The Shimmer

Each time Raleigh tested himself in the shooting house, Lockhart reconfigured the partitions, arranging the layout in a new and unprdictable design. The one thing Raleigh could be sure of was the familiarity of the weapon in his hands. During his twenty-five-year career, he’d used its foreru

Still, the M16 had drawbacks, particularly the length of its barrel in the close environments of urban warfare, so the shorter, lighter M4 carbine had been developed. As an officer in the Army, Raleigh had his differences with the Marines, but he definitely agreed with their wisdom in requiring all officers to replace their sidearms with M4s.

At heart, we’re all riflemen, Raleigh thought.

Moving warily along a dim hallway, he checked that the M4’s selector was set for three-shot bursts. He willed his mind to stop swirling and his legs to become steady. With long-practiced biofeedback techniques, he worked to control his respiratory rate and sub- due his pulse.

A target sped out of a doorway ahead.

Raleigh aimed and held his fire. The target was an old man holding up his hands in surrender.

Raleigh peered into the room, saw that it was empty, and continued down the hallway, but at once, a noise behind him made him pivot. Another target sped from the room. Somehow it had been concealed from him. It was a man with a rifle, but before it stopped, Raleigh pulled the trigger, sending three rounds into the opponent’s head. He blew another three rounds into the old man’s head on the assumption that he was in league with the assailant and that in an actual firefight, the old bastard would probably pick up the dead man’s gun the moment Raleigh’s back was turned.

Raleigh quickly sca

Another target popped from a doorway. Raleigh almost fired be- fore he saw that it was a woman holding a child. But then he realized that the child was actually a doll and that the grip of a pistol projected from behind it. He pulled the trigger and sent three bullets into the woman’s brain.

The smell of gun smoke was thick in the corridor now. Although Raleigh wore protective earplugs, his awareness was at such a level that he swore he could hear the clinking sound of his empty shells hitting the concrete floor.

How much time had gone by? How long had he been there?

Don’t think about it! Just get the job done!

The corridor went to the right. Raleigh entered an area that had a receptionist’s desk and wooden chairs in front of it. Without warning, a target surged up from behind the desk. A man with a handgun!

As Raleigh fired, a figure rushed from an office doorway-a woman in a white medical coat. She held up her hands as yet another target sped into view, this one from another doorway, a man about to throw a grenade.

Raleigh shot him, then shot a target that hurried from a farther doorway, a woman with a rifle, then shot two gunmen who rushed from the corridor on the opposite side of the reception area.

He pivoted, sca

His mouth was dry. His hands sweated on the M4.

The rush of his heart was so powerful that he felt pressure in the veins of his neck. Breathing deeply but not quickly, he assessed the scene before him. Were all the threats eliminated?

No.

The woman in the white medical coat continued to stand before him. Weaponless, her hands were raised.

Is the sergeant setting me up? Raleigh wondered. Is that a weapon in the pocket of her medical coat?

He twisted the M4’s selector to full auto and emptied the remainder of the magazine into her, the powerful burst blowing the ply- wood figure apart.

Through his earplugs, he heard a sharp electronic whistle, the signal that the exercise had ended. He pulled out the earplugs and turned toward Sergeant Lockhart, who approached along the corridor.

“I finished before the ninety-second time limit,” Raleigh said. “Beat my own record, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir,” Lockhart said, but there was doubt in his voice. He glanced behind him, and Raleigh knew he was thinking of the bullet holes in the target that portrayed the old man. Then Lockhart peered ahead toward the disintegrated target of the woman in the white medical coat.

“Collaborators,” Raleigh explained. “They’d have moved against me the first chance they had.”

“Of course, sir.” Lockhart still sounded doubtful.

“Sergeant, don’t you like this assignment?”

“Sir, I’m very happy with it.”

“I could arrange to have you sent someplace that offers you more of a challenge. Perhaps a war zone.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t, sir.”

“Combat builds character, you know.”

“Sir, I’ve been in combat. With all due respect, I don’t think I need any more character.”

“Then I’ll spare you a repeat of the experience. But since you’ve been in firefights, there’s one relevant thing I’d expect you to have learned.”

“Yes, sir. And what is that?”

The colonel gestured toward the disintegrated target of the woman in the white medical coat.

“You don’t stay alive long if you take the time to worry about i

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s going to be hard for anyone to outdo my new record.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant assured him emphatically.

Raleigh’s cell phone buzzed. He pulled it from his belt and spoke into it with authority. “Raleigh here.”

What he heard made his jaw tighten.

“I’m on my way.”

16

The strange sounds seeped past the closed door of the command center one level below the underground shooting house. Raleigh heard them the moment he hurried from the elevator. He passed an armed sentry, jabbed numbers on a security pad, and pushed the door open.

The full volume of the sounds drifted over him. A dozen civilian researchers studied various electronic displays, assessing, measuring, calculating. He’d never seen his research team look so intense. Amid the multitude of glowing instruments and pulsing meters, he hurriedly closed the door and tried to identify what he was hearing. He was reminded of music, but these weren’t like any notes he’d ever heard. Granted, they were processed through a computer’s synthesizer program, which gave them an artificial tone, but he’d heard synthesizer music before, and that wasn’t what created the distinctive feeling these sounds inspired.

First, the rhythm sank into him. It drifted, so hypnotic that it seemed to counteract his quickening heartbeat. Second, the notes vibrated in a way that made the colors in the room appear to intensify. Third, the melody-which didn’t have any pattern that he could detect-made his mouth feel as if he’d just sipped…

“You’re tasting orange juice, aren’t you, Colonel?”

Startled, he looked up. A researcher had noticed him draw his tongue along his lips.