Halovic thought fast.
Were these men what they claimed to be, friendly locals simply looking for a chance to show off their weapons and skills to a foreign visitor? Unlikely, he decided. Tomorrow was a weekday, a workday for most of these people.
Or were they provocateurs, law officers of some type on the prowl for potential troublemakers? That was doubtful too, he realized. Walker’s Landing seemed too small and isolated to warrant much attention from the authorities.
Halovic felt a sudden thrill the same kind of thrill he always experienced when his crosshairs first settled on his chosen target. It was far more likely that Burke and McGowan were two of the very men he had come hunting. He smiled slowly at the man sitting beside him. “Thank you, yes. I would like to shoot with you very much. It would be an honor.”
The red Blazer that picked up Sefer Halovic in the morning held three men: Burke, McGowan, and another man, much younger and in excellent physical condition, behind the wheel. He introduced himself as Dave Keller.
Halovic climbed into the backseat beside McGowan. He was already starting to sense the hierarchy involved here. Burke was clearly the leader and the man he must convince. The others would look to him.
Their shooting range was a fifteen-minute drive south of Walker’s Landing, well off Route 250 down a narrow, wooded private road. Frequent signs warned trespassers to stay out. Those closest to the highway threatened legal action against anyone caught violating private property. The notices further down the road carried more ominous warnings.
Halovic shifted slightly in his seat. He had been right. Whatever else they were up to, these men were not just being friendly to a foreign tourist. The shape of the pistol he carried concealed in the small of his back was suddenly reassuring.
Keller wheeled the Blazer off the road and into a long, narrow clearing separating dense woods on either side. More trees at the far end closed off the clearing entirely. The four of them piled out and began pulling their gear out of the back.
The Bosnian finished loading his rifle and straightened up. He looked down the clearing with interest. Burke and his companions had accumulated a wide variety of potential targets for their private shooting gallery. There were old oil drums, rusting refrigerators, and even a couple of abandoned cars scattered at varying distances all the way back to the distant woods. Most of them were shot full of ragged holes.
Keller nodded toward the optical scope Halovic had fixed to his rifle.
“You got that zeroed in yet?”
He shook his head. “No, I would like to do that now.”
Keller pointed toward an oil drum someone had painted red. “That’s two hundred yards. Give or take a foot or two.” He grinned mirthlessly “Danke.” Halovic dropped into a relaxed kneeling posture and chambered a round. This would be an easy shot. There was no appreciable wind, and he knew the precise range to his target. He took a breath, let it out, took another, sighted, and then gently squeezed the trigger.
A puff of dirt appeared six inches in front of the barrel and a few inches to one side. After making a minute adjustment to the sight, he fired again.
This time the barrel rocked slightly punched clean through the center.
“Damned good shooting,” Burke remarked casually from beside his ear.
“Ja. Well, I was in the Army,” Halovic lied.
“What did you do?”
“I was a sniper.” That much at least was true.
Burke smiled. “A sniper, eh? That’s interesting.” He glanced at the others briefly and then turned back to Halovic. “See the crooked tree just past that old Dodge? The black willow? Now take a good look just to the left.”
Halovic swung the rifle left slowly, hunting through the scope for the spot the older man had indicated. He stopped as a figure dressed in camouflage fatigues and hunched beside the tree trunk leaped into focus.
He took his eye away from the scope in surprise and glanced at Burke.
“There is a man out there!”
The older man grinned. “Not really.” He nodded downrange. “That’s just a dummy we dressed up. Adds a little kick to the target practice.”
Halovic nodded slowly. “I understand.” Then he allowed a smile to form on his face. “That is much better than shooting at old metal!”
McGowan slapped him on the shoulder. “You got it, Karl!” He tapped the Remington rifle in Halovic’s hands. “That .30–06 is nice, but how about handling something with a little more kick? You know, some real rock-and-roll?”
“Rock-and-roll?” Halovic didn’t have to pretend any confusion this time.
“Yeah. Something that can go off on full auto. Something like this baby.” McGowan held out an assault rifle a weapon the Bosnian recognised as a Chinese-made variant of the old Russian AK-47.
Halovic laid down his .30–06 and took the assault rifle McGowan offered. Although thousands had been sold in the U.S. as semiautomatic weapons, someone had reconfigured this one to allow full-automatic fire. He looked up. “This rifle… isn’t it against your American gun control laws?”
Burke shrugged. “Maybe. But this is private property, Karl. And we’re a long way down the road. So what we do here is our own damned business. Nobody interferes with us. Understand?”
Halovic nodded firmly. “I understand.”
“So let her rip.”
“As you wish.” With the ease born of long practice, the Bosnian flipped the safety off and began shredding a series of targets, walking his fire from right to left as he pumped short bursts into each. In seconds, he’d emptied the thirty-round magazine. He turned to the other men with a broad grin on his face, slapped the AK’s stock with one hand, and exclaimed: “Ausgezeichnet! Very good! A beautiful weapon!”
Burke, McGowan, and Keller were staring openmouthed down the range.
Finally the older man spoke for them all. “Goddamn, Karl! That was some beautiful shooting.” He looked at the row of mangled barrels and torn-up refrigerators again and shook his head in admiration. “Now, that calls for a drink! And for something to eat, by God.”
Galvanized by their leader’s decision, McGowan and Keller hurried to the Blazer and brought back a cooler containing a couple of six-packs, a loaf of bread, condiments, and an assortment of lunch meats. The four of them found shade under a nearby tree and sat back at ease, swapping sandwich fixings and cans of ice-cold beer.
Burke broke the companionable silence first. The burly man brushed the crumbs off his lap, drained his beer can, crumpled it, and tossed it casually aside. “Tony tells me you’ve got some pretty strong views on race problems, Karl. Is that a fact?”
Ah. Now it begins, Halovic thought. He nodded firmly. “That is a fact, Jim.” Then he shrugged. “I know these views are not popular in America, but truth is the truth. The white races all over the world are being buried by a sea of inferiors of blacks, of Jews, of Arabs…”
He was heartened by the other men’s reactions as he continued his often-rehearsed tirade. Burke and McGowan both smiled and nodded as he made his points, dearly pleased by what they were hearing. Even Keller seemed to relax slightly.
Burke nodded sharply again when the Bosnian wound up his peroration with the assertion that “time is short. We must act soon and in force before we are drowned and our race with us.”
The older man pursed his lips. “You’ve sure got that right, Karl.” He scowled. “God only knows the riggers and the rest are getting uppity as hell in this country.”