Michael Walsh: Early Warning

Kohanloo’s lips formed the simulacrum of a smile, although his dead eyes gave nothing away. “What was it your Lenin said? ‘You will provide us with the rope with which to hang you’? So it is written, so shall it be done. If you will pardon my misquotation of sacred scripture-in this secure environment, of course.”

“The Americans’ National Security Agency can only look upon what your nation does and weep that they have not the moral strength to engage in such ruthless activity. For there is a genius in that, a moral liberation. The higher ends must always be served, no matter the immediate cost. This I learned as a child in Germany. One must set one’s heart against all emotion, against all entreaties, to let the cries of both the innocent and the guilty fall upon your deaf ears, that the greatest good for the greatest number be served.”

Kohanloo’s visage took on a conspiratorial mien. “But what of the Black Widow?” he hissed. “Cannot the Americans do the same thing?”

Skorzeny suppressed a laugh by disguising it as a cough. “They could, but they won’t. One of their whiny little senators in our employ would make a speech, calling upon his countrymen to ‘defend the Constitution’ or some such. Or one of their media captains, who draws a considerable sum from our exchequer monthly, would lead a secular crusade against the government, challenging it to live up to America’s highest ideals.”

“Which apparently includes suicide,” Kohanloo said. “Still, I worry about the Widow…”

“Let me worry about her,” consoled Skorzeny. “And now, to business.” He pointed to the dancing computer screens, on which a very large sum of money had appeared on the screen, expressed in various currencies: dollars, euros, yen, yuan. “Take your pick,” he said.

Kohanloo barely glanced at the screens before turning back to Skorzeny. “How dare you insult me with money?” he said, and rose to leave.

“M. Kohanloo.” Something in Skorzeny’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “What you believe or don’t believe is absolutely immaterial to me. I myself, as you note, am a proud unbeliever in many faiths; all of them, in fact. But I see that you are a man of principle, and I like that. So I will make you a new offer.”

“And what is that?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Kohanloo thought for a moment, and then a big smile broke over his face. “Under the present worldwide economic circumstances, recruitment has been going exceptionally well, especially in your prisons. By constantly harping on the iniquities of your society, our friends in the media have prepared the people for revolution-a necessary precondition for the arrival of al-Mahdi. As for our Sunni brothers, apostates though they may be, they need to know nothing of our larger purpose, and only wish to fight and die as martyrs for Allah.”

Kohanloo opened his briefcase, took out a manila folder, and placed it on the polished table. “So do we have a deal?”

Skorzeny looked down at the dossier and smiled. Then he stuck out his hand. “We have a deal,” he said.

Manhattan

Francis Xavier Byrne had a choice: the.38 or the 9-millimeter?

It was the same choice that every senior officer in the New York City Police Department had to make every year, a choice not given to the grunts, to the junior officers, to the rank and file, but to only a select few, those with seniority and experience.

He had earned that right. Earned it long ago and continued it every day he spent on the force. And every year, when this moment rolled around at the Police Academy on E. 20th Street, Captain Francis Xavier Byrne made the same choice:

He took the.38 Colt Detective Special.

As he raised the weapon into firing position, sighting on the first of the targets, he took a moment to reflect. He was 51 years old now and most definitely old school. No matter how many times he fired the various 9 mms. the department authorized, he still preferred the security and heft of a revolver. The Glock 19 was a plastic piece of shit with a six-pound pull-not the thing for some frightened rookie to be wielding in a crisis-and even retrofitted with a twelve-pound-pull “NY-2 Trigger,” it still felt like a lethal toy gun. The Smith & Wesson 5946 and the Sig P226 were improvements, although not by much. Byrne and his men also had the option of carrying the Kahr K9s as backup pieces or off-duty weapons, but in his opinion, unless the brass was willing to admit the past century of semi-automatic firearms technology was a mistake and get some old-fashioned Colt 1911s, he was going to stick to the trusty revolver as his sidearm until they pried it from his cold, dead hands.

He slid his right index finger down the frame from just below the cylinder toward the trigger. That was the way they taught it now at the Academy: no fingers on the triggers until you were ready to fire. Until you were ready to shoot. Until you were ready to kill.

Byrne brought the Colt up to eye level. He used a one-handed, full-frontal stance, right eye closed, his dominant left eye sighting down the barrel. Not for him was the sideways stance, in which you were essentially aiming over your shoulder. Not for him was any flashy, muzzle-waving, sideways-pointing ghetto grip: throughout his career, he had several times staked his life on the proposition that the safest place to stand between a gangbanger with a Glock and whatever he was shooting at was right in front of the target.

Fuck it: it didn’t feel natural. The whole “finger on the side of the gun” crap was a “safety” rule-for the perp’s safety, not the cop’s. He dropped his finger onto the trigger, let it curl around the trigger in a lover’s caress. There was next to no chance of a double-action revolver going off accidentally, or even of a bed-wetting patrolman jerking the trigger hard enough by accident to fire the weapon.

Byrne let out his breath, then held it. Despite the noise of the range all around him, only partly muffled by his protective ear wear, he always felt at peace here. It was so unlike real life: just you and the target, standing there motionless, a big bull’s-eye at its center, dangling twenty feet away, just begging you to shoot it. Of course, it wasn’t really shooting. It was just punching holes, very quickly, through a piece of paper. But it still felt good, and the fact that there was no return fire was a bonus.

Byrne pulled back the hammer: now the weapon had a hair trigger. He fired and punched a hole near the center of the target, just slightly to the left. Each year, as he requalified, his astigmatism got a little worse, and each year he had to learn to compensate for it a little more. Some of the men-Vinnie Mancuso, his old partner back in the days when they were both young and hungry, now working in Commissioner White’s office and about ready to start pulling his pension as he counted down the days-suggested that he wear his glasses to the range, but to Byrne that was like making love with them on. You didn’t really need to see what you were doing as long as you knew what it was and how to do it.

He compensated a little to the left and fired again. Closer; good enough for government work. Not good enough for him. Another slight shift, another shot: perfect.

“You’re getting old, Frankie,” shouted a voice off to his left. With his headgear on, the voice to Byrne was like a whisper. He didn’t have to turn or look to know who it was.

“Move ’em back another fifteen, Lannie,” he barked. “And this time make it hard.”