part0009

Babz watched Laramie go to the target shed. He returned looking like a carnival clown, holding strings for seven helium-inflated balloons in each hand. A burst of laughter erupted from the group of men who were grabbing their fifty-round boxes of duty ammo as they headed to the range trailer.

"Look Babz. Laramie brought you a birthday present." It was Johnson who led the chorus of taunts. A big smile formed on his face when several of the others chuckled.

"Maybe you boys should stick around and watch,” Laramie challenged. “You might learn something.”

Babz walked over and took her half of the balloons. A string connected each to a weighted end. She began dropping the balloons in staggered intervals along her lane of fire leading to her target. Medina did the same. Seven balloons now impeded her line of sight, starting at the twenty-five-yard line with the last one bobbing three feet from the target.

Babz replaced her target, using a stapler to attach it to the wood frame. The target fluttered in the breeze ahead of the eight-foot berm of repurposed rubber chunks that served as a backstop.

"May the best man win!" Medina called over from his lane.

"I hope the best man is a woman."

After her lane was set, Babz walked back to her start point. Instead of starting at the three-yard line, she opted to begin her course of fire from a distance and work her way in. She walked past the twenty-yard mark and stopped at a faded white line marking the thirty-five-yard distance. She closed her eyes, taking a moment to visualize her shots.

"You boys might want to clear back. Looks like Agent Babiarz is going to put in some work." Laramie's boast barely registered as she cleared everything from her mind, just as he'd taught her to do.

"Playing favorites, Laramie?" Johnson called out.

"Let's let the shooting speak for itself," Roe barked.

A hush fell over the range. Babz stood still with her hands relaxed at her sides. She tapped her fingers twice on the textured grip of her pistol, a silent prayer for guidance. Laramie referred to the range as the temple. He said the connection between gun and gunslinger was a spiritual one. Over the time they'd trained together, his words became hers.

This time, there was no command from Laramie. No order to fire. No timeline to meet. This was a skill drill. Laramie gave her a nod, conveying his faith in her. "When you're ready, Agents. The range is yours." He then raised his voice to the group of onlookers. "The range is hot. I repeat, the range is hot!"

Babz began moving in from thirty-five yards out, stepping in a slow, steady progression. She withdrew her gun, keeping the weapon up and sighting down the Trijicon Ruggedized Miniature Reflex sight at the target ahead. She kept her knees slightly bent and her body squared to the threat. Her bent knees enabled her to keep a level shooting platform while moving, avoiding any up and down bobbing by implementing a Groucho walk, a preferred move and shoot technique. Only move as fast as you can shoot; Laramie's words again echoed in her head.

"Pay attention, boys. They’re on the move." It was the last thing Babz heard as she closed out the world around her.

The wind tossed the helium balloons into a frenzy. The red and yellow spheres passed back and forth in front of the target at uneven intervals. Her first shot came just before she reached the twenty-five-yard line. The round sailed between each of the balloons, striking center mass and hitting the dark outline of the cartoon gunman's top knuckle.

Babz plodded forward, moving past the first balloon, immediately dropping to her knee, and taking two more shots. At the ten-yard line, she launched into a prone position, fired twice, rolled right, and fired two more times before high-crawling forward on padded knees and elbows to the seven. From there, she fired six more rounds from a kneeling position. She stood and exchanged magazines, placing the partially spent mag into her cargo pocket and swapping it for a full fifteen. A tactical reload allowed a shooter to maintain a constant weapon readiness by always keeping a round in the chamber, unlike the combat reload completed during the qual course, which was done when the mag had emptied, and the slide locked back.

Two balloons remained in her line of sight as she moved in from the seven. The wind ripped across the flat expanse of the shooting range, banging the two balloons together and sending them into a frantic churning movement. Babz fired two three-round volleys at the target. A double-tap to the body and one to the head. Repeat. She delivered these last six shots in quick succession. Take the head when the body doesn't fall. The failure drill designed to end threats from bad guys wearing body armor who don't go down with a center mass shot.

Speed and precision drive the drill's purpose and the head makes a significantly harder target, especially when aiming for the tight gap between the eyebrows where her two headshots overlapped.

When Babz finished, she felt the warmth of the Glock's slide against her indexed trigger finger as she guided it back into her holster. Behind her, she heard Laramie clap his hands together.

Laramie approached with a black Sharpie in hand. "Agent Babiarz, how'd we do?"

"Dropped two." She folded her arms across her chest, pressing the Kevlar vest against her breasts. A trickle of sweat traveled down her cheek and came to rest on her jawline.

Laramie ran his finger over the front of the paper and then along the back, silently counting the number of holes and looking for anything outside the target. Finding none, he uncapped his Sharpie and wrote the number fifty in the top right-hand corner. He initialed and dated underneath the notated score before turning to face Babz.

"Agent Babiarz, do you know why you dropped them?"

"I felt the push. Came after the reload."

"You only take the shot you can make. A forced shot becomes a wasted one. You'd better tighten it up. This is HRT." He eyed Medina’s perfect shot group, adding insult to injury. He tapped the hole she had made. "Put 'em all in next time."

"Will do." Babz knew Laramie's comments came from a good place. He'd taken the change of assignment as a stepping-stone to civilian life. His timing couldn't have been better. Since his arrival, he'd been running drills with Babz for the last month and a half. The others were unaware Laramie was the one who'd prepared Babz for HRT. He'd run her through this drill before, so she’d be prepared for anything. She let him down, though he'd never say.

She determined to never let him down again.

Knowing the promotion would go to Medina, Babz walked over to the ammo station and began reloading her magazines. There was nothing to do now but practice. As she walked back to top off her magazines and reface her target for another round of drills, a black oversized SUV with heavily tinted windows pulled up to a stop. Babz recognized the woman’s almost imperceptible silhouette before the door opened.

Special Agent Brett Larson exited the vehicle. The senior agent and head intelligence officer assigned to the HRT nodded to Laramie as she strode across the backend of the shooting lanes with Roe in her sights. Laramie returned the nod and gave a tip of his bright red rangemaster ball cap.

Larson did not stop to talk with the other five operators standing around Medina, giving the newest addition to Alpha's entry team a ball busting. She had a thin manilla file folder tucked under her arm as she walked, keeping her hands free to fire off a text or email on her cell phone. She was always communicating with somebody, updating her bosses. Larson paused for a moment under the awning at the picnic table that was littered with boxes of ammunition and ammo cans containing the spent brass policed from the range.

Babz set down the box of training rounds she’d been working on.

Larson surveyed the range. She raised an eyebrow at the balloons scattered about. Her face hovered between amusement and displeasure. “What’s going on here?”

“Medina and I went head-to-head for the opening on Alpha team.”

Larson glanced to where Medina and his pals were celebrating. The results were obvious enough for her to interpret. Her cool brown eyes settled back on Babz. "You really looking to get ahead and shut the boys’ club up for good? Work a big case, show them you've got it upstairs as well as in that trigger finger of yours."

"These fingers weren't meant for a keyboard." Babz held up her two trigger fingers. She was an ambidextrous shooter.

"It looks like you're going to get to prove it." Larson tapped the file under her arm. "Remember to think as fast as you shoot." Larson winked as she pushed past and continued to Roe.