David Drake - Balefires

"Then pull," Coster said, and braced himself. His knuckles were as white as Davidson's had been. His head, hunched low, looked more like that of a man trying to hide than one aiming.

Penske chuckled. "Won't hit nothing but air if you're that scared a' your weapon," he said. He tugged two-handed at the line bent around the fencepost. The jug spurted sideways and the first three bullets ripped it. Sandy loam sprayed from the torn plastic in all directions. The impacts spun the jug around its support line and the second burst caught it at the tip of its arc. Dirt flew again and both lines parted. The gun muzzle tracked the flying container, spiked it in the air, and then followed it down the swale, the bullets themselves kicking their target into a semblance of life.

Flying brass had driven Kerr back from where he stood to Coster's right. Now he massaged his left fist with his right palm, watching the rifleman reload methodically.

"That enough?" Coster asked. Kerr nodded.

Penske had silently begun to gather up the paraphernalia they had brought. Suddenly he stopped, staring at the empty cartridge box he held in his hand."You reloaded from this," he said, waving the box in Coster's face. "Last time."

"So?" said the rifleman. "You want me to pay you for them?"

"You stupid bastard!"the shorter man blazed. "This was. 30-'06 for my Remington there. It won'tfit a goddam M14. You need. 308!"

"Then I didn't use your ammunition after all," Coster said, backing a step. "I brought my own in my kit, you know." His foot tapped the AWOL bag gently.

"Let's see that goddam rifle," said Penske, lunging forward, and the safety clicked off with the muzzle only six inches from the bridge of his nose.

"Don't," said Coster very quietly.

Sullenly, the ex-soldier backed away."Somebody gimme a hand with this crap," he said, thrusting weapons back into their cases.

"We aren't rivals, you know," Coster said without lowering the M14. "I wasn't Oswald's rival either. If you want a man dead and he dies, what else matters?"

"Just shut the hell up, will you?" Davidson burst out unexpectedly.

The three men looked around in surprise. Davidson's fists were clenched at waist-height, her elbows splayed. After a moment Coster said, "All right." He dropped the muzzle of his rifle and began handing guns back into the van.

A mercury-vapor streetlight threw a line of saw teeth through the Venetian blinds to the wall above the couch. Penske lay there, fully clothed, watching the whorls which his cigarette smoke etched across the pattern. The apartment was still.

Penske took a last drag on his cigarette. Its yellow-orange glow was momentarily brighter than the blue of the streetlight. He ground the butt out in the dish with the others and the crumpled pack from which they had come. Then Penske swung his feet over the side of the couch and stood, his right hand silently drawing his knife from its sheath in the same motion. He glided across the worn carpet to the door of Coster's room.

For a moment the swarthy man waited with his ear pressed against the panel. There was no sound within. The door did not have a working latch; its hinges were nearly silent. Penske pulled the door open just enough to slip through into the pitch-dark bedroom. His whole body followed the knife as if he were a serpent and the blade was his questing tongue.

There was a metallic click from the bed, tiny and lethal as a cobra.

"The light switch is on the right," Coster said quietly. "Better flip it on. Carefully."

Penske's hand found the switch. The room was narrow. The bed lay along its axis, the foot of it pointing to the door. The M14 pointed down that same axis. Coster's index finger was within the trigger guard. The safety catch had clicked as it slid forward. The shorter man stared at the muzzle brake of the automatic rifle. He remembered the way bullets had shredded the earth-filled jug that morning. Now his blood and tissue and splinters of his bones would spray the inside of the door panel.

"Put your knife away," Coster said.

The shorter man only blinked.

"We're not here to kill you, Penske," said the automatic rifleman. His voice was calm, almost wheedling. "Put your knife away and close my door behind you. It'll all look different tomorrow. Kawanishi will be dead, and you'll have as much of the credit for it as you want."

Penske swallowed and began to back through the doorway. The gun muzzle waggled disapproval. "First the knife," Coster said.

The shorter man hunched over, his eyes on the rifle except for quick dips down to the strait boot sheath. He jabbed the point into the flesh above his ankle the first time he tried. At last he succeeded.

"Fine," said the rifleman. "You can go now."

Penske's face contorted with rage. "You bastard, you gotta sleep sometime!" he said.

Coster smiled like a skull. "Do we?"

The swarthy man slammed the door, turned, and jumped back before he realized that the figure hulking on the arm of the couch was Kerr. "What're you doing up?" Penske demanded in a husky whisper.

Kerr shrugged."Let's go out on the landing," he said."Dee's asleep. "But it was toward the rectangle of light around Coster's door that he nodded.

The second-floor apartment was served by an outside staircase. Its landing formed a small railed balcony, open to crisp air and the stars of early morning. Kerr waved Penske outside, then followed and swung the door closed behind them. The big man was barefoot, but he wore slacks and a shirt. The latter was unbloused to conceal his pistol.

Penske clenched his joined hands. "He can't shoot," he said in a low voice. "Not worth a damn."

"You could have fooled me, then," said Kerr. "What I saw this morning was pretty convincing."

"I tell you he's afraid of it!" Penske burst out. "The recoil, the noise even-he flinched every time Dee shot, and when he was shooting himself-I swear togod he kept his eyes shut!"

Kerr's fingers played at flaking paint from the bars of the railing. His complexion was richened to a true black in the wash of the streetlight. "It looked like that to me, too," he admitted, "but he hit everything he shot at. He couldn't have done that if-if you were right."

"Unless that goddam rifle was alive," said Penske under his breath. He gripped the railing with both hands. His eyes were focused on the cars parked in the lot beneath them.

"Don't be a fool," Kerr snapped.

"George, I'veseen people who can shoot," Penske said urgently."That bastard's not one of 'em. Besides, nobody's that goddam good to shoot like he did offhand. Nobody human. He got it somewhere, and he trained it up to look like an M14 and shoot for him. Christ, he don't even know the difference from one kinda ammo and another. But it don't matter 'cause he's trained this-thing-and it's just like a guard dog." The little man paused, breathing deeply. "Or a witch cat," he added.

Kerr's index finger began to massage the gum above his bad tooth. "That's nonsense," he muttered around his hand. He did not look at Penske.

The smaller man touched Kerr's wrist. "Itfits, George," he said. "It's the only goddam thing that does. The whole truth an' nothing but."

Kerr pursed his lips and said, "If we suppose that… what you say… could be true, does that change anything?"

"It changes-"Penske blurted, but he stopped when Kerr raised his hand. The question had been rhetorical.

"We accepted him as a man with a sophisticated weapon," the big man continued as if he had not been interrupted. "That's no less true now than it was. And our need for his weapon is no less real."

Penske blinked. "Maybe you know what you're doing. But I don't like it."

Kerr patted him on the shoulder. "After tomorrow it won't matter," he said. "After this morning, that is. Let's both get some sleep."