“We want to see everything you’ve brought, Miss. Poindexter,” Ed Dewitt said. “We’re always watching for new ways to do our job.”
“Your material is back at the bus?” Murdock said.
“No, it’s with us, but we can off-load there.”
“We’re about six miles from the bus,” Murdock said. “We’ll see you there in an hour or a little less.”
She lifted her brows. “Six miles an hour, Commander. That seems a little fast for men with full field gear.”
Murdock grinned. “Watch us.”
The SEALs didn’t even grumble when they went into double time over the desert terrain. They had done it before, many times. Now they had a good purpose, to get back to their Navy bus, which served as their headquarters there in the Navy bombing range. It was near noon and that would mean chow. Even MREs sounded good right then.
Murdock’s watch showed exactly fifty-two minutes had elapsed when he brought the men to a stop in front of the bus.
“Let’s eat,” Murdock said, and the men dropped their gear and grabbed MREs from the bus. They sprawled around it in what shade it could provide. The California desert sun beamed down at them in its winter warmth. The high desert should be showing about sixty-five degrees during the day, down to forty-five at night.
Murdock handed the CIA agent an MRE.
“Ever had the pleasure of dining on one of these, Miss. Poindexter?”
he asked.
“Please call me Livy. It’s short for Olivia. My mother started it a long time ago. No, I can’t say I’ve ever been in a four-star hotel that offered these. Are they good?”
“Relative term. They aren’t bad, and they keep the troops alive, which is the important element. Sometimes they’re better than my own cooking.”
“I’ve heard that bachelors either learn how to cook rather well, or spend a lot of time eating out, true?”
“Absolutely. I’m huge when it comes to beef Stroganoff, and my enchiladas aren’t bad either.”
She tore open the brown plastic wrap on the MRE. Murdock watched her.
“Look, I’m eating French,” she said. “I have chicken A la king.”
“One of our chef’s best,” Murdock said.
She delved into the contents of the dark brown envelope.
“There’s peanut butter — yummy — and crackers, a spoon, cocoa beverage powder, a beverage base powder, and this inch-and-a-half-tall tiny little bottle of tabasco sauce. How delightful.”
“You missed one whole envelope,” Murdock said.
“There’s more?” She laughed as she said it, and he was pleased she was taking it so well. She could have insisted on driving back to the tiny wide space in the road called Niland for a civilized meal.
“Oh, I see what you mean, Instant coffee, cream substitute, sugar, salt, chewing gum, matches, toilet tissue, and hand cleaner. Really, you shouldn’t have been so extravagant. I’m not as high-level as Don Stroh.”
They both laughed.
“When we have time, and firewood, we make real hot coffee, and hot chocolate even,” Murdock said.
“All the comforts … “
The sailor who drove her out unfolded two tables and set them up beyond the Humvee. He carried a half-dozen boxes from the vehicle, and then waited nearby. He had finished his MRE in record time.
“Things still tense in Korea?” Murdock asked her. “Don told me insula sometime soon.”
“Tense is a good word. The North seems to think they can push and push, and nobody will shove them back. The time might be near when South Korea will shove back without our permission. Then there will be real trouble over there. The big problem is, it looks like the North is massing troops along some of the border, which could be really, really bad news.”
The men finished the MREs. Murdock noticed that she didn’t eat all of the chicken A la king, but did better on the crackers and peanut butter. He had mixed up the drink solution for her with a canteen of water, and she liked that.
“Time to get to work, Commander,” she said.
“Please, call me Murdock. Everyone else does.”
“Good, informal is better. What I have is a series of gadgets and weapons — some you may know about, some you might have heard about. Some are off the shelf, and others are experimental, and many are one of a kind. Yes, some of it is spy stuff that you can’t use, but Don wanted you to check it out. Maybe your undercover operations could utilize some of our standard equipment. I’ve brought some of that too.”
Murdock called to Jaybird, and he rounded up the men and sat them in the dirt, sand, and rocks in front of the table. Livy went up to the table, and leaned against the edge of it. She smiled.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I hope you had a good lunch. Now it’s time to go to work. What I’m showing you is a combination of currently available tools that many of our agents use, and quite a few far-out and still-in-development weapons that you might be interested in.
“I know firepower is your trademark. The ability to put massive amounts of lead into a given target or area in the least possible time.
Good. Nothing beats it. We have some items that just might help you in that task, and some that might work better even than massive firepower.
“The first item isn’t in that category. It’s a tool you can use in your training that can be just as effective in a pair of rooms in your headquarters as a full-scale operation in your Kill House.”
She held up a Glock 17 automatic in one hand and a tube that looked like a ballpoint pen in the other.
“This is Range 2000, developed by IES, an Israeli company. It consists of a sophisticated digital video-projection system controlled by an IBM-compatible computer with a 133-megahertz Pentium chip. This machine can ‘.‘That means the sequence of events that unfolds on the screen in front of you is determined by your reaction to individual segments as they come on the screen.
“This tool is aimed at police, and gives them the options of using the right body language and talking so they might not have to use force.
If force is required, they must choose what level of force, such as pepper spray, a baton, or their pistol.
“The laser insert works in almost any pistol with the addition of various sleeves, and is powered by a hearing-aid battery good for twenty-five hundred laser shots.
“The video tapes you confront can be made in various local locations, and then edited for the use you need. You play out the scene, ” with the laser in your own pistol, and get a score on your action, timing, and hits.
“The cost of this system is about thirty-five thousand dollars.”
“Lots of luck,” somebody in the platoon called out, and everyone laughed.
“Yes, it costs a little, but if such training could save just one of your lives, it would be well worth it. At least to the guy who would have died.”
The sailor next handed her a sawed-off shotgun. She loaded one round into the chamber and closed it.
“This is a weapon you know something about. It’s a little hard to show you here in daylight, but I just put in the chamber a Starflash round. When fired into a room, the round erupts in a shower of sparking fireballs that ricochet wildly throughout the room. They are intended to be distracting and confusing, and by the time the persons in the room realize what’s happening, you are in there doing what you do so well.”
She looked around. “Questions.”
“Are those rounds available?” Doc Ellsworth asked. “I carry a Mossburg pump, and they would surely come in handy.”
“Yes, available to police and to the military. I’ll see that your master chief gets the address.” She paused.
“Now, since you mentioned shotguns, here’s a new thought. The finest shotgun in the world, and the one used most by SWAT police across the country, is the Italian made Benelli 12-gauge 121-M-1 recoil-operated semiautomatic shotgun. The Benelli has been called the masterpiece of ballistic handiwork. I have one here, and you can test it out. The semiautomatic feature may be the most important element in the kind of fast-fire situation you guys specialize in. Oh, the Benelli also has an optional mini-flashlight fitted on the barrel.”