Forty Thieves Read Online Free PDF Page B

at UBS. I asked him about them, and he advised us to invest.”
    “Good enough,” she said. They took their pistols and stepped to the big workbench for their earphones and safety glasses. Ronnie took two fresh paper targets to an empty stall on the range, clipped them to the overhead wires, and pressed the buttons on the pulley mechanisms to make them skitter down to the seven-yard mark.
    As cops they’d both been habitual bonus shooters, taking advantage of the department’s policy of giving police officers who requalified once a month at Marksman level and above a slight bump in pay.
    In order to requalify with the Glock 17 each month the standard test was forty rounds, all in timed-fire sequences at 7, 10, 15, and 25 yards. The highest possible score was 400, which required placing all rounds inside the 10 circle. Expert was a score of 380, Sharpshooter 340, and Marksman 300. The Glock 17 was light, simple, reliable, and accurate at those distances, but it wasn’t designed for competition. It was a fighting weapon, the one they had both trained on and carried for many years. They put loaded magazines into their pistols, charged them, and each set two more loaded magazines out on the counter at the firing line.
    Ronnie went to her spot on the firing line, set the clock, and said, “Ready?”
    They fired their first four-shot sequence in three seconds. They ran through the rest of the qualifying session withoutspeaking—firing, changing the targets and distances, reloading and firing the next sets, down to the seventh at 25 yards. At the end of forty rounds, they left their pistols on the counter with the breeches open, and pushed their earphones down around their necks. They examined their targets.
    “How did you do?” Sid asked.
    “Looks like three eighty,” Ronnie said. “You?”
    “Three sixty.”
    “Pretty fair,” she said. “If I were a man I would be embarrassed if my wife was that much better than I was, but marksmanship’s probably not that important.”
    “A cynical use of my own presumed sexism against me? Assuming I’m sexist would be sexist itself, and not at all like you.”
    She gave him a smile. “If you’re satisfied that your shooting will be good enough to save us in a fight, then I’m satisfied too.”
    “You know that as long as every round is inside the body outline on the target, the guy goes down.”
    “A shot in the ten ring means he didn’t survive to fire again at your lovely wife, or to get up and sue us for pain and suffering.”
    “Very humane of you to say so,” he said.
    She shrugged and put her pistol in the holster under her jacket. “I’m only interested in your happiness. It’s up to you. It’s not my manhood that’s at stake.” She stepped toward the steel door.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Down the block to that coffee shop. I’ll save you a seat. I assume you’ll want to hang around here long enough to fire a box of ammo for practice and then try to get a better score. See you there.”
    As soon as the door closed behind her, Sid returned to the firing line. He reloaded three magazines with a total of forty rounds, set the clock, and ran the requalifying sequence again. This time he scored 383. He loaded another magazine and put his pistol into the holster covered by his jacket, folded up his target, and brought it with him.
    When he arrived at the coffee shop he could see Ronnie at the table by the window typing something on her cell phone, then moving it around with her finger. He saw she had bought two cups of coffee and one of them was by an empty seat. He sat down beside her and sipped the full cup.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Hemphill called to say they’ve signed the contract. It’s in the mail.”
    “And that?” He pointed at the display on her screen.
    “I’m playing with an ad. I thought we might like to offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction in this case.”
    Sid shrugged. “What the hell.