Army manual from the Monterey language school. A former cop named Phil Green was the self-appointed linguist of the SSI door kickers; he could say “don’t shoot” in twenty-two languages. “Lessee,” he murmured.” ‘Hands up’ is
Nearby, Mohammed overheard Bosco’s partner, Breezy Brezyinski. “Seventy-two virgins? Man, I thought it was twelve.”
“And I heard it was, like, twenty.” Slouching against the table, ex-SEAL Jeffrey Malten was suddenly attentive.
Bosco shrugged. “Maybe it’s virgin inflation or somethin’.”
Breezy had just taken a gulp of coffee, unfortunately timed with the sudden ingestion of air in response to Bosco’s irreverence. The result was a two-minute laughing-coughing fit.
Bosco pounded Breezy on the back until the affliction passed. Then he noticed Dr. Mohammed. “Uh. Sir, what’s the Koran say about all those virgins, anyway?”
Mohammed shook his head in bemusement tinged with disgust. “Not that it matters to any of you… gentlemen… but it’s not in the Koran. It is from a collection of traditional beliefs or sayings, the Hadith. It is similar to the Apocrypha for Christians, though there are different interpretations. The Prophet apparently referred to the righteous receiving eighty-thousand servants and seventy-two wives. But in French the passage reads
Regaining his breath, Breezy focused on the celestial plane. “Hey, I wonder if you could, like, switch the numbers, you know?”
Malten, uncharacteristically sensitive for a SEAL, elbowed the erstwhile paratrooper. “Quiet down, you jerk. Doc Mohammed will hear you.”
Breezy would not be deterred. “Wow, man. With eighty-thousand virgins you could have one a day for, like, three hundred years! Besides, seventy servants would be plenty for me.”
Bosco did the math. “Uh… more like 220 years.” Whatever his social failings, former Sergeant Jason Boscombe predated outcome-based education. Friends knew that his penchant for numbers included baseball stats and Vegas odds.
Straightening up for a change, Malten asked, “Doctor, no offense, but does that paradise stuff apply to converts like this American kid?”
Mohammed almost welcomed the query as intellectual discourse. “Well, yes, I suppose so. You see, some believe that the surest way for a devout Muslim to enter paradise is to die in a
SSI did not own a shooting facility, but Frank Leopole had a friend who did. Lock, Stock & Barrel often rented its indoor range to corporations, but this evening Leopole requested access after hours. It would not be politic to have the public observe men in “space suits” wielding submachine guns.
The door kickers tried on the Racal suits for Biosafety Level 4 protection. They had battery-powered oxygen systems with positive internal pressure to deter contaminated air from entering. The most obvious feature, apart from the bright orange color, was the futuristic plastic helmet. The “bubble” design permitted the user full range of head motion and all-round vision.
It was not meant for riflemen.
Dr. Phillip Catterly, who had hauled within three strokes of Admiral Derringer’s golf handicap, did not share his partner’s enthusiasm for firearms. But after explaining the workings of the Racals, he supervised each shooter’s initial fitting, offering practical advice as he went.
Catterly held up a roll of duct tape. “Before you enter a potential hot zone, I recommend that you tear off a couple of strips and stick them where you can easily reach them. If you get… well, if you rip the suit, or something, you can slap on a temporary patch right away and probably be okay.”
Leopole had complete trust in the other team leaders and allowed them to make their own assignments. Dan Foyte decided to remain with the perimeter guards to coordinate Blue Team operations while Steve Lee relished being first man through the door. He would lead White Team’s door kickers and began wedging himself into the Racal.
Breezy was already suited up. He ambled around the room, impersonating Neil Armstrong on the Sea of Tranquility, though The Eagle had landed six years before Mark Casimir Brezyinski was born. Once accustomed to the fit of the Racal, he picked up an MP-5, cycled the bolt three times to ensure it was empty, and tried hefting it into firing position. As expected, the “space helmet” got in the way.
“No cheek weld, man. Bummer.”
Leopole had long since tried to expunge the hey-dude argot from SSI’s operators. Though most were in their thirties, some like Bosco and Breezy clung to the adolescent vocabulary of a bygone era.
“It’s what I told you would happen,” the former marine exclaimed. “That’s why we’re putting lasers on every long gun we take. You can shoot from a mid-chest position with good accuracy. Or you can shoot normally with a pistol.”
He patted the three-magazine pouch on his duty belt. “Ordinary web gear won’t fit very well with the pressure suit so we’ll have to gin up something else. Best thing that occurs to me is a couple of bags slung over the shoulders: one for reloads and the other for grenades and a pistol.”
Then Leopole raised his MP-5 from its tactical sling, stepped to the firing line, and called over his shoulder. “Lights.”
As the building’s lights dimmed, he inserted a magazine of 9mm frangible ammunition and called, “Going hot.”
Leopole was already wearing pale blue Dillon hearing protectors. He glanced sideways at Breezy, who reflexively raised his hands to cover his ears. His palms collided with the plastic helmet.
Extending the Heckler-Koch straight forward against the limits of its sling, Leopole leaned forward slightly, pressed the laser switch on the forestock, and tracked the bright red dot onto the fifteen-meter target. Breezy had just shouted “Wait!” when Leopole pressed the trigger.
The MP-5 spat out three rounds on burst control. A cluster of hits appeared in the center of the cardboard target. Leopole then raised the aiming dot to the squared-off head and fired again. Two rounds punctured the nostril area.
Bosco stepped to the line beside his partner. “Way cool. The noise isn’t so bad inside this helmet, ya know?” He held his weapon in his right hand, a loaded magazine in his left.
“Fershure, dewd.” Breezy inserted a magazine in his HK and waited for the command from the rangemaster. In a few minutes their lasers were zeroed at twenty-five meters, and the rest of the team took its turn.
A dozen shooters went through two cases of ammo before midnight. At the end of the session Breezy exclaimed, “Man, I’m set. Six mags and I’m stress-free all week.”
4
Carolyn Padgett-Smith sat in Tony Williamson’s Austin while he chatted up the warrant officer in the armory. Fifteen minutes later he emerged with a soft rifle case and boxes of 9mm and 7.62x39 ammunition. He slid into the right-hand seat, put the car in gear, and drove off. “We’ve got about four hours,” he said.
“What did you tell them?”
Tony looked at the immunologist. “I took the course of last resort. I told the truth, love.”
She laughed and punched his arm. Though lacking specifics, she had told the SAS veteran all he needed to know when she said, “I am not going to be defenseless among people who cut off the heads of hostages.”
At a twenty-five-meter pistol range Tony set up two silhouette targets, one with a bull’s-eye and the other with the old “Charging Hun.” He placed Carolyn at ten meters from the bull and produced a Browning Hipower pistol.
“Right. Safety first, love. There are all sorts of regulations, but you only need to keep two rules in mind.” He
