Chapter 16
Just Because No One Else Survived It….
During my first week in the Society of the Claw and the Fang, I didn’t see or hear from Blackhawk. It was just as well. I was busy as hell getting myself settled into my house and working with Vanessa to get her ready for field operations. I couldn’t bring myself to call whatever the Society wanted me to do jobs. That term was reserved for hunters, and I wasn’t working for the Guild anymore. I liked Vanessa, but my instincts were telling me that something was wrong with the Society. It wasn’t anything that I could put my finger on, but I definitely felt an ill-ease with the Society. Blackhawk’s sudden reappearance did nothing to lessen my suspicions.
A knock at my door woke me up before sunrise – a situation that didn’t make me all that happy to begin with. I was half-expecting Vanessa, but found Blackhawk standing impatiently on my front porch. Blackhawk was adjusting his grip on two brown bags. One bore the logo of a local pastry shop, which explained the smells emanating from it. The other was completely blank, and it piqued my interest. Blackhawk didn’t wait for me to invite him in and pushed past me. My mind was still trying to clear the haze of semi-consciousness, so instead of grabbing my interloping new boss and throwing him out, my hand just sailed past his rushing body. He set down both bags on my table. Before I could get my mouth and mind working together, Blackhawk whirled back to me and ordered, “Call Vanessa and get her over here, now.”
I wondered exactly how much trouble I would get into if I scruffed my runt of a boss and just punched him in the face. Instead of following through on my impulse, I snatched my phone off of the kitchen counter. I dialed Vanessa and after a couple of rings, I heard her mumble some sort of greeting. I smiled as I heard Hangman grumbling in the background. “Vanessa, it’s Mark.”
“I knew that when I saw the phone number, you dickhead,” she hissed into the phone, “This better be damned important for you to be calling me this early in the morning.”
“Our fearless leader decided to show up at my place and decreed that I call you over here,” I answered, lacing my words with as much false sincerity as I could, “Since he’s the one paying the bills, you might want to get over here. At least he was nice enough to bring breakfast stuff.” I heard shuffling in the background.
“Tell Chris that I’ll be there in an hour,” Vanessa said. She must have turned to Hangman, because I heard her faint scolding voice, “This is what I get for staying over at your place.” I stifled a chortle and closed the phone. I turned back to Blackhawk. His face was twisted in righteous indignation as he closed the distance between us.
“I do not appreciate my subordinates referring to me in mocking tones,” Blackhawk said in measured tones. Gone was the smooth and collected façade that Blackhawk exuded the past two times I met him. In front of me was someone that reminded me heavily of my first boss when I joined the Hunters Guild – a tin god that I learned to hate. Fortunately, his deputy protected me before I did something incredibly impulsive. That deputy would continue protecting me, and then promoted me to his personal hitter when he became the Guildmaster of Hillsborough County. I decided to follow the constant advice of my Guildmaster and ignore Blackhawk’s provocation. Almost.
“I don’t care if you don’t like it,” I answered coolly, “Vanessa will be here in about an hour. I’m going to get dressed.” As I turned towards my bedroom, Blackhawk grabbed my arm.
“I will not have you talking to me like that,” Blackhawk spat, his body vibrating with anger at my insolence, “I am your leader, and you will give me the respect that a leader deserves.” My eyes narrowed at Blackhawk’s words. The term leader has a very specific connotation in the lycanthrope world. A leader was a lycanthrope that earned his position through skill and strength. A leader was someone who could protect his pack and assert its claims through the county. Someone that strong deserved the respect his subordinates willingly gave. Blackhawk was not a leader. He was my boss, because I willingly worked for him. He was not my leader – not like my Guildmaster, not like Lord Vollen.
“You are not my leader,” I replied with a coolness in my tone that amplified my words, “You are a means to an end. I am willing to work for you because I know that the war council will need me when it goes back into Hillsborough, and you can secure my position there. Make no mistake about how far our relationship goes.” He shrank back from me as I talked. Okay, maybe the Guildmaster was right and words could be more effective that outright violence. I quickly hid the smile as my mind clicked on a realization. Blackhawk didn’t understand who he was recruiting. If his contact was Skiff, then Blackhawk probably had no idea what had happened to me during the war and the fall of Hillsborough. Blackhawk came to the same conclusion, because the anger was replaced by a calculating look. Was all of his anger an attempt to manipulate me?
I walked into my bedroom as Blackhawk retreated back to my table. My confrontation with Blackhawk did nothing to mitigate the warnings my instincts were blaring about the Society. Hell, for all I knew, Vanessa and I may be the Society’s only employees. From my talk with the State Guildmaster, I was fairly sure that Blackhawk could deliver on his side of the bargain. Even being isolated from lycathrope society, I knew that the war council was coming, and probably in less than a month from what Hangman told me. Once the council convened and a new leader was selected, then an army of lycanthropes from all over the state could be raised. That army would take back Dade, Broward, and Hillsborough counties and restore the lords of those counties to power. For such an army to succeed, it would need the Society and the State Guild to do prep work such as gather strong, hard intelligence and surgically remove some of the obstacles. I was willing to do that to make sure that my county was liberated and the Vollens restored to power. Damn it, I knew she was still alive.
I made a point to stay in my bed room until Vanessa showed up. I would need her to keep me restrained in dealing with Blackhawk. I trusted Vanessa to keep me from doing more damage to my relationship with Blackhawk. I heard Blackhawk and Vanessa speaking in low tones, so I walked out of my room. Vanessa shot me a frustrated look, while Blackhawk pointedly ignored my entrance and focused on emptying the contents of the bags. Vanessa sat down next to me as Blackhawk looked askance at us from across the table.
“Your first assignment,” Blackhawk announced as he shoved a foot high stack of paper at Vanessa and me. “You will commence the operation after the Bone Moon, but you will need to get started on the information analysis as soon as possible.”
“Okay, so what is it?” I asked.
“I need you to locate and extract Lord Savik and his followers from the disputed territories,” Blackhawk casually answered.
“What the hell?” Vanessa demanded. She looked over at me, and looked surprised that I wasn’t objecting. “Why are we doing this?”
“Because the war council will need those lycanthropes,” I answered. Vanessa just need lycanthropes with experience to help lead in a lycanthrope army. For Hillsborough, Hangman, myself, and anyone else who managed to escape the county will be needed. For an army to survive any incursion into the disputed territories, it will need those lycanthropes with experience.”
“None of the State Guild hunters sent in have returned, nor any of the Society teams,” Vanessa countered, “The place is a black hole. How do you expect us to survive long enough to pull out this Lord Savik, assuming he’s alive?”
“You, by providing the best analysis of the available intelligence,” Blackhawk answered, jabbing a thin stub of a finger at Vanessa, “And you, protecting her and helping to scrounge up more intelligence for her to analyze. That’s why I put the two of you together – to handle these kinds of operations.” Vanessa scowled, petulantly. She didn’t have any other arguments to make. I didn’t have any arguments against the operation, because it was exactly the kind of thing that I expected from the Society. A hint of smugness leaked through Blackhawk’s business façade. He knew the odds were against Vanessa and me on this operation, and he knew that I could see the importance of it to the war council.
“I’ll leave you two to discuss how you want to do this,” Blackhawk said as he walked to the front door, “This operation is vital to the state.” He brusquely slipped through the front door, leaving Vanessa to shoot me a ferocious look of betrayal.
“What?” I demanded as she stood with a sniff.
“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” she countered, “Even you can tell going into the disputed territories is death.” I looked at Vanessa for a moment without saying anything. Her body was slightly trembling and jerking her hand through her hand. When I didn’t say anything, Vanessa began to pace.
“Vanessa, does this terrify you?” I asked softly.
“Yes! Doesn’t it scare you?” she answered, nearly screaming. I looked at her for a moment before answering.
“No, not really,” I answered, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible, “The operation doesn’t scare me. I understand it’s dangerous, but not terrifying.”
“I don’t believe you,” Vanessa shot back, “I don’t care what your rep is, you have to have some fear in you.”
“Yeah, but not like what you’re feeling,” I said. Vanessa planted her fists into her hips. Her face plainly told me that she didn’t believe me, so I tried to explain. “Look, this isn’t exactly the first time that my superior has sent me on what would be called ‘a suicide mission.’ Hell, that’s partly how I made my professional rep. But I’ve had years of training and experience to fall back on.”
“And I don’t,” Vanessa concluded before I could finish, “I’m acting like a rookie, is that it?”
“No, you’re acting like someone who’s facing the unknown,” I answered, “Look, you’re just going to have to trust me that I know what I’m doing when it comes to this shit. Yes, you’re going to be in some danger. That’s the nature of the field. But I’m not going to risk you unnecessarily or put you into unnecessary danger by my actions.”
“That’s not exactly comforting, Mark,” Vanessa said, her normal sarcasm returning.
“Listen, you signed up for a job that’s not exactly safe,” I replied, “The trick is to maximize your results while minimizing your danger.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around?”
“Nope,” I answered, “At the end of the day, you better be willing to lay down your life for the job if necessary.”
“Jeez, Sam is going to flip when I tell him what I have to do,” Vanessa said, slumping into the chair next to me. She stared at the stack of paper with an apathetic excitement.
“Hangman’s a professional,” I said, “He knows the score.”
“Yeah, because you would react so well if it was Elizabeth traipsing down to the disputed territories with only one bodyguard,” Vanessa retorted. My body locked as the words hit me. I was frozen as a locked-away terror roared through me with pent-up power. Vanessa saw the effect her words had on me and quickly wrapped her arms around me like a warm blanket and murmured a low soothing tone. The fear sniggered at my partner’s actions. Fear was a paralyzing thing, but it was stupid. Since I didn’t have to concentrate on the external world, I could pull all of my strength together and slam the fear back to the dark place in my mind where I kept it.
“Okay, that’s something that scares me,” I said. I exhaled slowly, “Ancestors, it scares me.”
“That’s not a normal reaction, Mark,” Vanessa said, with the same low, soothing tone, “You’re going to have to deal with all those feelings you keep locked up. Preferably before it gets us killed.” I nodded silently. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Get me on the operation, and I’ll be fine,” I answered, “I know how to handle those.” Vanessa seemed warily satisfied with my answer and excused herself. She wanted to get back to Hangman. I could understand her desire to curl up with Hangman and let him tell her everything was going to be all right. I wished desperately that I could do the same thing with Elizabeth. Calling her by her name hurt less.
The dark sky was cloudless, letting the stars gleam in the night. The moon was a bright white disc in the sky, trickling light into the woods. The shadows from its dim light moved and danced as the light breeze came through where I was waiting. I tasted the breeze with my muzzle, smelling the quarry’s fear.
My paws silently moved through the brush. My eyes had not caught his image yet among the trees, but I could hear his crushing footsteps as he ran. My nose had smelled his fear, his dank perspiration, the stains on his clothes from his last meal. He thought he had escaped the worst of his life. I knew different, and soon he would also.
I had tracked him from where the prison bus had tipped over. According to the scent on the crude knife in the body, my quarry had killed his guard and then escaped with about ten or so others. They were also being hunted this Bone Moon, but I was only interested in this one.
I lowered my head at one of his footprints. I could feel my instincts fighting me. Run, chase, and kill. His scent is strong and the hunger grows, they beckoned in my head. I could see something was wrong. This wasn’t the path of an aimless run. The prey knew something was following him.
Good, it makes the hunt more exciting if the meat knows that his hunter is out there, the wolf inside beckoned. I could have shed my wolf for that of true, but I refused to let the primal animal in me win any small victory. The human out there knew he was being hunted, and that made him dangerous. I ran parallel to the tracks that I had been following, hoping to find any traps the prey set. I tasted the wind again, hoping to find his familiar scent among the background of the forest.
I couldn’t smell him at all. He was downwind of me. The bastard – meat – was smart. I tasted the wind again. This time, I listened to it instead of smelled it. The birds upwind were chirping wildly. They were defending their territory. The birds downwind were coming this way because the human had startled them out. After listening to the sounds of the calls for a few minutes, I figured out where the human was and in what direction he was moving.
I ran through the brush. The dead leaves, fallen branches, and dirt were mashed together under my paws, making a unique noise that the other animals in the forest knew and understood. A predator was chasing his prey and everything else had best move out of the way.
The trees began to thin out as I chased the human, and in the distance I could see the end of the forest. A wide open clearing of tall grass awaited me. The poor fool. I could now make him out. He wasn’t very tall, but he was fast, and he knew how to run through tall grass. I ran out of the forest into the grass, swishing through the tall strands. I was close enough now that I no longer needed the wind to smell him. He was very afraid. I could feel his heavy footsteps pounding through the ground as he ran.
Yes! Run him into the ground! Pounce and tear him apart! The primal me took over and my pace quickened. The prey had no chance. Against a normal wolf, he might have escaped with his life. Not against a lycanthrope. I was only about two yards from him when I leaped, springing well over ten feet into the air. My front legs grew as the paws articulated themselves into clawed hands. My neck shortened as my chest broadened. My body elongated itself, with my tail growing also. My legs stretched and fleshed out. My prey grew smaller as my perspective changed. The subdued night colors sprang into my vision as I left behind the gray-scale of a wolf’s eyes.
I could feel his spinal column shatter as I slammed into his back. We crashed into the ground. I rolled off him and crouched in front of his paralyzed body. He whimpered and cried, trying desperately to pull himself along the ground with his arms. His legs dragged behind him uselessly. He did not seen me in front of him.
I reached out my hand and grasped his hair. I pulled up his head from the ground until he was staring me in the eyes. Pain fell from his eyes as it was replaced with stark fear. My other hand swept his neck, the razor-sharp claws slicing his throat open. A rasping wind came out, then the blood from his veins filled the air pipe. An pathetic gurgling came out as the body tried to save itself. The man, however, was not aware of this. His cognitive mind was gone, already deep within itself as the catatonia set in. The gurgling of his last breaths pumping out of his mutilated throat lasted over a minute before it ceased. The prey was dead. The hunt was finished. The Bone Moon beamed happily down on me as the Ancestors gave their approval of my hunt.
Perhaps the most boring part of doing an operation is the intelligence analysis. Not the gathering – that can actually be kind of fun if you’re doing it right. It was just fucking boring plowing through the available intelligence to glean out the useful bits of information from the useless details. At least it was for me. Vanessa, on the other hand, hummed happily to the song on her MP3 player as she sat at my dining room table and read through the stack of paper that Blackhawk handed over to her. The rapid clicking of her laptop’s keys was grating on my nerves. I hated her at the moment. I was still staring at the same scrap of paper for the past ten minutes.
Granted, part of her happiness and part of my grumpiness was because of the Bone Moon. The hunt was good, but it was the first time in my life that I felt the empty pit afterwards. For most lycanthropes, after returning from the hunt, they burned off the remaining energy with their mates. There was good reason for that – most lycanthrope females were “fertile” during the Bone Moon, and it was a good time to sire new lycanthropes. Badmoons were never considered good sires, so I never had to worry about doing the mating dance. Prostitutes were always good ways of working off extra energy. Sometimes you even got lucky, and the pimps tried to shake you down. This Bone Moon was different. I missed Elizabeth far too much.
Part of me wanted to just leave it to Vanessa and go shooting, but my professional side knew better. I had no doubt that Vanessa would give me an excellent intelligence summary, but sometimes you just needed to see the hard data yourself. The raw data could give you a feel for the situation, something a summary just couldn’t.
Part of the problem with dealing with the disputed territories was that the damn place was a black hole when it came to current intelligence. Nothing came out of there, not even on the vampire side. Bradon once confided in me that the place scared the vampires almost as much as it scared the lycanthropes. Vanessa and I had plenty of information, but it all pre-dated the surprise attack by the vampires. Hell, we didn’t even know what happened during the attack. Like I said, the damn place was a black hole.
Every lycanthrope in Florida knew the basics. About six years ago, the aristocracies of two of the most popular counties, Broward and Miami-Dade, went missing in what was assumed a massive surprise attack by the Gold Coast Council. There were few fleeing lycanthropes, and none of them could give an account of what happened. The State Guild immediately dispatched two hit packs to investigate and extract any lycanthropes. They just vanished shortly after crossing the border into Broward. The Society also lost an asset who infiltrated into Miami-Dade. The Prince ordered the immediate sealing of the borders between the two counties and the rest of the state. The surrounding counties were charged with maintaining the border with some assistance from the state. The Society set up a few listening posts, but neither the Society, nor the State Guild, sent in any additional forces.
The Prince suffered politically for his decision. The few times I heard my Guildmaster speak of the situation, it was with unadulterated disgust. From what he said, Lord Vollen was of a similar opinion. I don’t know how the Prince managed to avoid a war council being convened when those two counties fell. I didn’t pay attention to state-wide politics beyond the occasional grumblings of my boss. Hell, county politics were annoying enough to me. The only good point was that the vampires didn’t have a state-wide structure. The individual councils were too busy fighting for advantage to band together – even with one of them gaining control of two of Florida’s richest counties.
From just the basic overview, the mission that Blackhawk gave Vanessa and me looked impossible. What changed the mission from impossible to improbable happened about the time that tensions started to rise between the TCV and Lord Vollen. There was only a tersely worded memo that talked about an “emissary” from the disputed territories that showed up in Jacksonville. No information about what the emissary said was given to us. From what I was reading, the whole incident was swept away by the Prince. My instincts were telling me that Blackhawk had something to do with it, but I was being very careful with that theory. I wanted it to be true too much, and that meant it would be too easy to ignore information that disproved it. I learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago. It damn near cost another hunter his life.
“Vanessa, have you managed to find anything on what the emissary told Lord Janis?” I asked. The emissary’s message was the focus of Vanessa’s research while I reviewed the basic background to get a feel for the disputed territories. When Vanessa didn’t even move her head at my question, I fished a coin out of my pocket and threw it at her.
“What the fuck?” she asked as the coin audibly slapped against her neck. She took one look at me and pulled her headphones off. “Sorry, what did you ask me?”
“The emissary?”
“Not a thing,” she answered, “I chased down a few leads, but they all came up empty.” Vanessa surprised me. I expected her to be frustrated, but she wasn’t. If anything, Vanessa was more excited about the hunt for the information she was searching. “I hoped to find the emissary, but he apparently died shortly after talking with Lord Janis. Lord Janis made a report to the prince, but so far that’s the extent of what we know.”
“Great,” I groused, “Any other ideas?”
“A couple,” Vanessa said, “Whoever didn’t want that report known couldn’t destroy the actual report. Not once it was entered into the official record. According to our memo, Lord Janis’s report was entered. So, the only options would be to hide its existence and its residence.”
“Okay, I’m following you so far.”
“Well, we already know that it does exist, so now we only need to find where it exists,” Vanessa explained, “How familiar are you with the court records?”
“I’m not,” I answered, “At the county level, the aristocracy leaves that duty in the hands of the Keeper. I don’t know where that old bastard did with them.”
“I’ve never even heard of a Keeper,” Vanessa said, “At the State level, the keeping of the prince’s court record is kept by the kin of the prince.”
“I didn’t see any kin in the Manor.”
“I don’t know all of the specifics, but the kin transcribe the records from audio recordings,” Vanessa answered. Okay, that shouldn’t be surprising. The hunters kept audio recordings anytime that the Guildmaster met with any of the pack leaders. It kept them honest if we did something they asked for in a manner they didn’t like. “Now, from what I’ve been researching, the court records aren’t kept in the Manor. The records are distributed to safe places throughout the state, using the state university system to protect them.”
“Okay, so what does that mean for our search?” I asked, trying to get to the point.
“It means that instead of looking for the actual report, I’m looking to see where the kin sent the records for the day Lord Janis reported to the prince,” Vanessa answered, “I’m making some headway on this tack, but there’s a lot of disparate data that needs to be mapped and analyzed.”
“Time estimate?” I asked, internally reviewing my building list of to-do items.
“I can’t give you one,” she said, “I could find it in the next ten minutes, the next two hours, or tomorrow. There’s just a ton of raw data that I have to sift through.”
“Yeah, okay. You don’t have to sound so damn happy about it.”
“Can’t help it. This is the kind of thing I love doing.” Vanessa was actually beaming with anticipation. I did need her for some of the things that needed to get done before we left, but we needed the report more. I stood up from the table. There really wasn’t anything else that I could really contribute on the intel side.
“Okay, you continue to work here. I’ve got to go to the Guild and get some of the gear that we’re going to need.”
“Say hi to Sam for me,” Vanessa said as she immersed herself in her music and the glowing display on her laptop.
I had learned Tallahassee just enough to get to the places I needed to go. One of those was the State Guild. Most of it was meeting with Hangman for lunches and the occasional discussion with the State Guildmaster and some of his hunters. Those discussions were informal debriefings on what happened in Hillsborough. I got the distinct feeling that the State Guildmaster was planning something that involved Hillsborough, but he wasn’t giving out any details – at least to me or to Hangman. As soon as I arrived, I was directed to the State Guildmaster’s office. That was fine, because I needed to ask the State Guildmaster for stuff.
“Ranger, we need to talk,” the State Guildmaster growled as I walked into his office. I looked around and didn’t see any of the unknown familiar faces that normally were waiting to talk with me.
“What?” I asked in response.
“Why in the hell is Blackhawk sending you down to the disputed territories?” The State Guildmaster gave me a severe look that I recognized. It was the same look my Guildmaster gave me when he wanted an answer from me without any of my normal bullshit.
“How did you know that?” I asked. From the earlier conversations with the State Guildmaster and some of his hunters, I had the impression that the Guild knew very little about the Society and its activities. I wasn’t expecting the State Guildmaster to be privy to what the Society was doing.
“Your partner needs a refresher on operational security,” the State Guildmaster answered, “She confided in her lover, and of course –“
“He told you,” I finished. I was annoyed, but Hangman didn’t do anything wrong. He did exactly as hunters were taught since we first walked into the training camp.
“So?” the State Guildmaster asked, “Why are you going to the disputed territories?”
“I’m not sure that I can tell you that,” I answered. The State Guildmaster’s face darkened. “Listen, I’m not trying to make trouble for you, but that may be information that’s too sensitive for me to hand over to you.” The State Guildmaster’s face continued its scowling countenance. “Look, I don’t know what you’ll do with that information, and I don’t want anything that can be traced back to me. Wouldn’t do either of us a bit of good.”
“So why are you here?” the State Guildmaster asked, slightly less scowling.
“Actually, I need some stuff for this upcoming jaunt,” I said with a straight face. The State Guildmaster just gave me a blank look. I could see the incredulous thoughts running through his head, so I plowed on before he had time to recover. “I brought a list of things that I can’t procure on my own. I kind of figured you might be willing to give me a hand.”
“Why, in the Ancestors’ names, should I do that?” the State Guildmaster asked, finally recovering from my initial barrage.
“Because you don’t want me dead,” I answered, dropping my voice from its normal irreverent tone to one of deadly earnest, “Because neither of us trusts Blackhawk, and we both know it’s better to have someone on the inside.”
“For a non-political lycanthrope, you seem to know how to play the game well,” the State Guildmaster commented as he reached for the paper list in my hand.
“Politics, no. Survival, yes.”
Like the Hillsborough chapter, the State Guild maintained its armory inside a legitimate gun store. Most chapters did so, because a gun store was such an excellent cover for a depository of a lot of guns and ammunition. The State Guild armorer was, surprisingly, a kin by the name of Rube Simmons. Kin were hired and used by lycanthropes for a variety of reasons, but the Guild never used them for anything but intelligence gathering and occasionally staffing some outside offices. My momentary surprise was quickly swept away by the gruff, efficient manner Simmons put together my package – including offering some very helpful suggestions. My gear was simple because I knew what worked for me. Getting things for Vanessa on the other hand, was to say the very least, challenging.
I returned back to the house and began laying out the gear I planned taking on my trip into the disputed territories. When it got down to brass tacks, the mission was locate-and-extract. Since the lycanthropes I was looking for already sent for help from the rest of the state. My suspicion was that once Vanessa and I managed to find out exactly what the messenger told the Lord of Duval County, we would know where to find the remaining lycanthropes in the disputed territories. I called Vanessa and asked her to meet me back at my house.
“Hey Mark, what’s up?” Vanessa asked as she stepped through my door.
“We need to get you equipped before we have to leave,” I answered, “First, did you manage to make any progress on the search?” She pulled her laptop out of her satchel bag and laid it out on my table. She quickly keyed in some commands.
“I’ve got one of my custom search devices working on it,” Vanessa said, “Nothing yet, but the more negative hits, the better I can refine the parameters.”
“So the answer is you’re making some progress, but no real definitive idea of when we’ll find what we’re looking for,” I said. She nodded with an exasperated look on her face. I ignored it and continued on the main purpose of the meeting. “First, you have a nine a.m. appointment at the State Guild to have a vest fitted. I’m not taking you into the field without one. The other thing is to get you equipped with a sidearm and a field weapon.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, “You’ve seen me shoot.” I laid out a few handguns on my coffee table. Vanessa could hit something, but only after some intense drilling, which we didn’t have time to do. Vanessa also got flubbed by the controls of normal automatic pistols.
“Try this one,” I said handing her a small automatic.
“Isn’t this your back-up piece?” Vanessa asked handling the tiny Glock.
“Similar, but this one is chambered in nine millimeter,” I answered, “You should be able to handle it without too much problem.” Vanessa hemmed and hawed, but in the end, she preferred the Glock over the two revolvers she tried. Personally, I was glad she liked the Glock. It used the same ammo as the two MP5’s, and would take all of the abuse a new owner was going to put it through. Simmons was kind enough to give me a used one, so I wouldn’t have to worry about breaking it in. Simmons also threw in a bunch of different gun leathers. Vanessa found a pocket holster and a purse holster that she liked. I was about to turn to let her start choosing a long gun when her laptop toned.
Vanessa’s jaw dropped as she looked at the screen. She tapped furiously as I waited patiently for her to confirm the findings. I knew she was shocked at the results her computer generated, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I would more than likely just get in her way.
“Mark, we’ve found the emissary’s report,” Vanessa said with a hushed voice.
“Great, where is it?” I asked. That report would hopefully give us strong intelligence on the current situation in the disputed territories.
“It’s in Tampa.”