Line of Fire
Charles really wrote the book on fire control, putting one round into the heart of things where fifty of ours might go and not hit anything.--Michael Herr, Dispatches
The Midnight Girl
It was a clear, bright winter day, as nice a day as you could hope for in London at this time of year. It wasn't even too cold. That was good, because Drake didn't like waiting out on the sidewalk in the wintertime. He hoped Nancy would be punctual, but at least today he could enjoy a little sun and blue sky. That was one thing about this town, when the sun finally came out it almost seemed like a nice place.
Drake felt a little uneasy all the same. He had two big cases on the ground next to him and a heavy carryall strapped around his shoulder. He didn't like having his guns out in the open where some British cop could hassle him about it or some jerk could try to rip them off. But he hadn't done any shooting in a couple of weeks and he didn't like to get rusty. Yomiko had the car, of course. She had to learn to drive the London streets sometime, but gun cases weren't exactly the kind of thing you could take on the tube.
Normally he and Sears shot together, but Sears was off somewhere on assignment. Drake wasn't sure how he felt about shooting with Nancy, but they'd have to learn each other's styles better if they were going to work together again. And a lift was a lift.
He checked his watch. Just as he was looking at it he heard the roar of an engine. He looked up and saw a midnight-blue Mini-Cooper tearing down the street towards him, a woman at the wheel. It was her, of course. Even at a distance, you couldn't mistake her for anybody else.
The car stopped on a dime right at Drake's feet. Nancy got out and crossed around the rear of the car to where the cases sat. "Morning," Drake said to her.
"Yes, it is."
So she started right off on him, but she looked like a dream anyway. Nancy was all in black today: leather pants, Doc Martens, an aviator jacket, and shades.
She clicked something and the boot popped open. Drake stepped forward to lift the cases, but she swung one of them smoothly into the boot with one hand. All those weeks in the hospital hadn't gotten her out of shape, anyhow.
She opened the back door. "We'll put the rest in here."
Drake looked inside the car. The back seat was piled high with kid's stuff: several stuffed animals, a folding stroller, some sort of big beanbag thing, all kinds of junk.
Drake frowned. "What the hell is all this crap ?"
"Oh, I just had it lying about. Got it for a friend, but she didn't need it after all. It has its uses." She pulled the toys and animals aside, took the second case and the carryall, and laid them on the floor. She put some shabby coats that looked as if they'd come out of a dumpster on them and covered those with a large Wiggles blanket. She put the toys and things on top. Drake noticed that the rear window sported a BABY ON BOARD sign.
"Let's go."
Drake sat down and buckled in. He took no chances. He had hardly clipped the harness on when Nancy floored the Cooper and tore around the corner. She wasted no time.
Nancy whipped the little car through the streets of South London like a pony on a steeplechase. She shifted up and down quickly, and the car stuck to the corners as though glued to them.
Up close inside the car she smelt as good as she looked. Drake was intensely and uneasily aware of her in the small space. He watched the muscles in her gauntleted wrists flex as she worked the gear shift.
Drake had to distract himself ."Why the hell are we dodging around like this ?" he asked her. "All you have to do is head for the river and follow it."
Nancy sighed. "I'm 'dodging around' in case I'm being tailed, Drake."
"Do you know you're being tailed ?"
"Do I have to know that in order to do the smart thing ? Act your age, Sergeant Anderson."
Drake's stomach lurched as they skidded across South Lambeth Road. Whatever this thing had under the hood, it sure wasn't standard equipment.
His eye caught her upper thigh as she punched the brake pedal. "I figured you for a Karmann-Ghia or something, not a Mini," he said.
"Oh, I have one of those, too. But this little love is a London car. It can go places here where nothing else can go. And it can corner."
"I got that."
Drake had spent a lot of time in South London and he thought he knew it fairly well, but after three minutes in the car with Nancy he was utterly lost. She seemed to know every side-street between Waterloo and Clapham Junction.
They turned off the Wandsworth Road as fast as they had turned on to it, turned left, right, then left again. They were somewhere in the shabby wilderness between the river and the railway, with Lavender Hill rising to the south and Battersea Power Station looming behind
them.
The Mini zigged and zagged through goods yards, petrol stations, empty lots, and the courtyards of housing estates. Then Drake saw that they had come to a quiet, empty area of narrow streets and old warehouses.
"Hey, this looks sort of familiar," Drake said.
Nancy smiled behind her glasses.
They made two more quick turns and halted before a low, wide building. The bricks had been red in Victoria's time, but had faded to a rusty brown. On the left was a truck entrance with a large wooden door that might once have been painted green. To the right was a small shop front. The windows were opaque with dirt, and the shelves behind them were piled with yellowing books in warped bindings. The sign above the narrow door read: VERLOCQ & OSSIPON, PRINTERS AND BOOK DEALERS. EST. 1893.
Nancy turned to Drake. "See, Drake ? Occasionally I know where I'm going."
Drake got the cases out of the boot while Nancy stood in the sunshine with her arms crossed, looking at the building.
"What the hell are you staring at ? You going to help with this stuff ?"
She grinned. "Just admiring the sign. Another of Joker's jokes. It's pretty good, though, don't you think ?"
Drake looked at the sign. "So what ? I don't get it."
"You wouldn't. I'll get the other bags."
Drake opened the door. A shop bell tinkled and they stepped into a dark, high-ceilinged room. The air was thick with mould and dust. Books and papers were heaped everywhere.
A stout Sikh in a maroon turban stood behind the counter, reading Rudolf Steiner. A shabbily dressed Russian with white hair was shifting books from the floor to the shelves and back. The Sikh looked up and the Russian stopped shelving as Nancy and Drake entered.
Nancy nodded at the Sikh. "'Morning, Jagadish," she said to him.
He inclined his head. "Mizz Deep." Something buzzed in the rear of the shop.
"Velcome back," the Russian said.
She nodded at him in answer. "Razumov."
The Russian's coat fell part way open as he stooped to pick up some books. Drake saw the butt end of a Tokarev peeping out of his inside pocket.
Nancy headed for the back between two towering, overloaded book cases. Drake followed, knocking books over with the heavy bags. He could hear Nancy chuckling in front of him.
"He says he doesn't read much. No, not much at all," she said. "Jagadish and Razumov. Oh, that's good."
Drake didn't bother asking. In this outfit, he always felt as if he was a couple of pages behind. If not a whole chapter.
"Here we are, " Nancy said. She came to the end of the aisle and opened a battered-looking door.
They stepped inside of what should have been a closet. It wasn't. A fierce light came on and blinded them for a quarter second. A heavy sliding panel slammed behind them.
Then it was the usual security stuff: buzz, buzz, whir, whir. Face scan, fingerprint scan. Then the voice print: Identify yourselves, please, in that cool British female voice. Identification completed. Thank you. A lurch, another whir, then a jolt as the lift stopped. The panel slid open and they were looking at a fully equipped indoor shooting range.
It was a nice one, too. There were half a dozen places on the firing line, lots of automated target options and miles of gun racks for the Library's weapons. Not to mention an ordnance shop with lathes, bullet molds, and all the handloading stuff you could want. They even had food and drink machines down here.
Being indoors, it didn't have as much range as you would want for longarms. Yet all in all, Drake thought, it wasn't a bad place to spend the day.
"Let's get ready," Nancy said.
My Guns Are My Friends
They sat at a table in the ordnance shop, readying their weapons. Nancy was cleaning her long-barreled Mauser. She'd changed to her catsuit, which made looking at her even tougher.
Drake had stripped and cleaned his new BAR and was trying to reassemble it. The recoil spring was a real bitch, just as all the manuals said. He'd already messed it up once.
He finally got it right and gave a loud grunt of satisfaction. When he was done, he held the weapon up and ran his hand along it. "Looking good, baby," he said.
Nancy raised her head slightly. "So that's a Browning Automatic Rifle," she said "I never saw one close-up before."
Drake grinned as he reassembled the last parts. "Yeah, brand new. I just got two of them." He added the barrel group and held it up again. "I always wanted one, and now I have two."
"A brand new BAR ? And why two ?"
Drake liked talking about his guns. It was practically the only thing he felt comfortable talking about around this woman anyway. "Well, not brand new exactly. They haven't made any in fifty years, but there's an outfit in Brazil that reconditions them and re-chambers them for 7.62. They had a pair going cheap, and I just grabbed 'em quick. I mean, I know there's a lot of things wrong with it. No barrel-change, just twenty rounds in the clip. But it just…looks right to me. And if it looks right to me, it is right, kind of."
"Yes," Nancy said. "I know." She lowered her eyes and went back to work on her pistol.
"It's almost like a Zen thing," Drake said. "I mean…I had a ceramics teacher once who said something like that about pots."
"It is funny how a gun will get inside you," Nancy said slowly. "But Zen is crap, Drake. Take it from me."
"Well, you'd know."
Drake put the BAR aside and sat down to work on his M2 Carbine. He couldn't get started because he was too busy watching Nancy work on the Mauser.
Her strong, slender fingers caressed the parts with a lover's touch. When she had finished cleaning the last part, she reassembled the weapon with speed and precision. One minute there was no gun, the next minute there was. She picked up the short-barreled Mauser and began to wipe the outside with a beautiful chamois cleaning rag.
Drake shook his head. "Those Mausers," he said. "They're you."
"Meaning ?"
"They're kind of…well, sexy."
Nancy smiled. "Drake, if a weapon is bitching I shoot tighter groups." She laid the Mauser aside and picked up her Glock 18.
"Now this thing isn't sexy at all," she said. "It's an ugly gun, really. Besides that, it's plastic and I'm a blued-steel girl."
"Why the hell do you keep it then ?"
Nancy held the gun pointed upwards, close to herself. "It was a present, one of a matched set," she said. "From someone I used to know. Somebody dead."
Drake said nothing. Now she seemed to be talking to the gun, as if it could not only hear but answer her.
"It has its points," she continued "Lots of rounds in the mag, selective fire. It's reliable, not too heavy. You can't say no to all that."
"Guess not."
"And now I just can't seem to let go of it," she said. "That's the hell of it. Something is ugly, plastic, fake, all wrong for you, but it has the features you need. It does the job, so you stop caring. And you get used to it, tell yourself it's what you really want. Then one day you find you can't live without it."
Drake nodded, as if he knew what she was talking about. He thought there might be more, but there wasn't. She put the Glock back on the table and began to strip the short-barreled Mauser.
Drake noticed some odd type on the side of the long-barreled Mauser. He reached across the table for it.
"You might ask first, Drake," Nancy said coldly.
"Huh ?"
"I don't like people touching my things, Drake. Especially my guns."
"Well, MAY I, then? Pretty please with sugar on top ?"
She glanced at him from under her eyelashes and a slight smile came to her face again.
"Yes, Winston, since you put it that way."
He picked up the pistol and examined the markings: E. GRIMAUD et CIE. LIEGE , then the British broad-arrow and the year 1940.
"Machine pistol," Drake said. "Where did you get these broomhandles from, anyway ? They look to be in super shape. I've never seen any with British markings, either. "
"More vintage treasures from Joker's hoard, Drake," Nancy said. "Like that Super .38 Colt of yours. Just odd stuff from 1940 that never got issued, let alone used."
"That's a funny thing about this outfit, isn't it," Drake said. "All kinds of old stuff. It's as if Joker wants to turn the clock back."
"There's no 'as if' about it, Drake."
Drake looked at Nancy sharply. "You know something, or you just talking ?"
"Forget it."
Drake let it go. He peered at the machine pistol in his hand.
"Parts must be a bitch for these, though. Where do you get them ?"
"Hong Kong. I have a good connection there." She paused. "I did have a good connection, anyway. I suppose it won't work now. "
"I've heard you can shoot through a wall with these if you know how."
"I'm a Deep, Drake. I need to shoot through walls, and I do know how." Nancy said.
Nancy had finished stripping the Mauser. Now she began to clean the parts with oil, brush, and rag. Her expression was all concentration, but there was an odd, still quality underneath that reminded Drake of something he couldn't quite name. He'd never seen anyone work on a weapon with such delicacy.
"God, you take good care of your pieces, sister," he said.
She was cleaning a firing pin and did not look at him. "My guns are my friends, Drake. If I take care of them, they'll take care of me. And I'm not your sister."
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Drake bent over and touched his toes. He felt a sharp pain when he did so. "Hell," he said. "My goddamn back. That's enough of that." He went to a table behind the firing line and began to load his revolvers.
"You give up too easily, Drake," Nancy said. She was down on the floor at full stretch, her legs pointed in opposite directions. She might have been made of rubber.
"The doc said I should ease off if I felt a twinge. I'm older than you and I've wracked myself up before by ignoring medical advice. I don't do that anymore."
Nancy did about two hundred quick pushups, all one handed: first the left, then the right. Then she performed a series of high kicks, straight up in the air.
"You're a dancer, right ? " Drake asked her.
"I have been," she said "Though some didn't call it dancing. That should be enough. I feel pretty loose now."
"Gee, I guess so."
Joker let his top agents and mission support people shoot on their own here without a rangemaster, but Drake liked to go through some of the form anyway. He waited until Nancy was ready, then stepped up to the line with her.
Drake put his command face on. Nancy stood poised in her lane with the big Beretta. She rocked side to side gently on her long legs, like a shortstop waiting to field a ground ball. She looked very cool and focused.
"Ready on the line?"
"Oh, yes, Rangemaster Drake."
Drake sighed. "Commence firing."
Drake had set a handgun course for himself, nothing too strenuous. If you hadn't shot for a while, the temptation was always to try to do too much. If you tried to rush it, you got no accuracy at all.
Drake had been a catcher in high school, and he'd always told his pitchers to go for location first. Hit the mitt and keep hitting it and your speed will just pick up naturally. Shooting was just the same.
He took his time, running a series of short programs. He paused to reload and police his brass in between. One-handed standing, two-handed standing, seated, kneeling, prone. Revolvers first: Heavy Duty, Charter Bulldog, Detective Special. Then the automatics: PSP, .38 Super Colt, Smith and Wesson. His groups were tight. That was the whole idea.
Drake shot well, and got a little more accurate and a little faster with each program. His right arm and shoulder felt a little tender to start with, but after a while they felt fine. His muscles didn't need long to get back into it. That was good. He'd be able to do some work with longarms today after all. He decided to try the M2 first, just semi-auto to start with. He'd had carbines since he was a kid, and he always felt comfortable with them.
He stopped to load the carbine, but Nancy kept going. Drake just had to watch for a little while. It was quite a show.
She had finished her first semiauto courses and was going to work with her machine pistols.
Nancy started with the usual two-handed horizontal grip for full auto. Then she switched to a one-handed horizontal grip and after that to a two-handed vertical. Finally, she fired a few full-auto bursts vertical and one handed. Hardly any shooters in the world could do that with a machine pistol and not blow all their rounds straight into the air.
Drake realized with a shock that Nancy's wrists and forearms were even stronger than his.
Even more shockingly, her groups were good—damned good, in fact.
Nancy wasn't impressed with herself, though. She came back behind the firing line shaking her head. "Baka," she swore. "Shooting rubbish."
Nancy reloaded again and put on her extra gunbelt. She tore her protectors off and tossed them on the floor.
"Hey," Drake said. "You're going to ruin your ears without those."
"Drake, I have to shoot indoors in much smaller spaces than this. I do that more than you do, and I can't ask the bad guy if I can put some earplugs in. If I don't stay used to the noise in practice, it throws my reactions and my aim off when I do it for real."
Drake put a clip in the M2. He went to work and got some good groups, as he usually did with the carbine. He switched to full auto and did well with that, too. In an interval between bursts, he heard a loud thump on the floor and looked over to Nancy's lane.
She was running at the firing line now from a point about fifteen yards behind it, zig-zagging and tumbling on the floor. Then she leaped up and let loose with both guns. She shortened the range progressively and shot John Woo style, pulling the trigger all the way back and blazing away until the mags were empty.
She reloaded fast and kept it up without pause, shooting group after group. Finally she was doing backflips and handsprings. When she had emptied her holster guns, she whipped a little .25 Beretta out of her boot and emptied that, too.
She was ripping the targets to pieces. Everything was super-tight; heads and chests vanished in seconds.
Drake gave a low whistle of admiration, a whistle unheard as Nancy unleashed another burst from her long Mauser.
He switched to the M14.
After a while he didn't feel the floor shaking anymore. He looked over and saw Nancy standing with her hands on her hips, staring down the target lane. The floor around her was awash in spent cases. She was bathed in sweat, but she looked about as satisfied as she ever looked.
"Better," Nancy said through her teeth. "I'm better when I move."
Drake shook his head. "I don't see how you hit the bull shooting that way, or anything else for that matter," he told her.
"Maybe you don't think I can shoot at all, Drake."
"Look, that's not how I meant it."
She picked a silenced Colt Woodsman from her table and held it up. "I pack this small-bore because I can shoot. Like this."
She slipped a clip into the pistol, turned, and fired one-handed down the lane. The gun made a rapid slapping sound, hardly audible more than ten feet away. When it was empty she pressed a button and the target came down the rail. She threw it at Drake.
"All in the head, Drake. At fifty yards with a .22. Try it some time."
"All I meant was—"
"Give me your shotgun," she said. He handed the Winchester 97 to her, scarcely knowing why.
She didn't even bother to check if it was loaded.
"I just love to get in close, Drake," she said. "This close."
She ran down the lane in violation of every safety rule, emptying the shotgun from her knees.
When she came back, her catsuit was speckled with pieces of burnt paper from the target. Her eyes were large and red.
"That's how you make sure of them, Drake," she said as she handed the shotgun back to him. "When you come home with bits of them stuck to you. Besides, it's so much more fun that way."
"That was a damn stupid thing to do," Drake said. "I was right behind you on the line. My weapon might have been loaded. You don't screw around like that on a range."
"Bugger the rules, Drake. Are there safety rules in combat ? I see you picking up your brass between groups. Do you do that in action ? Reality isn't something you can switch on and off, so don't practice as if it was."
"Look, I won't tell you how to shoot if you don't tell me how to shoot."
"Sorry, Drake, but I don't like to work with people who don't take work as seriously as I do."
"And I don't like to work with dumb broads who lose their cool over nothing. What the heck is wrong with you today ? I was trying to pay you a compliment. What I meant was that I'd never seen anyone move so fast and shoot such terrific groups at the same time. Don't you understand English ?"
"A compliment ? Really ?"
"Yes, really. How the hell do you do it ?"
"My job is to get in there fast, kill my man or woman, grab the book, and get out while you cover me from long range. That calls for speed, maneuver, and volume of fire up close."
"I know it, but pinpoint work like I just saw is damn near impossible if you're moving that way. You're not even aiming at areas, you're shooting their eyeballs out. So what gives ?"
Nancy winked slowly at him and held a gloved forefinger to her lips. "Shhh," she said. "It's a secret."
"Yeah ?"
She put her right foot up on a chair and leaned forward across her knee. It gave Drake a great view of her chest.
"Love and trust the weapon you wield," she said to him.
"That sounds like a quote."
"That's how I get better penetration," Nancy said. She ran a finger slowly along the barrel of her long Mauser. It must have been hot, but if it burned her she didn't seem to mind.
"Penetration is what we Deeps are all about, Drake. Didn't you know that ?"
Drake didn't say anything. You couldn't have a normal conversation with this woman.
She grinned at him and laughed. He didn't like it.
"I think you need to take a break," he told her.
"I need something, anyway."
Drake stared unhappily at his M14. The last round hadn't fed cleanly. "I hate this damn town," he said. "The moisture gets into everything. I love this rifle, but every time I shoot it here the action sticks."
"Oh, you can't have a sticky action, Drake. That's not good at all."
Drake stepped back from the line and put the rifle down. "OK, keep it up. But if our team leader was here you wouldn't be like this."
Nancy stood up and her face got witty again. Before she could speak, they heard the lift coming down the shaft.
"Ah," Nancy said. "Speak of the devil." She turned to face the back of the room.
The lift opened and someone got out. The back was partly in shadow, but Drake caught the glint of light off of eyeglasses.
"Hi, Drake," a familiar girlish voice said. "Hi, Nancy. I brought the gun with me."
Drake turned to Nancy. "Who asked her here ?"
Nancy looked over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow. "It was my idea, as it happens. You have a problem with that ?"
He shrugged.