Saturday morning, 10:20AM
In the parking lot of Tommy's rifle range Booth opened the liftgate of the SUV. He set the spotting scope at his feet then unslung the scoped Remington 700 bolt-action rifle and the Benelli pump shotgun from his shoulder and carefully set down the unloaded weapons, leaning them against the bumper. He drew back the blanket in the back of the SUV to expose what he'd come to privately refer to jokingly as 'the arsenal', the big black steel arms locker that had been welded to the vehicle frame for securely storing his tactical gear.
He dialed in the combination and opened the lid, out of habit checking to make sure nothing was missing. All of the various compartments were properly filled except for the big slot for the tactical shotgun he was returning. He chuckled at the memory of Bones firing the 12 gauge monster a little while ago, its recoil taking her off guard the first time even though he'd warned her about it after he'd demonstrated it for her. He only made a token effort to discourage her from shooting it, just making sure she knew she would probably be in for a sore shoulder if she fired several shells. Hell, he could feel it even though he had a lot more meat on his bones. But she was determined as always, and the recoil and thunder of firing it were half the fun of a shotgun. The other half of course was obliterating the target with double ought buckshot. She was suitably impressed. He even let her fire one of the nasty flechette rounds illegal for civilians, which instead of round shot contained miniature sharpened arrows that wouldn't penetrate structures as well but were devastating on bad guys. She didn't say anything, but when she retrieved some of the flechettes as souvenirs he knew she was getting them for the lab out of professional interest, surely thinking about the kinds of marks they might leave on bone.
He placed the shotgun in its slot in the foam, then capped the scope on the rifle and put it into a separate soft sided zippered case since it did not have a space in the locker.
He sat on the back of the SUV in the shade of the liftgate while he waited for Bones to come back from the restroom. Even though it was the middle of spring the midmorning sun was already getting hot. Last night it was even easier to coax her to come back out to shoot long guns at Tommy's outdoor range than he'd hoped. She had started to beg off, citing dirty laundry, getting in an overdue workout at her dojo, and working on her manuscript, but she was a pushover, her objections apparently merely pro forma. When he pointed out that he couldn't spend all day either because Rebecca was dropping off Parker at 4:00 she happily agreed to come after all. She insisted on driving her car this time out of fairness, and he would have happily let her, having somewhat surprisingly learned that he enjoyed her being in control sometimes, but he told her they were going to be using some of his new 'toys' from the SUV and she relented, clearly intrigued. As a compromise she drove her car to his place, and he surprised her by letting her drive the SUV into Virginia to the range.
Again they'd had a great time with their unconventional entertainment. She'd done a little hunting before but really ate up everything he had to explain and show her with the Remington hunting rifle. It was his personal weapon, not the Bureau's. The way he had it configured it was fairly similar to his old M24 Army sniper rifle, which in fact was based off the Remington design. Really showing her how to properly use the scope and make adjustments for range, windage and elevation was a treat given how she was such good pupil, and her long range shooting showed a real improvement just this morning. If she had noticed that he was only using bullseye targets instead of silhouettes like last night, she was too polite to comment on it. He just didn't want to think too much about his day job.
Today she had made a few anthropological observations about some of the other groups of shooters, comparing them to tribesmen, and he actually laughed as he realized she was joking and was not being patronizing at all. She continued to surprise him.
Just then the object of his recollection, and affection if truth be told, came into view carrying a couple of sodas. She smiled when she saw that he was looking at her and grinned the whole time as she approached. She handed him the unopened bottle as he stood up.
"Thanks, that's a great idea." She nodded in acknowledgement. He removed the cap and took the first sip. As soon as he did her expression changed to one of disgruntlement.
"What? What I'd do now?" he was puzzled as he lowered the drink.
She smiled and patted his arm holding the bottle, "No, not you. Tommy."
Crap. "Ok, what did he do?" I'll kill him…
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "It's not what he did, but what he didn't do." Booth was utterly baffled now. "I felt like I should have gone into that restroom armed. It was filthy, and I swear something moved but it was too dark to see. You can tell he doesn't get a lot of women customers here."
He laughed out loud at her, "You're not fazed by a slit trench in the jungle in Guatemala, but this place threw you for a loop?" Her eyes narrowed dangerously, but he didn't notice. "I know the accommodations for the outside range are kinda Spartan, grungy even, but still…" He chuckled some more, "I suppose it's different when you have to sit down for everything."
She moved.
"OWWW!" He was fast, but he only caught her hand after the damage was done. Damn but if she hadn't managed to poke him at the exact same spot on his ribs that was still sore from last night. "What did you do that for?" Maybe encouraging her newfound playfulness wasn't such a good idea after all. He kept holding her hand at bay as she didn't answer, instead only giving him with a smug look belied by the twinkle in her eye.
He gave her hand a squeeze, "Ok, ok, so you can have the last laugh." Then she did laugh out loud, and squeezed his hand in return before letting go.
"Too rough for you?" she teased.
He smiled back at her as rubbed his side, "I just thought I'd learned not to underestimate you a long time ago."
She grinned more broadly, "Well, you can consider that remedial instruction."
"Yes, ma'am."
She rolled her eyes at that. "But seriously, Tommy needs to see the restrooms are maintained better."
"Why don't you tell him yourself?" He'd introduced her to him this morning, and as soon as her back was turned Tommy gave him two big thumbs up, to which he responded by scratching his temple with his middle finger, also where she couldn't see. It was a guy thing. If Tommy thought she was just a pretty face he could readily dismiss he'd be sadly mistaken. Booth would gladly pay to see her bulldogging the owner.
"I will." She changed the subject, eager again. "What are we going to shoot next? What's in there?" She pointed to a hard case sitting in its own slot in the larger locker.
He hadn't planned on going there. "Uh, we're not going to shoot that one today." She briefly showed disappointment before quickly hiding it.
He needed to explain. His voice dropped, "That's my real sniper rifle. I don't fire it unless I can put it on a bench rest and re-zero it right afterwards. It has to be ready to go 24/7."
"Can I see it?" she asked softly.
"Sure." He lifted the hard case out of the locker and pulled it across, unlatching it only when he was sure it would not fall.
"I've never seen that type before."
"I thought you don't watch hardly any movies or TV?"
She gave a sigh of exasperation, "Just because I don't spend hours mindlessly being bombarded with commercials and superficial entertainment doesn't mean I live in a cave."
He let that one go with just a raised eyebrow and instead picked up the rifle and handed it to her, making sure she didn't drop it. As he expected she was first startled by the weight before she hefted it carefully.
"This is heavy. Twenty pounds?" she guessed.
"It's a little over eighteen, about twice what you'd normally expect a rifle that size to weigh. But I don't plan on having to hump it far." He smiled at her for real for the first time since she had asked about it. She held it for a few seconds, deep in thought, before handing it back.
He explained some more as he sat on the bumper again and laid it across his lap. "This is a Heckler and Koch PSG1, the most accurate semi-automatic sniper rifle in the world. You don't see many of them because at $10,000 a pop the Podunk PD can't afford them. Also there are a few other rifles out there that are very nearly as good which cost a lot less. But Uncle Sam's got deep pockets."
She remarked, "I thought the most accurate rifles were single-shot, bolt actions like your Remington." It was really a question.
"That's true but this one is damned close. That's one reason it weighs so much, to better absorb the recoil. But there's more of a story behind it." He patted the stock of the rifle and looked at her again. "What do you know about the Munich Massacre?"
"Just that Palestinian terrorists killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics." She sobered too as the ugliness of the real world intruded on their outing.
He continued, "The West German police had some terrible luck. They had arranged an ambush for when the terrorists and the hostages were going to transfer between the two choppers that brought them to the airport and a disabled airliner waiting for them with a phony aircrew. The Germans had five snipers, one assigned to each of the five terrorists, set to take them out on the tarmac."
"What went wrong?" She knew the story ended badly, but not how.
He grimaced, the story striking uncomfortably close to home, "Their intel was wrong. There were actually eight terrorists, and with their slow bolt-action rifles the snipers couldn't put them down before they had a chance to kill all of the athletes. Too many targets are one of a rescue sniper's nightmares."
Without his saying, she knew that the others had to be losing a hostage, or worse, killing one. So that was why the reminder of the pregnant Kurdish woman last night had bothered him so much.
He finished with a sigh, "Anyway, that's why they had H&K develop this, for multiple bad guys."
She placed a hand on his right hand where it held the rifle. "Then I'm glad you have it." She didn't need to say that she hoped he never needed the capability – they knew each other too well by now.
"I'm sorry for being such a bummer", he said with a rueful grin.
"No, no, I'm glad you shared that with me. I want to understand."
He thought that for someone who was supposedly not a people person she certainly had developed an ability to tell him just what he needed. He was again thankful for her. He stood up and turned around to put the rifle back in its case, then turned back to her. He made a deliberate effort to lighten up.
"You know you really did well today, I'm proud of you. You're a quick study, but I guess that should have come as no surprise."
She smiled in appreciation at the compliment, but he continued before she could speak.
"Matter of fact I think I'm going to have to send off for your Junior Sniper badge", he said with mock seriousness. But apparently he wasn't the only one ready to raise the mood because what she did next nearly shocked him.
She responded with a laugh, "But I wanted one of these!" As she said it she reached out, grabbed his belt buckle and gave it a tug.
She was perfectly innocent in the gesture, not being suggestive in the slightest, so paradoxically he found the unexpected familiarity incredibly sexy. He knew then and there that if she ever turned it on, on purpose, that he was a goner. He was nervous for a moment, and he wondered if she was aware of the effect she had on him.
"Uh… I'm afraid it's a bit of an antique, an heirloom. It belonged to my grandfather too. He was a sniper himself." Without waiting for a reply he swiftly changed the subject by reaching into the locker and retrieving the H&K MP5/10 submachine gun with the collapsible stock, which he extended. He'd seen her eyeing it, but figured she'd assumed she wouldn't get to shoot it. He had one last surprise for her. He handed her the weapon, and her eyes grew wide.
"Ready to rock and roll?" He was pleased he'd caught her off guard.
She held the MP5 gingerly by it's pistol grip. "I don't know what that means but I think I like the sound of it", she said with a widening grin.
"That's shooting on full auto", he explained. "Everybody ought to get to try it at least once. It's a helluva rush."
"Isn't this against some kind of rule?" she asked.
"What Cullen doesn't know won't hurt him. Anyway, what's bending a little rule between friends?" he said with a wink.
A/N As always, please let me know what you think