The Ties That Bind. Cliff Ryder

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. “What do I owe you for tonight?”

      “What the fuck is this?” the screamer said. “Don’t move a freakin’ muscle!”

      Jason stopped in his tracks. “Whoa,” he said. “Easy, kid. I don’t…hey, I don’t want any trouble.”

      “Too late for that, man,” the first guy said. “It found you.”

      Jason risked a glance at Jim, saw his hand easing toward the underside of the counter and gave a slight shake of his head. “It usually does,” he said, putting his wallet back into his jeans. “Are you boys giving my friend Jim here a hard time?”

      “Ain’t none of your damn business. Don’t move, don’t get hurt. We’ll finish up what we gotta do and be on our merry,” the calm one said.

      Jason went still. He turned his gaze on the calm one first, then the screamer. “In exactly thirty seconds,” he said, his voice low and deadly, “I’m going to kill both of you. And not in a nice way, but in a slow, painful way.” He kept his hands out, palms open and visible. “Or you can leave and never come back. It’s up to you.”

      “What the fuck you talkin’ about?” the screamer said. “I’ll shoot you down, man, and sleep like a baby.”

      “Twenty seconds,” Jason said.

      “Man’s crazy,” the first guy said. “Got a death wish or something.”

      “Fifteen seconds,” he said. “Your time is running out, boys.”

      “Just give us the damn money, Miller!” the second guy yelled. “Your boy done took out a loan to pay for his habit, and since he’s not around no more, you get to pay up.”

      Miller’s eyes met with Jason’s. “Fuck you,” the shop owner said. “My boy died because you got him hooked. If anyone owes, it’s you.”

      “Guess they both want to die,” the calmer man said.

      “Wrong again,” Jason whispered. In the blink of an eye, he had the Glock free from the holster and he fired a single round into the forehead of the kid carrying the revolver.

      He fell over dead, the back of his head a gaping, gory hole.

      “Grinch!” the screamer said, then turned his rage toward Jason. “You fuckin’ said thirty seconds!”

      Jason shrugged.