Sea Fighter (The USS Cunningham Quintet Book 3) by James H. Cobb

Author:James H. Cobb [Cobb, James H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2021-05-07T12:00:00+00:00

Mobile Offshore Base, Floater 1

1826 Hours, Zone Time; July 7, 2007

The Coke can plunked into the sea. Half filled with water ballast, it bobbed in the swells, glinting in the angled evening sun. Then the .45 roared. Two man-high jets of spray geysered up around it, making the can dance on the wave crest. The third round center-punched the red and silver container, driving it under. Stunned by the impact shock of the bullet, a small minnowlike fish floated to the surface and one of the Offshore Base’s colony of semitame cormorants swooped down gratefully to receive it.

“How’s that?” Amanda asked proudly, lowering the smoking automatic.

“Not good, not bad,” Stone Quillain grunted. “Comin’ along.”

He took another empty soda can from the cardboard box sitting on the battered mess table. Plunging it into a bucket of salt water, he let it fully fill, then hurled it into the air in a high arcing parabola twenty yards out beyond the side of the platform.

His hand continued to move in a blur, scooping the M9 Beretta service pistol off the tabletop. Whipping it up and in line, the Marine fired a fast double tap. At the second sharp crack of the 9mm, the falling can exploded, aluminum confetti and water droplets raining into the sea.

Amanda cast a baleful glance at Quillain from beneath the visor of her baseball cap. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that a southern gentleman always lets the lady win?”

The ear protectors she wore made her words echo hollowly. Amanda and Quillain had established an ad hoc firing range on the port side of the barge, as well as a habit of taking some target practice after dinner on those nights when an early patrol wasn’t scheduled.

Quillain laughed, a low, closed-mouthed huh, huh, huh. “Why, that’d be what you call sexual discrimination. It’d get this old boy in a lot of trouble.”

“Yes, but it would do wonders for my sense of inferiority.” “Like I said. You’re coming along.” Quillain set the Beretta back on the table and slipped back his ear guards. “You doing those dry fire drills I taught you?”

“Uh, when I can find the time,” Amanda replied guiltily.

It was Quillain’s turn for a baleful glare. “Fifteen minutes morning and night! You can sleep after you retire!” The big Marine slipped into drill sergeant mode. “The only right way to combat-carry a Model 1911-A Colt is Condition Three: shell in the chamber, hammer cocked, and safety on!

“You have to learn to swipe that safety off with your thumb every time you draw that weapon. It’s got to be instinct— there’s no time to think in a gunfight! That means you repeat that draw-and-clear drill until it’s automatic! That means three thousand times. And you better get it right, because it’ll take ten thousand times around to unlearn it if you get it wrong!”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Amanda replied meekly, harking back to her days as an Annapolis plebe.

Quillain caught himself as well. “Yeah, well, it is kind of important, ma’am.

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