CHAPTER FIVE: OLD FRIENDS
By Dale Brown
Flagstaff, Arizona
A short time later
“You just tell me when you get tired of me waxin’ your butt, my friend,” Nick could hear him from all the way across the gravel parking lot, “and we’ll call it a day.” Then he heard five gunshots in less than five seconds, and another jubilant, “That’s another round you owe me, Joe. The king is dead--long live the new king…me!”
Nick took a careful glance around before approaching the voice and quickly realized he was probably the only person out here without a firearm. The Northern Arizona University Shooting Range was a very high-tech looking facility with ranges for several firearms disciplines from archery to automatic weapons; several federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies had training centers here too. Although rain threatened, the winds were swirling, and the tops of Humphreys Peak and Wilson Mountain were obscured with thick gray clouds, the range was more than half full.
That was good, because he didn’t want to be alone with the guy he was about to meet.
On the far left side of the pistol range, two men were pulling off ear protectors and safety glasses and checking their pistols, then hitting the switch that brought their man-silhouette targets back to them. Nick put his hands in his leather jacket’s pockets--if they couldn’t see his hands they might assume he was armed, which might even the odds if things started to turned sour--and he slowly but purposely moved towards them.
The older man was shorter than the other, with silver hair worn much longer than Nick remembered him ever wearing it before; the thick moustache was new too. He wore a shoulder rig over his coat with the holster on the left in cross-draw fashion, so Nick couldn’t see if there was a weapon in it; he also had a holster on an olive-drab web belt, also over his coat, which was empty. Knowing this guy like Nick did, he had to assume he had an emergency backup piece in an ankle holster as well. The other man was much taller, with short dark hair and dark military-issue horn-rimmed utility glasses. They had an array of pistols on the range table before them, everything from tiny revolvers to some of the biggest handguns Nick had ever seen, along with carrying cases and ammo boxes.
“Joe, I’m having a good time kickin’ your butt for a change,” the older man was saying, “but I’m startin’ to freeze solid out here, for Christ’s sake. How about we do one more round with the hog’s-legs and call it…” And then he stopped, sensing the newcomer behind him. His right hand disappeared from view as he half-turned to his left to glance over his left shoulder; the fingers of his left hand touched the range table as if to steady himself for whatever he might do next. He was in a gunfighter’s stance now, offering his narrowest profile to his potential adversary, his shooting hand invisible.
“Hello, Colonel,” Nick said. “Long time.”
The man turned his head all the way, his right hand still not visible, and Nick saw his eyes widen in surprise, shifting quickly to confusion, briefly to fear as he realized that he couldn’t see Nick’s hands, then to anger, and finally to irritation. He glanced at the taller man beside him and snorted. “I get it now, Joe,” he said, turning his full attention back to Nick. “Now I know why you picked the coldest, lousiest day of the month to invite me out to the range. You zoomies stick together like earthworms in a can.”
“I need to talk with you, Colonel.”
“Let me see your hands first, Roberts.”
Nick slowly took his hands out of his pockets. “Yours too, Colonel.”
“Bite me.” But the man turned all the way around to face Nick. Sure enough, he had a big .45 caliber autoloader in that shoulder rig, retaining snaps removed, safety off. He was pleased to see that Nick noticed.
“How are you, Chief?” Nick asked the taller man, daring to take his eyes off the colonel only for an instant to address his friend.
Before he could answer, the older man said, “You haven’t heard, Roberts? Joe got demoted, along with me and everyone else at DSWCA, thanks to you. He’s a tech sergeant now, filing paperwork and hand-holding snot-nosed Air Force ROTC cadets here at NAU.”
“I’m fine, sir,” the man named Joe said. Nick nodded in silent thanks for setting up this meeting, but Joe remained impassive, waiting apprehensively for an explanation.
“I have nothing to say to you, Roberts,” the older man said. “So why don’t you just get out of here.”
“Operation Red Hand. I need to know…”
The man’s eyes and nostrils flared. Sweat popped out from under Nick’s collar as he realized he had absolutely no chance to reach cover if this guy decided he’d had enough. “You’re a nut-job, Roberts,” the older man retorted, jabbing a finger. “You are one deranged uncaring piece of garbage. I told you, and I told all the investigators, prosecutors, and special agents you sicced on me, that there was and is no such thing.”
“They’re all dead, Colonel,” Nick said. “They were hunted down, extorted, terrorized, and killed.”
“I don’t know who or what you’re talking about, Roberts,” the man said. “I was in charge of the Defense Special Weapons Counterproliferation Agency, that’s all, a dead-end assignment that I did nothing to deserve. I had a grand total of fifteen bored uninspired staff members crammed into a shoebox office so deep in the basement of the Pentagon that we were turning into mushrooms. We did inspections that no one cared about, wrote training manuals and reports that nobody read, and drank lousy liquor with corrupt bureaucrats from former Warsaw Pact countries who thought they could make a few bucks passing along false or outdated information on non-existent nukes.”
“I’m not with the Office of Special Investigations any more, Colonel,” Nick said. “I’m not after you. But I know you have information that can save lives--maybe even your own. I know Red Hand existed, and probably still does. I know you…”
“You’re still on that kick?” the colonel spat. “The Pentagon cleared me, Joe here, and everyone at DSWCA long ago, but you still managed to ruin a lot of great careers. You milked that conspiracy theory long enough to get yourself a promotion, then a young trophy wife, a powerful father-in-law, and a cushy White House appointment. Meanwhile, I’m divorced, disgraced, and too broke to buy a lousy one-bedroom condo in my own home town in Alabama.”
“I offered you a way out, Colonel, if you only cooperated with me instead of…”
“What’s happened now, Nicky-poo?” the colonel interjected. “Daddy Warbucks needs a boost in his poll numbers and wants you to dig up your cockamamie shadow unit conspiracy again?”
“I need to know what Red Hand found,” Nick said. “I need to know what they brought back and where they stashed them. Lives are at stake.”
“You know what I’m going to do for you, Deputy Press Secretary Roberts or Mr. Arleigh Becktel or whoever you are?” the man said, his eyes affixed on Nick like a lion waiting to pounce. “I’m going to report this contact to the Office of Special Investigations at Luke. I’m going to tell them you threatened me with more investigations and even with physical harm. I want to see how you like being the target of an investigation for a change.”
“Sorry, sir,” the man named Joe said contritely, “but I have to report this contact to my boss and to the OSI as well. I have no choice.” He paused, then added, “You’d make it easier on yourself if you came with us and explained all this to them in person, sir.”
Nick resisted the impulse to look at the timer on his wrist. The colonel smiled when he saw Nick’s hesitation. “Just as I thought: Nick’s busy kissing his daddy-in-law’s derričre, and he wouldn’t dare let his scheme get traced back to him. Well, Becktel, Fletcher, or your other pals in the White House might have enough juice to block an OSI investigation, but I’m going to make it my mission in life to see to it that enough dirt rolls downhill on you to make the congressman and his sexy daughter toss you away like a rotten apple soonest. Now get away from me.”
“Colonel, please,” Nick tried, his voice pleading, and it was no act. “I swear to you, this is not a scam or an investigation.”
“I got nuthin’ to say to you. You’re probably wired, aren’t you, you prick?”
Nick unzipped his coat, then pulled his shirt apart, exposing his bare chest. “I’m not wired, honest to God. I’m telling you, Colonel, lives are at stake. Red Hand. I need to know…”
The colonel’s eyes instantly hardened into target-acquisition mode, and the .45 was out of the shoulder rig with incredible speed. Blood roared in Nick’s ears, and his eyesight tunnel-visioned down to the muzzle of that big automatic, just a few paces away. Somehow, he stayed conscious and vertical; his hands amazingly steady as they held his coat and shirt open, presenting a perfect bare-chested target for the colonel.
“I…deserve…this,” the colonel breathed between clenched teeth. He swallowed, his unblinking eyes staring directly into Nick’s with the coldest expression he had ever seen a man wear. “I don’t think I’d get away with it, but I know I deserve it.” Then, with a snap of his hand designed to shatter the silence, he flipped the muzzle away and decocked the weapon with a loud “CHA-CHINK!” Nick’s head felt as if the bullet had just burst it apart.
“Get out of my sight, Roberts,” he said, taking a deep breath as he holstered the weapon. He smiled, looked Nick up and down, snorted, then added, “Get out before there’s an unfortunate gun-cleaning accident here.”
Dale Brown is the author of nineteen best-selling military techno-thriller novels, including Strike Force, Edge of Battle, and the classic aviation thriller Flight of the Old Dog. He is a former U.S. Air Force B-52G and FB-111A bombardier, and makes his home near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Read more about him at www.AirBattleForce.com.
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2007, Target Direct Productions Inc.
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