held up one finger. “First, keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target. Always. Forever and a day. In close quarters sometimes you can’t avoid sweeping someone…”
“Sweeping?”
“Covering them with the muzzle of your gun. But if you keep your finger off the trigger, you’ll be safe and so will they.”
Carolyn nodded, regarding the Browning with ambivalence. She had never cared for guns, pro or con. Charles used to shoot grouse but that was ages ago.
Tony held up a second finger. “Two. If you can help it, never point the weapon at anybody you’re unwilling to kill, including yourself. Common sense, I know, but cemeteries are filled with blokes who got careless.” He handed the pistol to her.
“Right.” He pointed out the salient features. “Front sight, rear sight, trigger, hammer, frame, and slide. Forget everything you’ve seen in the movies, love. Pistols are shot at eye level with the front sight centered in the rear sight notch. This is a common pistol, one you’re likely to encounter… well, wherever. Most others work pretty much the same way. It holds a detachable magazine with thirteen nine-millimeter rounds but we’ll come to that in a bit. This one has some modifications.” He neglected to mention that it was his personal weapon, retained in violation of certain of Her Majesty’s draconian ordinances. He relied on his status as a onetime Territorial officer to cover that topic.
Tony demonstrated the grip and stance, and walked Carolyn through a quarter hour of dry firing. Finally he demonstrated loading, safety activation, and firing. After donning eye and ear protection, he raised the Hipower with both hands, got a quick sight picture, and put three rounds in the six-inch bull in two seconds. “Now you. But take your time.”
Tony called a break after thirty minutes. By then Carolyn was able to keep half of her rounds in the black at fifteen meters — better than he expected. “Too bad we don’t have more time, though it’d be hard to get this range again anytime soon.” He regarded her slyly. “Now, if you could get to America for a week you’d be safe as houses.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, those chaps can shoot almost anything they want, nearly anywhere. Especially schools like Gunsite and Thunder Ranch. Far different from here, you know.”
She grinned at her former in-law. “Something about a difference of opinion regarding eighteenth-century Crown tax policy, I believe.”
“Right. Here we go again. I’ve loaded some magazines with a few duds so you’ll have to clear malfunctions as I showed you. Also, I want you to start firing doubles at the heart followed by one to the head. It’s called the Mozambique Drill.”
She shook her head. “Mozambique?”
“It was popularized in Africa in the 1970s. ‘Two to the body and one to the head… every time… leaves ‘em dead.’ It’s what we call a failure drill. About half the time, two nine millimeters to the body don’t put the chap down. In that case there’s no point in shooting him in the body again, so the next round goes between the lights.”
Carolyn learned the procedure and did moderately well. However, her trigger control needed work, as she frequently pulled the third shot low and left. Tony checked his watch and made a decision. “I want to familiarize you with the AK-47 but we’ll stick with this a bit longer. From now on, love, after you shoot,
After another rest, Tony produced the Kalashnikov. “This is the most common firearm on earth. You find it everywhere.” Carolyn had seen the Islamic icon on television, but had never been near one. It struck her as businesslike, devoid of elegance, wholly functional. “I’m going to show you how it works,” he explained, “and you’ll fire a couple of mags so you can use one if you need to.”
He demonstrated the curved magazine and how it was inserted and removed. He had her chamber a round and activate the safety several times. “This is a selective fire weapon, meaning it’s both semi and fully automatic. There’s no point in you trying to shoot full auto — that takes training. If you have to use one, push the selector lever to the
Carolyn snugged the stock into her shoulder, using rearward pressure with her right hand on the pistol grip as Tony had explained. With her sights aligned on the bull’s-eye, she pressed the trigger. The rifle barked and she issued a slight yelp. Tony’s hand steadied her from behind. “That’s an object lesson, love. Remember to lean into it a bit. This is not a heavy recoiling rifle, but it’s much more than the pistol.”
At the end of the session, Dr. Padgett-Smith was putting two rounds within five inches of each other at twenty-five meters, offhand.
Over drinks at a nearby pub, she asked, “So tell me, Tony. How’d I do?”
“For a complete novice, unusually well. But then you’re more motivated than most. I could increase your speed with a couple more sessions, but that’s tough. I owe the colonel a big one just for today.”
She leaned close. “You know, it’s sort of… fun.”
Tony Williamson leaned back, regarding his beautiful sister-in-law. “I tried to convince Lydia of that, you know. Not much luck there, and my career was in the regiment.”
“So… are you seeing each other again?”
He drained the last of his ale. “You know damned well we are!”
“Well…” She arched her eyebrows.
Tony set his empty glass down on the table with a forceful thud. “Well, as I was saying, pistol shooting is a highly perishable skill. If you get any chance at all, be sure to have your chums get you another session.”
“How’s the voyage shaping up, Magellan?” Leopole seldom missed a chance to toss a jibe at his ex-navy counterpart.
Keegan glanced up from his aeronautical charts. He tried to appear nonchalant, but the ten-thousand-mile trip had him more interested than any recent event. “Pretty routine, actually, Frank. We’ll be lightly loaded so we can use the 727’s long-range tanks. Depending on the winds, we should make Dulles to Goose Bay no sweat, then Reykjavik to London. I guess we’ll be there for a day or so to pick up the Brit babe.”
“Uh, you mean Dr. Padgett-Smith, the prominent immunologist.”
“Yeah, the Brit babe. Then on to Athens and Islamabad via Oman. Too bad we can’t overfly Iran. It’d cut half the time off our last leg.”
“Well, we might ask permission but the admiral thinks we…”
“I know. And I don’t disagree. Now, the 757 has a three-thousand-mile range. We could cut out most of the fuel stops. With the Jurassic Jet we’re limited to two thousand miles nautical with any reserve.”
Leopole laughed at the moniker. The Boeing 727–200 was still popular with some companies because it was relatively inexpensive, and SSI’s had long since been amortized. “Take it up with the board of directors.”
“Maybe I should. I mean, we might consider a lease-to-buy arrangement.”
“Well, go ahead and work it up. Hell, I’ll even support the idea. But remember, Terry, sometimes security outweighs the finances. If we want to lease a jet, and provide our own crew, and decline to say where we’re going, the owners are going to get nervous.” He shrugged. “I can’t blame ‘em.”
Keegan laid down his old-fashioned Jeppesen E6B flight computer with its rotating dial and printed grid. There were easier ways to do the navigation but he enjoyed the way he’d been taught. “We’re still splitting up the teams?”
“Affirmative. You’ll take Red and White while the leased Falcon takes Blue and another flight crew. Everybody meets in Islamabad in three days.”
“It might be tight with fourteen bubbas and some gear in a Falcon 200 but they should be okay since I’m packing most of the equipment. I already checked with maintenance. Our bird is good to go.”
Leopole nodded. “Okay. Uh, how about the choppers?”
“I asked Dave about getting a Hip checkout but we’re running out of time. I wish we had another helo pilot, too. That Guatemalan job took Dave and Morrie and we can’t get them back soon enough. The new guy, Eddie Marsh, is fine but there’s no backup. We’ll have to rely on the Pakis to some extent.”
