“The best defense against terrorists—what the security schools teach business executives, for example—is to avoid patterns. Take a slightly different route to work every day. Alter your time of departure somewhat. When you drive in, keep an eye on the mirror. If you see the same vehicle three or more days in a row, take the tag number and call me. I’ll be glad to have it run through the computer—no big deal. It’s probably nothing to be worried about, just be a little bit more alert. With luck, in a few days or weeks we’ll be able to call you and tell you to forget the whole thing. What I am almost certainly doing is alarming you unnecessarily, but you know the rule about how it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?”
“And if you get any information the other way?” Jack asked.
“I’ll be on the phone to you five minutes later. The Bureau doesn’t like the idea of having terrorists operate here. We work damned hard to keep it from happening, and we’ve been very effective so far.”
“How much of that is luck?” Robby asked.
“Not as much as you think,” Shaw replied. “Well, Doctor Ryan, I’m really sorry to have worried you about what is probably nothing at all. Here’s my card. If there is anything we can do for you, don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Shaw.” Jack took the card and watched the man leave. He was silent for a few seconds. Then he flipped open his phone list and dialed 011-44-1-499-9000. It took a few seconds for the overseas call to get through.
“American Embassy,” the switchboard operator answered after the first ring.
“Legal Attaché, please.”
“Thank you. Wait, please.” Jack waited. The operator was back in fifteen seconds. “No answer. Mr. Murray has gone home for the day—no, excuse me, he’s out of town for the remainder of the week. Can I take a message?”
Jack frowned for a moment. “No, thank you. I’ll call back next week.”
Robby watched his friend hang up. Jack drummed his fingers on the phone and again remembered what Sean Miller’s face had looked like. He’s three thousand miles away, Jack, Ryan told himself. “Maybe,” he breathed aloud.
“Huh?”
“I never told you about the one I ... captured, I guess.”
“The one they sprung? The one we saw on TV?”
“Rob, you ever seen—how do I say it? You ever see somebody that you’re just automatically afraid of?”
“I think I know what you mean,” Robby said to avoid the question. Jackson didn’t know how to answer that. As a pilot, he’d known fear often enough, but always there was training and experience to deal with it. There was no man in the world he’d ever been afraid of.
“At the trial, I looked at him, and I just knew that—”
“He’s a terrorist, and he kills people. That would bother me, too.” Jackson stood up and looked out the window. “Jesus, and they call ’em professionals! I’m a professional. I have a code of conduct, I train, I practice, I adhere to standards and rules.”
“They’re real good at what they do,” Jack said quietly. “That’s what makes them dangerous. And this ULA outfit is unpredictable. That’s what Dan Murray told me.” Jackson turned away from the window.
“Let’s go see somebody.”
“Who?”
“Just come along, boy.” Jackson’s voice had the ring of command when he wanted it to. He set his white officer’s cap on his head just so.
They took the stairs down and walked east, past the chapel and Bancroft Hall’s massive, prisonlike bulk. Ryan liked the Academy campus except for that. He supposed it was necessary for all the mids to experience the corporate identity of military life, but Jack would not have cared to live that way as a college student. The odd mid snapped a salute at Robby, who returned each with panache as he proceeded in total silence with Jack trying to keep up. Ryan could almost hear the thoughts whirring through the aviator’s head. It took five minutes to reach the new LeJeune Annex across from the Halsey field house.
The large glass and marble edifice contrasted with Bancroft’s stolid gray stone. The United States Naval Academy was a government complex, and hence exempt from the normal standards of architectural good taste. They entered the ground floor past a gaggle of midshipmen in jogging suits, and Robby led him down a staircase into the basement. Jack had never been here before. They ended up in a dimly lit corridor whose block walls led to a dead end. Ryan imagined he heard the crack of small-bore pistol fire, and it was confirmed when Jackson opened a heavy steel door to the Academy’s new pistol range. They saw a lone figure standing in the center lane, a .22 automatic steady in his extended right hand.
Sergeant Major Noah Breckenridge was the image of the Marine noncommissioned officer. Six-three, the only fat on his two-hundred-pound frame was in the hot dogs he’d had for lunch in the adjacent Dalgren Hall. He was wearing a short-sleeved khaki shirt. Ryan had seen but never met him, though Breckenridge’s reputation was well known. In twenty-eight years as a Marine, he had been everywhere a Marine can go, done everything a Marine can do. His “salad bar” of decorations covered five even rows, topmost among them the Navy Cross, which he’d won while a sniper in Vietnam, part of 1st Force Recon. Beneath the ribbons were his marksmanship medals—“shooting iron”—the least of which was a “Master” rating. Breckenridge was known for his weapons proficiency. Every year he went to the national championships at Camp Perry, Ohio, and in two of the past five years he had won the President’s Cup for his mastery of the .45 Colt automatic. His shoes were so shiny that one could determine only with difficulty that the underlying leather was actually black. His brass shone like stainless steel, and his hair was cut so close that if any gray were in there, the casual observer could never have seen it. He had begun his career as an ordinary rifleman, been an Embassy Marine and a Sea Marine. He had taught marksmanship at the sniper school, been a drill instructor at Parris Island and an officer instructor at Quantico.
When the Marine detail at the Academy had been augmented, Breckenridge had been the divisional Sergeant Major at Camp LeJeune, and it was said that when he left Annapolis, he would complete his thirty-year tour of duty as Sergeant Major of the Corps, with an office adjoining that of the Commandant. His presence at Annapolis was no accident. As he walked about the campus, Breckenridge was himself an eloquent and unspoken challenge to whichever midshipman might still be undecided on his career goals: Don’t even think about being a Marine officer unless you are fit to command a man like this. It was the sort of challenge that few mids could walk away from. The Marine force that backed up the civilian guards was technically under the command of a captain. In fact, as was so often the case with the Corps, the Captain had the good sense to let Breckenridge run things. The traditions of the Corps were not passed on by officers, but rather by the professional NCOs who were the conservators of it all.
As Ryan and Jackson watched, the Sergeant Major took a fresh pistol from a cardboard box and slipped a clip into it. He fired two rounds, then checked his target through a spotting scope. Frowning, he pulled a tiny screwdriver from his shirt pocket and made an adjustment to the sights. Two more rounds, check, another adjustment. Two more shots. The pistol was now perfectly sighted, and went back into the manufacturer’s box.
“How’s it going, Gunny?” Robby asked.
“Good afternoon, Commander,” Breckenridge said agreeably. His southern Mississippi accent spilled across the naked concrete floor. “And how are you today, sir?”
“No complaints. I got somebody I want you to meet. This here’s Jack Ryan.”
They shook hands. Unlike Skip Tyler, Breckenridge was a man who understood and disciplined his strength.
“Howdy. You’re the guy was in the papers.” Breckenridge examined Ryan like a fresh boot.
“That’s right.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir. I know the guy who ran you through Quantico. ”
Ryan laughed. “And how is Son of Kong?”
“Willie’s retired now. He runs a sporting g
oods store down in Roanoke. He remembers you. Says you were pretty sharp for a college boy, and I imagine you remember mosta what he taught you.” Breckenridge gazed down at Jack with a look of benign satisfaction, as though Ryan’s action in London was renewed proof that everything the Marine Corps said and did, everything to which he had dedicated his life, really meant something. He would not have believed otherwise in any case, but incidents like this further enhanced his belief in the image of the Corps. “If the papers got things straight, you did right well, Lieutenant.”
“Not all that well, Sergeant Major—”
“Gunny,” Breckenridge corrected. “Everybody calls me Gunny. ”
“After it was all over,” Ryan went on, “I shook like a baby’s rattle. ”
Breckenridge was amused by this. “Hell, sir, we all do that. What counts is gettin’ the job done. What comes after don’t matter a damn. So, what can I do for you gentlemen? You want a few rounds of small-bore practice?”
Jackson explained what the FBI agent had said. The Sergeant Major’s face darkened, the jaw set. After a moment he shook his head.
“You’re sweatin’ this, eh? Can’t say that I blame you, Lieutenant. ‘Terrorists!’ ” he snorted. “A ‘terrorist’ is a punk with a machine gun. That’s all, just a well-armed punk. It doesn’t take much to shoot somebody in the back or hose down an airport waiting room. So. Lieutenant, you’ll be thinkin’ about carrying some protection, right? And maybe something at home.”
“I don’t know ... but I guess you’re the man to see.” Ryan hadn’t thought about it yet, but it was clear that Robby had.
“How’d you do at Quantico?”
“I qualified with the .45 automatic and the M-16. Nothing spectacular, but I qualified.”
“Do you do any shootin’ now, sir?” Breckenridge asked with a frown. Just qualifying wasn’t a very hopeful sign to a serious marksman.
“I usually get my quota of ducks and geese. I missed out this season, though,” Jack admitted.
“Uplands game?”
“I had two good afternoons after dove in September. I’m a pretty fair wing-shot, Gunny. I use a Remington I 100 automatic, 12-gauge.”
Breckenridge nodded. “Good for a start. That’s your at-home gun. Nothing beats a shotgun at close range—short of a flamethrower, that is.” The Sergeant Major smiled. “You have a deer/slug barrel? No? Well, you’re gonna get one of those. It’s twenty inches or so, with a cylinder bore and rifle-type sights. You pull the magazine plug, and you got five-round capacity. Now most people’ll tell you to use double-ought buck, but I like number four better. More pellets, and you’re not giving any range away. You can still hit out to eighty, ninety yards, and that’s all you’ll ever need. The important thing is, anything you hit with buckshot’s goin’ down—period.” He paused. “As a matter of fact, I might be able to get you some flechette rounds.”
“What’s that?” Ryan asked.
“It’s an experimental thing they foolin’ with down at Quantico for military police use, and maybe at the embassies. Instead of lead pellets, you shoot sixty or so darts, about three-caliber diameter, like little arrows. You gotta see what those little buggers do to believe it. Nasty. So that’ll take care of home. Now, you gonna want to carry a handgun with you?”
Ryan thought about that. It would mean getting a permit. He thought he could apply to the state police for one ... or maybe to a certain federal agency. Already his mind was mulling over that question.
“Maybe,” he said finally.
“Okay. Let’s do a little experiment.” Breckenridge walked into his office. He returned a minute later with a cardboard box.
“Lieutenant, this here’s a High-Standard target pistol, a .22 built on a .45 frame.” The Sergeant Major handed it over. Ryan took it, ejected the magazine, and pulled the slide back to make sure the pistol was unloaded. Breckenridge watched and nodded approvingly. Jack had been taught range safety by his father twenty years before. After that he fitted the weapon in his hand, then sighted down the range to get used to the feel. Every gun is a little different. This was a target pistol, with nice balance and pretty good sights.
“Feels okay,” Ryan said. “Little lighter than a Colt, though.”
“This’ll make it heavier.” Breckenridge handed over a loaded clip. “That’s five rounds. Insert the clip in the weapon, but do not chamber a round until I tell you, sir.” The Sergeant Major was accustomed to giving orders to officers, and knew how to do so politely. “Step to lane four. Relax. It’s a nice day in the park, okay?”
“Yeah. That’s how this whole mess started,” Ryan observed wryly.
The Gunny walked over to the switch panel and extinguished most of the lights in the room.
“Okay, Lieutenant, let’s keep the weapon pointed downrange and at the floor, if you please, sir. Chamber your first round, and relax. ”
Jack pulled the slide back with his left hand, then let it snap forward. He didn’t turn around. He told himself to relax and play the game. He heard a cigarette lighter snap shut. Maybe Robby was lighting up one of his cigars.
“I saw a picture of your little girl in the papers, Lieutenant. She’s a pretty little thing.”
“Thank you, Gunny. I’ve seen one of yours on campus, too. Cute, but not very little. I heard she’s engaged to a mid.”
“Yes, sir. That’s my little baby,” Breckenridge said, like a father rather than a Marine. “The last of my three. She’ll be married—”
Ryan nearly jumped out of his skin as a string of firecrackers began exploding at his feet. He started to turn when Breckenridge screamed at him:
“There, there, there’s your target!”
A light snapped on to illuminate a silhouette target fifty feet away. One small part of Ryan’s mind knew this was a test—but most of him didn’t care. The .22 came up and seemed to aim itself at the paper target. He loosed all five rounds in under three seconds. The noise was still echoing when his trembling hands set the automatic down on the table.
“Jesus Christ, Sar-major!” Ryan nearly screamed.
The rest of the lights came back on. The room stank of gun-powder, and paper fragments from the firecrackers littered the floor. Robby, Jack saw, was standing safely at the entrance to the Gunny’s office, while Breckenridge was right behind him, ready to grab Ryan’s gun hand if he did anything foolish.
“One of the other things I do is moonlight as an instructor for the Annapolis City Police. You know, it’s a real pain in the ass trying to figure a way to simulate the stress of combat conditions. This here’s what I came up with. Okay, let’s get a look at the target.” Breckenridge punched a button, and a hidden electric motor turned the pulley for lane four.
“Damn!” Ryan growled, looking at the target.
“Not so bad,” Breckenridge judged. “We got four rounds on the paper. Two snowbirds. Two in the black, both in the chest. Your target is on the ground, Lieutenant, and he’s hurt pretty bad.”
“Two rounds out of five—must be the last two. I settled down on them and took some more time.”
“I noticed that.” Breckenridge nodded. “Your first round was high and to the left, missed the card. Your next two came in here and here. The last two were on the money fairly well. That’s not too bad, Lieutenant.”
“I did a hell of a lot better in London.” Ryan was not convinced. The two holes outside the black target silhouette mocked at him, and one round hadn’t even found the target at all....
“In London, if the TV got it right, you had a second or two to figure out what you were gonna do,” the Gunny said.
“That’s pretty much the way it was,” Ryan admitted.
“You see, Lieutenant, that’s the real important part. That one or two seconds makes all the difference, because you have a little time to think things over. The reason so many cops get killed is because they don’t have that little bit of time to think it out—but the crooks have done that already. That one second lets you figure what’s
happening, select your target, and decide what you’re gonna do about it. Now, what I just made you do was go through all three steps, all at once. Your first round went wild. The second and third were better, and your last two were good enough to put the target on the ground. That’s not bad, son. That’s about as well as a trained cop does—but you gotta do better than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“A cop’s job is to keep the peace. Your job is just staying alive, and that’s a little easier. That’s the good news. The bad news is, those bad guys ain’t gonna give you two seconds to think unless you make them, or you’re real lucky.” Breckenridge waved for the men to follow him into his office. The Sergeant Major plopped down in his cheap swivel chair. Like Jackson, he was a cigar smoker. He lit up something better than what Robby smoked, but it still stank up the room.
“Two things you gotta do. One, I want to see you here every day for a box of .22; that’s every day for a month, Lieutenant. You have to learn to shoot better. Shootin’ is just like golf. You want to be good at it, you gotta do it every day. You have to work at it, and you need somebody to teach you right.” The Gunny smiled. “That’s no problem; I’ll teach you right. The second thing, you have to buy time for yourself if the bad guys come lookin’ for you.”
“The FBI told him to drive like the embassy guys do,” Jackson offered.
“Yeah, that’s good for starters. Same as in Nam—you don’t settle into patterns. What if they try to hit you at home?”
“Pretty isolated, Gunny,” Robby said.
“You got an alarm?” Breckenridge asked Ryan.
“No, but I can fix that pretty easy,” Ryan said.
“It’s a good idea. I don’t know the layout of your place, but if you can buy yourself a few seconds, and you got that shotgun, Lieutenant, you can make ’em wish they never came calling—at least you can hold them off till the police come. Like I said, the name of the game’s just staying alive. Now, what about your family?”
“My wife’s a doc, and she’s pregnant. My little girl—well, you saw her on TV, I guess.”