Trident's First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller (5 page)

_______

A
fter the briefing, the four of them went to pick up their gear. Then Hannah escorted Chris to the Special Operations Group armory, where a smorgasbord of weapons made his mouth water. He’d forgotten the special bond he felt with firearms that transcended the physical world.

“What would you like for dessert?” she asked, standing in front of racks of pistols, revolvers, submachine pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. Hannah grabbed an HK P30 9 mm pistol and HK416 assault rifle. “These two are mine.”

Chris smiled approvingly.

“You can look and touch, but you can’t take,” she said, holding her HK416 out to him.

He took the HK416 and pulled back the charging handle to make sure there wasn’t a live round in the chamber. “Nice balance of durability and accuracy.” He turned on the EO-Tech optical sight. It magnified everything to three times its normal size.

“You broke some hearts when you left Iraq,” she said too casually to be casual. “Why’d you go?”

He continued to study the weapon. He flicked the fire selector switch on the weapon between safe, semi, and full auto. “You don’t really want to know.”

“I only
wanted
to know, but now I
really want
to know.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Because I’m so stupid? Or because you’re so smart?”

“Forget about it.” He gave the HK416 back to her.

“Now I can’t forget about it. You built up the suspense.”

She wasn’t going to let it go, and he trusted her, so he gave in. “Okay. You remember that op when we rescued Young?”

“Yeah.”

“After I joined the Teams, I always felt incomplete. Often thought about what it would be like to become a minister. After we rescued Young, I’d had enough of the Teams. Then when Young was going through some emotional issues, the psychologist worked with him, but Young was still suffering. I took him to the chaplain, and that made a significant difference. I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives like that, so I got out and went back to Harvard to study theology.”

Hannah shook her head. “Just like that?”

“It’s something I always wanted to do. And I got tired of chasing dirt-bags.”

“You really are nuts.”

“Why’d you sign up for the Agency?” Chris asked.

“A way out of East LA’s poverty, crime, gangs and drugs. After the director gave me my spy school diploma, I never went back.”

He handed her back her weapon. “Why’d you stay in? You could do other things.”

Hannah discovered another HK416 and handed it to him. “I miss my family, but I have no desire to live in that world. You guys are my family. This is my world.”

“I’ve got to admit, I missed the camaraderie. Never found anything like it again.” Chris examined his HK416. “I need some bling on this bad boy.”

A small, wizened man stepped into the armory. “I’m the armorer,” he said with a voice that sounded like Yoda.

“I’d like to put a Micro Aimpoint sight and a VTAC two-point sling on it,” Chris said. It would allow him to see a red dot in the small scope without the enemy noticing. The sling was just for ease of carrying and the freedom to use both hands on other tasks.

Yoda’s eyes sparkled at the idea. “How soon do you need it?”

“The sooner the better, sir.” Chris picked up a Glock 19 Gen-4. The compact pistol was small enough to conceal without compromising accuracy. It looked brand new, including the plastic sights that might break off under severe conditions. “And I need a pair of Heinie LEDGE Straight Eight sights for this one. I’ll need to zero it to twenty-five meters.”

Yoda’s brow furrowed. People zeroed rifles, but most people didn’t zero pistols. Chris wasn’t most people. He examined the magazine well in the grip, and there was a gap where debris could enter and seep into the trigger mechanism, jamming it. “And a grip plug on the Glock to keep the dirt out.”

“You really know your weapons,” Yoda said.

Chris smiled and handed over the weapons.

Yoda held the Glock in one hand and cradled the HK416 like a child. “I’m going to miss you two.” A hint of sadness crept onto his face before he walked away with the pistol and carbine.

Chris turned to Hannah. “Can you get me on the Farm tonight, so I can do a little shooting?”

Hannah laughed and shook her head. “I knew you weren’t
that
far out of the game, Reverend. I’ll see what I can do.” She stepped out of the armory, her fingers already flying across her cell phone. Chris guessed she was calling the head of staff at the CIA’s secret training facility.

Half an hour later, they loaded weapons and gear into a green SUV before descending further into the abyss of covert ops. They stopped at a nearby convenience store and loaded up food for later before driving south.

“What’d you do this morning?” Hannah asked.

“Before joining you? Just the usual.”

“The usual?”

“What, did you bug my place or something?” he asked playfully.

“If I did, would I have to ask?”

“Said a prayer. Fifty push-ups, fifty sit-ups, thirty-minute run. Then I read the Bible for half an hour before breakfast.”

“You still shoot much?” she asked, changing the topic.

He shrugged. “Hardly at all.”

“Don’t your firearms get lonely?”

“Don’t own any,” he said.

“Don’t own any? Is that what they taught you in preacher school?”

“It was a personal choice,” he said with a chuckle. “I loved shooting. But after years at Six, it became more work and less joy. Then when I studied to become a pastor and all, I didn’t have time for it. Shooting was no longer a priority.”

“What would you have done if someone broke into your house or something while you were home?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a good thing I’m rescuing you from all that religious brain-washing,” she said, her tone no longer so relaxed.

He’d heard comments like that before, and he wasn’t angered, but he was curious. Especially when it came to her. “Why do you dislike religion so much?”

“The fact that two adults like us can’t agree on the existence of God is evidence to me that He doesn’t exist. You were born wealthy, and your parents were, too. I inherited
caca
. When so much is given to you and everything’s blowing your way, it probably seems like God is walking around the neighborhood, but in El Este de Los Angeles, there is no God—if there was, he’d carry an AK and wear a bullet-resistant vest.”

Chris didn’t want to argue with her. They were both headstrong, and arguing would lead nowhere, so he didn’t say another word, hoping her mood would improve. After several minutes, he thought of something positive to shift the conversation back into safe territory. “If the rest of the spooks could operate like you, I wouldn’t care if the whole Agency were atheist.”

“You know you may have to kill someone on this mission, right?” She glanced over at Chris, then back at the road.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked.

“No. I just know that things might get hairy and bullets start flying.”

“On most of the best ops I’ve been on, no shots were fired. Get in, accomplish the mission, get out.”

“I hope this turns out to be a best op,” she said, “but I won’t bet all my money on it.”

“That’s why we’re riding all this way out to the Farm.”

She laughed. “Touché.”

After a two-and-a-half-hour ride, they reached the rolling hills and evergreen forests surrounding the Farm. There they passed high fences topped with concertina wire.
NO TRESPASSING
government signs were posted on the fences at regular intervals. Behind one fence, a guard carrying an M4 watched them and spoke into his radio mike while he stood beside an olive-colored Humvee with a machine gun mounted on top. Inside the Humvee, another guard sat in the driver’s seat.

At the front gate, a sign read:
ARMED FORCES EXPERIMENTAL TRAINING ACTIVITY
. The cover name for the CIA’s Camp Peary, a.k.a. “the Farm.”

Hannah steered an
S
through concrete barriers before stopping at the sentry box. Under the watchful electric eyes of surveillance cameras and sensors, Special Police Officers checked them and their vehicle before waving them through. Hannah drove over a large metal plate, a hydraulic barricade that could pop up in emergencies to block the entrance.

Soon they passed the restricted residential area for Agency instructors and other personnel. A couple minutes, later they went by the compound where new CIA recruits received some of their field training.

Finally, Hannah stopped and parked at a shooting bay that faced outdoor target holders. Chris and Hannah unloaded the SUV. He placed a spotting scope on the firing line and pinned up targets at varying distances. He returned to the firing line, lay in the prone position, and fired five shots at the closest target, twenty-five meters. Then Chris leaned to his side and looked through his spotting scope. The five shots had created a crater in the bottom left corner of the cardboard backing, but they hadn’t even hit the paper. Chris adjusted his sights. He fired five more shots, then checked the spotting scope again. This time, he’d hit the paper, but it was still on the white, outside the black rings, so he adjusted his sights again. Then he hit near the bull’s-eye. His heart said,
Hardy-har-har.

“Look how happy you are,” Hannah said.

“Do I look happy?” he asked.

“Like a sailor in a whorehouse.”

“I just realized how much I miss shooting.” He smiled as he prepared to shoot again.

“I’ll be to the left of the berm killing steel, amigo. Smoke ’em.” She walked away to shoot steel targets in the adjacent shooting bay.

Now that Chris could hit the paper at twenty-five meters, it was easier to do the real business of zeroing at one hundred meters. After repeating the process of shooting, examining his hits, and adjusting his sights, he finished zeroing his rifle at one hundred meters. His barrel, like most barrels, slanted at an upward angle to compensate for the immediate drop of the round leaving the muzzle. The rifle’s outer covering appeared straight, but the actual barrel inside slanted up. As a result, the round would travel from low to high and then drop low again, like traveling the arc of a rainbow.

As a child, he’d always been fascinated by firearms. Owning a BB gun had reinforced that fascination, but as an adult in BUD/S training, he’d outshot his classmates, and he’d thought he might have a gift. When he’d outgunned his SEAL instructor in a contest, he’d realized he had a special skill. Not only did he enjoy shooting, but his gift filled him with grand pride. Deep down, he felt a spiritual connection to firearms. But after becoming a preacher, he’d forgotten all that. Now the skill, pride and spiritual connection came back to him.

At the initial arc of the rainbow, his bullet would now strike a couple inches low at twenty-five meters. It’d rise to dead-on at one hundred meters, and the bullet would drop a few inches low at two hundred meters. At three hundred meters, he’d have to aim for the enemy’s neck in order to hit him in the gut.

Chris fired out to the various targets kneeling and standing. Next, he shot on the move, practicing reloads as he went and throwing in some malfunction drills for good measure. When he was satisfied, he did the same with his pistol out to fifty meters. Then Chris joined Hannah. He mostly shot steel with his rifle but did some transitions into shooting pistol. Next, Hannah took him to a range where the steel moved: disappeared, appeared, panned left, and panned right. He shot better than she did, but he wasn’t shooting as well as he used to.

When the sun dropped out of the sky, Chris mounted a light to his rifle. He became so absorbed in shooting that he lost track of time. Hannah went into the truck and dug into the supplies for food; he thought he’d shoot for a little longer before grabbing a bite himself, but soon he forgot about eating, too. While Hannah rested in the vehicle, he continued to squeeze the trigger until he ran out of bullets. He dumped the empty ammo boxes into a trash barrel.

Chris placed his weapons into the SUV, waking Hannah. She rubbed her eyes and adjusted her seat forward.

“You ready?” she asked.

He nodded and climbed into the passenger seat, not saying a word. He needed more time at the range, but time was the one thing they didn’t have.

He could feel her eyes on him. “Okay, what’s wrong?” she asked.

Chris remained quiet.

She started up the SUV. “Is it one of your weapons?”

“No,” he replied. “Weapons are Jedi level.”

Hannah pulled out of the shooting bay and left the firing range. “The ammo?”

“It’s me,” Chris said.

“What do you mean?”

“My shooting.”

“You were smoother than me. Smooth is fast,” she said.

She was right about the importance of shooting smoothly. Chris had been in numerous gunfights where his opponent had acted more quickly but Chris’s efficiency of motion and exacting aim—smoothness—had killed his enemy before his enemy had killed him. Even so, Chris had once faced an enemy who was equally smooth, and in that situation, Chris had only survived because his opponent’s smooth actions were slower than his. “Smooth is fast, but slow is dead.” His head ached, and his body felt warm, almost feverish. “I’m not near enough the shooter I used to be. And there’s no more time to close the gap.”