13
John Howard shook his head. Julio hadn’t been able to make it today. He had said something about having to take his son to somewhere to apply for pre-preschool classes. That meant that John was the only one here with his own son. It was probably just as well, though. After all, there was no point in both of them being embarrassed.
Tyrone brought the K-frame revolver up and squeezed off two shots, double-action. He paused a second, then squeezed off two more double-taps, with only a half-second between the second and third pair.
Howard looked at the computer screen in the shooting bay. The computer displayed an image of the “bad guy” target. Hits showed as bright points of light against a darker shade.
Howard let out a low, soft whistle. Six shots, all neatly paired, all hits. Two in the head, two in the heart, two in the groin. No question about it, the boy had fired quickly, smoothly, and accurately, using a handgun he had only shot one time before.
“That’s good, son.”
Tyrone smiled. “Thanks, Dad. It just feels so, you know, natural.”
Howard shook his head. Unbelievable. “Try the.22.”
Opening the Medusa, Tyrone ejected the empty shells into his palm and put them into the plastic bin. He put the revolver down and picked up the little.22 target pistol, a bull-barreled Browning semiauto. The gun had iron sights and was front-heavy, but it was an accurate enough weapon. The sights were frame-mounted and not on the slide.
Tyrone slid the half-loaded magazine in, chambered a round, and thumbed the safety on. He kept his trigger finger outside the guard, the gun pointed low and down range.
John nodded, giving the boy high marks for safety, too.
“I’m going to change the target to a bull’s-eye,” Howard said. “Take your time, remember what I told you about breathing, and shoot five rounds slow-fire.”
Tyrone nodded.
Howard tapped a control on the computer. The image blinked and shifted into a standard black-and-white concentric-circled twenty-five-meter pistol target.
Tyrone took a couple of deep breaths, raised the pistol one-handed, and extended his arm, duelist-fashion. Formal target shooting discipline allowed only a one-hand hold. The gun would not be as steady as when held in a two-handed combat grip, so he shouldn’t do as well, even with the smaller recoil of the.22 round.
The little
Tyrone lowered the weapon, took a couple more breaths, and raised the pistol again.
Howard watched his son, not as interested in the score as he was in how Tyrone shot. He paid particular attention to how he stood, his grip, trigger control, his breathing, and his eyes. Behind the shooting glasses, Howard could see that Tyrone kept both eyes open.
Tyrone lowered the gun again, relaxed and breathed, then brought it back up.
After five rounds, the slide locked open. Tyrone ejected the magazine, checked the chamber, then put the pistol and empty magazine onto the bench and turned to look at the computer. At this range the bullet holes were too small to see with the naked eye.
Howard looked at the computer screen at the same time.
All five rounds clustered into a ragged hole an inch below dead center, tight enough so you could cover them all with a quarter. There were no fliers at all.
A one-inch group, one-handed grip, twenty-five meters out, and the first time he had ever fired the pistol. Now
But Tyrone frowned. “I missed the bull’s-eye,” he said. “I was aiming right at it.”
Howard laughed and shook his head. “No, son,” he said. “Those sights are set for my eyes. What’s important is not that you shot low, but that you put them all essentially into the same hole. You can always adjust the sights. Try it. Just give them one or two clicks, that’ll raise the point of impact.”
Tyrone adjusted the sights, reloaded, and fired off another slow five. This second group was almost the same as the first, with four centered in the ten ring and one round slightly off.
John shook his head again, amazed. If you threw out that one flier, you could cover the other four with your thumb — and even with the flier included, all five were still within an inch or so of each other. Amazing.
“I pulled the third shot,” Tyrone said. “It felt off.”
Howard said, “Son, there are men who have practiced regularly for years, burning tens of thousands of rounds, who can’t do what you just did. This Browning is a very good gun, but it’s not close to being a world-class free pistol. With a precision weapon and match-grade ammo, you’d do even better.” He paused, then finished, “Ty, if you can do this consistently, you could win Olympic medals. You’re a natural born shooter. I’ve been around guns all my life and I’ve never seen anybody with as little experience do as well.”
Tyrone looked at him. “Really?”
Howard smiled. “Really. You have a talent. I don’t know that this is one I’d have picked for you, but God has His plans, and we’re not always privy to them. If you are interested in pursuing this, I’ll see that you get whatever equipment and training you need.”
“Sir,” came Gunny’s amplified voice over the PA system, “are you screwing around with my target computer out there?”
“Negative, Gunny,” Howard called out. “It’s Tyrone.”
“Tell me he wants to join the junior pistol team, sir. Please.”
Howard looked at Tyrone. “Well?”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
Louder, Howard said, “Only if you promise not to teach him any bad habits.”
“Sir, when a man can shoot like that, there’s nothing I can teach him at all.”
Corinna Skye was a little softer than when Alex had seen her last. As before, her suit was well-cut and expensive, but today it was a pale, less-formal gray, her jacket unbuttoned, and she wore a red blouse beneath it. She sat on the couch facing his desk, her legs crossed, showing a few inches of stocking above her knees.
“Thank you for seeing me, Commander.”
He nodded. “Before you get started, there’s something you should know.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“Your client, CyberNation, is suing Net Force — and me personally — for two hundred million dollars. On top of that, we’ve caught them doing all manner of illegal things in the past, and there is an investigation that has been ongoing since then.”
She started to say something but he held up his hand. “Now I know that the organization managed to throw a few sacrificial bodies off the sled, as it were, but I don’t believe that all the guilty parties have been brought to justice. In fact, I fully expect that we will catch CyberNation doing all manner of illegal things in the future, too. I think CyberNation’s higher-ups all ought to be wearing eye-patches and peg legs and going ‘Har, matey!’ when they talk, that they are as twisted as a boxcar full of corkscrews, and if I can, I’ll see them all in prison for a long, long time.”
She smiled, what looked like a genuinely happy expression. “Oh, go on, Commander, don’t sugarcoat like that — tell me how you
He had to laugh at that. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I came off pretty righteous and pompous, didn’t I?”
She laughed, too. “That’s all right, Commander. I appreciate honesty. I seldom get to hear it as much as I
