The Ties That Bind. Cliff Ryder

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      “And I’ll be keeping it that way, thank you very much,” Kate said. “Gotta go.”

      She signed off and Denny studied the video again. He didn’t need to see the biometrics results. The Russian was telling the truth, but the submarine was only part of what made the story disturbing. The very idea of the Cold War starting up again—a war that he’d already survived once—chilled him to his core.

      The first Cold War had been a quiet one of buildup, cat-and-mouse games and political posturing. The players in the game now would be far different than those faced before. Sooner or later, the players would include extremists who wouldn’t hesitate to use any of the weapons in their arsenals to start a truly global conflict.

      And in that kind of war, Denny knew, there were no winners at all.

      There was only a world filled with death and ash.

      1

      Jason Siku slipped the modified shooting glasses over his eyes. From his perspective, the yellow-tinted lenses were more than just a coloration that brought out contrasts in the landscape. The lenses used a tiny microprocessor built into the frames to work in tandem with the high-tech rounds he was testing tonight.

      The indoor firing range was almost empty, and Jason was enjoying the relative peace of practicing without the interruption of other people talking and shooting at the same time that he practiced. He dropped an empty clip from his porcelain-framed Glock 17 and slid in a new one. Setting the weapon down, he attached a new human-shaped target sheet to the clips, then moved it out to a distance of fifteen feet. Picking up the gun once more, he set his feet and turned on the laser sight with a tap of his thumb.

      A red dot appeared on the target’s chest region. He took one steadying breath, then began shooting. A few seconds later, the last round was fired and the slide sprang open. During these sessions, Jason didn’t think or reminisce, and he rarely spoke to anyone when he was here. An excellent shooter, he knew, thought of nothing during the moments of pulling the trigger but his weapon and the target. Everything else was a distraction that could prove deadly or cause a miss.

      He removed the empty clip and was reaching for the next one when a hand on his shoulder startled him enough to almost cause him to jump. He felt his muscles tense momentarily, then he relaxed them. He turned to see the owner of the range, Jim Miller, staring at the target. Jason pulled off his ear protection and offered a slight smile. “Hi, Jim,” he said. “Everything okay?”

      Miller continued to gaze at the target. “Fine,” he said, then shook his head. “That’s…that’s some good shooting. Even taking the short range into account, I don’t know too many people who can shoot like that.”

      Jason nodded. “Thanks. I practice at ten, fifteen and twenty feet,” he said. “Every once in a while, I’ll go out farther, twenty-two or twenty-five feet, but it’s really kind of pointless beyond those ranges.”

      “How’s that?” Miller asked.

      “Most shootings with a handgun occur inside twenty feet,” Jason said. “Being a crack shot at fifty won’t help you much if the other guy is ten feet away and shooting back.”

      “I suppose not,” Miller admitted. “Those are some nice patterns, too. Two to the chest, one to the head. You didn’t miss once. We’ve got a couple of shooting-club champions that come here that don’t get groupings like that.”

      Jason smiled. “I practice a lot.”

      “I’ve noticed,” Miller said. “You’ve been in here often.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just wanted to let you know that we’re closing in about fifteen minutes.”

      Jason glanced at his watch. “Thanks for the reminder. I was kind of in a zone.”

      Miller grinned. “I noticed that, too.” He headed back down the firing lane and said, “Have a good night.”

      “Thanks,” Jason said. “You, too.”

      He considered running a few more rounds through the weapon—it was also new—but he’d already done over five hundred this week. The gun felt comfortable in his hands and his accuracy with it was solid. The fact that the rounds he was using were specially made for Room 59 agents wasn’t something anyone needed to know.

      Working with information processed by the shooting glasses, the modified rounds were autocorrecting. A tiny microchip tracked the previous round and the shooter’s visual response and made adjustments on the fly. If you were off by a half inch with the first shot, the second shot would be dead-on. It was a marvelous modification, but Jason didn’t like to count on it, so he’d practiced with the weapon until he felt that he wouldn’t need the rounds to adjust for him more than a quarter inch at twenty feet or less.

      He reloaded and placed the weapon in the ballistic holster under his left arm, then pulled on his jacket. He took his extra clip and slid it into the spare magazine slot on the holster, reeled in his target and policed his area clean. He knew no one would bother to look at the casings too closely. There were thousands of them in the area, and it would take more than a cursory examination to notice anything different about them anyway.

      Jason crumpled up the target and tossed it into the trash can, then started walking toward the front of the building, where Miller sold guns and other sporting goods. Just as he reached the door leading into the shopping area, he brought himself up short. Even through the heavy sheet metal, he could hear the sound of raised voices.

      Cautiously, he eased open the door wide enough to slip through. The voices were clearer now.

      “Just give us the money, man, and we’re outta here. No muss, no fuss.” It was a young man’s voice.

      “Do it now!” another voice yelled. “Stop fucking around, old man!”

      “I’m doing it,” Jason heard Miller say. “I have to turn on the computer first. I already shut it down for the night. The cash drawer won’t open unless the computer is on.”

      “Oh, freakin’ bullshit, man,” the first voice said.

      Jason eased his way up one aisle, cut sideways, then began working his way forward. What kind of idiot would choose to rob a gun shop? he wondered. Miller had to be armed or have a weapon behind the counter. Why wasn’t he fighting back?

      “Look, you owe us, man, and now you’re gonna pay up. Stop with the excuses.”

      Jason was finally close enough to peer over a large stack of shotgun shells that were on display. The two men talking to Miller both looked to be in their twenties. The one with the calmer voice held a revolver in his hands, while the screamer was carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Both of them wore gang colors, which meant that they were at least used to the idea of violence, if not used to doing it themselves. Both of them had various tattoos and piercings—anonymity was not a part of their world.

      It didn’t matter to Jason what Miller supposedly owed them; what they were doing was robbery.

      He decided to play it straight and see what happened. Room 59 agents weren’t supposed to get involved in this kind of thing—they were supposed to be invisible—but he wouldn’t let a good man die or be robbed for no reason. Stepping out from behind the display, he pulled out his wallet and kept his head down. “Hey, Jim,” he called. СКАЧАТЬ