. Well, okay, I shot with them regularly, but not quite good enough for the varsity. Never got as fast as I wanted to be. Maybe I have slow nerves.' Noonan grinned as he field-stripped his pistol for cleaning.
'So how's that people-finder working out?'
'The damned thing is fucking magic, Ding. Give me another week and I'll have the new one figured out. There's a parabolic attachment for the antenna, looks like something out of Star Trek, I guess, but goddamn, does it find people.' He wiped the parts off and sprayed Break-Free on them for cleaning and lubrication. 'That Woods guy's a pretty good coach, isn't he?'
'Yeah, well, he just fixed a little problem for me,' Ding said, taking the spray can to start cleaning his own service automatic.
'The head guy at the FBI Academy when I was there did wonders for me, too. Just how your hands match up on the butt, I guess. And a steady finger.' Noonan ran a hatch through the barrel, eyeballed it, and reassembled his pistol. 'You know, the best part about being over here is, we're about the only people who get to carry guns.'
'I understand civilians can't own handguns over Here, eh?'
'Yeah, they changed the law a few years ago. I'm sure it'll help reduce crime,' Noonan observed. 'They started their gun-control laws back in the '20s, to control the IRA. Worked like a charm, didn't it?' The FBI agent laughed. 'Oh, well, they never wrote down a Constitution like we did.'
'You carry all the time?'
'Hell, yes!' Noonan looked up. 'Hey, Ding, I'm a cop, y'dig? I feel naked without a friend on my belt. Even when I was working Lab Division in Headquarters, reserved parking space and all, man, I never walked around D.C. without a weapon.'
'Ever have to use it?' Tim shook his head. 'No, not many agents do, but it's part of the mystique, you know?' He looked back at his target. 'Some skills you just like to have, man.'
'Yeah, same for the rest of us.' It was a fillip of British law that the Rainbow members were authorized to carry weapons everywhere they went, on the argument that as counterterror people they were always on duty. It was a right Chavez hadn't exercised very much, but Noonan had a point. As Chavez watched, he slapped a full magazine into the reassembled and cleaned handgun, dropped the lever to close the slide, then after safing the weapon, ejected the magazine to slide one more round into it. The gun went back into his hip holster, along with two more full magazines in covered pockets on the outside. Well, it was part of being a cop, wasn't it?
'Later, Tim.'
'See you around, Ding.'
Many people can't do it, but some people simply remember faces. It's a particularly useful skill for bartenders, because people will come back to establishments where the guy at the bar remembers your favorite drink. This was true at New York's Turtle Inn Bar and Lounge, on Columbus Avenue. The foot patrolman came in just after the bar opened at noon and called, 'Hey, Bob.'
'Hi, Jeff, coffee?'
'Yeah,' the young cop said, watching the bartender get some Starbuck's from the urn. Unusually for a bar, this place served good coffee, since that was the yuppie thing in this part of town. One sugar and some cream, and he passed the cup over.
Jeff had been on this beat for just under two years, long enough that he knew most of the business owners, and most of them knew him and his habits. He was an honest cop, but never one to turn down free food or drink, especially good donuts, the American cop's favorite food.
'So, what's shakin'?' Bob asked.
'Looking for a missin' girl,' Jeff replied. 'Know this face?' He handed the printed flyer over.
'Yeah, Annie something, likes Kendall Jackson Reserve Chardonnay. Used to be a regular. Haven't seen her in a while, though.'
'How about this one?' The second flyer went across the bar. Bob looked at it for a second or two.' Mary… Mary Bannister. I remember that, 'cuz it's like the thing on a set of steps, like you know? Haven't seen her in a while, either.'
The patrolman could hardly believe his luck. 'What do you know about them?'
'Wait a minute, you said they're missing, like kidnapped or something?'
That's right, man.' Jeff sipped his coffee. 'FBI is on his one.' He tapped the Bannister photo. 'The other one we turned.'
'Well, I'll be damned. Don't know much about them. I used to see 'em both here couple days a week, they dance and stuff, you know, like single girls do, trolling for guys.'
'Okay, tell you what, some people will be in here to talk to you about 'em. Think about it, will ya?' The cop had to consider the possibility that Bob was the one who'd made them disappear, but there were chances you had to take in an investigation, and that likelihood was pretty damned slim. Like many New York waiters and bartenders, this guy was an aspiring actor, which probably explained his memory.
'Yeah, sure, Jeff. Damn, kidnapped, eh? Don't hear very much about that stuff anymore. Shit,' he concluded. 'Eight million stories in the Naked City, man. Later,' the patrolman said, heading for the door. He felt as though he'd done a major portion of his day's work, and as soon as he got outside, he used his epaulet-mounted radio microphone to call the newly developed information into his precinct house.
Grady's face was known in the U.K., but not the red beard and glasses, which, he hoped, would obscure his visage enough to reduce the chance of being spotted by an alert police constable. In any case, the police presence wasn't as heavy here as in London. The gate into the base at Hereford was just as he'd remembered it. and from there it wasn't a long drive to the community hospital, where he examined the roads, shoulders, and parking areas and found them to his liking, as he shot six rolls of film with his Nikon. The plan that started building in his mind was simple, as all good plans were. The roads seemed to work in his favor, as did the open ground. As always, surprise would be his primary weapon. He'd need that, since the operation was so close to the U.K.'s best and most
