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She lifted the forty-five and pointed it at the building. She held it in her right hand. It wavered a little, but she was strong.

"Fire it," he said.

She looked at him and lifted her brows. "Remember you've got a virgin here. My very first time."

"So we go slow and gentle."

She grinned, and pulled the trigger. The weapon went off, and the recoil swung her hand well above her head.

"Wow. I did it, I shot a firearm. What a kick. I didn't expect that much."

"With an automatic you have a new round every time you pull the trigger. Try another shot, and try to hold the muzzle down a little this time."

They worked for fifteen minutes on the forty-five. Toward the end she used two hands to hold the heavy weapon. He showed her the overlapping grip.

As they finished the last magazine in the forty-five, Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt brought the platoon up to the side of the Kill House. DeWitt's cammies were sweat-soaked on the chest and under each arm. He carried a Colt M-4A1 with the 40mm grenade launcher over his right shoulder, and stared at Murdock and Kat. "DeWitt, get over here and stop gawking." DeWitt walked up and kept staring at Kat.

"Kat Garnet, I'd like you to meet Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt, second in command of the Third Platoon. Ed, this is Katherine Garnet, Lieutenant Garnet to YOU."

Ed saluted sharply and stepped forward. "Pardon me for staring, Lieutenant, but it isn't often that we have a pretty lady on our little training site out here in the desert."

"I'll be around from now on, Lieutenant. Call me Kat. I'd expect that Murdock has some interesting news for you and the rest of the platoon." That half little smile edged her face again, and Murdock wasn't sure if she were really smiling or laughing at him.

"Oh, yeah, there's that. Kat, maybe you'd like to tell the troops?"

"Not a chance, Murdock. I'll be interested to see how you handle the news."

"Me, too," Murdock said and they both laughed. DeWitt didn't understand what was going on.

"Murdock, past chow time," DeWitt said.

Murdock chuckled. "Oh, yeah, great idea. Put this off, and let me think on it a minute."

DeWitt called, and the platoon broke out of its position on a run and converged on the bus.

"While we're here, let me show you the new HK G11. It's an automatic rifle. Works this way. Two positions on the fire selector. Fully automatic and three-round bursts."

Murdock moved the selector to three-round and charged a round into the chamber, then leveled the boxlike weapon at the Kill House and blasted out three rounds.

"Fully auto it works this way." He pushed the selector lever to auto, and chattered out a dozen rounds into the Kill House.

She tried it. He fit the butt to her shoulder and she fired. The three rounds stuttered out, and the barrel hardly moved. When he shifted the selector to automatic she looked at him.

"I just pull the trigger and hold it back?"

"Right. It fires up to fifty rounds as long as you hold back the trigger."

She looked at him, then set her mouth. Her finger closed around the trigger, and she aimed at the Kill House. The first three rounds hit it, then the rounds climbed into the sky. Murdock caught the weapon and brought it back down. She eased off the trigger.

"Forgot to tell you that you have to really hold this one steady or it climbs on you."

"Now you tell me."

"Enough for today. You'll need daily training on weapons. Now how about a delicious meal at the mess hall?"

Her dark brown eyes evaluated him. "Murdock, how can I figure out when you're teasing me and when to believe you?"

"Tough question, Kat. So far few people have figured that out."

The mess hall was the bus. The delicious meal was the famous MRE, Meal Ready to Eat. This particular one was Menu No. 6. The MREs are stable, long-lasting field rations and not the favorite of most of the GI's who use them now and then. For the SEALs they were a lot easier than hauling a kitchen out to the firing/training range at Niland.

"Thought we were getting McDonald's takeout this time," Harry "Horse" Ronson called. The SEALs shouted him down.

Murdock gave Kat one of the dark brown MREs and sat in the dust on the shady side of the bus with one of his own. "Have a seat, anywhere," he said.

Murdock cut open the heavy brown plastic envelope on Kat's MRE, which was a foot long and seven inches wide. "Enjoy."

Kat poured out the contents. The largest olive drab plastic envelope was the main course "Chicken A la King, 2117."

"Heat it up or eat it cold," Murdock said.

She investigated the rest one plastic package of cocoa beverage powder, a plastic spoon, a paper package of beverage base powder, a plastic package of peanut butter, crackers, and an accessory brown envelope. Inside it was a small bottle of one-eighth of an ounce of Tabasco sauce, paper matches, a moist towelette, instant coffee, salt, toilet paper, sugar, nondairy creamer, and chewing gum.

"All this for lunch?" Kat asked.

"If we ever had time to heat it up and eat it," Murdock said. "No fire, no coffee. Cocoa maybe. Peanut butter on crackers for sure. The chicken la king isn't bad with a little of the Tabasco sauce on it."

The men kept looking at Kat. Ed had told them only her name and rank. That made them even more curious. Murdock finished his quick meal and stood.

"You may have been wondering about our guest. Her name is Katherine, call me Kat, Garnet. She's a G-12 in government service, and for this assignment holds the temporary rank of full Lieutenant. You will at all times treat her with proper respect.

"Kat is going to be training with us for the next three or four weeks. No, this isn't for a movie. As you saw, Don Stroh, our old buddy from the CIA, was here this morning. He brings us some news. Part of it is that we have an upcoming mission. We'll be going into Arab lands somewhere to deactivate, dismember, and generally destroy that nation's nuclear bomb building program.

"How many of you know how to deactivate a nuclear bomb and destroy the plutonium inside it?" He looked around, but no hands went up.

"Yeah, me, too. Kat is a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from M.I.T. Not a bad school but their football team stinks." He waited for the laugh that came.

"What this all means is that Kat will be training with us for what we hope will be the next four weeks, then she will be going with us, infiltrating into this Arab nation, where we will find, and Kat will destroy, the nuclear capability, and take care of the plutonium."

He heard some groans from the troops.

"Yeah, I know how you feel. By the way, Kat won the second Hawaiian triathlon for women. She keeps in shape running marathons for fun. That's over twenty-six miles, girls. Our job will be to try to keep up with her.

"She's with us. That's on special Presidential orders. Not exactly a rank we can buck. She'll train with us, go in with us, do her job while we play guard dogs, and then we'll come out with her and all the rest of you. Now, any comments?"

"Lieutenant, ma'am. Did you check first with Demi Moore?" Magic Brown asked. A smattering of laughter.

"No, but I did see her movie."

"Will you hold us back, ma'am? Meaning no disrespect?" Jaybird Sterling asked it.

"Not if I can help it. I'm tougher than I look. I could have said no to this offer. The President didn't order me in here. I have no problem with swimming. I'm a SCUBA instructor. Jumping, I've made twenty jumps, want to do more. Damnit, SEALS, I'll be trying as fucking hard as I can."

The SEALs gave a shout of approval.

Murdock took over. "That's a wrap, folks. Let's get on the bus and head back. We need to outfit Kat and set up a new training sched. Things will change, but they will be the same, only tougher. You may think the next four weeks are going to be worse than hell week from the Grinder days. Let's get to it." Three hours later, they were back in Coronado at the SEALs training base. Lieutenant (j.g.) DeWitt took Kat to base operations, where he found arrangements had already been made for Lieutenant Garnet. A complete set of SEAL uniforms and gear had been put in her quarters. She stared at the pile of uniforms and equipment.