Page 18 of What is Found

I don’t care.Teach me to be ice, he said, and for some crazy reason, he thought of Luke and old Obi-Wan Kenobi. Teach me to be stone.

He drank his coffee down then. The taste was of scorched earth. He didn’t care.

His one regret:not telling Dare what his parents had said late one night as he huddled on the stairs. What they talked about when they thought no one was listening

What they worried was happening to their son, even before 9/11.

GAMBLING MAN

NOVEMBER 2023

CHAPTER 1

“Don’t. Don’t do.”Rivulets of sweat streamed down Parviz’s cheeks. The collar of his shirt was gray and sodden. “Drop rifle.”

The rifle blast so close to his ear had left him slightly deaf, so John was mostly reading the guy’s lips. But looking at the wrong end of a loaded gun means pretty much the same thing in any language. If what he thought was indeed correct, however, this tide was going to be turning right quick.

Of course, he could be wrong. He’d never been a gambling man. He wasprettycertain he was right, but not a hundred percent. Almost, though.

No room for doubt.Dare said that often.The cooler you are, the more the other guy sweats.

Of which Parviz was doing plenty. “Drop rifle.” The driver used the back of a hand to blot the underside of his chin. Parviz was sweating so much, milkywisps steamed from his exposed ears and neck. “You choice.”

John didn’t bother correcting the guy’s grammar. “Not happening, Parviz.”

Parviz’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Badchoice,” he said…and squeezed the trigger.

CHAPTER 2

And nothing happened,not even a theatrical click.

Although the look on Parviz’s face, the way his eyes widened, how the color bled from his face wasquitetheatrical. If this had been a Looney Tunes cartoon, he could’ve subbed in for Wile E. Coyote, suspended in midair for a half-second before realizing he’s run off a cliff.

In that same span of time, John reversed the boy’s rifle he still clutched and drove forward. The butt caught Parviz hard, just above his navel. Grunting, the driverstaggered back, lost his grip on the Glock then went down in a heap.

Brushing past the boy, he retrieved first the big man’s rifle then stepped around Parviz and kicked the younger guy’s rifle to one side. As he did so, he caught a blur of movement from the tail of an eye. He turned, expecting to see Davila...but it was the boy, Matvey, scurrying for that Glock.

Oh no, you don’t.Pivoting, he took a giant step and brought his boot down. Not too hard, not at full force. No need to break the kid’s fingers. He also didn’t know who the kid might be trying to help. So, he stomped only hard enough for the boy to flinch back with a little yelp.

“Sorry, Matvey.” He didn’t know the Russian forsorryand hoped his tone conveyed his meaning. “Don’t want to hurt you. In fact,” he said, scooping up Parviz’s Glock, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” This, he realized, was a day late and a dollar short, considering that the big guy wasn’t moving, probably because he was bleeding into his brain from being cold-cocked by a rock whistling maybe close to ninety miles an hour. Though, maybe, only eighty; fastballs are the bane of every sidearm pitcher. Either way, the big guy was as good as dead.

The younger man…he might make it. Just depended on whether he only had a broken nose. But even a bad break could be a problem: crushed sinuses, bone shards in the brain.

Backing up two steps, the better to keep all four in view, he pocketed the second Glock. Now that the excitement was over, he could feel the adrenaline rush tailing off. His mouth tasted as if he’d sucked on an aluminum can. More importantly, he was starting to feel the cold. He and Davila would have to?—

“How you…” Parviz gagged, spat, sucked in a lungful. “How you…tell?”

“Know what a pencil is good for, Parviz? To see ifsomeone’s taken out the firing pin. It’s simple. Jack out the magazine, slip the pencil down the barrel and then squeeze the trigger. If the pencil jumps out, everything’s good. But if it doesn’t…” He shrugged.

“Why…why you…” Parviz sucked more air. “Why you think...”

“That my Glock had been tampered with? No lube. Too clean. If that Glock was as new as Ustinov said, then there ought to be a little lube still there from the factory. But mine wasmorethan pristine. After I figured out about the firing pin, I markedyourcase and switched them.”

“But...but you let me have rifle...” Then Parviz’s face sagged. “It no work.”

“Nope. Once I figured out the Glock, I took out the AK’s bolt head...”

“Ai!”the boy, Matvey, shrilled. He pointed to a spot behind John. “Hey! Ai, ai!”He rattled off more, none of which John understood.

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