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Trembling, he looked up from the box, seeing Bowie and a couple of students grin at him.
"Three seconds before the bomb would have blown," Bowie said. "Every bad guy down. No hostages lost. You spotted the trick with the priest. Very good, Mr. Ramirez."
"Thanks." Raoul's voice was unsteady, remembering to add "sir." The emotional involvement in navigating a shooting house amazed him.
Outside, as more shots and explosions rumbled from the swamp, he watched Bowie approach more students. "Mr. Ferguson, you're next."
The tall, red-haired twenty-year-old didn't look enthusiastic.
"Let's go, Mr. Ferguson." Bowie pushed him, begi
Raoul and the students who'd passed the exercise followed Bowie.
Ferguson shot the first bad guy and the second, ignored the old woman, shot the third gunman, saw the woman holding the infant, pivoted in search of another target, and heard Bowie yell, "She's got a gun in the blanket!" He fired three times into the target. "You missed!" Bowie yelled. "Shoot her! Shoot her!" Ferguson emptied the rest of his magazine into the target. He did a rapid reload, hurried on, ignored the priest, and ran to the metal box, flicking the "off" switch.
Looking up in triumph, he frowned when he didn't receive the approving looks he expected.
"Mr. Ferguson, it appears you're a menace to society," Bowie said.
"What are you talking about? I shut off the bomb, didn't I?"
"You'd have been dead before you reached it. That guy in the white collar would have dropped you."
"The priest? Give me a break."
"He's not a priest."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"The gun in his hand."
"What gun?" Ferguson groaned when he took a closer look.
"Even if you had shot him and disabled the bomb, it wouldn't have been any consolation to the woman and baby you killed."
"That wasn't a baby! The woman had a gun in the blanket!"
"No."
"But you told me--"
"I made a mistake."
"You lied to me."
"I tested you."
"This is bullshit."
"No, Mr. Ferguson. It's an exercise in discipline and control, qualities you apparently lack."
Ferguson seemed about to raise his gun. Bowie drew his knife from his pocket.
Ferguson stared at the knife and took his hand off his pistol. "I didn't come here to get bossed like I was still in the joint."
"No, you came here for a two-thousand-dollar signing fee and three thousand a month, plus room, board, and training."
"What good is the cash if I can't spend it anywhere?"
"Would you prefer to leave, Mr. Ferguson?"
"Does it show? All these damned mosquitoes. If I stay any longer, I'll get malaria or some fucking thing."
Bowie turned from Ferguson and faced Raoul, his tone hard. "Mr. Ramirez."
Raoul was taken by surprise. "Yes, sir?"
"After your next class, report to my office."
Chapter 3.
As Raoul crossed the packed earth of the compound's parade ground, he tried not to gaze around in continuing wonder at the sun-drenched encampment. Dense bushes and trees formed the perimeter. To his left were two wooden barracks mounted on stilts. Beyond, students shot at moving vehicles or learned to storm a building. Others practiced hand-to-hand combat, while still others learned how to handle knives. Raoul had no idea where all this was headed, but he knew that he couldn't be happier. Guns, movies, video games. The only thing missing was booze and women. Almost heaven. And he was getting paid for it. The weight of the pistol on his waist, the sense that he was doing something important and doing it well--these brought a straightness to his posture, a fullness to his chest.
He heard an instructor shout, "When you catch your enemy from behind and pull back his head, don't try to slit his throat. You might cut your hand. Grab his chin and mouth so he can't scream. Yank his head back. Stab a kidney. That's the killing stroke. A kidney. Almost instant renal failure."
Pausing outside a corrugated-metal shed, Raoul heard the clang of a hammer against metal. He had no idea why Bowie wanted to see him. His elation at having done well in the shooting house was replaced by confusion about the argument between Bowie and Ferguson and what it had to do with him.
The hammer's angry clang became rapid and insistent. When Raoul mustered the resolve to knock, the noise abruptly stopped.
"Come in."
Chapter 4.
According to the Bible, Cain had many descendants, one of whom was the first to forge iron. Carl enjoyed that idea, just as he enjoyed the notion that Hephaestus, the son of Zeus, was also supposed to have been the first to forge metal: the armorer of the gods. It was an interesting parallel, for Hephaestus's skill with a hammer and an anvil had an effect as terrible and long-lasting as Cain's murder of Abel. The Greek god's most ingenious creation was an elaborately engraved metal box that contained every evil and disease. The box was given to the seductress Pandora, and when she opened it, she released war, pestilence, famine, and a host of other darknesses. Only one evil did not escape before Pandora closed the box: cruel, seductive hope.
Carl wore gloves, a canvas apron, and safety glasses. Through their dense lenses, he watched the burning coke in his forge, the thick strip of steel begi
Clang!
Aaron.
Clang!
Aaron.
Bittersweet memories seized him. The rhythmic high-pitched din of the hammer on the anvil sounded to him like ricochets, like screams of pain. He pounded harder, then sensed another sound and turned toward the door, where someone had knocked.