Dane Bertel met him in the parking area. He looked about sixty, with a shock of short gray hair that stood out in all directions. He wasn’t dressed in fatigues or the like, but he had soldier written all over him. Make that ex-soldier.
After escorting Jack to the office where they paid their fees, he led him to what was basically a huge sand pit. They set up at the short, ten-yard pistol range. He grinned and shook his head when he saw the Ruger.
“Abe and his revolvers.” His voice sounded as if he’d just spent a day screaming at bootcamp grunts.
“What do you mean?”
“A long-running argument: I like semi-autos and he prefers revolvers.”
Had Bertel given Abe shooting lessons too?
“A pistol’s a pistol, right? What’s wrong with revolvers?”
Bertel shrugged. “Sometimes six shots aren’t enough.”
“Isn’t there something called ‘reloading’?”
“Yes, but there’s also something called ‘no time.’ And don’t be smart, kid.”
Why did people say “don’t be smart”? He always wanted to stick his tongue out the side of his mouth and say, “Duh, okay.”
But what Bertel said made perfect sense. Jack just hoped he was never in a spot where he needed more than six shots. Ever. Because if he found himself facing three machete-wielding matóns from the DR, he knew he’d want more.
He was definitely getting tired of being called “kid.”
“And let’s get something straight,” Bertel added, hefting the Ruger. “This isn’t a pistol. I’m something of a nerd about nomenclature, and by definition a pistol’s chamber is part of the barrel.”
Nerd would have been the last word Jack would have used to describe Bertel, but he was sure as hell making a nerdy distinction, and not a completely clear one. Jack couldn’t resist a little fun.
“Wait a sec. That would make a shotgun a pistol.”
Bertel eyed him. “What? Are you stupid or just being a wise ass?”
“I prefer it to being a dumb ass. But a shotgun’s chamber is part of the barrel, so–”
“Don’t sass me, boy.”
“Hey, you’re the self-proclaimed nomenclature nerd. You said–”
Bertel took a breath. “Allow me to rephrase: By definition a pistol is a handgun wherein the chamber is part of the barrel. Clear?”
“As glass.”
“Therefore your typical semi-automatic handgun is a pistol. A revolver’s chamber is in the cylinder, which is separate from the barrel. So therefore we will refer to your Ruger here as either a handgun or a revolver or a weapon, but not a pistol, got it?”
“Got it. Can we shoot things now?”
Bertel went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Your Ruger is double-action – which means you don’t have to cock the hammer to fire, because the trigger cocks and releases the hammer with a single pull.”
Jack fought to keep his eyes from glazing over. This was shaping up to be a long afternoon.
Although fearing another recitation, he had to ask, “What’s Abe got against a semi-auto then?”
“They can jam. With a well-cared-for, quality model, that concern’s more theoretical than real, but yeah, the cycling is much more complex than a revolver and so a jam always remains a possibility.” He laughed. “But Abe’s a dinosaur. Still believes in ‘down on empty.’”
“What’s that mean?” Although he really didn’t want to know.
“You’re going to learn that real soon.”
Be still my heart.
But learn he did. And as much as Jack was itching to start blasting away at something, the training wasn’t so bad. Before firing a shot, Bertel taught him how to break down his pistol – make that weapon – clean it, and reassemble it. Then to the firing line. Finally.
“Why do you have this?” Bertel said as they set up.
“The gun?”
“Well, I’m not asking about your dick. Target or protection?”
Jack hesitated, then figured he could tell him. “I pissed off some people who might come looking for me.”
Bertel didn’t blink as he loaded the Ruger from a box that read “.38 Special.”
“But I’ve got a .357,” Jack said.
“Right. A .357 will take a .38 Special but not vice versa. The .38 is a cheaper round and has less kick. Get used to these before you fire a magnum. You’ll thank me.”
Bertel suggested ear guards. Jack rejected them, figuring he didn’t need them. After firing one round he changed his mind.
“Kee-rist, that’s loud.”
“Wait till you fire some magnums.”
Bertel spent a lot of time with him on the targets, directing him to aim for the body.
“Make a point of going for center of mass. A head shot always puts them down, even if it’s not a kill shot, but it’s a lower percentage target. Heads can duck and bob and weave. Unless you’re shooting at Michael Jackson, the torso has a lot more inertia. No matter where you hit someone with one of those .357 magnum hollowpoints you brought along, he’s pretty well finished. May not be dead, but he’s out of the fight.”
He started talking about hydrostatic shock and other things that happened to a human body after a penetrating wound. None of which much interested Jack. He wanted to shoot his gun, and keep shooting it until he could reliably hit a target. Because whatever happened to someone after he was hit didn’t matter a whole hell of a lot if you couldn’t hit him in the first place.
“And please use only hollowpoints for self-defense,” Bertel said.
“Why?”
“Because hollowpoints tend to stay inside the target. A full-metal-jacket magnum round can go through the target and kill someone else in the next room, or half a block away if you’re outside.”
Jack vowed to remember that.
Shooting wasn’t as easy as it looked. At first Jack resisted the two-handed Weaver grip Bertel favored, but came to adopt it as the practice went on – that Ruger became heavy after a while.
After shooting two boxes of .38s and a few magnum rounds, Jack broke down, cleaned, and reassembled the Ruger under Bertel’s watchful eye.
“Good job,” he said as Jack spun the cylinder. “Think you’re ready to take on those bad guys?”
Jack looked at him. “No.”
He grinned. “Right. You’re not. And the fact you admit it shows you’ve got smarts.” He clapped Jack on the shoulder. “You old enough to drink?”
“Yeah.”
“Coulda fooled me. There’s a bar down the road. I’ll buy you a beer.”
“Love one, but–”
A burst of machine-gun fire from the rifle range brought them both to a halt. Jack saw a group of Arab types with some sort of automatic weapon.
“Wow!” Jack said. “What’s that?”
“Assault rifle,” Bertel said, staring at the group. “Kalashnikov.”
“An AK-47?” Jack had heard the term but didn’t know one assault rifle from another.
One of the Arabs was staring back. They made for a motley crew with their scraggly beards and varying ages and heights. They all wore similar T-shirts, but Jack couldn’t read the writing. Maybe they were an Arab gun club of some sort. One lanky guy – with red hair and an NRA cap, of all things – towered over the rest. He held the AK and began firing a series of bursts.
“Three-round bursts,” Bertel said.
“What’s that mean?”
“Reduces overheating.”
“You know them?” Jack said.
Still staring. “Yeah.” Bertel started walking again. “I know they’re trouble in the making. People better wake up to that, and soon.” He glanced at Jack. “You were saying you’d love a beer but. What’s the but?”
“No proof.”
“No driver’s license?”
Jack shook his head.
“But you drove that motorcycle here.” He used the Arlo Guthrie pronunciation.
Jack shrugged.
“Who’s i
t registered to?”
“Nobody.”
“But it’s got a license plate.”
“Came with the bike. Never took it off.”
“You must have some sort of ID.”
“Never got around to it.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Bertel stared at him for what seemed like a long, long time, then said, “You looking for work?”
“Better believe it.”
“Follow me. I may have something for you.”
3
Kadir Allawi watched the two Americans walk away. The older one’s face was familiar.
He, Tachus, Sayyid, and Mahmoud were taking turns with the AK-47 Mahmoud had brought along. When the magazine ran dry and he could hear himself think, Kadir tapped Sayyid on the shoulder and pointed to the pair.
“I’ve seen one of them before,” he said in Arabic. They spoke English only when necessary.
Sayyid’s round face darkened and his eyes narrowed as he stared. He looked almost Asian when he got like this. “You think they’re FBI? You think they’re watching us?”
Sayyid’s passion for jihad was the glue that held them together. Kadir admired him for that passion, but he was always suspicious, always angry. Sayyid saw enemies everywhere.
Then it came to him. Kadir grabbed Tachus’s arm. “That man, the older one – I’ve seen him with your uncle Riaz.”
Tachus squinted as his gaze followed the pair toward the parking lot.
“What is he doing out here?”
“Taking pictures of us, I’ll bet,” Sayyid said.
“No,” Kadir said. “They were shooting. But now I’m sure about him – he makes deliveries to your uncle.”
“Spying on him to get to us,” Sayyid said. “They followed us here.”
Kadir watched the younger one get on a motorcycle. “No, they were here first. I remember that motorcycle when we arrived.” He’d wished he had one like it.
Tachus spat. “Whoever he is, he must bring in a lot of profit, because that’s all Uncle Riaz cares about.”
Sayyid snorted and turned away. “My turn!” he said, pointing the assault rifle. “But first…”
He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket, unfolding it as he strode onto the range.
“What’s he doing?” Tachus said.
Mahmoud grinned. “I think I know.”
Mahmoud had served among the mujahideen in Afghanistan after training for combat in Peshawar. He drove a taxi now and had had special T-shirts made up, reading Help Each Other in Goodness and Piety...A Muslim to a Muslim is a Brick Wall. A map of Afghanistan was superimposed in the middle. Sayyid attached the paper to one of the bull’s-eyes and hurried back. Kadir saw now that it was a blown-up black-and-white newspaper photo of a face – the bearded face of a man wearing a yarmulke. A rabbi.
Mahmoud was still smiling as he handed the reloaded rifle to Sayyid. “Let’s see how you kill the Jew.”
Kadir stepped back to watch. He’d met these three Egyptians this past summer at the Al-Farouq Mosque. He’d traveled from Jersey City to Brooklyn to hear the famous holy man, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. The blind cleric had arrived in August and quickly gathered a devoted following. Kadir, a Palestinian, had been welcomed by the Egyptians who told him his struggle was their struggle.
While he did not share their loathing of President Mubarak – at least he was an Egyptian ruling Egypt – they all shared an intense hatred of Israel.
Kadir was born the seventh of nine children in Israeli-occupied Palestine shortly after the Six-Day War. He grew up under the heel of the Zionists. His father finally moved the family to Jordan where he found work in a clothing store. But Kadir could find no work in that hard place, so he came to America. It might be the ally of hated Israel, but his mother’s brother had opened a bakery in Jersey City and promised Kadir a job. He saw no choice but to go. The bakery didn’t pay much and so he found extra work through Tachus in his uncle’s business.
Sayyid began firing wildly at the target. Most of his bullets kicked up the sand of the dunes behind. But finally he homed in and stitched a line across the rabbi’s face.
Kadir joined in the cheering as Sayyid raised the rifle over his head in triumph. Although he admired Sayyid’s devotion to the cause of jihad, his intensity could be intimidating at times.
He turned and watched the two Americans drive away, one in a truck, the other on his motorcycle, and wondered again why a man who dealt with Tachus’s uncle would be out practicing shooting. Then again, perhaps it made sense. After all, his uncle Riaz’s operation was illegal.
4
They stopped at a deli for a six-pack. Jack offered to pay for something like Heineken or Beck’s or Guinness, but Bertel wouldn’t hear of it.
“I may shoot foreign weapons now and again, but I load them with American ammo and I drink American beer.”
“Rolling Rock then. It’s made in Latrobe, Pee-Ay.”
“You mean those little pussy bottles? You’ve got to drink them with your pinky in the air. Wouldn’t be caught dead hoisting one of them.”
“It comes in twelve-ouncers too.”
“Yeah, but the bottles are green. More likely to turn skunky like foreign beer. Real beer – real American beer – comes in brown bottles, Jack.” He held up a Budweiser six-pack and rocked it before Jack’s eyes. “Bud, boy. Bud.”
Jack wanted to hit him but bottled it. He found that easier than usual to do. He felt oddly at peace with the world since firing that pistol – no, handgun. More at peace than he’d felt in almost a year.
He got back on his Harley and followed Bertel to a park on Long Island Sound. Fifty yards or so from the sandy beach they found a picnic area with benches and tables and grills for cooking. The only other people in sight were a man and a woman drinking wine at one of the tables. Bertel chose a spot about a hundred feet away.
“We’re downwind,” he said, unscrewing the cap off a bottle and handing it to Jack. “They won’t hear us.”
Jack wondered what he had to say that was so secret.
They tapped bottles and sipped. Jack fought a grimace. Sometimes no beer was preferable to blah beer. But other times any beer was better than no beer. This was one of those times.
He caught Bertel staring at him again. “Really… no ID?”
“Nope.”
“What about taxes?”
This was making Jack a little uneasy, but although Bertel was a stickler for nomenclature, he didn’t seem a stickler for legalities.
“I’ve so far avoided that particular civic duty.”
Jeez, I’m starting to sound like him.
“Fingerprints on file anywhere?”
“Not that I know of.”
“So you’re not on anyone’s radar?”
“Well, I had to register when I went to school.”
“Oh?” He sipped, all idle curiosity and nonchalance. “And where might that be?”
Jack gave him a look. “Hard Knocks U.”
Bertel smiled. “Good. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Why’s this so important?”
“You said you needed work. I have an interstate moving business.”
Jack knew he was being “smart” but couldn’t resist. “Oh, like Allied Van Lines?”
Bertel’s mouth twisted. “Perhaps I should have said ‘shipping.’ Interested in doing some driving?”
“No license, remember? So I tend to stay off the road unless that’s the only way I can get someplace.”
“What if…?” Bertel paused.
Jack heard laughter and glanced at the couple. They looked Hispanic and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Bertel went on. “This is just spitballing, you understand.”
“Of course.”
Yeah, right.
“But what if, just for the sake of conjecture, someone gave you a license? Not in your name, and from someplace like, oh, say, Jersey, and good enough to withstand a
routine check. Would you be willing to do some interstate driving a few times a week?”
“Are we conjecturing a big van?”
Jack didn’t see himself backing up a semi.
“No. You’d need a CDL for that. I’m talking about keeping it simple, like a rental – Ryder, U-Haul, that sort of thing.”
Uh-oh.
“Hauling what?”
Bertel hesitated again and Jack tensed, expecting to hear “weed” or “H” or something equally illegal. He noticed the couple’s voices raised. They seemed to be arguing now. He wondered what had messed up their good mood.
Finally Bertel said, “I’m going to be frank with you, Jack. Abe sent you, and that gives you an excellent pedigree, plus you drove out here without a license while carrying an unregistered handgun. That takes either a lack of smarts or big cojones, and I think you’re pretty smart.”
Despite your telling me not to be, Jack thought.
“Either way,” Bertel went on, “it means you’re not afraid to break rules. So I’ll tell you: You’d be hauling cigarettes for me.”
After the build up, Jack had to laugh. “Really? Cigarettes?”
“Might sound funny, but the money’s not.”
“Where from?”
“North Carolina to Jersey City.”
“Where’s the money in that?”
“NC doesn’t stamp their cigarettes and, because tobacco’s a big state crop, barely taxes them. They’re dirt cheap down there. New York, on the other hand – that’s New York the state and New York the city – taxes the hell out of cigarettes. They’re inching toward four bucks a pack now.”
Jack shrugged. He didn’t smoke so he had no idea. But he saw where this was going.
“So you make money on the margin.”
“I make a piece of the margin. I don’t do retail. I wholesale. I supply a guy in Jersey City who has a bogus New York tax machine. He stamps the packs, marks them up, and sells them throughout the five boroughs.”
The couple was getting really loud. Jack tried to ignore them.
“There’s enough money in black market ciggies to make it worthwhile?”