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  “And that is?” Barb asked.

  “The TDI Kriss Super V,” Attie said, dropping the magazine and ensuring it was clear, then handing it over to Barb. “It’s a forty-five SMG that uses a style of recoil damper that drops the muzzle climb and recoil. It’s also got fewer parts than a standard SMG, so it’s reliable as hell.”

  “Sounds nice,” Barb said, doubtfully. “Sounds like you work for their PR department.”

  “Which was my reaction when I first played with one,” Attie said, nodding. “Thing is, they’re right. Little fucker…”

  “Language, Master Sergeant,” Barb said.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Attie said, rolling his eyes. “Little sucker shoots like a rail, ma’am. Full auto or single shot. The only problem is getting used to it ’cause it feels unnatural to shoot. There’s recoil, but just enough you can tell you’ve fired. And you keep wanting to fight the muzzle climb and it’s not there.”

  “How?” Barb asked, interested.

  “Basically, the bolt hits a metal buffer that goes down instead of back,” Attie said, shrugging. “That shifts the momentum of the recoil and automatically fights the muzzle climb for you. Takes a couple of magazines to get used to it. After that, well, it’s kind of like what you’d think a laser would feel like firing. I mean, there’s some recoil, but nothing you have to fight. You can shoot it offhand, easy. And you can’t say that about any other SMG on the market in any caliber.”

  “Hmmm,” Barb said, ensuring the weapon was clear then targeting with it. She had to admit it was a very smooth-feeling weapon. Except that it just felt too damned small. Which in a cave was, again, a feature, not a bug. Unless you wanted to hit your target. “Reliability?”

  “Would you like the results of the official test or the unofficial test?” Attie asked, grinning.

  “Unofficial?” Barb asked.

  “AWG has its own testing regime,” Attie said.

  “AWG?” Janea interjected.

  “Asymmetric Warfare Group,” Attie replied. “Don’t ask. Just say they need weapons that work. They’ve got their own testing regime. First, they dunk a weapon in mud for three months.”

  “Ouch,” Barb said.

  “Yep,” Attie said, grinning. “Then they clear out the barrel and fire four thousand rounds through it. If it doesn’t break completely, they’re happy. The standard is that it has to successfully fire the first hundred rounds without detail cleaning. After that, it can only be detail cleaned. If it has to be repaired, it’s a fail.”

  “The AK test,” Barb said.

  “Right,” Attie said. “Then there’s the dust test. Dust and mud do two different things. So they put it through a three-day simulated dust storm. Same standard. Then they fire eight thousand more rounds through it. The weapon can’t break during the final fire run.”

  “And the AWG test?” Barb asked.

  “They never detail cleaned it,” Attie said, smiling. “They only detail clean if there’s indications that it’s necessary due to repetitive jams. They had a total of eighty-seven jams in the whole test series, ten thousand rounds. An M-4, by comparison, has an average of one hundred and eighty jams and requires frequent detail cleaning. The only other weapon that makes the same standard is the AK, and it’s a piece of…” He paused and looked at Barb. “It’s robust, but not very good otherwise. This is robust, mostly because it’s got very few moving parts, and one he…heck of a weapon. The Kriss is the shi…It’s the best weapon to come along since the Ma Deuce.”

  “You’re gun-geeking out on me, Barb,” Janea said.

  “Military fifty-caliber machine gun,” Barb said, looking at the weapon in a different light. “Okay, I’m still taking my H&K, but this sounds like the right system for the mission. What else?”

  “I was worried about bouncers,” Attie said.

  “We’re not going to a bar,” Janea said, frowning.

  “Ricochets,” Barb said.

  “Right,” Attie said, smiling. “So it’s frangible ammo. My only question is if it’s got the penetration for the threat. So we’ll mostly carry frangible with ball backup.”

  “Okay,” Barb said. “Can we use anything heavier in there?”

  “Caves aren’t mines, ma’am,” Attie said, dubiously. “You don’t want to use much in the way of explosives. Cave-ins happen.”

  “I’d really like to avoid that,” Janea said.

  “So we’ll be carrying some frags,” the master sergeant said with a shrug. “I don’t recommend using them under normal conditions; they’ll bounce all over the damned place. But if we have to use them, we’ll use them. Other than that, standard caving gear. I’ve got combat harnesses for your stuff. We’ll have to be taking them on and off.…”

  “And thus we get to what a lovely adventure this is going to be,” Janea said. “Are we done gun geeking? Can I wake up now?”

  “Just one thing,” Barb said.

  “Got to have some range time with it, ma’am,” Attie said.

  “Oh, great,” Janea said. “Can’t I just use an axe like normal?”

  * * *

  The FBI Command Center had come rather completely stocked, including basic materials for a range. So it had been a matter of less than twenty minutes to get in place and get ready to test out the new weapons.

  The Kriss had a folding stock, which Janea had dutifully folded out and tucked into her shoulder. She took a good two-point stance, leaned into the weapon and prepared to fire.

  “Ma’am?” Attie said, cautiously. “They say to always let people fire the weapon the first time their normal way. But you’re leaning way too far into it.”

  “I’ve fired an SMG before, Master Sergeant,” Janea said.

  “As you say, ma’am,” the master sergeant said. “Fire when ready.”

  Janea shook her head, leaned into the recoil and lightly stroked the trigger. And nearly fell on her face as the bullets drew a line from the middle of the silhouette halfway to her position. On the ground. She’d tried to fight recoil that just wasn’t there and ended up barely missing shooting her foot.

  “What the Hel?” Janea said, holding the weapon out and up, her eyes wide. “There’s no recoil.”

  “There’s not much, ma’am,” Attie said, grinning. “Especially when you consider it’s forty-five. Thompson kicks like a freaking mule, even with all the weight.”

  “That was just…” Janea said, her eyes still wide.

  “Unnatural?” Attie asked.

  “Good word for it,” Janea said, taking another stance. This time she didn’t bother to lean in, and triggered another burst. All five rounds ended up in an eight-inch pie-shaped area. Normally, one or two would have been in the circle and the rest climbing up and away. “This is…”

  “The stuff?” Barb asked, taking a stance next to her. Barb didn’t make the same mistake, which was why her first five rounds all ended up in the target zone. Her next five ended up in a three-inch group. Then she simply held down the trigger, expending the rest of the thirty-round magazine into a five-inch circle. “That is very nice.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the master sergeant said, blinking in surprise. His own shooting was on the same order, maybe a touch better, but he didn’t expect to see that level of ability in a civilian female. He didn’t expect to see that much expertise in most SWAT members.

  Barb put in another magazine, flipped the folding stock down, then fired with one hand on the pistol grip and the other on the forestock grip. Firing that way, she put five rounds into a five-inch circle. She tried a modified two-handed grip using just the pistol grip. That wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was possible. She managed to put the next series in the same five-inch circle. One-handed, she put them into eight inches. Then she switched to left and did a bit better.

  She heard a snort next to her and looked over at Janea. Who was, in turn, looking at the master sergeant. Who was standing open-mouthed and staring.

  “There’s a reason I call her Soccer-Momasaurus,�
�� Janea said, laughing.

  “It’s Mrs. Everette, right?” Sergeant Major Attie asked with a tone of slight disappointment.

  “Yes, Master Sergeant,” Barb said, shaking her head. “And I note you’re wearing a wedding ring.”

  “I’ll go Muslim.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “On the road again,” Janea sang, loudly and deliberately off-key. “Ah cain’t wait to git on the road ag’in!”

  She was dragging herself through liquid mud that just barely didn’t cover her nose and mouth, by pulling at cracks on the ceiling of the cave.

  “Janea,” Barb said, sucking in her breath to get through a tight spot. “Sound carries in caves.”

  “Yep,” Janea said. “And the sooner we run into these things and kill a bunch of them, the faster we can get out of here. I’m getting really tired of mud. And my stylist is going to kill me for what I’m doing to my hair.”

  “How you doing, Sergeant Struletz?” Barb said. She started to shake her head at Janea’s reply and almost got a mouth full of mud. Not that it would have mattered much. Her face was already completely covered.

  “Great, ma’am,” the sergeant replied. “Loving every minute of it.”

  “You sound serious,” Janea said, amazed.

  “I am on a mission to destroy evil in God’s name, ma’am,” the sergeant said, happily. “And I’m in a cave. I’m good.”

  “Randell?”

  “What was it you said?” Randell replied. “Oh, yeah. Nominal.” He started laughing so hard he got stuck.

  “What’s so funny?” Master Sergeant Attie asked.

  “So, last night,” Randell said. “That was just last night, right?”

  “Yeah,” Janea said. “That was just last night. Trust me.”

  “So Mrs. Everette and Miz Grisham are staking out the cave the Old Ones used to attack the house,” Randell said. “They figured the one that attacked the Boones might come back.”

  “Might have been,” Barb said. “We’ll have to wait for Stan to sort out the genetics.”

  “If he doesn’t go mad first,” Janea said, chuckling.

  “So Graham would call up there every fifteen minutes for a commo check,” Randell said. “‘Cave One, status?’ And Mrs. Everette would reply in this dry, I’m-An-Astronaut voice: ‘Nominal.’”

  “It’s not funny,” Barb said.

  “That was right up until a bit after one AM,” Randell said, chuckling. “When all of a sudden there’s this ‘GRAHAAAM!’”

  “Well, what were there?” Barb asked. “Twenty of them? And who killed most of them?”

  “Oh, yes,” Randell said, sarcastically. “The glorious power of the Lord God Almighty did save the day.” He ended the litany in a very thick Southern accent. Which sounded natural.

  “Well, it did,” Janea said, cocking her head around to look back at him. “I mean, I may not worship the White God, but I recognize His power. I just think most of His Scriptures are poppycock. No offense, Barb.”

  “None taken,” Barb said. “When it comes right down to it, most of the Old Testament is to fill out page count. People forget that. The essence of Christianity is only to be found in the words of Jesus Christ. And it all comes down to His definition of His Father: God is love. Everything else is padding. I enjoy going to Episcopalian worship. I like the pomp and pageantry and I enjoy a good sermon. But the truth is, whenever two or more are gathered in His Name, there is God. Heck, just Jordan and I count for that. You with me, Jordan?”

  “Two or more are gathered in His Name, ma’am,” Jordan said. “Still wish we had a priest with us.”

  “Priest, schmiest,” Randell said. “I’m glad the master sergeant turned up these guns.”

  “What is with you and religion, Randell?” Janea asked.

  “You picked now to ask?”

  “I’m trying to take my mind off of sliding through muck,” Janea admitted.

  “Look, I saw what Mrs. Everette did,” Randell said. “I get it. She’s got a special relationship with God. I don’t. I don’t want one. I’ve seen what a ‘special relationship with God’ gets you in the end, and I don’t like it.”

  “Gets you in the end?” Barb asked, curious.

  “Can we drop it?” Randell asked.

  “Sure,” Janea said. “To each her religion. Or lack thereof, as the case may be.”

  “I did four tours in Iraq,” Randell said after a few minutes of silence.

  “I’ve done…seven?” Attie said. “You sort of lose count. More in the Rockpile.”

  “I grew up in a small town,” Randell said, ignoring the master sergeant’s interjection. “Pretty similar to Goin, except in Kentucky. They’re all pretty much the same.”

  “They’re the same all over,” Barb said. “Choose a country.”

  “I was raised Baptist,” Randell said. “Primitive Baptist, which is about as fundamental as you can get.”

  “That’s pretty much out there,” Barb admitted. “I know some. Basically good people, but…‘You can’t point a person into heaven’ doesn’t seem to compute.”

  “But that was what I saw as religion,” Randell said. “And don’t get me wrong. I believed. I knew that God had his eye on me every single second and that there was black and white. And everyone that thought like me was right and everyone that didn’t was evil. Homos deserved to be killed, screwing was total sin, hell was just the other side of dancing.”

  “I had a similar upbringing,” Janea said.

  “Really?” Barb asked.

  “Sort of,” Janea said. “My parents went to a similar church. Their actual expressions of faith pretty much stopped there.”

  “Thing is, I believed,” Randell said, angrily. “I believed that God had a plan and a set of rules, and I had to live by them and everybody else did, too.”

  “And?” Barb asked.

  “And when I got out of high school, I had a classic education in fundamentalist doctrine, not much in the way of learning and not a job to be found.”

  “So you joined the Army,” Attie said. “You’re not a stranger in that.”

  “So I joined the Army,” Randell said. “Mostly for the college but also because, well…from my perspective, back then, this is a religious war. The kid I was then was perfectly comfortable with burning the whole Moslem world if they didn’t understand that Christianity was the only way. Don’t ask what I thought of Jews.”

  “They killed Jesus,” Janea said. “Pretty much what most fundamentalist Moslems think, at a guess.”

  “Buddy of mine in high school had a T-shirt,” Randell said. “‘Say what you like about Hitler, he killed a lot of Jews.’ We all thought it was a hoot. Not that he could ever wear it in public, even in our town.”

  “Every religion has idiot fanatics,” Barb said.

  “Yeah,” Randell said. “But we knew we were right. Then I went to Iraq.”

  “You keep saying that,” Janea said.

  “First tour was okay,” Randell said, ignoring her. “I mean, it wasn’t fun, but it was. I was killing hajis. I was doing God’s work. Just like Jordan is now.”

  “A little different, I think,” Jordan protested.

  “Not the way I thought,” Randell said. “Second and third was more of the same, just more boring. First one was in Fallujah.”

  “Ouch,” Attie said. “That’s one hell of a first deployment.”

  “Like I said, I enjoyed it,” Randell said. “By the fourth I was a junior sergeant, but I had three previous tours under my belt. And we had a different mission. More time with ISF—Iraqi Security Forces.”

  “Thank you, Petraeus,” Attie said, fervently. “Finally a guy who understood Counter-Insurgency.”

  “I got detailed to work with an ISF company,” Randell said. “Liaison for support and training. We were working near Ramadi…”

  Nobody asked a question. Finally he continued.

  “We got called to a village. Al Qaeda was sort of on the run in the whole region.
The sheiks had turned on them. Regular US units were combing out most of the hold-outs, then the ISF would back-fill. One of the US units in the area had been patrolling through the area and found…the village. And they said ‘It’s clear’ and went on. And it was.”

  “Al Qaeda had cleared it,” Attie said.

  “Thoroughly,” Randell said. “Every living being in the village was dead. Men, women, children. The dogs and the donkeys. We got to bury the bodies. The company commander was a Kurd. Good guy, spoke a little English. I couldn’t figure out how he could be so… The ISF guys weren’t taking it well, but they were so calm about it. I wasn’t. I was screaming to God. The CO told me I had to calm down. He was right that I was setting a bad example. But I asked him how anyone could do something like that? Kill everybody? Hell, even in My Lai there were troops that protected people. There was no indication of that in Al Qar. And his answer?”

  “They believed in God,” Barbara said.

  “They believed that God told them it was not only right, it was demanded,” Randell said. “‘They believe in God. So anything that they do is right.’ So you could sort of say I had an epiphany. Mrs. Everette, I don’t care if it offends you. There ain’t no God. There’s only the Devil playing at being nicey-nice. God is shit. Do I believe there’s something greater? Oh, yeah. And it’s hell and Satan and that’s the whole ball of wax. It’s nothing but a giant sham to make people do stuff that no human should do to another. Allah and God and Yahweh are all just posers, the same damned—and I use that term with interest—fuckers that all need to just go away and leave us the hell alone!”

  “Oh,” Barb said.

  “So if God is so high and mighty, how come we have to crawl through this stinking cave to fight these things?” Randell asked. “How come He doesn’t just blast them from on high? How come people had to die so we’d even know they were there? How come those people had to die and those women have to go through what they’re going through? Why, Mrs. Everette? If ‘God is love,’ then why?”