Patriot games - Tom Clancy [112]
"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."
"Does your wife know how to shoot?"
"I don't think she's ever touched a gun in her life."
"I teach a class in firearms safety for women-part of the work I do with the local police."
Ryan wondered how Cathy would react to all this. He put that one off. "What sort of handgun you think I oughta get?"
"If you come by tomorrow, I'll try you out on a couple