“Now, I got to say that was a real good try, son,” Quillain commented with some sympathy. “We’re still going to arrest you and blow up your boat, but it was a real good try.”
The Coke can plunked into the sea. Half filled with water ballast, it bobbed in the swells, glinting in the angled evening sun. Then the .45 roared. Two man-high jets of spray geysered up around it, making the can dance on the wave crest. The third round center-punched the red and silver container, driving it under. Stunned by the impact shock of the bullet, a small minnowlike fish floated to the surface and one of the Offshore Base’s colony of semitame cormorants swooped down gratefully to receive it.
“How’s that?” Amanda asked proudly, lowering the smoking automatic.
“Not good, not bad,” Stone Quillain grunted. “Comin’ along.”
He took another empty soda can from the cardboard box sitting on the battered mess table. Plunging it into a bucket of salt water, he let it fully fill, then hurled it into the air in a high arcing parabola twenty yards out beyond the side of the platform.
His hand continued to move in a blur, scooping the M9 Beretta service pistol off the tabletop. Whipping it up and in line, the Marine fired a fast double tap. At the second sharp crack of the 9mm, the falling can exploded, aluminum confetti and water droplets raining into the sea.
Amanda cast a baleful glance at Quillain from beneath the visor of her baseball cap. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that a southern gentleman always lets the lady win?”
The ear protectors she wore made her words echo hollowly. Amanda and Quillain had established an ad hoc firing range on the port side of the barge, as well as a habit of taking some target practice after dinner on those nights when an early patrol wasn’t scheduled.
Quillain laughed, a low, closed-mouthed huh, huh, huh. ”Why, that’d be what you call sexual discrimination. It’d get this old boy in a lot of trouble.”
“Yes, but it would do wonders for my sense of inferiority.”
“Like I said. You’re coming along.” Quillain set the Beretta back on the table and slipped back his ear guards. “You doing those dry fire drills I taught you?”
“Uh, when I can find the time,” Amanda replied guiltily.
It was Quillain’s turn for a baleful glare. “Fifteen minutes morning and night! You can sleep after you retire!” The big Marine slipped into drill sergeant mode. “The only right way to combat-carry a Model 1911-A Colt is Condition Three: shell in the chamber, hammer cocked, and safety on!
“You have to learn to swipe that safety off with your thumb every time you draw that weapon. It’s got to be instinct there’s no time to think in a gunfight! That means you repeat that draw-and-clear drill until it’s automatic! That means three thousand times. And you better get it right, because it’ll take ten thousand times around to unlearn it if you get it wrong!”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Amanda replied meekly, harking back to her days as an Annapolis plebe.
Quillain caught himself as well. “Yeah, well, it is kind of important, ma’am.”
“I know it, and I do appreciate you showing me the ropes, Stone. What now? A couple more boxes through the pistols?”
“Naw, let’s go to the M-4 for a while. You’re shooting pretty good sitting and kneeling, but you need to work on your offhand.”
“Okay, but we’ll have to wait for a few minutes. We’ve got some fishermen downrange.”
Half a mile out, a black silhouette ghosted along between Floater 1 and the brushfire tropic sunset. A single pirogue running before the wind on a muttonchop sail.
Quillain snorted. “You don’t think those guys are actually fishing, do you?”
“Of course not. When they tack about, you can see the lens glinting on their field glasses. They’ve got somebody out there pretty much all the time now. We know they’re Union recon, but under the rules of engagement, we have to accept them at face value.”
“Why is that?” Quillain grumbled, popping the clip out of his M-9 and jacking the live round out of the chamber. “I mean, every damn little tin-pot terrorist and dictator out there can do anything he likes to the United States — blow up our embassies, torture our POWs, kill our kids in the streets and nobody says boo. But when it comes to hitting back, man, we sure have to play by the Marquis of Queensbury, else the whole damn world screams bloody murder. Just why is that?”
“It’s for the best reason in the world,” Amanda replied, picking up the carbine and adjusting its sling. “One that I wouldn’t change for anything I can imagine.”
Quillain’s brows knit together. “What reason’s that?”
She smiled back at the big Marine. “It’s because we’re the good guys, Stone.”
“You men are going to have to learn that while you might be stationed on the coast of Africa, you are still members of the United States Navy!”
The young ensign paced righteously in front of his field desk, his shoulders square and the creases of his tropic whites crisp. It was his first watch as duty officer of the day for the Conakry Shore Patrol detachment, and, as young ensigns have done since time immemorial, he was taking his job most seriously.
“There is a reason we set uniform standards,” he expounded, “and a reason we expect them to be maintained!”
Danno and the Fryguy stood at an uneasy parade rest. The only “standard” to their own state of dress was that they were clad alike. Their sleeveless and buttonless dungaree shirts bore no ratings badges, only a “Three Little Pigs” squadron patch over the left breast. Both gunners also wore the black beret of the seafighter task force, sweat-stained and bleached dull by the sun.
“In fact, you men should be setting an exceptional standard out here. You are serving under the command of one of the most capable, most respected, and most honored officers in the fleet. I have no doubt that Captain Amanda Garrett expects her personnel to comport themselves like real man-of-wars-men and not like a bunch of cheap Rambo clones!”
At that moment, just as the ensign’s tirade peaked, there came a knock at the office door.
“Enter!”
“Excuse me, Ensign. I understand you have a couple of my people here. Is there a problem?”
Amanda Garrett stood in the doorway. The eagles on the collar of her khaki shirt were sea-tarnished, and the shirt itself was oil-stained, sleeveless, and sun-faded to near white. Her slacks had been slashed short at midthigh, and a webbing belt, cut down from the quick-release strap of a MOLLE harness, rode low on her hips, supporting a Navy Mark IV survival knife and an obsolete and salt-cracked leather pistol holster. Her bare feet were slipped into a pair of native-made tire tread sandals and a frayed Cunningham baseball cap was tugged low over her mildly inquiring eyes.
There was a moment of profound silence in the little office.
“No, ma’am,” the ensign sighed. “No problem. It was all just… a misunderstanding. Your men are free to go at any time.”
Amanda gave a friendly nod. “I thought that might be the case. Danno and the Fryguy here are a couple of my best hands. I couldn’t imagine what they could have done to get crosswise with the Shore Patrol. Thank you for taking care of things, Ensign. Gentlemen, let’s be on our way.”