Honor

by Janet Dailey

  Linc turned his attention to getting ready, exchanging his sunglasses for goggles, but waiting on the ear protectors until they’d chosen their weapons. She opened the case.

  There were three guns. A Desert Eagle and two smaller guns, plus clips.

  “Nothing’s loaded.” She hoisted the ammo bag and set it close to him. “Take your pick. Norm keeps trying to interest me in that.”

  She pointed to a Ruger Mini-14, next to a box of .223 ammo.

  “Good little gun,” Linc said.

  “Well, I prefer the Ruger Target with a seven-shot clip,” Kenzie added. “And there it is.” She picked it up. “I heart Norm. He listens.”

  He didn’t want to use his own gun. Just in case anyone was going to analyze bullets. “I’ll take the Eagle,” Linc said. “And Gold Dot JHP. Let’s see how the armor plates hold up against that.”

  “Fine.” She put on her goggles, then handed him a set of ear protectors. Absently, she whipped her long hair into a ponytail with a scrunchie she pulled from a pocket.

  For a second he stopped what he was doing to watch her. The action had an unconscious grace and her lifted arms showed her slender figure to advantage.

  Linc swallowed hard and began to load his gun, mentally going over the reasons why he was here. To protect her. To catch the evil bastard who dared to threaten his beautiful girl.

  Not yours yet, bucko, he reminded himself. But holding hands was a start. Or maybe second chance was a better way to put it. He thought of that hot and tender kiss she’d given him. It seemed like a long time ago. He looked around the weedy field and out at the targets. Not exactly a romantic setting.

  Kenzie attached a loaded clip to the Ruger target pistol and set it aside, pointing the muzzle carefully away. Then she put on her ear protectors and picked up the semiautomatic again, nodding to him.

  They moved a comfortable distance apart. Like her, he took a braced stance. They exchanged a look that held determination, a serious commitment. Git ’er done.

  Then they turned to aim and take their first shot. After that they fired and reloaded repeatedly, in a random way.

  Like combat, more or less, he thought. Where you didn’t know what was coming at you, luck or death. You didn’t get to choose.

  It had been a while since Linc had done any target shooting. He hadn’t lost the knack. The vests were taking a beating. But that didn’t mean they were defective. They were too far away to see.

  They stopped to reload.

  Kenzie matched him round for round. He had one bullet left, and stopped to watch as she squeezed off the final shot in her clip. She aimed for the helmet pad on her chosen target and hit it dead center. The impact was visible but the pad remained intact.

  He did the same thing to another target. The pad blew away from the head, in pieces.

  It had been penetrated. The thing was crap. Some soldier would have had the back of his head shot off if he’d had that inside his helmet.

  He lowered his gun and looked toward her. Kenzie nodded. They checked the chambers to make sure there were no bullets in either of the guns and set them in the case.

  “Let’s go look,” he said.

  She lifted off the ear protectors. “Okay.”

  They kept the goggles on as they walked across the open area to the targets.

  Kenzie rubbed her nose. A burned, acrid smell got stronger as they got closer. “Ugh. Chemicals. That’s not just the camo.”

  “Probably the new fiber inside. I don’t know what’s in it. Could be the plates too.”

  She and Linc inspected the vests, starting at opposite ends of the lined-up targets.

  Elastic webbing dangled from all of the military jackets, torn apart by the force of repeated shots. The single civilian model from Mike showed bullet damage in multiple places on the blue covering. But the yellow Kevlar was intact.

  He took a close look at that one and felt it for good measure. There didn’t seem to be a single hole, yet he had no way of knowing where all the bullets had hit.

  The ballistics lab would have to figure out the details. A high-velocity projectile didn’t slam to a stop without leaving a calling card.

  He spotted a bullet on the ground below the vest and picked it up. The nose had mushroomed into a dish shape. He stuck it in a pocket.

  “See anything?” Linc asked her. He’d moved on to one of the military vests, the IOT, standard army issue. Outside of the shredded webbing, it seemed to be all right.

  “This is a fail.” Kenzie stood in front of an X-Ultra, jabbing a finger in a burn hole.

  The hole was center front. Right where a soldier’s heart would be. Linc shook his head, his mouth tightened in a grim line.

  Without commenting, he checked the others from SKC.

  “These seem to have held up. Wait—no. Something loose in this one.” He released the side fasteners and pulled out a cracked piece of thin ceramic plate. “Also a fail. Two out of ten.”

  Kenzie, gun in hand, had stepped behind the target to pick up the pieces of the helmet pad he’d shot. She handed them to him without saying a word and he stuffed them into his shirt pocket.

  He was looking at the featureless face of the target next to it. “Hm. There’s a hole here. I don’t remember shooting this one in the head. No helmet pad on it.”

  “So? You missed.” She sounded tired. “Everyone misses now and then.”

  “I didn’t miss.” He took his car key and began to enlarge the hole, flicking away bits of composite material. “Damn. In deep.”

  “Bang bang. That’s what bullets do.” Kenzie slipped a hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a penknife. “Try this.” She handed it to him.

  After a minute, a large chunk of the target face fell off. He swore, frustrated, and pushed at the head. It thumped into the grass. Separated at the neck, the multilayered Kevlar backing went with it.

  “We should set the bad stuff aside,” he said. “I’m going back for a box.”

  Kenzie wasn’t paying much attention to him, studying the damaged vests with a fierce look in her eyes.

  Linc knew what she was thinking. Frank Branigan had gone out for a routine patrol. He’d known the dangers, stayed alert. Before he’d been shot, he was walking through an orchard or cutting through a field, avoiding the roads. There were too many concealed bombs under soft dust.

  His buddies had been with him. From all reports, it’d been an ordinary day and a routine patrol. Branigan was only a few weeks away from coming home.

  Now he was back for good. For the wrong reason.

  Linc began to remove the vests. He slung the two fails into the box and bent down to pick up the chunks of the target’s head, throwing both in.

  Kenzie trudged back across the field with him to get more vests out of the trunk. They went through the same drill, reloading, firing, and resetting the targets.

  The rest of the X-Ultras passed with flying colors. So to speak. All of it looked like it’d been caught in a firefight. Linc got two more boxes and piled the rest of the twenty into them.

  Kenzie carried one, he carried the other. They put them into the open trunk, on top of the two vests that had failed completely.

  “Let’s get inside,” Kenzie muttered. “I can’t stand any more of this.”

  He nodded and went around to his side. “Thanks for helping,” he said.

  “I didn’t want it to be true about the vests. I can’t handle any more responsibility for anything.”

  “I’ll take care of it. We’re done with this.”

  She didn’t get in the car, just walked away, her back ramrod straight.

  He followed her at a short distance, looking to see if the squad had left. The officers were gone, replaced by casual shooters and not many of them.

  Linc parked closer to the shop and got out. Kenzie walked past him and up the stairs. He locked the car and followed her.

  They hadn’t noticed his contribution to their research. Eventually they would.


  The rifle bullet was essentially untraceable. He machined his own and he would take the ejected casings with him when he left. Even if he left one or two, there was no manufacturer’s mark, nothing to identify.

  The distance hadn’t been that great. He’d made kill shots at 700 yards. From where he was to where they were was a lot less than that.

  Wind scoured the high roof again, scattering bits of gray over the black surface. The sound reminded him of being in the desert. The roof was a barren place, just as lonely.

  Fortunately, the wind had died down a few minutes ago and not interfered with the shot. No humidity, no smoke. Nothing to affect his accuracy. The clear, dry fall weather was a sniper’s dream.

  Best of all, the building on the opposite side of the road had a perfect line of sight to the back of the Hamill shooting range. Its ornamental cornice removed long ago, there were slots in the roofline to rest the SR-25. The rifle was semiautomatic, not bolt action. He could have taken several shots. But he hadn’t wanted to or needed to.

  He began to break down his weapon, collapsing the bipod and removing it. The S&B sight was next. Hadn’t failed him. Excellent glass and quality optics.

  Then the suppressor, a plain-looking tube of dark metal. It worked. With that and the noise of the busy road, he hadn’t heard the shot at all. The man and woman at the back range hadn’t either.

  He set the sight and the suppressor within the interior padding of the case.

  The routine was soothing. He brushed a speck of grit off the stock, running his hands over its hard smoothness.

  In parts, in place, the sniper rifle was ready for the next time. He closed the cover of the aluminum case with a soft click.

  CHAPTER 13

  Kenzie stretched out on the bed in her room above the gun shop, lying on her side, her leg thrown over one pillow and her cheek resting on another. She was deep in thought, not asleep.

  He wasn’t going to ask dumb questions and get snapped at. He knew by now that when she was motionless, her mind was racing.

  She’d dropped off the gun case and the almost empty ammo bag with Norm. The old guy had seen the test shooting on the shop monitor from the security cam. He didn’t know the results, but he didn’t ask questions.

  Linc had brought up his laptop. She still hadn’t seen the dissected shots from the accident video—he had wanted to wait until he had more from the microcamera and show them to her simultaneously.

  One slide show, coming up.

  It took less than a minute to download the SKC video. The Quicktime software stopped on the opening frame, giving him a brief glimpse.

  Linc blew out a disgusted breath. “Bad,” he said, clicking keys, issuing commands. Heighten contrast. Fade shadow. Reduce noise. None helped.

  “Really bad?”

  “Not quite. Better than nothing.”

  “What did you expect from a button-size camera?”

  He clicked on a key to start the show. “More than this.” Blurry images from his visit to SKC floated into view. He frowned.

  He rotated the laptop so she could see. Kenzie stayed sprawled on the bed, but she lifted her head a little. “Sorry,” he said. “Nothing I can do about it now.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “The fisheye lens takes in a lot, but it distorts.”

  “The close-ups aren’t too bad,” she said.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t get too many of them. Not like I could stick out my chest whenever I wanted.”

  She sat up, swinging her legs off the bed but remaining seated on it. “Put it on my laptop with a USB cord so I can really look. Slow it down.”

  He complied. “Holler if any faces look familiar.”

  She looked at the video. “How about big guts?”

  Linc gave up. “You okay with looking at the freeze-frames from the accident footage? The guy who shot that was a pro.”

  Kenzie seemed to be bracing herself.

  “There are no shots of Christine in it,” he promised her.

  “Even if there were, I would look,” she said. “I have to. She might never remember.”

  “See anything?” he asked after a while. He’d looked over her shoulder. Kenzie had clicked on the Quicktime rewind button several times. By now Linc had reviewed the footage so many times it no longer made sense. He had hoped her fresh eye would make the difference.

  She shook her head slowly. “No one I recognize.”

  “How about the guy you saw on Christine’s laptop?”

  “I barely got a glimpse of him. I guess he could be in there.” She nodded toward the screen, her mouth set in a tight line. “Hiding in plain sight.”

  Linc sighed inwardly. So much for all the money he’d spent. Gary Baum had made out like the bandit he was. He closed his laptop and set it aside.

  Kenzie pushed her laptop away and stretched out on the bed, her back to him.

  Linc waited a few minutes before he joined her, curling around her. Keeping her safe. She let him, but she wouldn’t turn around. They lay that way for a while, until her laptop gave a soft chime.

  There was more than one way to be saved by the bell. He rolled over and watched her struggle up to a half-sitting position to look at her laptop.

  She checked her e-mail. “Hey. One from Randy.” Kenzie read aloud. “Can we Skype at 1800 hours—I think she means today. That’s an hour from now.”

  “Want me to leave?”

  “No.” She seemed surprised by the question. “I don’t mind if you listen. You can say hi if you want to. You’re the reason I have something to tell her.”

  “All right. Okay with you if I grab a bag of burgers before then?”

  “Please do. I’m starving.”

  Linc scooped up his car keys and left. He ran a couple of errands before he got in the drive-through lane at the burger place. When he returned, Kenzie had connected with the medic. He’d figured on giving her time to talk without him there.

  Kenzie waved at him without looking away from the screen when he entered.

  “Linc just came in,” she said. “He’s the friend who helped me with this. Want to say hi?”

  Linc heard a friendly laugh coming from the laptop. “Sure.”

  He moved around so he was in view, holding up the bag. “Hey, Randy. Want a burger?”

  Randy laughed louder. “Hell yes. We can get them here, but it’s not the same. The pickles are weird. You can pass one right through the screen.” She reached out.

  Linc reached into the bag and held out a wrapped burger, but Kenzie swiped it.

  “Not fair,” Randy complained.

  Kenzie unwrapped the burger and took a big bite. “Mmm. Sorry,” she said when she swallowed. “Seriously, I could airship you some in a cooler.”

  “Thanks. I’ll live. So tell me what you guys found out.”

  Linc sat on the bed next to Kenzie. “Not much so far.” He noticed how Randy’s gaze moved from him to Kenzie. She had to be thinking that they were a couple. He didn’t mind.

  He looked at what was behind her, seeing low plywood walls and USB cables draped over them. Not a military setup. He saw signs in French. Médecins Sans Frontières. Doctors Without Borders.

  Neutrals, Linc thought. Randy Holt was being careful.

  “I latched onto some X-Ultra vests,” he began. “Plus a standard Improved Outer and a Modular Tactical for comparison.”

  “Don’t forget the cop vest,” Kenzie reminded him.

  “That too. Kenzie and I used up a lot of ammo. The army stuff held up. So did the cop vest. There were two fails out of twenty X-Ultras.”

  “Got it,” the medic said. Her clean-scrubbed face looked suddenly older. “Thought so. I guess I should tell you guys that we’re talking to a colonel sometime in the next couple of weeks. Me and two other medics,” she clarified.

  “That’s great,” Kenzie said.

  “Maybe he’ll listen to us. Maybe not.”

  “He should,” Linc said.

  “Ya think?”
Randy asked tiredly. “Gee, maybe something will happen before the troop drawdown we keep hearing about.”

  Kenzie and Linc exchanged a look. Randy Holt was on the front lines in more ways than one. She had reason to be suspicious of empty promises.

  “But keep on with what you’re doing.”

  “We will,” Linc said.

  “Is there anything else you think we should do?” Kenzie asked.

  “Your call, people. I’m in Afghanistan.”

  Kenzie looked to Linc, then back at Randy. “Um, he’s going to bring the vests we shot at and new ones out of the box to a ballistics lab.”

  “Where?” Randy asked.

  Linc shot her a look that he hoped the medic would get across five thousand miles. Neutral connection or not. “Take a guess.”

  “I think I understand,” Randy said. “Keep me posted any way you can. I’d like to be able to hand an official report to the colonel.”

  Kenzie took a deep breath. “I wish we had more to say,” she began. “I guess I was thinking we could solve it just like that. Wave a sword, go for the glory.”

  “Yeah? Watch out for glory. It can get you killed.” The medic’s words were blunt and friendly. “Listen, you guys did great. Above and beyond.”

  She didn’t have to say the call of duty. Linc and Kenzie knew what she meant.

  “You still there?”

  The call began to show interference. Zigs and zags. Static crackling.

  “We’re losing you,” Kenzie said.

  “Yeah.” Randy’s voice faded. “Same here.”

  The screen froze but they could still hear her garbled voice. Then she came back, clear and strong. “Reminds me of my grandma’s old Philco. She doesn’t want a new TV. I guess she likes the special effects.”

  The screen went black.

  Later that night, Linc called Mike from his car.

  “We tested the vests. Two fails.”

  “Out of how many?”

  “Twenty.” Linc was pushing the point. They hadn’t tested them all.

  “Two out of twenty is ten percent,” Mike said.

  Linc resisted the temptation to tell the lieutenant he was a mathematical genius. “Yes it is. So?”