Ransom X

  Chapter 10 Snap, Crackle, Pop

  SNAP, crackle, two shots and Chess put the gun down on the varnished wood counter. Her target hung fifteen meters away, a fair test for the accuracy of the nickel SIG 226 that she was using. It was an ugly weapon, but one of the most respected utility handguns in the business - all that her father cared about was that it got the job done.

  She heard her father alternating hands and shooting at a target far down range. When the noise subsided he poked his head around the divider.

  “You only shot twice.” He said removing his gloves with his teeth.

  “You look like you’re snarling when you do that.” She flipped her hair and pushed the button that reeled her target in. “anyway, my man is down and yours is still ready to par-tay.”

  “I’ve taken two shots and made it home for dinner.” Chess frowned, she couldn’t help herself. She knew that her reaction fed her father’s obsessive overprotectivity. Was that redundant? She wasn’t sure, but when it came to her father’s health, playing it cool wasn’t an option. He was all she had.

  Legacy leaned around and slapped a button that caused Chess' target to approach zipping down a cable and stopping less than a meter away. Two holes, left and right knees “Very funny, left kneecap” he observed. The other one was off center “what happened here?”

  Chess used the gun as a pointer “If my guy was an amateur, he went down on the first shot to the left knee, if he’s a professional he’s wearing flexible armor, so I clipped the tendons behind the knee on the second shot. Very effective, and extremely painful. He’s probably looking for some extra strength Advil about now.” She reached around and pushed her father’s button. “Now with your guy, he’s wearing Kevlar and that center mass of nine bullets only slows him down.” The target stopped right in front of Legacy, “Now he’s ready to engage you hand to hand, and you’re out of ammunition.”

  With a wry smile and a flick of the wrist a knife appeared from the inner pocket of Legacy’s vest. Never taking his eyes off Chess he made two surgical thrusts into the paper target. He explains “He’s dead now, and I bet he wishes he’d just stayed down when he took the bullets in the chest.”

  Chess smiled looking at the two knife entry points, the ear angled downward to the brain stem, and the throat, clipping the innominate vein and the aeorta. There would be blood coming and going and no oxygen in the brain to process it. She proudly took her father’s warm hand and led him away from the range, not once thinking that she had a very small, very strange family.