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William looked appalled.
"Most security perso
"And here." Jamie pulled back her blazer, showing William a utility knife holstered above her left hip, something else from the bug-out bag.
"And here." Cavanaugh unclipped a five-inch tactical folding knife from the inside of his pants pocket. The clip attachment made it easy to find and retrieve the knife. On the back of the blade, a hook snagged on the pocket. The resistance caused the blade to open as the knife was being drawn. "I had years of training with blades. A master knife maker taught me to forge them. But I hate the thought of being attacked by one. Believe me, a lot of protectors will feel cold and naked when word gets out they're being stalked with blades."
"But you weren't attacked with a blade," Jamie told him. "What's the co
Chapter 3.
Raoul had no idea where he was being taken. After he used a pay phone to tell his parents that he was heading north to find a job in Denver, the stranger drove him to a small airport, Double Eagle, west of Albuquerque. There, the stranger returned his rental car. No security check was required as they walked toward a small jet. A few minutes later, they soared into the cobalt sky.
"I use small airports," the stranger explained, as if Raoul understood what the hell he was talking about. "I stay below eighteen thousand feet. That way, I don't need to file an instrument flight plan, and I don't turn on my transponder, which is how radar would otherwise track me."
Raoul had trouble concentrating. Until now, he'd never been in a plane. Vertigo threatened to make him vomit. But there was no way he'd let the stranger realize he was afraid. Although his palms were slick with sweat, he kept them firmly on his knees. He forced himself not to tremble.
The secret was not to look down, he decided. He began to wonder if this was some kind of sex thing, that the stranger would be like the predators Raoul had fought off in prison. But the stranger made no moves of that sort. In fact, after paying Raoul the promised two thousand dollars, all he wanted to talk about was fighting.
"Ever want to join the military?" the stranger asked.
"Hell, no." The jet engines were muffled through the earphones the stranger had given him.
"Don't you think it would be cool to carry a handgun and an assault rifle as part of your job?"
"That part. But who wants to go through all the bullshit of taking orders?"
"One goes with the other." The stranger had powerful-looking forearms. His sun-darkened face was gaunt, with a crease down each cheek, and an unusual intensity in his hazel eyes. "Nobody's going to give you a gun without telling you how and when to use it."
"I already got a gun."
"That piece of junk thirty-two? Even if you'd shot me with it, I could have reached you, grabbed it out of your hand, and shoved it down your throat. We'll get you some real guns. Ever fired an MP-5?"
"A what?"
"A submachine gun. Do you know the difference between a submachine gun and an actual machine gun?"
Raoul didn't even know there was a difference.
"A submachine gun fires pistol ammunition. Nine millimeter. A machine gun fires rifle ammunition. A point two-two-three cartridge, for example. The kind that goes in an M-16. Wicked. The bullet flips end over end when it hits something. Rips the target to shreds. Ever fired a submachine gun?"
Raoul hesitated, afraid he'd lose face if he admitted the truth. "No."
"We'll make up for that deficiency. There's nothing as sweet as firing an MP-5 on full auto, thirty rounds zipping through that gun in two seconds. Raoul, you might not have made love to the most beautiful woman. You might not have tasted the greatest whiskey. You might not have driven the fastest car. But I'm telling you, when you put thirty full-auto rounds through an MP-5, you can definitely say you've shot the world's best submachine gun. But to be given the chance to do that, and to get the further money I promised, you need to follow some orders. I mean, that's in any job, right?"
"I realize nobody's go
"Movies, Raoul? You like movies?"
"Sure."
"Did you see any movies when you were in prison?"
"On TV."
"Sounds like a cushy prison."
"Try it sometime. See how cushy you think it is."
"Oh, I've been in prison, Raoul. Believe me. But the kind I was in didn't have TVs. What they had was red-hot needles under my fingernails and electrodes on my testicles."
Raoul noticed the scars on the stranger's fingers.
"When you're not learning about MP-5s and fun stuff like that, you're going to have a different kind of fun, watching a lot of movies," the stranger said. "Quite a job, huh? To get paid three thousand dollars a month to watch movies?"
"What movies?"
"Action movies. I think we'll start with Thief. Michael Ma
Raoul had no idea who the hell Michael Ma
"I guarantee you'll love this one. At the end, Caan goes into a house and blows away a bunch of gangsters, using a handgun. It's one of the first times a gunfight had an accurate look in a movie. Ma
"Tradecraft?"
"The way operators--professionals--do things. You'll catch on to the vocabulary as we go along. You'll watch Black Hawk Down, of course. And the TV series, The Unit, which is about Delta Force. And Dark Blue. Kurt Russell plays a corrupt cop. The director Ron Shelton got a really good technical advisor. The gun stuff is accurate. And there's a moment when Kurt gives a speech and says, 'I'm a gunfighter. I come from a family of gunfighters.' That's a first. I never saw a movie before in which somebody like a police detective who earns his living with a gun calls himself a gunfighter. In life, of course, privately they do call themselves that. Gunfighter. You like the sound of that word, Raoul?"