Dale Brown - Act of War

The big Ranger looked Richter up and down again, then sneered at him. “Look at you: Major What-Me-Worry. You’re a lab rat, Richter, nothing but a transistor head.” Still, Jason had nothing to say. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really thinking, Richter? You’ve got to give a shit about something; everything around you now can’t be neat and tidy and orderly like it is in your laboratory or on your design computers. What does your finely tuned brain really want to tell me?” No reply. Jefferson sneered again. “C’mon, you’re a big tough army officer.” He glanced over at the CID unit. “Or are you? Maybe you’re not shit unless you’re humping that big hunk of metal there. Go on. Speak freely. Now’s your chance.”

Richter looked as if he might say something, but after a few moments he simply caged his eyes. “I have nothing else to say, Sergeant Major,” he said finally.

Jefferson backed away and nodded, eyeing Richter suspiciously. “Very well, Major,” he said. “You’re on the hook for this now. Mess it up, and your military career is over.” He nodded to the CID unit. “Good job with your robot, Major. If DeLaine still decides not to use it, I think it would be a big mistake. But as long as you two are working together, whatever you decide is how we’ll play it.”

“Okay, Sergeant Major.”

“But if either one of you are stonewalling or holding back, and I find out about it, there will be hell to pay,” Jefferson warned. “Those are my feelings. That’ll be all. Carry on.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Jason responded. Jefferson saluted, waited until his salute was returned, and strode to the Cobra gun-ship, and he was off minutes later.

“Are we ever going to catch a break, Troy?” Jason asked the robot as he gave the order to prepare for uploading. He climbed in and activated the unit. Power was down to about fifty percent, plenty to make it back to the task force area at full speed.

CHAPTER FOUR

Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico

That evening

That night, Jason and Ariadna had dinner in a mesquite barbecue restaurant at the Clovis Municipal Airport’s general aviation terminal. Because the nation’s airspace was still shut down, business at the airport was terrible—but the food there was outstanding. As they feasted on spicy ribs, enchiladas, and barbecue beef sandwiches, Jason nodded at Ari. “You look different somehow,” he said.

“Oh?”

He looked closer. “Is that an olive drab T-shirt you’re wearing under your blouse?” he asked.

“So what?”

“Where’d you get a…oh, I see. Doug gave you his T-shirt too?”

“We fired over three hundred rounds today. Doug said I shouldn’t wear nice stuff because of the oil and powder residue that comes off the weapons. He gave me a couple of his T-shirts. We’re going to practice tomorrow too.”

“What piece of your underwear did you trade for the T-shirt?”

“You’re a degenerate.”

“What kind of gun are you practicing with?”

“Forty-five-caliber SIG Sauer P220, the best semiauto in the world,” Ari said. “He showed me how to clean it, hold it, shoot it, even holster it.” She opened her blouse and withdrew the SIG from a shoulder holster, pointing it toward the wall. “Beauty, isn’t it?”

Jason’s eyes bugged out in surprise as if she had shown him a nuclear fuel rod. “Christ, Ari! You had it on you this whole time? Isn’t that illegal?”

“In New Mexico it’s legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit as long as it’s unloaded,” Ari said. “Here.” She opened the action with a loud cha-chink! which garnered no reaction whatsoever from the diners around them, as if everyone expected to see handguns at restaurant tables all the time. She inspected the chamber. “It’s unloaded, but always check it yourself.” She handed it to Jason, who looked at the empty chamber. “No, J, never put your finger on the trigger!” she snapped as he wrapped his hand around the butt end.

“But you said it was unloaded, and I looked myself and saw it was unloaded!”

“Doug says always treat a gun like it’s loaded,” Ari said sternly. She pushed the gun’s muzzle away from her as he started to turn it toward her. “And never, ever point a gun at anyone.”

“But it’s empty, for Christ’s sake. There’s not even a clip in it!”

“Doesn’t matter—and it’s a ‘magazine,’ not a ‘clip.’ A clip is a device that holds a number of rounds; a magazine is a box that feeds rounds into a chamber.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Sure—like EDO and FPM memory chips are the same thing.”

“No—those are totally different.”

“You are such a nerd, Major,” Ari admonished him playfully. “We spent more time on gun safety today than anything else, and I learned so much.”

“Oh yeah? What else did Doug say?” Jason asked, emphasizing the sergeant’s name like a grade-schooler does to a friend on Valentine’s Day.

“Grow up, J. Doug says pretend there is a laser beam emanating from the muzzle at all times, and if it hits anyone they will die. If you can’t point it in a safe direction, point it at yourself. You always treat a gun like it’s cocked, locked, and ready to rock unless you personally verify it otherwise.”

“ ‘Cocked, locked, and ready to rock’—what in hell does that mean?”

“Jesus, J, I thought you were in the army! Which army might that be—Captain Kangaroo’s army? Didn’t you ever learn how to handle a gun?”

“Seven years ago at OCS, a nine-millimeter Beretta, for one week.”

“You’re pitiful.”

“Why are you carrying it around?”

“Doug said I should get used to carrying it,” Ari said. “I’m going to get my concealed carry permit for New Mexico. I spoke with Kelsey and asked her to help me get a federal carry permit, but after this afternoon I don’t think she’ll give me the time of day. I might have to go to Jefferson.”

“What do you want to carry a gun for?”

“Wake up, J,” Ari said. “The terrorist threat is the highest it’s been since 9/11, and we’re right in the thick of it. I’m surprised you aren’t carrying a weapon. You’re active-duty military—Chamberlain can probably get you authorization in a snap.”

“I’m here to employ CID, not shoot it out with bad guys with pistols,” Jason said. “I think I impressed Jefferson out there in the range today. He asked me again about the argument between me and DeLaine.”

“You both clammed up when he asked you together—makes sense that he’d want to ask you individually too.”

“Yeah, but what was most interesting: I don’t think Jefferson told Chamberlain anything except us having a disagreement about something other than CID.”

“So?”

“So it means that maybe Jefferson isn’t spying for Chamberlain after all,” Jason said. “If he was, and Jefferson then finds out we’re tapping FBI servers and satellite datalinks, he’d have us kicked off this project so fast our heads would spin. Jefferson is a fossil, but one thing’s for sure—he has a personal code of conduct, and he follows it to the letter, no matter who he’s talking with. He may be Chamberlain’s shill, but his loyalty is with the task force.”

“He probably figures you’ll shoot yourself in the foot anyway—no need to rat you out,” Ari said.

“You’re the one who’ll shoot herself in the foot, once you start carrying bullets in that thing.”

“You pansy—guns are perfectly safe once you learn a few basics on gun safety and learn how it works,” Ari said, holstering the weapon. “I’ve field-stripped this gun and put it back together three times today, and the third time the gun was under a towel—I did it by feel. It’s one hundred percent safe even with a round in the chamber. Hundreds of police units and dozens of nations use this gun as their primary sidearm.”