Cairo Countdown by Dick Stivers

Cairo Countdown by Dick Stivers

Author:Dick Stivers [Stivers, Dick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Non-Classifiable
ISBN: 9780373612055
Publisher: Gold Eagle
Published: 1983-10-15T00:00:00+00:00


11

Breaking down the modified Colt Government Model, Lyons examined it for damage or unusual wear. He released the magazine and thumbed out the cartridges. He checked for grit or lint on the ramp or feed lips and laid the magazines on the clean canvas of his folding cot. A tiny wrench removed the set screw from the suppressor, allowing the oval cylinder to unscrew from the threaded barrel. He put the suppressor in one of the empty coffee containers, filled the container with solvent and left the suppressor to soak.

He depressed the disassembly latch that replaced the Colt's slide stop. The pistol's slide and barrel assembly slipped forward and apart like a Beretta. The short high-tension recoil spring shot into his palm.

Lyons noted that Gadgets was watching. "Seen my new Colt?"

"Konzaki made that? How can you put a silencer on the barrel of a 1911? The barrel flops up and down during the cycle…"

"Look." Lyons held up the slide assembly. He moved the barrel. "See? It's different. And the ejector. And the interlink between the barrel and the slide. Andrzej says the barrel doesn't unlock as Browning designed it. It's like a Beretta now. When you fire, the barrel and slide travel back, the barrel unlocks for an instant but stays straight, the slide continues back and the brass ejects. That's why the ejection port is cut all the way across. The brass flies straight up. The barrel stays straight on line the whole cycle. And there are big changes in the sear mechanism."

Studying the modified components, the internal parts still bearing machining marks, here and there the heat marks of micro-welds, Gadgets joked, "Colt Frankenstein!"

"Decent accuracy, fires silent bursts of full-velocity hollowpoints. You saw what I did with it. I got no complaints about how it looks."

Gadgets squatted down, balanced on the balls of his feet. He glanced to their taxi drivers, spoke too quietly for the others to hear. "Yeah, I saw what you did tonight. I got to talk to you…"

"This a criticism session?"

"Nah, man. You were beautiful tonight. For a guy who ain't even a vet, you do real well. Wish you'd been with me in Nam."

"When we got the surprise on that roof, you yelled for us to get out of there. You wanted to retreat."

"Well…yeah. That would've been the intelligent thing to do." Gadgets called out, "Politician! Over here. Help me with some wording… Dig it, Carl. Don't get defensive. I'm trying to talk philosophy with you."

"I wanted those rockets. I didn't know they weren't the right kind of rockets. That old man steered us wrong."

"No problem with that. It's cool. They could've had a million SAM-7s. Like you said, we could have gone home tonight. Rosario, our pal thinks I'm criticizing him when I say it would have been intelligent to have retreated tonight…"

Blancanales nodded. He pulled up another cot, sat down. "Could have gone wrong."

"It did go wrong," Lyons told them. He dipped a bore brush in the coffee container of solvent and began to swab out the Colt's short barrel.



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