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The coming European Civil War(s)

Part 4 – an Old Man

       Gustav had known there was something brewing, when an innocuous package had arrived via secure SOW special delivery. It had contained tickets for a round trip flight. International. From Europe. To, of all places, Arizona, USA. Along with the tickets, was a small, cheap phone. Of the pre-paid, disposable, throw-away type. A brief note instructed him to not use the phone for any other purpose than to listen out for a call after landing and clearing Immigration at Phoenix. The note was unsigned. A separate pouch contained a thousand dollars in crisp one hundred dollar bills.
       In due course, he had been standing, sweltering, outside the Phoenix Sky Harbor Passenger terminal. After what seemed an eternity, the phone rang. A clipped voice briskly instructed him to take a taxi cab ride to a local landmark, and rung off immediately. From there, Gustav received several more short calls, directing him on a circuitous route through, amongst other things, a long, dark, parking garage. It was clear that his minders were making sure he wasn't being followed. He guessed they were watching. In due course, emerging back into the sunlight, a screech of sudden brakes beside him, an urgent wave of a hand, and he was inside a pickup truck with heavily tinted windows. Speeding away.
The driver spoke not a single word.
       Hours later, with Gustav quite lost, they drove up beside somebody's desert home. The walls were painted adobe red, and the tiled roof gave it a Mexican appearance. An unsmiling maid ushered him into a small study, and closed the door gently behind him. Seated at a large desk, an old man slowly turned around. He smiled politely, stood up, and advanced with outstretched hand.
“Greetings, Gustav. My name is Victor. “

       A week had gone by. Gustav, who had never even held a firearm in his hand, had been taught to shoot, clean, disassemble and even repair a host of weapons. Starting with a single action Ruger Blackhawk .357 and advancing through a double action GP100, he had moved on to a variety of Glock semi-automatics. Firing from ranges as close as three yards to thirty yards, he had been meticulously schooled in accuracy and rapidity. From there, he had learned to shoot an AR15 rifle in semi-automatic mode. After many hundreds of rounds, and many field strip downs and re-assemblies, some of which wearing a blindfold, he had moved on to full automatic fire. He had then fired an AK47, an Uzi submachine gun, and a MAC-10 machine pistol. He had also used a wide variety of suppressors. He had peered through a three power scope, and fired out to 500 yards. He had been shown an unfinished, so-called 80 per cent completed polymer pistol frame, and, with the aid of a drill press and a vice, he had been coached in the completion process. It had been a strange, surreal experience, after a couple of hours, to slide a nine millimeter Glock slide/barrel assembly down the freshly finished and sanded rails, fore to aft, and hear the satisfying mechanical click indicating locking. With Victor's encouragement, he had dry fired the newly born gun, ratcheted the slide, dry fired, and repeated the process. Over and over. Victor had then looked his work over, made some very small adjustments, and handed the brand new weapon back to its awed creator.
      “Well, Gustav. Do you think it will fire?”
Gustav, still overawed, had looked blank. Fire? His work?
The Old Man had smiled. “Let's find out, shall we?”

They had gone to the range, and to the command of “Steel targets, rapid fire!”, Gustav had emptied three ten round magazines in a pleasing haze of gun smoke. With two flawless tactical magazine changes. As the booming died away, and the slide locked back, he almost felt guilty about a surge of savage satisfaction. Something primordial, that rang echoes in dusty, long forgotten corridors. With vague shadows stirring. He shook himself. He wondered what was happening to him.
    
       On the evening of the eighth day, He found himself sitting in the study of the old man. Sipping a glass of a good Bordeaux. It was clear that Victor wanted to discuss something with him. The old man, mild and pleasant, was studying him closely. At length, he cleared his throat, and came straight to the point.

“So tell me, Gustav, if you had to, do you think you could kill a man? “

The room fell oddly silent.  

Outside, particles of sunlight, photons, arrived in a blaze of glory.
It had taken them eight minutes and twenty seconds to make their journey from our Sun.

(to be continued)

Last edited by Francis Meyrick on January 27, 2017, 8:43 pm