He wasn’t sure exactly what emotion he had been expecting to feel, but the feeling of comfort and serenity that overwhelmed him was not it.  He assumed that it had to do with the fact that he was with the only person that he trusted and that made him feel like he had twice as much of a chance of making it through this whole situation alive.

He had to remind himself, though, of Slide’s aggressive, reckless nature, and made a mental note not to let him talk him into doing anything that would just end up getting them both killed.  Gabriel was afraid that Slide would get so focused on solving the problem that the solution he would come to would be the “easy” one, where they may end up taking three or four, or perhaps even all five of the advisors out, but they would end up being forced to sacrifice themselves, one if not both of them, in order to do it.

No, Gabriel would remember Slide’s tendency towards the brash, and would attempt to keep control over him.  Something, Gabriel realized, that he had never been able to do in the past.  Gabriel would work hard to try and find an answer to their problems that would allow both of them to walk away in relative health at the end.  Realistically, though, Gabriel realized that some sort of middle ground was going to have to be reached between his approach and Slide’s in order to be truly successful.  One, because doing it his way would ultimately result in a Hamlet-esque tragedy of inaction, a fear of failure would prevail and nothing would ever happen until the hand was forced…killing them both in the end anyway.  Secondly, because he knew that even if he did come up with a plan doing it “his way” that would work, Slide would never go along with it, because it would invariably be too slow-paced or safe.  Slide would crave some sort of ironic twist, a little dramatic, “ha-ha!” to punctuate the end result.  Slide, Gabriel thought, had seen one too many movies growing up.

At the same time, however, Gabriel had to admit that Slide was a righteous badass.  There really was nothing that Slide was incapable of accomplishing, given the right tools.  Sometimes, even without the right tools, he would be able to succeed.

The more Gabriel thought about it, the more he realized that he and Slide had the potential to be a very good team.  Their polar opposite approaches to the job did not necessarily have to conflict, they could bring a balance and dynamic that would be overwhelming.  The fact that they thought so differently about certain things would allow them, Gabriel hoped, to solve some problems and overcome certain seemingly unattainable obstacles that two like-minded people would balk at, unable to approach the problem from a different route.

All-in-all, Gabriel had to admit that another reason he was looking forward to working with Slide was the fact that he would add a new level of exhilaration to the task at hand that he couldn’t help but be excited about.

The first thing that Slide did when he woke up was to grab his pistol from the nightstand next to the bed and check the magazine.  The second thing was to pull a cigarette out of the pack that was sitting next to the gun and hang it from the corner of his mouth.

His back against the headboard, he turned his head toward Gabriel, who was now brushing his teeth in the sink-nook adjoining the bedroom area.  Looking at him in the mirror, Gabriel saw Slide gesture idly with the hand holding his lighter to the cigarette, asking if it was alright for him to smoke inside.

Gabriel nodded in acceptance with only the slightest pause in his brushing.  Their non-verbal communication was nothing if not efficient.  It was partially that neither of them was awake enough yet to want to formulate coherent verbal sentences.  This early in the day, so soon after a night like they had just experienced, the body regressed, devolved into a baser form.  It was as if the Cro-Magnon impulses returned to the subconscious, allowing the mind only the crudest forms of movement, thought, emotion, speech; if at all.  The feeling was even more debilitating than a heavy hangover.  A hangover was purely physical.  Any mental side-effects were closer to a numbing of the brain as muscle.  A post-hunt funk, as Gabriel would call it, was a numbing of the soul.  Conversely from an alcoholic hangover, the physical sluggishness felt from a post-hunt funk was a side-effect of the almost complete detachment of the soul from the body.

After spitting the minty non-brand motel toothpaste back into the sink and rinsing his mouth, Gabriel leaned against the sink counter, holding himself up with his arms, gazing into the mirror.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the mirror-Slide engulfed in a cloud of his own smoke now, eyes half-closed, the cigarette dangling from his lips, untouched, the ash lengthening slowly in bursts as Slide would breathe in, then a new wave of smoke as he would again exhale.  If you would replace the cigarette smoke with that of incense and candles, and shroud Slide not in the sheets wrapped messily around him, but in a deep, sanguine cloak, he would look like a monk, meditating and centering his inner chi, balancing his soul for the challenges ahead.

The illusion was dashed instantly when Slide leaned to the side slightly and let forth a ripping fart, then scratched at himself under the covers.  This brought Gabriel out of his trance.

Turning, he saw the complimentary non-brand black coffee-maker sitting next to the small, bolted down black-box television set whose brand name had long since worn off.  Gabriel’s Cro-Magnon instincts immediately kicked in, fuelling him with an undeniable craving for caffeine.  He intuitively knew that a steaming cup of black, tongue-punishing coffee was exactly what his body needed to drag itself back into the land of the higher-level thinking skills.  To reattach the frayed cords that anchored soul to body.

It was strange, Gabriel thought to himself as he waited for the coffee to percolate, that the thrill of killing one of his targets that he had worked for weeks plotting and planning to terminate was such a high, as opposed to the bad-trip feeling of a forced, unplanned, fought-for, self-defense kill, such as the one from the previous night.  He wondered at the difference, then realized that he didn’t really care once he saw that there was finally a full cup of coffee ready in the pot.

Half the cup was drained, so scaldingly hot that he didn’t even taste it on its way down, before he realized that he hadn’t even thought to offer Slide a cup.  He looked over his shoulder and saw Slide looking at him from the same position he had last seen him in.

“Huh?” came from Slide.

“Want some?” Gabriel said, pointing to the half-full pot still brewing.

“Whatever.  S’it any good?”

“Don’t know.  So hot I’m not gonna be able to taste shit for a week.”

“Perfect.  I need to get rid of that taste at the back of my throat,” said Slide as he stubbed the long-dead cigarette out in the ashtray next to the bed.  “Know what I’m talking about?”

Gabriel had never thought about it before, but now that Slide mentioned it, “Yeah, it’s like a burnt feeling.”

Slide nodded.  Gabriel knew it could not be so easily put into words.  It was as if the soul, the part of the being that drove the rest like an engine, burned itself out in people like Slide and Gabriel, the survivors, those that would push themselves not up to their limit, but beyond, far, far beyond their physical and mental limits, in order to will themselves into survival through ordeals such as those experienced by them both the night prior.  And in that act of self-preservation against odds, the soul worked itself so fitfully that it shut itself down to heal, refuel, cool.  The body, in this analogy the car, and the mind/driver, were left coasting without the soul/engine.  Hence the post-hunt funk that they were both now experiencing.

Slide, like Gabriel, chugged at least half of the scalding cup in his first drink of it.  He nodded in satisfaction, a light returning to his eyes.  He said, “What are we going to do today?”

Gabriel realized that he had been trying to think of a plan of what they needed to do ever since they had skipped town the night before, but he hadn’t really been able to formulate anything that seemed like a good idea.  He told Slide as much, in not as many words.

“I was stuck before you came along, then when you came along, I thought that maybe I had a chance with you helping me out.  Now, I still can’t think of what I need to do.”

“What does your gut tell you that you need to do?”

“My gut?”

“Yeah.  Just, without thinking, what do you think you should do about this whole thing?”

“Without thinking?  You mean, approach it like you would?” Gabriel said with a joking smile.

“Exactly,” responded Slide, not joking.

“I’d go after each and every one of the bastards that put me in this damn situation in the first place.  They would all go down.  I’d even go after that damn Pascinetti, the fucking Leprechaun, and all of his cronies, ‘cause I’m sure it was his people that came after us last night.”

Slide nodded and evenly replied, “Then that, my friend, is exactly what we do.”

Gabriel shook his head, “Impossible.  We’d maybe get three of them before the rest ran and hid where we couldn’t get to them until we gave up.”

“Where exactly would they be able to hide from you and I?  We’re the two best trackers in this business.  No matter where they went, if we tried hard enough, we would eventually find them.  The real question isn’t how we’re going to do it, it’s who do we start with?”

“We’ll start with the ones that will make it easy by coming to us.  Only this time, we won’t be caught by surprise like last night.”

“Sounds good to me.  But first, I think we need to go shopping for some gear and then get in some target practice.”

“You know somebody around here?”

“Not here in Gary, but close.”

“We can’t go back to Chi-town until we’re more prepared.  They’ll be waiting for us.”

“Not Chicago.  A little farther, but still close.”

“Close?  How close is close?”

“Detroit.”

“Alright then, we better get on the road.  We’ll be there just after lunch.”

**********

After checking out of the motel, they walked to the abandoned building where the Lincoln was stashed.  Soon, they were on their way.  Traveling during the day in a stolen car that was probably registered to Square Two made Gabriel nervous, but Slide reassured him, stating that for the same reason that they were hunting Gabriel in the first place, they would not report the car stolen, and would even have most likely cleaned up the mess at the apartment prior to any law enforcement involvement just to keep their noses clean.

Amazingly enough, they did make it to Detroit without incident, and in record time.  With Slide behind the wheel, since he was the one that knew exactly where they needed to go, the car was humming at a steady eighty the entire trip.  Even though most of the roads had posted speed limits of sixty-five, sometimes even fifty-five.  Slide didn’t even acknowledge them.  After the first ten minutes, Gabriel stopped trying to hit the phantom passenger-brake and just relaxed, a feeling of freedom and invincibility coming over him.  Gabriel began to realize, that even if they did get stopped, so what? What could police do to them?  They existed on a separate plane from the law.  Gabriel would not concern himself with the laws meant to govern those that walked through life coloring inside the lines.

When they reached about halfway, they stopped for a quick lunch and coffee.  Gabriel ate biscuits and gravy with a side of hash-browns while Slide made fun of him for eating breakfast so late in the afternoon.  Slide inhaled a grilled cheese sandwich and fries.

Once they got back on the road, Gabriel dozed in the passenger seat.  He started dreaming.

He was walking through a garden.  Not the kind of garden in somebody’s backyard that they try to grow some beets and potatoes, but the garden of a huge mansion with hedgerows that towered over Gabriel’s head.  In fact, he was in the middle of a garden maze with those high walls on either side of him.  He was alone.  He felt like no matter which way he turned, he kept coming back to the same ground.  He couldn’t remember why he had come into the maze in the first place, but he knew that he needed to get out quickly, but he wasn’t making any progress.  Just when he was getting ready to give up, he turned a corner and found Slide sitting on a stone bench, smoking a cigarette.  When he saw Gabriel, Slide patted the seat next to him and smiled.

“Do you know how to get out of here, Slide?” asked Gabriel.

“Why would you want to?”

“I need to.”

“Well, it’s a lot easier than you think.”  With that, Slide looked up, as if hinting to Gabriel, and he suddenly got it.

He stood up and climbed up on top of the bench, turning to face the thick green wall of vines and shrub.  He reached out and grabbed hold of it with one hand and then started to reach up with the other.  Finding a toehold, he then began to scale the wall.  It seemed to take a long time.  At one point, he looked down to see how far he had come and lurched with a sudden feeling of vertigo when he realized that he couldn’t even see the bench or Slide, he had risen so far.  Then he looked up to see how much farther he had to go and saw that he was just coming to the top.

He reached a hand over the lip and carefully pulled himself on top of the hedge.  He took a moment to catch his breath and then looked around to see where he was.  He was as high as the clouds, a sea of green hedge-top paths all around him, as far as he could see.  A feeling of freedom came over him.  He was relieved to be able to see farther than ten feet in front of him. 

He began to walk along the hedge-top he was on.  Quickly, however, he began to get frustrated when he realized that even though he was on top of the maze, his path was still not leading him to the edge.  He had escaped one part of the maze, but still he couldn’t get out.

He began to hear Slide calling to him from below and then woke up, realizing that it was the real-world Slide waking him up.

“What’s going on?” said Gabriel with a start.

“Nothing man, you were mumbling in your sleep.  You having a dream?”

“Yeah.  Weird one.  You were in it.”

“Then I don’t wanna know,” said Slide with a chuckle.

“I was trapped in a maze.”

“I think I’ve had that dream before, too.  I think it’s from watching that stupid maze screen-saver on my computer too much, it got locked into my sub-conscious.”

Gabriel let it go at that, realizing that talking about the hidden meaning of dreams was not the type of conversation that Slide would engage in.

When they reached Detroit, both Slide and Gabriel were antsy and exhibiting signs of impatience.  At one point, Slide made a phone call on his cell, quick like usual, asking the person on the other line if they would be around the usual place around eight-ish.  Seemingly satisfied with the reply, he hung up and smiled at Gabriel.

“We’re on?” asked Gabriel when it was obvious that Slide was going to say no more.

“Sure are.”

At seven-thirty, they showed up outside a newer looking store in a well-lit commercial district with a sign out front labeling it, “The Marksman” and underneath that in smaller print, “Guns, Ammo, and Shooting Range”.  The “o” in Ammo was cleverly made to look like a set of crosshairs.

They got out of the car, stretching their backs and legs after such a long journey.

Slide lit up another cigarette, inhaling deeply.  With smoke billowing out as he spoke, he said, “Now for some fun.”

After he took only a few deep drags off of the cigarette, Slide tossed it aside.  Even though Gabriel hadn’t smoked for over two years, it was still irritating to him to see someone waste nearly a whole cigarette, but he let it go.  They walked inside, and were immediately approached by an employee wearing a green apron, “Can I help you gentlemen?” he asked.

Slide replied, “Lookin’ for Jake.  Should be expecting us.”

“You guys cops?”

Gabriel laughed and replied first, “Do we look like cops to you?”  Slide just grinned.

“Just checkin’, ‘fore I let you back there.”

They were led to a door behind one of the glass counters displaying varying models of handguns in all shapes and sizes.  The door led to a short hallway made of concrete block.  They rounded a corner and another door was opened for them by the clerk.  He motioned them inside and left, presumably to return to the floor.

Slide entered followed by Gabriel.  It was a small room with a simple folding card table set up with four metal folding chairs surrounding it.  On the wall were several posters of the kinds of guns that were used by bad-asses in Hollywood movies and rarely by actual bad-asses.  Another door, made of a cheap, flimsy looking wood, was on the other side of the room.

Not five minutes after they had made themselves comfortable, the wooden door opened and a man walked in.  Gabriel would describe this man as meaty.  He was by no means fat, but he was most definitely dense in all the right places.

“Slide!  Long time no see, buddy.” he exclaimed as he walked in through the door, immediately clasping Slide in a handshake.  He then turned to Gabriel, hand still outstretched.  “Name’s Jake.  Friend of Slide’s?”

Returning the handshake, Gabriel nodded.

“Well, what’s your name?  Or do I just call you Slide’s friend the whole time?”

“Gabriel.”

“Nice to meet you Gabe.  What are you two in town for?”

“It’s not Gabe—“ began Gabriel, before he was interrupted by Slide.

“Well,” he said to Jake, “as you know, you sell some very fine products that Gabriel and I are currently in the market for.  You have supplied me with many fine items in the past, and I was hoping that you would extend the ‘special access’ to my friend here.”

Without hesitation, Jake responded, “I don’t see why not.”  Then, he followed with, “It’ll cost you though.”

“Price will not be an issue,” said Gabriel curtly.

Jake stopped and looked at Gabriel.  “First, Gabe, you need to relax a little with me.  I’m not gonna bite,” he paused and showed his teeth for dramatic effect.  Gabriel suddenly realized how much like a pit-bull Jake looked, saggy jowls and all.  “Secondly, my fee for people with what Slide calls ‘special access’ is not monetary.  You all will need to do a little favor for me.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  What were you fellas in the market for, anyway?”

“Just what the sign says, old buddy,” began Slide, ”couple guns, lots of ammo, and a little practice on the shooting range.  Do you still have the special range, or did you tear it down for more storage space?”

“Still got it.  Added a few new surprises to it, too,” he said with another toothy grin.  And with that, Jake motioned them to follow him through the wooden door that he had come through to meet them.

They walked down another cinder block corridor and came to a thick-looking metal door with one of those built-in five-button code locks on the knob.  Jake unashamedly moved his bulky mass in front of the knob while he put in the short code so that Slide and Gabriel couldn’t see.  The door clicked open and they walked into a large, open room lined with shelves along each wall and standing racks lining the floor, like book shelves in a Barnes and Noble.  Except where one would normally find an assortment of books and magazines, here you found an assortment of guns and, well, magazines of a different sort.

They were separated into categories:  handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, submachine guns, and long rifles/sniper rifles.  Slide went straight for the shotguns.  Gabriel had to shake himself back into focus.  He had seen large gun collections and large gun shops, but nothing compared to this.  It was as if Jake had amassed at least one of every kind of weapon that was available on the market.  He was like the Noah of the gun world.  After doing a quick scan, seeing everything from Walther PPK’s to Benelli M1’s, to Barrett M82’s, he began making his way over to the sniper rifles.  The Barrett was a little much for his taste, but the long, sleek PSG-1 that was sitting next to it was right up his alley.  He realized that he was cheesing a big smile when he hefted the thing, flipped up the lens covers and sighted through the scope, quickly targeting the “12” on the wall-clock on the far side of the room.

Having seen his interest, Jake, like any good salesman, stepped up next to Gabriel as he examined and admired the fine German creation.  “Like it, huh?” he asked after giving Gabriel enough time alone with his thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, realizing that he felt like a teenager looking at a porno mag.  “I trust H and K.  I carry the USP .45 with me all the time.  This is just another testament to their genius.”

“HK is a fine choice.  I prefer the 1911, as far as .45’s go, but it really all comes down to personal preference in the end.  But, if you like that, may I suggest taking a look at another HK creation that may suit your needs a little better than this PSG?”

“By all means,” Gabriel had gotten a strange feeling about Jake upon first meeting him, but now he was finding himself warm to him quickly.

Jake moved down a few feet and picked up another rifle that looked a lot like the PSG-1, but slightly smaller and more compact.  In fact, had he not known any better, Gabriel probably would have mistaken it as the same thing.

“This here is the MSG-90A1.  The PSG was originally designed for law enforcement use but wasn’t really that good for military use because it wasn’t mobile enough.  See, a SWAT sniper doesn’t have to lug the PSG all around with him for miles and miles.  They drive up in their nice little van, or whatever, he gets out, finds a nice spot and sets up that little monster.

“This uses almost the same exact design as the PSG, but because of a smaller barrel and a different stock, it only weighs about three-quarters as much as the PSG.  This one comes with twenty round magazines and it is semi-automatic.  I think if you like the PSG, you’ll love this, considering you may want to be a little more mobile than the other would allow.”

Gabriel held out his hands and was surprised at how much lighter this other gun was than the one that he had just been holding.  He spun around and raised it to his shoulder, sighting the “12” on the wall clock again.  He was able to lock in on it even faster.

“It also has an attached bipod here on the front for additional stability when you’re prone.”

“I’ll take it,” Gabriel said.

“And I’ll take one of these,” said Slide walking across the room holding a briefcase in his right hand.

“We’re here looking at guns, not cases, Slide,” said Gabriel.  By then, Slide had made his way between aisles over to where Gabriel and Jake were standing.  Jake had a knowing smile on his face.  Gabriel realized his mistake before Slide even showed him, but he was nonetheless impressed when Slide placed the case on the nearby display table and opened the top of the case.

Inside the case was a small submachine gun that Gabriel instantly recognized as another great creation by his favorite brand, Heckler and Koch:  the MP5K.  The amazing thing about this presentation was that the case was also an HK creation, designed specifically to house the small submachine gun so that the barrel was locked into a silenced muzzle that faced out the “side” of the case.  A trigger mechanism was also aligned that was hooked to another trigger on the case handle.  This allowed the carrier of the case to effectively use the gun while still carrying it like one normally would a briefcase.  The built-in silencer (a Jake modification) combined with this concealed presentation would allow its user the freedom to fire the weapon in a public area without calling any undesired attention to himself.  The release was also very rapid, once the ruse would be blown it would be easy to remove the weapon and use it as it was originally intended.

The thing that Jake was the most proud of about the case was another of his own personal modifications.  He took Slide and Gabriel over to another corner of the room where he had a small conveyor belt and monitor set up.  Gabriel recognized it as an x-ray machine much like one that would be found in an airport terminal.

He took the case from Slide and secured it closed and placed it on the conveyor belt and let it slide into the covered examination area.  On the monitor, Gabriel and Slide saw the case go under.  The monitor showed the case had what looked to be pens, pencils, legal pads and other benign, business-related equipment inside.

“Unless you’ve got a super-paranoid security officer at the airport, you could walk onto an airplane carrying this thing.  I’ll throw in a box of those nice airplane friendly rounds that US Air Marshals are using now.  You know, those ones that will penetrate a person but is designed to disperse and not penetrate the cabin walls of a plane?  They’re amazing.”  He realized he was getting confused, yet impressed looks from both and continued, “You know, just in case, right?”

They both nodded in ascension.

Getting the idea from Slide’s case concealed weapon, Gabriel asked Jake if his weapon could be disassembled and concealed in a similar carrying case.  Jake’s reply was a simple, “Does a bear shit in the woods?  The cases will also have plenty of extra room to carry extra ammunition and your sidearms, as well.” 

Before leaving the area, Gabriel decided to grab a silencer for his handgun.  He also saw Slide take a double shoulder holster from the wall and take another Berretta just like the one he currently carried from another display rack.  Deciding that it was better to be safe than sorry, and also getting a little carried away by the free-for-all shopping-spree feel of their “special access”, Gabriel decided to pick up a small ankle holster and a Walther P99, a more compact sized pistol geared towards being highly concealable.  Who do I think I am, he thought to himself, James Bond?

**********

Not five minutes later, they were walking down yet another hallway carrying all their new toys.  Then they came to the shooting gallery.  Gabriel was hesitant to call it a range, because it wasn’t one.  Here, one didn’t just stand behind a line and fire down-range at a bunch of paper targets.  This was a practice area much like those used by police SWAT teams and Army Special Forces.  It consisted of several interconnected rooms varying in size and shape with all sorts of little surprises built in.  The targets were life-size paper targets of various people, some armed, some not.  They would pop up in doorways and windows, from behind couches and tables, sometimes drop from the ceiling, and everything in between.  The object was to start at one end and work your way through to the other, shooting all hostile targets and not shooting any innocents.  You could go it alone, or work on room-clearing strategies with a partner.  A second-level observation booth looked down onto the roofless rooms, allowing a third-party, Jake and either of the other two if they weren’t in the course, to make snide comments afterwards about the performance they just witnessed.  The observation booth was also where the control panel was, allowing Jake to manually activate each and every target and all the “nice little surprises” as he liked to call them, which included concussive flashbang detonations, dummy ammo firing deafeningly from different directions, smoke machines, strobes, and sirens.  All this added to the stress of the scenarios, making it imperative to use every skill available to maintain focus.  Especially when they were both going through the rooms together, it would be easy if one of them lost their edge for even a second to accidentally put a round in the other’s back.

Gabriel found himself impressed with Slide’s ability to be infallibly accurate with a single Berretta, and surprisingly effective ambidextrously, armed with one in each hand, taking care of right side targets with one, left-side targets with the other, equally as efficient with both.  He was even able to reload both pistols quickly on the fly, which is something that Gabriel thought was only possible in unbelievable Hollywood movies starring Keanu Reaves or Chow Yun Fat.

It was scary what Slide could do with the submachine gun.  Even using it held down at his side in the case he was accurate enough to pass the course with an impressive score.  Outside of the case, he finished the course in record time, according to Jake.  The eerie thing about it was that when he came out, he looked calm.

Gabriel went in for a few rounds more to practice with his silencer attached to his .45.  He was impressed at how much the sound was suppressed, but was most amazed by how much it reduced the already almost nonexistent recoil of the firearm.  He didn’t miss one target and finished the course in almost half the time that it had taken him on his first run through.

He was almost beginning to feel as if the handgun were becoming an extension of his body.  On a few of the runs through the course, he would holster the gun after each room cleared and then draw it again once the first target in the next room would pop out.  He was able to draw the gun almost quicker than he was able to think to himself that he needed to.  After the first three runs through, he never fired a stray round or put one in a non-hostile target.

Gabriel and Slide ended up spending more than four hours running through the gallery over and over, making sure that they got everything right.  They went in, each already a finely tuned, one-man killing machine in their own right.  They came out a formidable pair, reacting to each other wordlessly as if they were connected telepathically.

Slide was smoking a cigarette when Gabriel emerged from the course after going through by himself one more time with the Walther, getting himself accustomed to the new gun.  He felt comfortable with it, but would never choose it over the .45.  It would remain his backup option, reliable, but not primary.

Exhaling a dense cloud, leg kicked up underneath him, leaning against the concrete wall, Slide said tiredly, “You about done yet, bro?”

“Yeah, man.  I’m done in here, but I would like to be able to do a little target practice with the sniper rifle.  It’s been almost a year and a half since the last time I even touched one.  Doing it at night will be perfect, too.  Don’t plan on using that thing too much during daylight hours anyway.”

Slide’s eyes rolled and then his head followed suit.  His shoulders sagged.  He looked like he had gone through ten rounds in the ring.  Gabriel knew that Slide was tired.  Firearms training after a day of driving was taxing on the body and mind.  Gabriel was tired too, but at the same time he felt renewed and invigorated by the prospect of having a possible solution to his problems.  Albeit, it was a little far-fetched and Rambo-esque, he felt that it could work if they put enough thought into it and didn’t let themselves get carried away or reckless.

Jake had left them to do their own thing almost an hour ago.  Gabriel knew that he just wanted to call it a night and go join Jake in his upstairs apartment above the store, which had closed long ago.

 “You go ahead upstairs, relax a bit.  I don’t need you to stick around for this.  I’m just gonna go through another box or so on the long range, then I’ll call it quits myself.”

“Sure.  G’night then,” said Slide as he tossed the half-finished cigarette on the gallery floor and turned to walk out the exit door.

Gabriel watched him go and then went over and reassembled the sniper rifle that had been disassembled and put in its covert carrying case.  He decided that he needed to practice this simple act a few more times just to get it as close to second-nature as he could.  Once he was satisfied with that, he slung the assembled rifle over his shoulder by its strap and walked to the adjoining room which was a normal shooting range.  The range extended to fifty meters, not even close to long enough to get real sniper practice in, but good enough for what Gabriel wanted to do.  He just wanted to make himself comfortable with the weapon itself, not to work on his accuracy at range.  That, honestly, he wasn’t worried about.

He found a deck of cards in a nearby equipment drawer and decided that this would serve as an acceptable target.  He took out the ten of diamonds and clipped it to the target.  Then, he pushed the button to send the target down-range as far as it would go.  He put on his ear-muffs and shooting glasses, then loaded up one of the twenty round magazines.  Extending the two little legs of the attached bipod, he laid prone and pulled the rifle snug to his body.  Racking a round into the chamber of the rifle was a smooth, solid feel.  He then proceeded to wrap each finger, one-by-one around the grip.  It felt very comfortable in his hands.  Since it, too, was designed by HK, he was sure it was almost the same grip style as his pistol that he was so intuitively comfortable with.

He placed his trigger finger on the side of the frame, not placing it on the trigger yet.  He knew that the trigger would be considerably more sensitive than his pistol’s.  Only the slightest pull would bring the desired result.  First, he popped open the lens caps on both ends of the scope and sighted down the length of the range, picking out the top left diamond on the card.  It was as large in the scope as if he were holding the card right in front of his face.  He had no trouble at all keeping the single diamond right in the center of the crosshairs.  If the sights were aligned correctly, which he was sure they were, he would have no problem.

After he had calmed his breathing down to the point where he felt more relaxed than he had all day, he moved his finger from the side of the rifle to the trigger and slowly began applying pressure.

Allow the gun to surprise you, he told himself, just like he had been trained.  Don’t anticipate the shot, just continue to apply press-

Wham, the gun went off and jerked into his shoulder where it was braced.  In the sight he saw that the 7.62 mm round had ripped a clean hole in the card, replacing the upper left diamond that he had been aiming at with a black circle with four little red points on either side.

“Perfect,” he said to himself.  With the earmuffs on, his own voice sounded strange to him.  It was deep and soothing.  He began humming softly to himself as he adjusted his sight to the top right diamond. 

The deep-bass hum playing some random tune that he made up as he went along in his inner ear, he waited another ten seconds or so, calming himself again, repositioning, making sure he was solidly centered on the new target before he began reapplying steady pressure to the trigger.

Again he allowed the gun to surprise him, going off before he could expect it and force the shot to go wild.  Another hole remained where there had been a diamond only seconds before.

As he went through the motions for the next few diamonds, each time the time he needed to take to calm and steady himself on the target became less and less.  The last four diamonds together were hole-punched in less time than it took him from the first to the second.

For good measure, he made quick work of the even smaller diamonds that were underneath each of the 10’s in the upper left and lower right corners of the card and then put neat little holes inside the 0’s of each of the 10’s, as well.

“Amazing,” he mused to himself as he stood up and took off the glasses and muffs and pushed the button to reel the card back in.  The perforated card fluttered through the air on its return trip.  When he took it down and looked at it again, he shook his head in admiration of his own skill.

He then took out the six of spades, clipped it to the target frame and sent it down-range.

Standing, he took his time but was able to remove all six spades from the card with the remaining six rounds in the magazine that he had loaded.  The lightness of the gun made the process exceedingly easy.  Satisfied with his performance and quickly realizing his own fatigue, even with the generous nap that he had on the way there that morning, he decided to pack it up for the night.  Looking at his watch, he realized that he had been in the range by himself for another hour and a half.  It was now getting close to two in the morning.

It was as if realizing the time finally convinced Gabriel’s body of its exhaustion from the day’s efforts.  He was suddenly so tired that he found it a chore to finish packing up his newly purchased gear and make his way up to the upstairs apartment.  When he came in, the front room was dark except for the glow of the television.  Slide was nowhere to be seen, but Jake was sitting on a very comfortable, very used looking, leather reclining chair.  The glow from the TV bathed Jake in a blueness that almost made his skin look the same shade as someone recently dead.

Gabriel managed a grunt to signal to Jake that he was there, attempting not to startle him.  Jake motioned with his left hand, the one not holding the beer bottle, signaling that he was aware of Gabriel’s presence, but he was too involved in the late-night crap to supply any further interaction.

Gabriel was glad.  The last thing that he wanted at this point, was to get into a conversation with someone that he hardly knew.  He was too tired to be social.  He was too tired to talk.  He was almost too tired to sleep, but he managed that.  He crawled onto the couch that lined the back wall of the front room, assuming that Slide had been given the bed and fell asleep, wham, before he could anticipate it.