Gatac

  Sean's eyes had found an uncomfortable routine for passing the time in the waiting room. They would go from his folded hands to the Beretta — not his gun — lying on the desk, to the wall clock and start over. After that, they would start over. And then, just to mix things up, they would start over. His gaze kept circling the room until it seemed like his fingers were about to crush each other, that the gun was slowly walking toward him, and that the clock did all the usual clock tricks like running slow, stopping and going entirely backwards whenever he wasn't directly looking at it. The worst part of it was sitting next to the person who had gotten him into this whole mess, this so-called criminal who made bad jokes and appreciated Tennyson and had also fucking killed three people plus put a fourth damn close to the finish line. He'd ughed about it with her! The less Sean felt occupied by the moment, the more he felt he was going about this the entirely wrong way. Damn it, all he had to do was grab the gun, arrest Mary-Anne Simmons and call in the reinforcements. Sure, this day wouldn't reflect well on him, but so far the worst sin he had committed was inaction. Any reasonable person could tell he was being coerced, that none of this was his design, that — that he wasn't guilty.

  Right?

  The introspection was mercifully interrupted by the door to the hallway opening again. Dolr stepped out, still looking prim without his coat, while the noises of Ky cleaning up the OR echoed briefly before the door closed again.

  “First things first, Kyrill's stable for now,” Dolr announced. Anne let out a breath — not precisely a sigh, but close — while Sean just stared at Dolr. “No perforation in the colon I could find, so we gotta hope if its nicked it'll close up by itself. The girl’s gonna spin up the BGA1Blood gas analysis. One part of the bwork that can be done with blood samples. for ctates, so we'll have some warning if he goes septic.2Sepsis happens when a localized infection — from, say, a stab wound — spreads out and becomes systemic. This kicks the body’s immune system into overdrive, but when the body is already weakened — like, say, from blood loss and a penetrating wound — sepsis can quickly push a patient over the edge. Head-wise, fucking called it, we got us two nice little subdural hemorrhages in the posterior. Drains are in and vitals are looking better, but we’re flying pretty blind on assessing neurological damage.”3I know I’m getting here te, dear reader, but anything that’ll make you lose consciousness for an extended period of time is very bad for you.“Okay, bottom line it for me?” Sean said.“The knife wound in his gut probably won’t kill him,” Dolr transted. “We’ll keep watching that situation. We can’t fix his brain, we can only manage the swelling and bleeding and hope it gets over itself, the sooner the better. Now, the way I see it, doing another backseat ride in his condition means you just wasted a lot of money, because he's in no shape for that. But he's also not staying here for free. So either you two pay me to keep him, or I call Ilya and make it his problem.”“Call Ilya,” Anne said as she rose from her chair. “We are done here.”“Can't we wait and talk to him?” Sean asked.“Ilya or Kyrill?” Anne said.“Either?” Sean said.“It is not our pce to be talking to Ilya,” Anne said. "We ought to go to ground and let the council step in. Anything else risks further confrontation and violence."“Kyrill's gonna be pretty fucked up even if he regains consciousness,” Dolr said. “What, you want a confession or something?”“No,” Sean said. “Just some…I would have asked him some questions.”“Questions?” Anne said.“You know, when he wakes up,” Sean said.“If he wakes up,” Anne said.“I don’t know,” Sean said. “I just thought we'd wait.” He looked around. "I realize this might be weird to you, but among my people — the ones with badges, I mean — we figure things out by asking questions of persons who might know more than we do. And this seems as safe a pce as any to wait."“You see a sign says 'hotel' hanging over my door, Detective?” Dolr said. “If you’re not paying, you’re not staying. Neutrality. Dig?”“Must be nice,” Sean said, “sitting all pretty in here.”“Oh, I sympathize, don’t get me twisted,” Dolr said. “I don’t feel so safe out on the streets either. I wonder why.”4Barely four months before this, Yusuf Hawkins was beaten and shot to death by an angry mob in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He was sixteen years old.

  Sean got up from his seat and turned his head toward Anne. He dug his car keys out of his pants and tossed them to her.

  “Get the car ready, Anne," he said. "I want to say goodbye to Ky. That's complimentary, right?”Dolr gred at Sean, but didn't stop him from wandering off into the back of the basement clinic. “Fucking cops,” Dolr muttered to himself, but Sean kept walking.

  Sean found Ky in a little side room, a drab affair that had trouble accommodating both a single bed and the gurney Kyrill was still on, though her lithe form seemed at home squeezing through the space in between to attend to her patient. Sean felt an instant of guilt looking at Kyrill, but the man was breathing, at least.

  “Oh, hey,” Ky said. “You guys leaving?”“Looks like,” Sean said.“Where to?” Ky said.“I have no fucking idea,” Sean said. “I don't…some days it feels like nothing goes right. You probably know better than me.”“Yeah,” Ky said. “Life goes on, though.”“Here's hoping,” Sean said. “So, uh, listen, I don't want to be weird about it, but…”

  He reached into his pants, produced his wallet and browsed through the contents, producing a business card he held out for Ky to take.

  “Look,” he said, “I know you want to stick it out here but the fact is you're a minor and an addict in a bad pce. I'm not here to lecture you, I'm not a white knight riding to your rescue and the system isn't great, but there are people like me who want to help you, okay? If you ever need to get away from this, or just talk, you can call me. I swear I won't narc on you to CPS or anyone else unless you want me to. Okay?” Ky took the card and nodded, prompting Sean's expression to fall. “Uh, I mean, as soon as I'm back at the office — or at home.”Ky turned to him and smiled directly at him, letting him get a good look at her missing teeth. She made a show of fetching her own wallet — chained to her jeans, of course — and carefully depositing the card inside. “Thank you,” she said. “You're alright, man.”Sean smirked. “Well, I try,” he said on his way out.

  When Sean came out, he was still fumbling the Beretta back into his belt as Anne rolled the car to a stop in front of him. Sean stopped fighting the gun and instead climbed in at the passenger side. Anne babied the car out of the backlot and rolled to a stop at the drive, craning her head from side to side to watch the empty street for traffic before pulling onto it and gently accelerating to speed.

  “Okay, I get it, my car sucks,” Sean said. “No need to drive it like grandma.”“This is how I drive,” Anne said. “If you have a problem with it, you should not give me the keys.”“It’s just,” Sean said, “you pying Ms. Traffic Rules —”“— is perfectly sensible,” Anne said. “The st thing we need right now is to get pulled over for a traffic stop.”“Huh, when you put it that way,” Sean said.“Have you ever been stopped by a fellow police officer?” Anne asked. “You do know how it goes, don’t you? License and registration, that’s a nice car you're driving there, real nice,5I maintain contractions are fine when she’s imitating someone else. d’you live around here?”6Say it with me, everybody: “No, officer. I am not resisting, but I do not consent to searches.”“Uh,” Sean admitted. “Actually…no. But, uh, I mean, yeah, you always hear about the criminals with warrants running the speed limit.”“That is not what I meant and you know it,” Anne said.Sean waited a second, as if that would get him into a more comfortable discussion. “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “Racist assholes are gonna be racist assholes even when they're wearing a badge. But I was thinking about those idiots7Here’s a fun challenge for fellow writers: go through your st story and count how often you’ve used ‘retard’ to describe a person. Probably not that often, right? Well, what about ‘idiot’, ‘stupid’ or ‘fool’? You’re still insulting the same category of people, just with terms that are (currently) more socially acceptable to use. You’re still on the euphemism treadmill. The only way off is to change how we think about people. We often think of people as inherently more or less intelligent, rather than having different strengths and weaknesses in concrete areas. I’ve tried to eliminate this kind of ableist nguage from the narration but it’s a real struggle to go completely without it in dialogue. I left it here because Sean, though he’s not above using this kind of nguage, at least gets called on it in this context.Also ‘dumb’, I should say, is ableist two ways. Not just intelligence-wise, but also against the deaf. Don’t use that one. — most of them white, actually — who manage to slip the net on the big stuff but get caught when they blow through a red light or something and the patrolman runs the ptes.”“If that is what you thought,” Anne said. “Any way you slice it, I am not going to be counted in a statistic. I refuse to be brushed off with such convenience.”“Well, it is a little harsh, sure,” Sean said. “I mean, taking a step back here, we're talking about people who are vulnerable to a criminal lifestyle — alone, unemployable, poor impulse control. That covers those with cking IQ8IQ is about as good a measure of intelligence as BMI is a measure of obesity.It’s bad. They’re both bad. But far too ‘standard’ to effectively repce them with a better measurement. just as much as victims of substance abuse and the mentally ill and…all kinds of people who have been failed by society and the system.”Anne scoffed. “All kinds and colors, I am sure,” she said. “How many years did you spend studying this?”“Oh, I've got some Criminal Psychology texts thick enough to beat you to death with,” Sean said. “I thought it was the best part of my degree — while I was still in college, mind you. Out here, to be honest, it's not as helpful as I thought it would be. Knowing why people are messed up only does so much to help you cope with it.”“It must be very hard on you, dealing with us criminal types,” Anne said.“…okay,” Sean said. “You can ease off on the sarcasm. I know how all this sounds. Just…please believe me that I'm in this line of work to help people, not to be a…bully.”Anne considered that. “I suppose I could extend you the courtesy of the assumption,” she said.“So, anyway,” Sean said. “My background's really pretty academic, I mean, I was sheltered growing up, blue colr, my dad was a honest day’s work kinda guy all the way. I got my introduction to this world in a cssroom, and of course the texts focus on your typical street-level crime, since those are the guys who get caught a lot. Sample bias, right? Not so much the…functional crooks, like…you, I guess. You know, criminals who obey the traffic code, pay taxes. You guys are stealth.9This changed about five times between ‘ninja’ and ‘stealth’ before I stuck with the tter. Both are just so 80s, but I felt that ultimately, stealth sounded slightly more academic. You have a job or own a business, maybe you even have a family, two kids pying in the backyard…”

  Anne stayed quiet through this, until Sean let her off the hook.

  “…you don't have a family to come home to, huh?” he said.“No,” Anne admitted.“What I was saying,” Sean continued, “is you don't get neighbors on the Nine 'o Clock News saying 'He seemed like such a nice guy' out of nowhere. Sure, it’s part post hoc10‘After the fact’. There are some studies that purport to show that much of what we do isn’t actually by choice, but due to neurological processes that we don’t consciously influence or even understand, then seamlessly rationalize afterwards. (Go ahead and search for ‘Bereitschaftspotential’.) I don’t quite buy it as is, but this is a pretty exciting field of research because unlike other philosophical questions (particurly metaphysics) that seem destined to never be answered, we might actually be close to understanding whether or not there is such a thing as free will. And then surely the determinists and compatibilists will sort out their debate. Right? rationalization by that neighbor, but also a good part actual social skills and camoufge on the criminal’s side. You've been doing this for a while, yet you don't seem like you've spent any time in the smmer. So I’m guessing that your neighbors think you're just a heck of a swell gal.”Anne didn’t ugh. “Not in those exact terms, I don't think,” she said.“Something to that effect,” Sean said. “I mean, if they don't know you're a career criminal, they probably think you're…I'm going to say —”“Well, fashion model is out,” Anne said, turning her head to show the profile of her boxer's nose and how it bent a little to the right. “Go ahead, make a guess.”“Traveling saleswoman,” Sean offered. “I mean, that expins both cash and weird hours, right? I considered an athlete, amateur women’s boxing would definitely expin your build and occasional bruises and the nose but I figure that invites too many follow-up questions, like where do you train, who’d you fight with, when’s the next bout, can I come see you in the ring? Yeah, that’s out. But a saleswoman makes her own schedule, you have no idea how much money there is to be earned in that particur field so you don’t second-guess her spending, you don’t care where she goes and what she’s actually doing all day, might be seen loading or unloading her car without anyone suspecting guns or…whatever. Tell me if I'm getting close. Or don’t.” He looked her over. “I wonder what they'd say if they saw you like this, though,” he said.“That is different,” Anne said. “I am dressed for work. What, do you think I would show up at a block party with this gear?”“I'd love to see that,” Sean said. “Speaking off showing up, where are we going?”“A safe pce,” Anne said. “After a short stop. We need to dispose of the garbage and make sure the car is clean before we continue on.”“You said your boss was going to work out things with Ilya and the council,” Sean said. “I think it's about time we talked to him.”“Safety first,” Anne said. “I will call him when we are there.”

  Twenty minutes of Brooklyn lunchtime traffic brought the small red Mazda to the curb of an apartment building with an exterior that straddled the fine line between historic and dipidated, in a neighborhood so dead they instantly found a free parking space right in front of the pce. The 1930s stone work hanging over the main entrance had been roughly drilled into many years ago to mount a sign that, in a fit of nigh-boundless optimism, decred the building to be the ‘Hotel Superior’,11A footnote I'm adding as I'm getting this ready to go: time makes hacks of us all, I suppose. When I wrote this draft originally, the Keanussaince had yet to materialize (though I think Street Kings was an early sign there was still gas in the tank) and so John Wick was hardly a twinkle in anyone's eye. In retrospect, having a story about a teenager that was recruited as an assassin into the Russian Mob and uses a hotel as a safehouse seems hopelessly derivative.That said, if anyone wants to call me out for cribbing my work from something, please make it Eastern Promises. Great movie. You don't wanna watch it twice, but great movie nonetheless. which immediately summoned to mind horrible visions of the pces it must have been superior to. Walking into the lobby, Sean could see exactly what type of hotel it was: wallpaper dating back to the days where lead paint was a hot new idea, a video camera mounted high in a corner with the cable stapled right against the wall. There also was a counter, showcasing the newest element of the building: a scratched perspex shield added behind the dull green steel bars. The guy behind the counter looked more like part of the inventory than the staff — not that there were any maids or bellboys in sight. Sean whistled in mock appreciation.

  “You take me to the best pces,” he said.“It is cleaner than your apartment,” Anne replied.“Damning with very faint praise,” Sean said. “A dive like this, we're gonna need Heliox.”“And what is that?” Anne asked, just before she turned to the receptionist. “Privjet, Mikhail!”“It's a mixture of helium and oxygen for SCUBA diving,” Sean said, rattling off the half-remembered morsel.“Allo, Annichka,” the receptionist said with a smile. “Shto ehta?”“Didn’t catch that,” Sean said.“Give me a moment, please,” Anne said. “Someone I am protecting,” she told the receptionist. “I need 437 for him. And we are not here, Mikhail, understood? If anybody comes in and asks for us, you send them on their way. We are not expecting any guests, either.”“I understand, Annie,” the receptionist — Mikhail — said. “You'll have your peace and quiet. Oh, but Viktor called again. He needs to get in touch with you.”“…I see,” Anne said. “I will handle it. Let me know if there is any…trouble.”“I will,” Mikhail said. “Do you two need anything? Food, coffee” — he nodded at Sean — “gandon?”12Russian for condom. Also sng for ‘wuss’. Maybe I should focus on double entendres that don’t require footnotes? Next story, I promise.Anne smirked. “Food and coffee will be enough, Mikhail. Well, actually — make that food and tea.”“Tea is better for you anyway,” Mikhail said and slid a single key to her in the slot underneath the perspex. “Enjoy your stay.”

  Sean was not surprised to see the elevator with an ‘Out Of Service’ sign, but a little surprised to see Anne pull the doors open anyway. Said elevator was the kind that made approximately three concerning sounds for every foot of hard-fought elevation gain. Sean kept the gym bag's handles half-slung over his shoulder, not quite ready to let on how heavy it was.

  “So who's Viktor?” he asked.“You speak Russian?” Anne said.“No, but I can pick out names, Mikhail is obviously the guy downstairs, I didn't see anyone else and I saw the look on your face when Viktor came up,” Sean recounted. “He’s important, isn't he.”“Second in command,” Anne said. “He is our nice guy.”“You have a nice guy?” Sean asked. “Like, one singur nice guy?”“How many nice guys do you think we need?” Anne asked.“I don’t know, but I like nice guys, I assume everyone does, so I’m guessing a higher proportion would be better,” Sean said. “Probably make my job a lot easier, too.”“Heh,” Anne coughed. “I strongly doubt it would. But we would welcome another Viktor in a heartbeat, if there was one.”“I get the feeling,” Sean said, “we have different definitions of 'nice guy'.”“That seems a safe conclusion,” Anne said.

  The elevator being so old, it didn't even ping when it reached the fourth floor.

  Anne pulled the door open again, and Sean walked out into the hallway. The carpet fibers underneath his feet had gone hard like nettle hooks, while the subtle pattern looked like it had had its burgundy and gray portions switch pces at some point, daring anybody to spot the difference. Room numbers were stuck to the doors via tarnished brass ptes, and the row of doors was only broken up by a small alcove toward the south side with an old table and two chairs — but hey, at least there were fresh flowers in the brown-gray pstic vase on the table, right next to a brown-gray pstic ashtray. Anne walked them all the way to the end of the hallway, just next to the emergency exit to the stairwell. She took a keyring from one of her pockets and handed Mikhail's key to Sean. That one opened 437, the door next to the door next to the emergency exit. He stepped inside and fumbled for the lights, finding a sparse room about the size of his own apartment whose most prominent features were the wall-mounted telephone and big gray bckout curtains covering the window. The single bed didn’t even attempt to draw attention to itself, being tucked in the near corner. No other furniture cluttered the room. This was about as fit for actual human habitation as the Hotel California.13Such a lovely pce.

  “Where's the bathroom?” he asked, setting down his gym bag on some of that copious, almost decadent amount of unused floor space.“Just across the hall,” Anne called.

  Sean turned around to see her open another door. She reached for the light switch inside, revealing about three rooms’ worth of tiled floor, with toilets branching off to the left and shower cabins to the right.

  “Very cozy,” he said.“We have the whole floor to ourselves,” Anne said. “Make yourself at home. Mikhail is going to cook something for us.”“Mmh, can’t get enough of that 'something',” Sean said. “How’d you know that’s my favorite?”“Do you like blini?” Anne asked.“I don't know, I never tried,” Sean said. “I mean, I don’t even know what that is.”“You will like blini,” Anne asserted.“Uh, can I buy a hint?” Sean said.“I thought you might savor the mystery,” Anne said.“I’d rather savor the food,” Sean said. “Okay, fine. Blini. Can’t wait.”Anne nodded. “Now, go on and settle in,” she said. “I need to make a call.”“To your boss?” Sean asked.“Viktor first,” Anne said.“That's not what you said you'd do in the car,” Sean said.“I am well aware,” Anne said. “But I do have to get in touch with him. I have other commitments and this has all taken a good deal longer than I expected it to.”“Yeah, that’s what saving lives will do to a schedule,” Sean said. “Coulda saved my breath on that one,” he mumbled to himself.

  Anne stepped outside into the hallway. She reached for her belly bag and retrieved a hunk of pstic from it — three thousand dolrs of pstic, in fact. She had never had a particurly good retionship with her ‘brick’ mobile, but she didn't trust this flimsy little thing farther than she could throw it, which, admittedly, was pretty far. With a breath to steel herself, she flipped the cmshell open, exposing the number pad, and pulled out the antenna from the top. She started dialing Viktor's number. It only rang twice before he picked up.

  “Da?” he said.“Viktor, this is Anne,” Anne said.“Hey, Anne, you didn't pick up your phone,” Viktor said. “I was worried.”“About that,” Anne said. “Can you send Szymon to pick up Lexi?”“I could, but we honestly didn’t pn for this,” Viktor said. “I did not think you would want to miss the opportunity.”“Still dealing with our urgent problem,” Anne said. “I have been running around all day trying to get it resolved, it just…took more time than I anticipated. I am sorry.”“Your apology is welcome, but not needed,” Viktor asked. “It must be serious trouble. Perhaps Arkady or I can be of assistance.”“I have it under control for the moment,” Anne said. “The package is safe.”“That is good to hear, at least,” Viktor said. “The flight nds in less than two hours. I hope you can still make it.”“Yes,” Anne said. “Yes, I can make it.”“Good,” Viktor said. “We'll talk about your situation when you come back.”“Alright,” Anne said. “See you ter, Viktor.”“See you ter, Anne.”

  Anne closed the phone and closed her eyes. How to tell Sean — the straightforward way. She turned back around and walked over to his room, finding him in the middle of unpacking some essentials from his gym bag. He looked over to her, and in the turn, she saw the Beretta riding left and front in his belt, just behind the empty holster for his service revolver. His eyes, in turn, went to the phone.

  “You have a MicroTAC?” he asked.“Yes,” Anne said.“You bought it?” Sean asked.“Just the other day,” Anne said.“…cash?” Sean asked.“Yes,” Anne replied.“I really need to get into organized crime,” Sean said. “So, what's the outcome of your important phone call to Viktor, the nice guy?”“I need to get going and take care of a prior engagement right now,” Anne said. “I will be back before nightfall.”“Changing the deal again,” Sean said. “Who's protecting me while you're away? Mikhail?”“You are in good hands with him,” Anne said.“He wouldn't be parked on his ass here if he was as good as you are,” Sean said.“Not to brag,” Anne said, “but if you are looking for someone with my skills, you are going to be looking a good long while.”Sean didn't rise to the bait. “Call in someone else,” he said. “Two guys if you have to. I'm not going to have another assassin sneak in here and blow me away while I'm eating whatever the fuck blini are with your housekeeping mummy.”14Trust Sean to fit some casual ageism into his plethora of insults as well.

  Anne felt her fist tighten around the phone. In a way, this had been easier to deal with when Sean didn't believe her at all.

  “I understand your concern,” she said. “I can't involve anyone else right now, because a big part of our safety is that nobody knows where we are and anyone coming here to help us could be followed. I am very certain you will be just fine here with Mikhail. However, if it makes you feel better, I can loan you a bigger gun.”Sean glowered at her. “Show me,” he said.

  And that's how Sean got into Anne's room next door. It seemed so much smaller than his because of the safe in the near corner, as big as a side-by-side fridge. Anne stepped quickly to unlock it, blocking Sean's view of the combination and key with her own body. She pulled the massive door open to reveal the arsenal inside.15The remaining footnotes in this chapter basically go over various forms of gun nerdery. Like, even more nerdy than other parts of this story. So if you don’t care about that, feel free to skim a bit. Sean counted five longarms and racks (plural) of pistols, with the bottom left third entirely given over to a series of drawers, each beled by caliber in sober handwriting, while the open floor to the right was taken up by a bck gym bag stuffed to the gills with unseen goodies. The door wasn't left out either: several rows of suspended netting held a wild assortment of accessories. All told, Sean figured he was looking at well over a hundred thousand dolrs of potential murder. Heck, the safe itself must have cost her more than a nice car. And the effort of putting all this together, keeping it organized and tidy — Sean wondered, if only briefly, whether he had ever put this much effort into anything in his life. Anne let her right hand sweep over the contents while she turned back to face him.

  “Do you have a preference?” she asked.“…how about the shotgun?” Sean asked, still staring at all the guns. “Hard to go wrong with a shotgun.”16Possible operator errors of using a pump-action shotgun in particur include underestimating the recoil, thinking that aiming is unnecessary, underestimating the strength it takes to pump the action, trying to pump the action at inappropriate times, forgetting to pump in a new shell after firing, short-stroking the pumping action and not knowing how to work the action release, which is described in more detail in another footnote.Pretty much everyone can learn how to use a pump-action shotgun. It’s not that complicated. But, like every other firearm, you do need to know what you’re doing before you try to use it.Nonplussed, Anne grabbed one of the longarms and showed it off to Sean. “Mossberg 500 12 gauge, with the 18.5 inch barrel, holds five plus one17When indicating the capacity of a weapon, there can be some confusion on whether or not you count the cartridge in the chamber. Some people do, because they carry with one in the chamber and a full magazine so they have X+1 rounds avaible to fire, while other people just consider the magazine size, either because they carry with an empty chamber or because they rack one into the chamber and then don’t top off the magazine. Gun manufacturers and sellers are also guilty of this: particurly with shotguns, the shell in the chamber is often counted to make the total capacity sound more impressive, while with semi-automatic weapons they usually quote the magazine size only. Anne’s expression is a bit awkward, but it does avoid this ambiguity.Also, a peculiarity of shotguns is that shells even within a caliber come in different lengths. 12 gauge comes in standard 2.75 inch as well as 3 inch and 3.5 inch “Magnum” lengths, for example. That can make a material difference to how many shells you can fit into the magazine, nevermind whether a given shotgun can chamber them at all. shells,” she said. “I added the top-folding stock. As for ammunition, I have got double-oughts1800 Shot, also referred to simply as ‘buckshot’. One of the most common loadings for 12 gauge shotgun shells, buckshot is designed to bring down medium-sized animals (like, say, bucks) and is also ubiquitous in defensive applications., slugs, and tear gas shells.19Yes, these exist. And like most types of specialty ammo for 12 gauge shotguns, they’re not as effective as their marketing suggests. Though I do not think you will find much use for them.”“Buckshot will do,” Sean said, craning his head. “What else do you have there?” His eyes fell upon a rifle with a wooden pistol grip and a bck, almost rectangur receiver with a big hump of a dust cover, darkening his expression in an instant. “Is that from the warehouse?” he said.“No, that is my AKM,” Anne said. “They were running AKS-7420The AK-74 base model has a fixed stock, the AKS-74 has a side-folding stock. There’s also the AKS-74U, a shortened carbine/personal defense weapon version.If you’ll recall the scene in the warehouse, Bolesv didn’t make that distinction, but he’s not in a position to have to care about it. Note how both Sean and Anne jump to reasonable but incorrect conclusions about each other: Sean didn’t get the chance to confirm there were only AKS-74 rifles in the shipment and being alone with the crate would have been a good chance for Anne to grab whatever she wanted from it. Anne on the other hand won’t expect a ‘regur’ police officer to know enough about different AK variants and pay enough attention to spot the difference between what was at the warehouse and what she’s showing him now.Another possible conclusion to jump to would be to assume it’s a semi-auto-only version of the AK, several of which were legally imported into the US during the 80s. Your AK game would need to be on fleek to tell the difference from a quick gnce at a gun in a safe. But it’d also be impossible to get that licensed under NYC’s famously restrictive firearms permit system, giving Anne less incentive to go half-way in her arsenal. rifles.” After a moment, she added “You can tell by the —”“I’m sure you can,” Sean said. “Just saying, I’d be tempted, if I was in your line of business.”“I wasn’t,” Anne added. “Five-four-five21Remember when I said the AK-74 introduced a new caliber? The 5.45 mm is that. In military terms, it is essentially a non-factor outside of the Russian military. For civilian purposes, it has gotten much easier to purchase, especially in recent years, but the market for specialty calibers in 1989 was a whole lot narrower. By contrast, the older Kashnikov-pattern rifles use the 7.62x39 mm round, which might just be the most ubiquitous intermediate cartridge avaible around the world.Now, you can see how this might be marketed as The New Hotness, but is it smart to buy assault rifles from a rival gang when you can only source new ammunition from that same gang? Probably not! But what if it’s the only assault rifles you’re able to get your hands on? Well now, that’s a different calculus, isn’t it. is difficult to source, not to mention acquiring spare magazines.22In lieu of having Anne expin AK mags to Sean for three pages, I’ll just tell you that there are subtle differences between the magazines from different manufacturers in different countries and even model years that can really bite you if you don’t pay attention to what you’re buying, even if they are in theory interchangeable. In general, magazines are one of the most under-appreciated firearms accessories — people tend to look at capacity and cool visuals, but who gives a crap about a magazine body that won’t warp under stress, a high-quality mainspring or robust feed lips? You’re free to go mall ninja style with vertical foregrips and a ser and a reflex sight and a flip-up backup iron sight on a cool bck rifle, but all that stuff won’t help you if your gun, your ammo and your magazine don’t like each other.Case in point: the M9 pistol (US military version of the Beretta 92) quickly gained a reputation for cking reliability during Desert Storm. One possible cause? They ordered additional magazines from a third-party manufacturer and specified a phosphate coating for corrosion resistance that interacted badly with the superfine desert sand. This is what makes evaluating the impact of equipment changes in a military context so difficult: you have to look at the whole weapon system (including operator training and logistics tail) in the context of doctrinal use operating in a shared battlespace.And yep, this seems like the right pce to end this footnote before it completely disappears up its own butt. I have little use for trophies and exhibition pieces.”

  Sean rolled his eyes and continued window-shopping.

  “Okay, so that's an AKM, and there's an H&K — I'm going to say a 91?”23A semi-auto-only version of the H&K G3 battle rifle sold to civilians in the US. Also sold as semi-auto-only weapons were the HK94 carbine derived from the H&K MP5 submachine gun and the SP89 pistol derived from the MP5K machine pistol. All of them are decently rare in the US due to shifting gun legistion at the time they were imported. They are notable primarily because many H&K weapons of the Cold War era that have appeared in movies are actually these civilian versions converted to full-auto and modified to appear like their military counterparts, owing to a ck of avaibility of legally transferable military weapons. These modifications can usually be spotted by weirdness at the muzzle (civilian-legal long barrels chopped down to ‘military’ size) and the fire selector group. The Internet Movie Firearms Database will be gd to tell you exactly how much your favorite films cheated on that count.“Correct,” Anne said.“Select-fire on a three-oh-eight24Sean refers here to the .308 Winchester, the civilian version of 7.62x51 mm NATO. (And yes, I know there are some differences in the SAAMI spec, but if we get into that level of gun nerdery we’ll be here all week.) There are several notable calibers that are all nominally 7.62 mm, while .308 is as close to unambiguous as anything gets in firearms or, at least, it was in 1989. As a full power rifle round, the .308 Winchester is still popur for long-distance shooting, but it has too much recoil to fire from the shoulder on full automatic — from any firearm light enough to serve as an infantryman’s primary weapon, anyway, nevermind shouldering it. That’s one of the reasons most battle rifles like the FN FAL, H&K G3 or M14 have since been repced by assault rifles in smaller calibers. The old general’s dream of a every infantryman carrying their own medium machinegun remains unfulfilled to this day. Bme the ws of physics. isn’t much use. Right?” His pointing moved on to a rifle with a wooden stock and a big fat telescopic sight25If I had to name one firearms-adjacent topic that has seen the most movement from the time this book takes pce to the time it was written, it would be optics. Back in the day, you’d fix a specific optic to a specific weapon, so whatever you mounted had better be something that’d work for you. While mounting rails for removable optics have been around for a long time, creating a mounting system with repeatable consistent lockup is a nontrivial challenge. So, those systems were specific to a certain model of firearm. It’s only since the spread of Picatinny rails from the te 90s on that optics on longarms have become (mostly) interchangeable. A new optic on a gun will still require some work in zeroing it and figuring out your holds for the distances you pn to be shooting at, but at least now you (mostly) do that once per optic + gun + ammo combination instead of rezeroing every time you change your setup.The gss itself has also gotten better, in the sense that (retively) cheaper optics are now of acceptable quality, pretty much all modern scopes have better light transmission due to relying on better but fewer lenses, and you just pin have more options to get exactly the kind of scope you want, with the power / lens diameter / eye relief / reticle / adjustability you want. mounted on top. “Then that's a Remington 70026One of the US-made bolt-action rifles, as popur for hunting and long-range sport shooting as it is as base for police and military sniper rifles. I didn’t get a precise production number but a recent legal tussle argues for north of 8 million rifles from the 700 family being out in the wild — and those are just the civilian models. Needless to say, you won’t have much trouble finding parts or even a whole new rifle as needed., yeah?” — Anne nodded — “and this is —” Sean stared intently at the leftmost rifle's wooden stock and the stark, angur receiver rising from it. “I'm going to guess a semi two-two-three27And this is .223 Remington, the civilian ‘parent’ of 5.56x45 mm NATO, which are also not SAAMI-technically the same but whatevs. While there are many different calibers in the .22 range, both ‘5.56 mm’ and ‘.223’ are pretty hard to mistake for any other caliber than the aforementioned, so this isn’t being done to disambiguate. Either Sean’s operating on that deep level of gun nerdery where he’s intentionally drawing the distinction between two cartridges that are functionally interchangeable, trying to be consistent in his measures within the same conversation or just acting like a chauvinist for US customary units versus metric. Your call., five-round flush magazine?”“Not quite,” Anne said, lowering the shotgun and reaching out for — but not touching — the rifle with her left hand. “It is a semi, but a twenty-two28This is actually the most unusual weapon in Anne’s collection: a H&K 270 sporting rifle. As she goes on to expin, it’s a range toy. A Ruger 10/22 would have been a more practical (and much more common) weapon to do the same job, but who said everything in the safe had to be sensible?As for the caliber, this uses the .22 Long Rifle, the most common cartridge in the world — and notably, rimfire. Other rifle cartridges these days are almost exclusively centerfire. The difference is in the position of the primer at the base of the cartridge case. The .22 LR is a comparatively low-powered round, but that also means its very easy to shoot. It’s also extremely cheap to manufacture and therefore buy in rge quantities. Its main use these days lies in firearms instruction, target shooting and the lower end of varmint hunting, plus what gunbunnies like to call ‘plinking’, i.e. just putting some lead downrange for the sheer fun of it. — another H&K, actually, but I will grant you it is hard to tell. There is not much family resembnce beyond the iron sights.”“Huh,” Sean said. “Makes sense. Sp a silencer29Aka suppressor, muffler, can, moderator. However, some firearms enthusiasts don’t like silencer because ypeople misunderstand and overuse it. It’s a bit like assuming that everyone in the military calls a helicopter a chopper. (Protip: say ‘helo’ instead for instant credibility boost.) ‘Silencer’ was the name of Hiram Percy Maxim’s original design and the ATF continues to use the term, too, so it’s not like Sean’s wrong about this. Whatever you call the muzzle device, they do work very well with .22 LR caliber weapons. on it, you could probably take out someone across the street pretty nice and quiet.”“This one is just for killing paper without breaking the bank,” she said. “I don't use rifles much for work, but the practice keeps me sharp and driving out to the country for a shoot is a good way to get away from everything.”“Sounds like,” Sean said.“So, the shotgun?” Anne said. “Or one of the others?”“The shotgun,” Sean said. “I know my way around that.”

  Anne unfolded the stock and brought the shotgun's butt up to her shoulder, checking the top-mounted safety lever was still on safe. She pressed the little lever at the bottom to the rear of the trigger guard30This is called an action release or slide release. On a pump-action shotgun, after you cycle the action via pump, the action will lock closed until the weapon is decocked (usually by firing). This means not only that the pump will stay in pce while you fire, giving you a better grip on the gun, but it also means you can’t manipute the action while you have the weapon ready to fire, preventing you from repeatedly working the pump (and thereby racking out perfectly good shells) or, worse, accidentally opening the action while you try to fire. The action release lever must be depressed to allow manipution of the pump while the hammer is cocked, for example when unloading the shotgun via pumping or manually feeding single shells into the action instead of using the magazine. As Anne stores her weapons uncocked, this particur use of the lever is actually unnecessary, but it’s possible to get into the habit of using it anyway when maniputing the gun. You’ll note that the safety stays on throughout. and pulled the pump back, checking the loading and ejection ports. Satisfied the weapon was both clean and empty, she held it out for Sean to take.

  “Go ahead,” she said.“Gloves first,” Sean replied.

  Anne smirked and grabbed a value-size box of disposable tex gloves from the safe for Sean to take. Sean pulled out a pair and put the box on the bed. Gloves on, he took the shotgun, right hand on the grip and left on the pump, turning it to the side for a quick visual check. He aimed the gun at the floor in front of him and brought the pump forward, closing the ejection port and locking the action. He pulled the trigger, producing a hollow click on the empty chamber.

  “Do I pass the test?” he asked.“I am not in the business of testing,” she said.

  Anne grabbed a gray-green cardboard box from one of the lower drawers, cut the adhesive tape on top with a box cutter and folded the top of the box open before holding it out to Sean. Sean turned the gun in his hands upside down and grabbed five shells from the box, feeding them into the shotgun's bottom port with practiced speed. He flipped the gun back to right-side up. Anne was still holding out the ammo box.

  “I always go hammer down on an empty chamber,” Sean said. “If I need it, I rack it.”“I prefer a full load, but to each their own,” Anne said. “Safety is on top.”“Uh huh,” Sean said, folded the stock back up and accepted more shells to fill the saddle mounted to the stock's underside. “That's exactly it, though,” he said between shells clicking into the metal clips. “A full load means I need to use the safety, but the stock's in the way when it’s up. Why did you even get that?”“Well, I pin don't use it folded that way,” Anne said. “First thing I do when I wield it is pop out the stock.” She put the box of shells down on the bed and grabbed a clipboard from one of the shelves. She stripped off the pen hooked to it and added a few scribbles to the notes. “That will be the Mossberg and 25 shells of double-ought buck,” she said. Noting the half-full box of shells, she retrieved a bag from the safe and handed that to Sean as well. “And a satchel for the loose shells. Lord willing you won’t have any use for them.”“I could use some spare magazines for the Beretta,” Sean said.“I don’t have any,” Anne said.“But you can spare some ammo,” Sean said. “Eats pin nine mil319x19 mm, also sometimes called 9 mm Luger or 9 mm Parabellum. There’s a distressingly rge amount of pistol cartridges in nominal 9 mm (plus a couple more obscure rifle calibers), but this is the most popur one. To anyone who cares: I’m officially neutral in the .45 ACP versus 9 mm Parabellum debate. Either’s good, there’s a million pros and cons for each you could volley back and forth, use whichever you prefer.…aw, screw it, let’s go full polemic.9 mm has better penetration, you fit more rounds in the same space, ‘stopping power’ is unscientific woo-woo, 9 mm hollowpoints do big wound channels, too, and 1911s aren’t even that great so y’all need to ease up on worshipping John Moses Browning, the dude was good but he’s not the only gun designer worth a damn. But that’s just what a German would say, isn’t it?And we don’t speak of the .40 S&W here. Would be anachronistic for this story, anyway., right?”“We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Anne said. “Unless you meant in the middle of a fight. In my experience, fights rarely call time-outs for refilling magazines.”“Then give me one of those pistols, too,” Sean asked. “Not picky at this point.”Anne looked him over. “Last I checked, you only have two hands,” she said. “So I don’t see why you ought to have three guns.”“You never heard of a New York reload?”32A term said to be coined by Jim Cirillo, a police officer with the NYPD’s Stakeout Squad and survivor of seventeen shootouts. He professed to carrying a total of two S&W Model 10 revolvers, a backup Colt Cobra .38 revolver and a Walther PPK. The reasoning was much the same as it was for pirates with single-shot bckpowder pistols and outws with cap-and-ball revolvers before: it was faster to draw a new weapon than reload the one they had emptied.The concept has lost a bit of popurity with the rise of modern compact semi-automatic pistols, which a skilled shooter can reload about as quickly as they can draw another weapon. A single pistol and its spare magazines are easier to conceal than several firearms, plus it’ll end up cheaper and you can focus your range time on getting good with one weapon instead of several. On the other hand, if you can’t use that one weapon anymore because it jams or you’re out of ammo or you’ve been disarmed, you’re SOL in a gunfight. As such, many shooters still prefer to have a smaller backup gun with them. Sean scoffed.“I am not exactly a believer,” Anne said. “If a problem comes at you that you can’t settle with a two dozen shells and 15 nines, chances are more lead wouldn’t save you, either.”“Or maybe you’re just worried I’d sneak it out of here and run a trace on it,” Sean said.“That is a factor,” Anne said. “So, is there anything else I can get for you?”“Yeah,” Sean said, “if you could pick me up some good news on the way —”33Sure, Sean could have asked for and maybe even received a spare holster that can fit the Beretta at this point. It’s not that I didn’t think of it, but he didn’t.Anne smirked. “I will try, but no promises,” she said.

  She stripped off her bacva beanie, coat, the shoulder holster and the heavy belt attached to it. He caught just a glimpse of the bck leather knife sheath strapped to the back of the belt. She dumped all of it into the safe and closed it up. With no heed paid to Sean’s presence, she took off her shirt. Sean caught sight of the ballistic vest underneath before he turned away.

  “You were expecting trouble at the warehouse,” Sean said.“I never work without a vest,” Anne said as she stripped that as well. She tossed her undershirt onto the bed and walked over to a nearby dresser. She pulled out a can of deodorant from the middle drawer and gave her armpits a good spray. Noting Sean hadn't reacted to that, she looked over her shoulder to him. “A man in your situation could stand to wear a vest, too,” she said.“Let me guess, you have a spare?” Sean asked.“In the closet behind you,” she said.

  While Anne's preference for ballistic vests wasn’t entirely surprising to Sean, finding no less than three different ones in there gave him a little pause. One was made of blue nylon pouches wrapped around thick, rigid ptes34Smith & Wesson ‘barrier vest’, Model 434-C. Kevr construction with steel strike ptes offered maximum protection of the era, but was heavy and cumbersome to wear.. The second was all white and made with yers of stiffer fiber, adding up to a central raised block of Kevr with no strike pte inside35Second Chance Model Y, a pure Kevr vest intended for daily wear and undercover use.. The third sported a camoufge pattern while being altogether too thick and big to hide under anything but the baggiest of coats36A US Army PASGT vest. Strictly speaking not intended to stop bullets, but still relevant due to Kevr-based construction and offering more coverage than ‘civilian’ models.. He set the shotgun aside and experimentally weighed all three vests by lifting their clothes hangers. He picked the white one, took it off its hanger and began the struggle to wrap it around his torso. Anne put the deodorant back and walked over to the closet to go digging herself. She grabbed a fresh undershirt and a thick navy-blue shirt, as well as a matching jacket that was clearly worth more than Sean's entire outfit. Slipping into it all took just as long as Sean figuring out the snaps on the vest he had grabbed. Using a small mirror attached to the inside of the closet door to watch her head, Anne ran her fingers over her braids, checking that nothing had come loose in the day’s ongoing excitement.

  “Looks good,” Sean opined. He tightened the st adjustment strap another bit, turning and twisting to test the fit of the vest before grabbing the shotgun again. Anne looked over to him, judging him for a few seconds. He looked like a credible threat, but kitted out like he was, it would have been difficult not to.“Same to you,” she said. “If you could avoid any unnecessary discharges — ”“Absolutely,” Sean said. He almost made to leave, but thought better of it and turned to grab the box of gloves from the bed. “Can I keep these?”“You may,” Anne said. With both of them dressed for success, she ushered Sean out of the room and locked up behind her. “You had best stay on this floor while I am away. Keep the curtains drawn. It is safer for everyone if you are not seen. If you need anything, pick up the phone and dial a one. Mikhail will take care of you.”“When do you think you'll be back?” Sean asked.“In three to four hours,” Anne said. “Go ahead and eat without me. You will hear from me if it takes longer than that.”Sean nodded. “And then we finally talk to your boss and sort this shit out?”Anne nodded. “That is the pn.”

  They walked the five steps to his room, where they stood in the hallway staring at each other.

  “I should be going now,” Anne said.“Right,” Sean said.“And thank you,” Anne said.“For what?” Sean asked.“Well,” Anne said, “for being more reasonable about all this than I had any right to expect.”“And for trusting you?” Sean asked.“Ah,” Anne smirked. “So you do trust me now.”“More than other murderers I could be dealing with,” Sean said. “I like to think I'm at least getting a picture of what makes you tick. And I can work with predictability.”“Does figuring me out require you to be such a pain in my neck?” Anne asked.“I think being a pain in the neck of criminals might literally be my job description,” Sean said, “but let me double-check while you're away and I'll get back to you on that.”“I look forward to it,” Anne said, turning to leave. “See you ter, Detective.”“Take care,” Sean called after her.

  He turned and walked into his room, shutting the door behind him. Shotgun in his left hand, he went to switch on the lights and walked across the room to the window, drawing the heavy curtains, just in case. As secure as he was going to get, he sat on the bed, ying the shotgun next to him as his eyes swept the room.

  “Shit,” he said.