Act of Mercy – Chapter Nine
Tim had three things planned for his weekend and having dinner with the Brooks family wasn't one of them. He sat nervously trying to remember his table manners, not needing them much before, ever, but what he lacked in refinement he made up for with appetite. He'd never tasted anything so good and slathered the cook with compliments. Rachel's mom beamed happily, fussed, insisted he have seconds. He wanted thirds but thought it might be rude to ask. Maybe she noticed. She waved him back as he was pulling out of the driveway and handed a care package through the window.
"A doggie bag, how appropriate," Rachel called from the doorway, the teasing followed by a sincere enveloping grin.
He drove home content with a full stomach and fell asleep early.
A door slammed down the hall sometime later and he snapped awake reaching for a rifle and grasping at empty air. He sat up, gripped in panic, unarmed. Voices carried from a neighboring apartment, laughter, and he brought his hands to his face and pressed hard, rubbing away imagined threats. He lay back and tried for a half hour to settle his nerves and rein in racing thoughts. Finally giving up, he dressed and headed out to run the dark streets. On the way to the elevator he stopped at the offending door, leaned his forehead against it and took a couple of breaths. He played scenarios through his head, violent retribution for interrupted sleep, and listened to the music pounding from the other side. It isn't even good music, he thought irritably. He pushed off and down the hall, jabbed the elevator button in a one finger attack then took the stairs just to be moving.
It was beautiful and quiet at 3am, pacing in and out of the soft light from the street lamps, alone. His edges were smoothed when he got back, enough to refrain from punching the door of the late night revelers, their apartment now silent when he walked past. His mind was on food as he turned the key in the lock and he thought hungrily about leftovers. He heated the care package from Rachel's mom, sat on his living room floor and enjoyed an early morning feast.
Saturday was spent dealing with the delivery of the contents of an apartment, setting up his bed and furniture and then stretching out on his new couch for what was left of the day, watching TV. Number one on his list of things to do, done. Sunday, early, he tackled the second thing. He grabbed his new rifle and drove out of town to check out a different range from the one he'd tried with Art the previous weekend. He and Art both agreed that range was nice, a pleasant gun club, but nice was not what he had in mind. He picked one farther out to try this Sunday, hoping for fewer tourists, something hardcore. The girl at the house smiled, friendly, and pointed up the rutted lane to a trailer.
"That's the long range office." She punctuated the word 'office' with finger quotes. "Fischer's up there this morning. You can ask him whatever you need. Good luck," she added, leaving Tim to wonder why she'd say that.
He nodded his thanks and drove gingerly up past the potholes and the curious dog, watching the girl in the rearview mirror, the tight jeans, sweeping the porch. He thought about his perfect woman and imagined she'd be working at a gun range. He grinned.
The trailer was unlocked and he walked in. A man, Fischer, Tim supposed, probably in his sixties, had a rifle stripped on the table in front of him and was alternating staring at the pieces and squinting at a manual. Tim stood inside the door watching and waiting to be acknowledged.
The man didn't look up, just snapped, "What?"
"Mr. Fischer?"
"Yeah. What?"
Tim rolled his eyes upward and considered turning around and walking out but the place smelled right, of oil and metal, and felt comfortable, so he decided to stay. He eyed the bristly silver hair and took another tack.
"That looks like one of those 3-D jigsaw puzzles…of an M107," Tim drawled. "Having trouble finding the corner pieces?"
"It's an M82A1, smartass."
"Well, gosh, don't know why I couldn't spot the difference the way you have it so beautifully displayed."
Fischer glanced up finally. "Did Cecily send you up here just to piss me off or is there something I can do for you?"
"Just want to shoot and maybe discuss tools with you, and ammo," Tim replied absently, thinking 'Cecily'.
Fischer stood and stretched a crick out of his back. "What're you shooting?" He was unsuccessful at hiding his annoyance at the interruption, obviously not trying very hard.
"Remington 700."
"What're you shooting at?"
Tim smirked, cocked his head, walked closer. "Today? Whatever targets you've got down range."
The man pressed his lips together, further annoyed. "What distance?" he almost shouted.
"I'll start at 400. Work my way up to 800. See if it'll do more."
Fischer noted Tim's choice of wording: 'see if it will do more' not 'see if I can do more'. He took a closer look at his customer then swept his eyes back over the deconstructed gun montage on his table.
"How did you recognize it was a Barrett?" he asked, more attentive now.
"Seen plenty field-stripped before, though never quite so thoroughly as this." Tim was unsuccessful at hiding the sarcasm, didn't honestly try very hard.
"You military?"
"Ex."
"Sniper?"
"Maybe."
"Well, don't just stand there like a dumbass, then. Help me put this damn thing back together. What are you, stupid?"
Still smirking, Tim walked around the table, took Fischer's chair without asking and dug in. "You're calling me stupid? What the hell did you think you were doing, you blind old man?" he huffed back. "You forget your glasses at home with your personality?"
"What would you know about personality?" Fischer retorted. "You have to be at least eighteen to be allowed one."
He stood back and let Tim get to work. Watching, frowning.
"I'm taking this out to test it when I'm done," Tim stated.
"Over my dead body."
"No problem, asshole. It'd be my pleasure. How do you feel like going out?"
"You've got a surprising amount of personality for a piss-ant, hillbilly punk. You steal it?" Fischer snarled.
"And you've got a surprising amount to say for a dead man," Tim replied calmly. "Keep it up and I'll make it hurt more."
The two men stared at each other for a calculating moment then Fischer nodded, commanding, at the mess of parts. Tim focused back on the task, grinning happily.
Fischer kept quiet but eventually leaned on the chair back, hovering over Tim's shoulder. Even the silence was comedic.
A short time later Tim hoisted the assembled rifle, setting it onto its tripod and carefully sliding the bolt back. Fischer grunted and walked into the back room of the trailer.
"I'll get the ammo," he called over his shoulder. "See if you blow yourself up."
The two became acquainted sitting in the dirt, ignoring the cold, playing all morning, taking turns with Fischer's new toy. They finally broke when they couldn't feel their fingers anymore and headed down to have coffee with Cecily. A successful morning all around.
The last thing on Tim's list required some steeling of nerves. He paid a visit to his old high school teacher, retired in Lexington. He was nervous knocking on the door but the reception she gave him put him at ease. She clapped her hands together and patted his cheek, delighted to see him grown up, back from Afghanistan and still in one piece.
She was always old to him and the eight years or so since he'd seen her hadn't reversed his opinion, only settled it, but she was still sharp and still carried expectations of him, the one person who did. And he found himself still wanting to live up to those expectations, honored by them even after all his experiences and independence. He told her about his new career while they ate cookies on her porch. She smiled and touched his knee and said how proud she was that he'd gotten into the Marshals Service all on his own. He felt foolishly like a schoolboy back in her classroom.
"Big changes," she said, clearly sensing his uncertainty, the lack of confidence in his choices. "They can be unsettling."
Unsettled was precisely how he felt. He didn't mention that his morning of shooting the shit out of targets with a .50 caliber sniper rifle had left him happier than he'd been in months. He worried what that might reveal about himself, wondered if he'd been rash quitting the military so abruptly after the death of his friend.
"Timothy," she drawled wisely, reading his face. "You've got to give it a fair try now that you've worked so hard to get here. How are you ever going to know if you're on the right path if you've never been off it?"
She was the only one he'd met from his native Wolfe County who'd read any eastern philosophy. He left feeling a little steadier, eyeing the peeling paint on the woodwork, determining right then to pay a debt owing and help her around her house when he could.
He had an undisturbed sleep and woke later than usual. He arrived at work to find Rachel already at her desk, lying in wait.
"What the hell did you tell Nick?" she demanded.
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