Kat dropped to her stomach, broke her fall with her elbows, aimed, and fired at the carved-out sand dune within three seconds. She fired all thirty rounds, ejected the empty magazine, slammed in a new one, and worked the slide to push a round into the firing chamber the way DeWitt had showed her.
"Cease fire," DeWitt said. He squatted beside her. "Yes, Kat. Good. I didn't even tell you to change magazines, but that's a basic. In any firefight you keep a loaded magazine in your weapon at all times. If you can change from a partly used one to a full one, do that. Never get caught with an empty magazine, or you and half the platoon could be dead."
"Got it," Kat said.
They did the firing on command six more times, three from each side so she learned how to twist her body to return fire to the right. Each time she did it quickly and the right way.
DeWitt sat down across from her and stretched out his legs. He watched her. She looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing. It's break time. In your pack is a canteen. I filled it with Coke and ice cubes before we left the Grinder. Strongest thing we have on base."
A grin flashed across her face as she grabbed the canteen and drank. She smiled. "Oh, yes, I needed this. Like Navy grog of old."
"Kat, I know you have a Ph.D. in physics. Any minors like law?"
"How did you know? I went into prelaw for two years, then switched."
"How did I know? You have a sharp analytical mind, I'd guess. What I've seen this morning is that I don't have to tell you or explain anything to you twice. You listen, you see, you learn, you memorize I'd bet, and then you do. Traits of a good trial lawyer. I had prelaw and then a year of law school before I went to the Academy."
"Still happy with your choice?"
"Remarkably. I'm so Navy that it hurts sometimes."
She nodded. "I can see that, DeWitt."
They worked on the canteens of Coke.
"What's next?" Kat asked.
"Easy, we have all day. You seem determined."
"I didn't really want this job. They told me I was the best person to do it. Now that I'm into it, I'm determined not to get anybody killed, and to get in and out, and stay alive myself."
"That's exactly our plan. So, you ready to work with a pistol?"
"I'll be carrying one besides the MP-5?"
"Right, we all have at least two weapons. Some of the guys also have a hideout, a little twenty-two or a thirty-two."
He reached in his pack, and took out a pistol. DeWitt gave it to her. "This is an HK P7. It fires a nine-millimeter round and holds eight of them in the magazine in the handle. It doesn't have the hitting power that the forty-five you shot yesterday does. But neither does it have the weight or the recoil."
She held it, careful to keep the muzzle pointing downrange.
"One interesting feature on this weapon is that it has no safety. Most pistols have a safety. You can't just draw and fire like in the old westerns. You have to push off the safety, then fire.
"This pistol has a unique grip catch in the front edge of the butt. When your hand grips this, it engages the trigger with the cocking and firing mechanism. That all means that to fire the weapon you simply grip the handle and pull the trigger. If you drop it, the weapon's grip catch isn't engaged, so it can't go off accidentally."
DeWitt stood. "Give it a try. It's loaded."
She stood, aimed at the sand dune, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
"That's an automatic," DeWitt said. "First you need to pull the slide back like you probably did on the forty-five. You need to do this on any automatic just after loading an empty weapon with a fresh magazine."
"Right," she said. She pulled back the slide and let it snap forward, then lifted the weapon, gripped the handle, and squeezed the trigger. It fired. She nodded. Aimed again, and fired. Soon the 8-round magazine was empty and the slide stayed open.
DeWitt handed her a full magazine. "How do I get the empty one out?" she asked.
"The magazine catch is at the left side of the butt, behind the trigger. Push it and the magazine drops out. Slide in the new one."
"Then I pull the slide back to chamber a round. Got it."
"Now hold your fire while I set up some man-sized targets." He went to the face of the sand dune, pulled six targets from a closed wooden box, and leaned them against the back of the carved-out sand.
Back beside her, he motioned at the targets twenty yards away.
"This is a common target distance, twenty yards. That's sixty feet, three times as far as the Old West gunmen liked to be for a gunfight. Twenty feet was plenty for those old six-guns.
"We'll move up to ten yards and give you a try. No weapon is any good if you can't hit what you're aiming at. Anyone we start shooting at won't be afraid of the sound. It'll take hot lead to discourage him. We use the point-and-shoot technique with pistols and handguns. It works.
"Just push out your finger and point at something. You'll do the same thing with the HK in your hand. When you are pointing at your target, pull the trigger. Give it a try on the first target. Hold the pistol at your side. Then lift your hand almost shoulder high and point at the target. When you're on target, squeeze the trigger."
Kat did. The first two shots hit the first target. Then she missed three, and the last three she hit.
"Yes," DeWitt said.
They fired forty rounds through the P-7 then tested two other handguns, both with 14-round magazines. Kat liked the HK P-7, without a safety to worry about.
They packed up, finished the canteens of rapidly warming Coke, and cleaned up the brass from the rounds they had fired. Then they headed back down the beach.
"Packs are a lot lighter this time," Kat said.
They ran back the three miles to the Grinder and dropped into chairs in Murdock's office.
"Boots," DeWitt said. "How do they feel?"
"Blisters," Kat said. "They're half a size too big. I need eight-and-a-halfs instead of nines."
"I'm on it," Jaybird Sterling said. "I'll pick up a pair this afternoon."
"How's the shooting eye?" Murdock asked.
Kat shrugged and pointed to DeWitt.
"Good. Point and shoot with the pistol was right on. Kat likes the HK P-7. We'll keep at it. The MP-5 is coming along. Didn't do much on accuracy. Down the road. What about longer guns? We still have that friendly rancher up by Boulevard?"
"Last time I knew," Murdock said.
"Think Kat and I'll slip up there in the morning for some work on the long guns. Kat, we want you to be able to fire any weapon we carry in an emergency. Not that you have to qualify, but you should be familiar enough to pick up one and use it if you lose yours or you run out of rounds."
"Sounds reasonable. What's next?"
DeWitt looked at Murdock.
"A run?"
"We did six miles already," DeWitt said. "What about the obstacle course? I'd like to try it."
"Not on your agenda," DeWitt said.
"You don't think I can do it," Kat said.
Murdock grinned. "Might be a good welcome to the SEALS," he said. "Yes, Kat, I'll lead you on a tour of the obstacle course. Any one of the stops you don't want to try will be fine."
"I'll do the whole course. Let's go."
7
George Imhoff sat in the second room of the small apartment and tried to make sense out of what went on between the huge fat American and the Iranian lens grinder. George belched and his stomach growled at him. He hadn't had anything to eat since that morning. The four warm French beers hadn't helped any. He had no idea where Tauksaun, the huge one, found French beer in Tehran.
George looked at Yasmeen for the hundredth time and lifted his brows. They sat near the door that had been opened three inches so they could see, and Yasmeen could hear. Most of the conversation was in Farsi.