Gerald Seymour - Condition black

Straight from breakfast into the Embassy car park round the back. Over on the far side of the car park, on a recovery trailer, was the Ford that had been sabotaged outside the village. If Ruane saw it, he didn't care to mention it. He sat Erlich in the passenger seat of his Volvo estate, and pushed into his hands a two-day-old copy of the Los Angeles Times, and he didn't say where they were going.

They were against the traffic. They made good time. When they were out of the city it was a fast road.

Erlich kept his head in the paper. He read about the scandal of the slow movement on the post-earthquake reconstruction in San Francisco, the new programme of the D. E. A. to block the importation of Mexican brown across the border into San Diego, the real estate slump throughout California, a preview of the weekend's football, a profile of Tom Cruise… No mention of London. Nothing on the Middle East. Nothing from Athens, nothing from Rome.

The town they had reached was called Colchester. He laid the folded paper down on the heap of coats on the back seat, and saw the rifle pouch that was partly concealed under the coats. They passed a garrison entrance, and there was a proud flag flying, and he saw the armed sentries in their camouflage smocks. They turned into the entrance to the range.

Ruane said, "Time for some fun, Bill, to take that grim expression off your young lace. Get some fresh air into those bruises, too."

It was a bright morning, hellish cold, and a sharp wind took the big red warning flags. They were Ruane's friends who were waiting for them. Erlich was introduced… There was a U. S. A. F. major from the Mildenhall base. There was an American who had been twelve years in England, who worked in corporate security for Exxon and who had done time in the New York Police Department. There was the range marshal. They were friends and they made Erlich welcome and no one said anything about his face. They loaded the Volvo and bounced out across the rutted track to the far-away butts.

The targets were the old ones, what he knew from the range at Quantico, the outline of a charging infantry man with a Wehrmacht helmet. Erlich hadn't been on a range in the two years since he had left Washington. He thought he might make a real fool of himself.

There was an Ingram sub-machine gun, the close-quarters blaster with the 50-round magazine, he could have taken it. He was given first choice. There was the Armalite carbine that Ruane had brought down in the carrying pouch, and which he had fired twice, an age ago, at Quantico. There was a G-3 German infantry rifle, standard infantry issue for their army, which he declined.

There was a Smith and Wesson revolver,. 38, four-inch barrel.

It was the Smith and Wesson that he knew. It was the Smith and Wesson that he should have had in the tree line overlooking the Manor House, then there wouldn't, by Christ, have been the beating and the kicking. The Smith and Wesson came with the U. S. A. F. guy, and there was a cardboard box of slugs and there was a neat small holster to thread through his trouser belt. He understood what Ruane was at. The Smith and Wesson felt good in his hand.

The range marshal read the riot act, just as the instructors at Quantico would have done. Erlich was listening with half an ear, he was sliding the bullets into the chamber of the Smith and Wesson, he was checking his own "Safety".

Away from him, behind the tail of the Volvo, there were the first cracks of the G-3, and the first blast roar of the Ingram, and the snap of the Armalite. He could hear the whoops of the guy who was in corporate security. He went through his drills.

He unzipped the heavy weatherproof coat Ruane had allocated him and walked to a butt that was 50 paces off. He took up his position. What they said, the instructors, was that each practice must be made to count. Deep, hard breathing, punching the oxygen into his lungs. Not on a range outside a county town in the east of England… going down an alleyway, threading past shop doorways, moving into a house. Into Condition Yellow, unspecified alert. Getting the adrenalin to pump. Into Condition Red, armed encounter. The trembling in the hands and the lead stillness in the knees. Into Condition Black, lethal assault in progress. The takeover of the "flight or fight reflex". Tunnel vision 0n the target. The sense of hearing gone, no longer aware of the beat of the Ingram and the sharp shooting of the G-3 and the Armalite carbine. The target was not a paper cut-out. The target was Colt. Colt in front of him. Adrenalin, epinephrine, bursting into his muscles. The swing of the hip, the open jacket thrown clear of the holster. Righthand on the Smith and Wesson's stock. The revolver coming up. Left hand over the right hand.

Isosceles stance. The triangle of two arms extended and meeting on the Smith and Wesson. "Safety" off. Arms rigid. Knees bent.

Eyea over rear sight and front sight. Index finger squeezing… the belt ol the firing in his ears. Three shots fired, rapid. "Safety" on. Colt was still charging him, Colt with the rifle and the heavy helmet down over his forehead, He was seven paces from Colt, and the bastard was still coming at him He had hit a man-sized target at seven yards with one shot out of three, Thre had once been a jerk in Chicago, the instructor had said and he'd needed 33 hits to finish him, and another jerk that they talked of who had taken 13 hollow-point slugs before he dropped.

He had hit Colt once, and the target was still coming at him The swivel again, the coat flying clear of the holster. The Smith and Wesson in his hands. "Safety" off. Condition Black, lethal assault in progress. Three shots fired, three hits, three. 38 slugs gouging into the paper and hardboard that was Colt He loaded eight more times. He loaded at speed He always fired in the Isosceles stance, not the F.B.I., crouch, not the Weaver position. He ripped the shit out of Colt Every time three out of three.

He walked back to the Volvo. They were waiting for him.

Ruane had a small smile playing at the side of his mouth. It was all right for Ruane, because he had been there, he had fired and he had killed. Ruane was getting a picnic box out of the tail of the Volvo, and cans of Budweiser.

"Don't go losing that… " Ruane said.

"… Or I'm for a Court Martial," the U.S.A. F. officer said.

Rutherford was in the canteen of Boundary Hall, listening to the conversations around him.

Penny wouldn't have allowed him a breakfast like that, not even on his birthday…

"… There's no problem with the Christian ethic, none at all.

It is perfectly proper for the Christian to arm himself with the nuclear deterrent. We've had peace for 45 years in Europe because we've had the bomb. We love our neighbours, that doesn't mean we have to lie down in front of them. Sinners grow bold if they don't think there's punishment round the corner. I've a quite clear conscience with my Maker… "

He had a photocopy of the Personnel report, and he had a digest from the surveillance and from the telephone intercept.

"… I cannot for the life of me see why more people don't join. There's just about everything to be caught in the Decoy pond. It's a unique opportunity, all those police to keep the poachers at bay, no families with squealing brats at your shoulder, no dogs running round fouling the banks. You've got carp, roach, tench, bream, pike, all queuing up to be hooked. What more do people want? Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fishing I'd die of boredom in this place

… "

He went through each question that he would put to the little cretin that nobody liked, and who hadn't the bottle to tell his Superintendent that he could get stuffed, that he'd get his paper when it was good and finished, not before. But he wasn't bitching, because the alternative to being given the run-around in Aldermaston was chasing round the countryside with Erlich.