Cahill

I could hear the din from the bar as I exited my SUV and I was still almost a block away. What a shame! I knew from long experience that would change as soon as my foot crossed the threshold. I tend to have that effect on people. I’m six feet six inches tall and I weigh an even 250 pounds—all of it broad shouldered muscle. My Body Mass Index at my last physical was less than four percent. My light brown hair is styled exactly the way it’s been for the past fifteen years—ever since I first joined the Navy. Sure enough, no sooner had I taken my first step into the bar than the noise died. When I turned left and stepped up to the bar the people there couldn’t back away fast enough. I took a stool in the middle of the empty space and sat down, waiting for the bartender to approach. “I’m not looking for any trouble.” “Good…neither am I. Give me a ginger ale.” He reached under the bar for a glass and some ice. Twenty seconds later he slid the glass in my direction. I pulled a fiver from my pocket and dropped it on the bar. He ignored it and walked away to draw a few beers and pour some wine. It looked to me like this was a pretty cheap crowd. Checking up and down the bar all I could see were longnecks and drafts. I reached into the lower left pocket of my cargo pants. Like almost everything else I was wearing they were a true deep navy blue. My heavy shoes were black as was my wide belt. My belt said as much about me as the bold white lettering across my chest. Just below the American flag over my heart were the letters that were my life—U. S. MARSHAL. On my right hip was my nickel plated .44 Magnum Colt Python, just behind two speed loaders in addition to the twenty-four rounds on the belt. On my left hip was my ASP Talon baton—every bit as deadly a weapon in my hands as the revolver. A pouch at the back of my right hip held my stainless steel handcuffs and its partner on the opposite side held my radio—my link to my backup team. I placed the photo flat on the bar as the bartender returned to me. “I’ll have another,” I said in a loud voice, continuing so I wouldn’t be overheard. “Don’t pick it up and don’t make a production of looking at it. I’ve been told that he comes here a lot. Is he here tonight? If he is and he escapes because you’ve given me away I’ll see to it that you’re arrested for obstruction of justice.” He gulped a few times but did as he was told, nodding slightly in response. I continued almost at a whisper. “If my nose is pointing to twelve o’clock, my right ear to three, the back of my head to six, and my left ear to nine, tell me where he is. Again, don’t point or do anything obvious and we’ll be fine.” He pretended to wipe the bar as he whispered, “About 4:30 with his back to you.” I picked up the reflection in the mirror then asked, “Red shirt with black and white stripes, looking away from me?” He nodded again. Now, in my normal tone of voice I asked, “Where’s the men’s room?”

Fredrick_Udele · Fantasi

Peringkat tidak cukup

69 Chs

CHAPTER 41

Many of the men had arrived by the time we were done. I explained what I was about to do. I put on my shooting glasses and my ear protection then made sure that Lucy's were comfortably over her ears before turning and loading my pistol. I replaced it in my holster then drew and swiftly brought it up to a two-handed firing position. A second later I exhaled and fired. The cantaloupe exploded. I waited a few seconds before taking my second shot, this time destroying the apple. Finally, I fired at the plum disintegrating it instantly.

"Practice and concentration," I told the men. "You have no idea how many hours and weeks I practiced that before I got it right. I must have shot ten thousand rounds. Now, there's one thing that most of you don't consider—gravity. A bullet starts to fall as soon as it leaves the barrel. The rate of fall is independent of its horizontal speed. At fifty yards my .44 Magnum shell has a muzzle velocity of about 1,350 feet per second. It covers the fifty yards in .11 seconds and the bullet will fall almost two and a half inches so I have to aim that much higher in order to strike the target. My 9mm only travels at about 1150 fps so it will fall even farther.

Most of your shooting will take place at twenty feet or less. Scientific studies have shown that, so if you aim for the chest and the bullet drops an inch or so it won't make any difference. This is something you have to consider if you have to shoot at longer distances." I stopped when one of the officers asked a question.

"Chief, isn't it a disadvantage having only six shots when most people, like criminals, use a semi-automatic with at least double the number in the clip?"

"That's a good question, Somers. Let's get a target. Most of the time you won't have to fire more than ten yards so it's important that you aim and practice at twenty or more. Start at twenty and move up from there."

I reloaded as the range manager ran a man-shaped target out to forty yards as we had discussed earlier.

I raised my Colt Python quickly, but not so fast as to upset my balance. Then I fired one shot after another until the cylinder was empty. I flipped it open with my right hand, spilling the spent cartridges onto the floor as I pulled one of the speed loaders from my belt, ejecting the cartridges into the cylinder in less than two seconds. I flipped the cylinder closed as I replaced the loader, bringing the weapon up to horizontal as I did. Once I had my left hand on the grip and trigger I commenced firing again. I repeated once the six shots were spent. The target was retrieved once I was done.

"Care to guess how many times I had to practice that? I used to sit in my Navy barracks and practice for hours whenever I wasn't on duty. Now I can do it in my sleep. One of these days my life and the lives of others may depend on my ability…or yours." My target, once retrieved, showed eighteen holes in the central body mass of the target showing eighteen straight kill shots. I stepped back and Daryl stepped forward, loaded his H&K 9mm and fired just as quickly as I did. He changed clips and fired again. His target, to nobody's surprise, showed thirty clean hits.

Now it was up to the men. The first five loaded their weapons as Daryl and I stood behind them, making suggestions like "hold your arms straight, but don't tighten your muscles. Look down at the sight with both eyes. Don't worry, you'll get used to it with a little more practice." All told we spent more than ninety minutes at the range and only half of the men had qualified by reaching eighty-five percent accuracy, but another eighteen had just missed. Only the older officers had done really poorly. I had an idea what I could do with them.

Tuesday we repeated, but before their 4:00 p.m. shift began, meeting at the range at 2:00. My demo went as expected as did Daryl's shooting. This time sixty percent of the men met the standard and nineteen were close. Wednesday morning at 8:30 we finished the testing with the midnight shift. There were fewer on this shift and I wondered aloud if we had enough. The officers told me that it was tight. If there was an accident or a fight at a bar, responding was a close call and left the rest of the city under-patrolled. I decided to discuss that with Lucy.

Wednesday night found Daryl, Lucy, Max and me in the AME Church hall where we were provided with a blackboard and a number of tables and chairs. Five young black men and one black woman showed up for the tutoring. I began the session by telling everyone that we would be on a first name basis during the sessions. "How many will we have," asked the woman named Aimee.

"How many will you need? We'll give you as many as you need or as many as you want. I should tell you that you will be tested in Memphis, but we'll provide a big van to transport you both ways. The test has two parts—aptitude or your ability to learn and a psychological profile. If you are successful you'll find that there will be repeated psychological reviews because we don't want a hothead on the force and we don't want someone with psychological issues. We don't want people who are prejudiced either. We do want people who are calm and who think things through before reacting.

"I've had people spit in my face when there was an anti war demonstration outside a base where I was stationed. I wanted more than anything to strangle that little bastard, but that was exactly what he wanted. Instead, I twisted him around, handcuffed him and put him into a van where he was formally arrested for assault and read his rights. Then I returned to my place in line. There were no more spitting incidents for the rest of the demonstration although we did arrest another thirty people. Keep in mind that what I did was by the book and what every other police officer should do in a similar situation. So…why are you here? Why do you think you want to be a police officer?"

We listened and talked for almost thirty minutes and when we were done we were sure that everyone had good reasons for being here. Lucy passed out sample exams and I gave pencils to those who needed one while Daryl took over the instruction. He went through the first twenty questions with the group and I was pleased that they did well. Theoretically, you can't study for an aptitude test, but you can study for the type of question and you can develop good test-taking practices. We all left with smiles on our faces at 10:00.

The next week we had eight students and the week after that ten including two Hispanic men. We held the sessions for ten weeks then made transportation arrangements to and from the test which was held on a Saturday morning. All ten of our students felt that they did well and all thanked Daryl, Lucy, and me for our time and willingness to help. Now all we had to do was await the results.

>>>>>>

I was in my office the day after the range work was done when Sandra told me that I had a phone call from Julia Adams. "Hi, there Prosecutor; how are you? How's the case going?"

"I'm doing great, Matt and the case is even better. Jeremy Haynes is such a total coward. He rolled over on his own parents and his colleagues the very first time we talked with him. I don't think this will ever actually go to trial. There will be a plea deal for sure, but there will also be some heavy jail time for all of them. The worst is Wilson, the ex-chief. He just wanted money to take care of his sick wife in their retirement. Now he's sick and it's likely that he'll die in prison."

"He's a drug dealer and worse. I have no sympathy for him or any of the others. What about bail?"

"No…they got our strictest judge and I was able to use Mrs. Haynes' journal as proof that they had the means to get out of the country. Haynes and his wife have more than ten million in the Caymans. Jeremy has four million. Parsons and Wilson have about three each. That was enough to convince the judge that they were flight risks so no bail.

"But the reason I'm calling is to share some good news. We counted the money they paid the Mexicans and it comes to 1.25 million. As the lead officer in the case and because it was under your jurisdiction your city will get seventy-five percent as soon as the money is cleared. That will probably be within a year or so."

"That is good news because I have an excellent use for the money. All I have to do is convince my wife and let her deal with the City Council." I ended the call with a big thank you and dug into the budget. It was just one more reason to totally despise Joe Wilson. It was worse than inadequate. There was no provision for new vehicles. The inventory from the garage showed that we had four vehicles that were already five years old with more than a half million miles on them. They were spending more time in the shop than on the road.

PREV INDEX Next