Chapter 26
Chun spent his second day in the Bureau with Jacob Halloway, the Director of Operations. His pistol training in the bureau was a radical departure from the army. Agent Halloway stepped him through the safety protocols, using examples, and pausing for questions as needed. He demonstrated skills and was surprised when Chun needed only one practice round to accomplish each one.
When they completed the safety and basic tactics section of training they went to lunch, where Chun tried seared salmon with hot peppers. The cook was very amused that he liked the dish so much, and prepared an entire second batch, just for Chun.
In high spirits, and with belly bursting, Chun followed Agent Halloway back to the basement, where he qualified on the most common sidearm agents carried, the .38 caliber Gallant.
“What do you think?” Halloway handed over the handgun.
“Wimpy,” Chun said. “It feels like I will break it if I am not careful.”
Halloway chuckled. “Never say that to the agents who carry them. The Gallant is a fine weapon, and it’s record in the field is excellent. But between you and me, I agree.”
He put the Gallant away and opened a new case. “This is the .45 caliber Toussaint. Like the Gallant, it is a double-action revolver. It takes the widest variety of production ammunition of any handgun in the world. You can pair it with anything from the 1.1 inch .45, up to the 2.62-inch .454 rifle cartridge.”
Chun accepted the revolver, opened the action, inspected the magazine and the bore, checked the hammer and trigger. “This is very good, Agent Halloway, but it still feels a little small.”
Halloway grinned at him and pulled a box of ammunition from the shelf behind them. “Try these and let me know if you still think it’s too small.”
Chun loaded the revolver with five of the 2.62-inch rifle rounds, then put all five shots through a hole the size of his thumb.
“Very nice,” Halloway said, examining the target. “You practice up with that, and you’ll challenge me for the agency pistol championship.”
“Do you have something bigger?” Chun put the Toussaint down.
“Seriously?” Halloway crossed his arms.
“Yes.”
“All right, but don’t come whining to me when you break your wrist.” He disappeared into the armory and returned with a large case and a big ammunition box.
“This is the .600 caliber Hammerly. We bought it by mistake, and I kept it for the novelty. It fires a 900-grain slug at 2,000 feet per second, delivering over 8,000 pounds of force to the target. When I test fired this weapon it bruised my hand, and I couldn’t hold a cup of coffee for a week. When Agent Mackey fired it, he fractured his wrist, and the kick brought the weapon back and hit him in the head.”
Halloway opened the case and lifted a substantial revolver out. It was black, with grips made from some type of light-brown hardwood. “This weapon weighs just over thirteen pounds. For comparison, the .454 was four pounds. This is a single-action, gate loaded revolver, which makes it somewhat slow to fire and reload. All of the problems we discussed about shooting in populated areas are magnified. This round will go through an engine block and still have enough energy to kill someone on the other side. In short, it is stupid powerful. Still want to try it?”
“Please,” said Chun.
Chun took the revolver and tipped it up and down, rocked it side to side, and experimentally cocked and then carefully released the hammer.
This is manufactured to a higher standard than the others, and the weight feels good.
He loaded the weapon with five rounds, then took his position on the firing line. Based on the revolvers he had handled earlier that day, he wrapped his fingers around the grip tightly, and reinforced his grip with the other hand. Then he sighted carefully and pulled the trigger.
The sound was impressive, and despite his grip the revolver recoiled at least a foot. The muzzle flash left him slightly blind, and the smoke obscured the target, but when he could see clearly there was a neat hole precisely centered on the bullseye.
“Nice shot.” Halloway practically leapt in the air.
“Thank you,” Chun said. He sighted again, this time anticipating the recoil, and pulled the trigger. The revolver climbed a few inches this time, and Chun reacquired his aim immediately. The final three rounds came out in rolling thunder, and when the smoke cleared most of the bullseye was gone.
“I’ll be damned.” Halloway said. “I’ve never seen anyone fire a second shot from that thing.”
Chun reset his target, then reloaded and repeated his performance, this time grouping all five shots in a circle the size of a quarter dollar. Then he reset and tried ten rounds with his left hand. His groupings needed work, with one round missing the bullseye entirely.
He reset and repeated the drill two more times, then tried shooting one-handed, managing to hit the edges of the bullseye, but not achieving the precision of his two-handed grip.
“I need practice,” Chun said, holding the empty ammunition box out to Halloway.
“Holy shit,” Halloway said, “you want to shoot that thing more?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll have to order more ammunition. That’s all I had.” He got the .454 out again. “Come on upstairs. We’ll take some wax rounds and run the practice course a few times.”
Chun put the big revolver away and followed Halloway upstairs.
The tactical course was very satisfying. The operations team had built a large collection of false walls that could be moved around to create rooms, hallways, dead ends, and interesting angles. Once a training area was set up, agents would position cutouts of people. Some of them would be criminals, some police, and others would be civilians or even children. The idea was to run the course as quickly as possible, with as few mistakes as possible.
On his first attempt he rounded a corner and shot four gangsters.
“Stop,” Halloway said, “you just killed a cop.”
Chun inspected the targets. One of them was in fact wearing a dark blue police uniform, but he was missing his hat. Chun returned to the beginning of the course, reloaded, and waited while Halloway repositioned the cutouts.
This time when he rounded the corner there were eight targets. Chun shot six of them in the head, and then Halloway stopped him. “You’re dead. Ran out of ammunition in the open.”
Chun reset and considered the problem while Halloway reset the cutouts. When Halloway waved to him to go again, he took an extra fraction of a second to observe the position of the cutouts, then fired five shots as he finished crossing the room, placing two shots so that they would pierce two targets.
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“You’re dead,” Halloway said.
“No, sir,” Chun said, then walked Halloway through the angles, showing where he had placed his shots, and when.
“I’ll be damned,” Halloway said, patting Chun on the shoulder. “That’s excellent. Nice work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They went through the course several more times, then met Jhon Bonga on the way back down to the armory.
“How’s he doing, Jacob?”
Halloway grinned at Bonga. “He’s fantastic. Smart, quick, deadly aim, doesn’t make the same mistake twice. I’ve got my work cut out for me if I’m going to hang on to the Bureau shooting championship.”
Chun cocked his head at Halloway. “You will not be angry if I defeat you in competition?”
“Hell, no.” Halloway said. “I want my agents to be the best they can be. If you beat me, good on you. Just don’t expect me to give it to you, you’ll have to earn it.”
That is much different than the attitude in the army.
“Then I will work hard,” Chun said.
“Perfect,” Bonga said, and continued on his way.
They cleaned the weapons, with Halloway once again expressing approval of Chun’s work, and then Halloway sent him upstairs to see Bonga.
* * *
“Chun, I need to send you into the field already. It’s too early--you’ve barely started training, and you’re still getting used to our culture. But we have a lead on Archibald, which probably means we have a lead on Heyerdahl. I want to go, but the crummy part of being director is that sometimes I have to be in the office. If you’re willing, I’ll send you, Jacob, and Annabeth.”
Chun studied Bonga’s face. “I do not want to be stuck between Annabeth and Heyerdahl.”
Bonga stood up and walked around his desk to look out the window, and Chun moved to stand beside him.
“I understand your caution about fighting nephilim, but I don’t understand your absolute mistrust.”
Chun pondered that for a bit. “Sir, do you understand good and evil?”
Bonga glanced at him. “I think I do. I’ve sure seen enough of each.”
“That suggests instinctual knowledge, not theoretical knowledge. These ideas cannot be expressed quickly, so I will need to oversimplify. Please do not take this description too literally.”
“Go on.”
“Angels are good. They will give of themselves to aid others. Demons are evil. They will give of themselves to harm others. Nephilim are halfway between demons and angels. They are completely and utterly selfish. Humans are halfway between angels and nephilim. We tend to want to do good but can be seduced into evil.”
“So, what is halfway between a nephilim and a demon?” Bonga’s gaze didn’t leave the city.
Chun watched a plane fly by. “I don’t know.”
“You do a lot of things simply because you were trained to do them,” Bonga said. “You were willing to attack a ten-year-old girl to prevent the possibility of her being trained. I have lived with Annabeth for twenty-two years. It’s been a rough go, but she is trustworthy. At least for important things.”
Chun turned to face him. “Nephilim are not trustworthy. They act in their own interests. Always. People have worked with them before and come to believe that mutual benefit was loyalty. Nephilim will turn on you the moment they are convinced that doing so will profit more than cooperating with you.”
Bonga looked down at his boots. “I’ve had these discussions with Archbishop Sabin. He’s come around to her. So will you.”
“There is another reason. Nephilim inherently have near perfect control of their breath, but they cannot reach outside of their own skin. They cannot use their breath to interact with ley. Allowing nephilim in the population strips us of our own power. Annabeth cannot become a wizard. Her children will be weaker than she is, and their children too, but her descendants will be devoid of the Strength of Old for at least four generations. Perhaps this is why true power is gone from your world.”
Bonga turned and glared into Chun’s eyes. “Killing someone because their children would have a disability is pretty cold-blooded.”
Chun nodded. “I am not suggesting that this is reason enough. But you should consider. This world is cold, so cold life cannot survive on its own. The great machines warm the world, create livable climates, but you now live in a world where no one knows how to repair and maintain them.” He paused and his eyes widened, and he whispered, “Perhaps that is why I am here.”
Bonga frowned. “Do you know how to maintain them?”
“No. But I know enough to train wizards. In time we may reconstitute the necessary skills.”
“Lots of people think the great machines are eternal,” Bonga said.
Chun snorted. “Do you know where to find one that is dead?”
“Yes. That was always my objection to the ‘eternal’ argument. Are you sure humans built them? Some of them handle vast amounts of power.”
“I am sure. At the beginning of the war my people still had the knowledge to maintain them, and even to make inferior versions of them. By the time I went into the box we had lost so many masters that we could not perform basic maintenance anymore.”
Bonga walked back around his desk and sat down. “So, you think we should kill nephilim on sight because letting them breed forces magic out of the world, and eventually that will kill all of us?”
Chun sat in one of the guest chairs. “The creation of a nephilim is not a joyous event. Do you know what it is like?”
Bonga flinched.
Chun’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward. “Annabeth is not your adopted daughter. She is your natural daughter.”
Bonga glanced at the door. “Keep your voice down.”
“Who knows?”
“Archbishop Sabin, probably his team, Father Morgan, Annabeth, Sharon Tbela, me, and now you.”
“Then you know exactly why we should not have more of them walking around.”
Bonga shook his head. “I would never suggest going back to my old mistakes. But I hate it that she bears the consequences for my crimes.”
Chun nodded. “Children never deserve such, but it always happens, one way or another.”
“Will you do this mission?” Bonga turned to face Chun.
“Assume that I am correct about being the only one who can build up the skills to repair and maintain the great machines. Do you still think it is safe for me to work with Annabeth?”
Bonga nodded. “I told you. She is trustworthy.”
“But you have doubts.”
“Do you know how to live without doubt, Chun?”
Chun gave him a half-smile. “Fanaticism seems to work…but maybe they are faking it.”
“Will you go?”
“Yes.”