Book I: The Others - Chapter 7 - Conner (Part 2)

Catherine stood there for a moment not sure where she was going. “What floor please?” intoned the friendly elevator voice.

Not knowing what else to do at the moment, she stuck her key card in the slot and stood there staring at it.

Catherine wasn’t sad. Nor was she angry. She was empty, and that scared her. She thought she should feel something ... anything.

She pushed the button for her floor.

Moments later she was walking into her suite and back to the bedroom. The place had an eerie emptiness that made her uncomfortable, but then she remembered that Jesse was still on the roof with Mrs. Mason. She smiled, recalling the way Conner and her daughter together could fill a room with so much life and vitality that she almost saw the air shimmer around them. As she entered her bedroom, she noticed a package on the bed with a note attached. She picked up the note and read it.

“Catherine, I’m sorry. I hope you’ll wait for me, but knowing that you probably won’t, take this and be safe.”

It was signed simply with an “M”.

She reached down and lifted the package knowing what it was before she opened it.

Removing the paper revealed a twelve by eight inch wooden box with a single latch on the front. She put the box back on the bed, thumbed the latch and opened the lid.

Embedded in red velvet was a brand new Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol, a detached silencer, and two full clips. She smiled as she expertly lifted the weapon in her right hand and a clip with the other. In what seemed like a single fluid movement she slammed the clip home, chambered a round, and thumbed the safety. This was the same make of gun that had been aimed at Mac from under her desk at the university. She took the weapon to the table in the “clothes room”, unloaded and disassembled it making sure that everything was in working order. She remembered a time when even seeing such a weapon made her uncomfortable, and the idea that she could take one apart and put it back together again in less then one minute would have been inconceivable.

She hadn’t really seen it coming, this affinity she had with handguns. Growing up in London where not even, at least back then, the police cared guns; she didn’t have any exposure to them. That was until she married Connor.

About a year after they were married, he was promoted to the anti-terrorist unit and as a consequence was allowed some leeway in carrying a personal weapon. It didn’t take long for Conner to notice that Catherine always seemed uneasy around his gun whether or not he was wearing it. In his eyes the only way to resolve the problem was to educate her about the weapons, how to use them safely, how they were not to be feared.

At the police firing range Conner took her through the basics, firing off all but one round at the target. “Now you try.” He said, handing her the gun.

Catherine was nervous at first. She didn’t feel comfortable with the weight of the weapon, the noise of the shooting range, or the glasses and ear protection that she wore.

“Just ignore all that.” Conner yelled in her ear. “Focus on the target. Imagine a path along the barrel, through the air, straight to where you want the bullet to go, and squeeze the trigger.”

Not quite believing the simplicity of it, she took his advice. She blocked out the noise, the pinching glasses, and the binding earpieces. She picked a spot on the man-like silhouette ten meters away, lined everything up and squeezed the trigger.

Conner pressed a button and the target slid toward them on a cable. His grouping was in the middle of the torso with only a couple of strays. He saw that Catherine’s shot was low and mentioned it.

“Actually, that’s just where I aimed.” With a smile and a raised eyebrow, she reached behind the target and put her finger in the hole she created ... about three centimeters above where the silhouette man’s legs met.

Conner chuckled as Catherine twisted her finger around a little. “You’re dirty.”

“That’s why you love me.” She wrapped her arms around him and drew him close.

“Only one of a million reasons.” He leaned down and kissed her. She responded in kind and surprised him with a quick dart of her tongue before she pulled back. “We should do this more often,” he said a little out of breath.

“What? Kiss?” She said playfully.

“Well, that too, but I was talking about shooting. It seems to have a positive effect on you.” He pulled the target off the cable. “This is a great shot.” He gave her a teasing glance. “But it was probably a fluke.” He started to roll the paper target. “Are you ready to go?”

“No, I’m not ready to go. Put another target up there. I’ll show you it wasn’t a fluke. I’ll bet you I can do it again. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet I can make any shot you can.”

“Are you sure about that? You’ve only fired one bullet. Are you really that confident?”

She really wasn’t, but it was too late to back down now. “I certainly am!”

“Okay. What are the stakes?”

“Let’s see.” Catherine thought for a few seconds. “If you win, I will buy you football tickets for the entire season.“ She had actually already bought them for his upcoming birthday, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Wow! That’s sounds great! I can hardly wait.”

“Not so fast.” Now she had him. “If I win, we start trying to have a baby.”

She watched his face for any negative reaction, but all she got was a big smile and a handshake as he said, “Done!”

He replaced a fresh target in the clip and pressed the button to return it to a point one-third the way to the other end of the range, and they began.

It went on and on. She matched him shot for shot. They shot for accuracy, speed, pattern, and combinations of each. It seemed she was a natural, and with every round she shot, she was getting more comfortable with the weapon and herself.

Finally, it was down to a single shot and she was last to go. The target was at the opposite end of the range, a full 30 meters distant. Conner was ahead on points and in order to beat him, Catherine had to hit a spot only slightly larger than the bullet itself.

By this time, their little competition had attracted a bit of a crowd, mostly other cops. At first there was the normal boisterous support that this sort of event fosters, but after an hour things became quieter as the crowd realized the level of skill and the stakes involved.

Catherine was settling into her shooting stance and cleared all of the distraction from her mind. She could barely make out the black speck that was her target, but she knew where it was. Her breathing slowed as she focused on the speck. It seemed to grow in her vision. She imagined a tunnel connecting the end of the pistol to the target through which the bullet would travel ... through which it must travel. When the path was complete, she slowly exhaled, closed her eyes and gently squeezed the trigger.

There was a cheer from the crowd at the results of the shot. She didn’t have to look; she knew that she’d nailed it.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at Conner. He was smiling. “I humbly bow to your greatness.” And much to the appreciation of the audience, he did.

Chapt. 7 - Conner (Part 3)