Page 19 of Double Shot

“Tell him I didn’t use airplanes or missiles to fight,” I said. Grant relayed this, and Adnan smiled. There was another exchange in Arabic and Grant nodded.

“I’ll cover the cost for now,” Grant said. “What do you need to get my guild master back?”

“Right here?” Sadie asked.

“Sure, no one here cares,” Grant said.

“Pistols, preferably Berettas, semi-auto or auto, 9mm or .45, plenty of ammo for both, armor-piercing or rhino rounds. Automatic rifle, I don’t care what kind so long as it isn’t trash, plenty of ammo for it too. Two automatic rifles.” I looked over at Sadie and the only thing that would make Roan angrier than me dragging her into a firefight was to do it unarmed.

“That’s all?” Grant asked.

“What, I don’t need RPGs or a gunship,” I said, but I did really want a gunship; even if it was a shitty Soviet surplus Hind helicopter. Grant relayed what I said to Adnan, who was apparently pleased by my request, though Grant seemed less pleased by his response.

“We can pick what we need up this afternoon. We can come back afterSalat Maghrib,and it will be waiting for us.” He gave me a look. “It seems like it was kind of pricey.”

“So, what is Salad McRib?” I asked.

“Evening prayer,” Grant said. “And show a little respect. They’ve been very nice to us considering its really obvious we’re Americans.”

“What does that mean?” Sadie asked, picking up another cookie and smiling at Adnan.

“Our government bombs their countries as a hobby,” Grant said. “They take it a little personal.”

“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t think about that.”

* * *

That evening,we picked up a non-descript pile of boxes, all marked food donations and cooking supplies. We carried the boxes to the car which thankfully we had found a way to move closer. With the afternoon open, we had indulged in some recreational shopping, which Sadie enjoyed, Grant curated, and I paid for.

The rental house in Aix-en-Provence was a historic home, several hundred years old, or something like that, and there was a vast amount of history tied to it, including ancestral ties to Avignon and Mont Saint Chauvignon. We settled in and started the process of deciding who slept where, who had first crack at the showers, and going through the produce boxes of weapons.

“Fucking AK-47s,” I said, picking one of the guns up. This was some bullshit. I was a professional, and I didn’t use the official firearm of terrorism.

“What did you expect, dude?” Grant asked, looking at the other guns in the crate. There were more AKs, and several Russian pistols and a few black-market looking, more mundane guns.

“I didn’t expect flea market firearms, and you said these were expensive?”

“Yeah, a little bit.” Grant glared at me.

“I guess this will have to work.” I started stripping down the rifle to make sure it worked.

“You’re in France, dude, they aren’t really keen on guns here. It’s not yee yee, like back home.”

“Fuck,” I growled. “And after this, I have to go into this job blind, and with no backup.”

“Nah, my dude, I’ll have you from above,” Grant said. He pulled the largest of his bags into the spacious living room of the house and opened it. Inside he had a large quadrotor drone, and the gear to go with it, including cameras, and a pair of headsets. “I was working on this for Roan – all sorts of smart systems, adaptive flight – it can almost fly itself. The headsets let you pull the eyepiece down to see what the drone is seeing even without a monitor. You could fly this thing by yourself and have it following you around and only control it when you need it to move.”

“Well, that’s more goddamn like it.” I looked at the pile of carbon fiber and silvery metal struts. He continued setting the thing up, but decided he needed some music to work, and started playing what he called vapor wave, or something like that.

Sadie finished her shower, and I went next. The music and the addition of a third wheel took out the option of spending some quality time with her, so I opted to go over the garbage rifles we had purchased, as well as getting her set up with one of the pistols so she could have some mode of self-defense.

There was little sleep that evening.

Nerves were frayed, the difference in time zones had us all jet-lagged, and the sudden influx of spicy North African foods into our soft American bellies was not without minor incident.

The sun rose without us, and it was nearly noon local time before we woke. The sleep, late coming, had been needed. Sadie set to making us coffee, while Grant showed his chops with a computer. In a few minutes, he was laying out maps of the Chauvignon estate, the roads, the approaches, where shelter was, and more. The place was enormous, and there were a large number of out buildings, and houses besides the main estate, which was a miniature fortress unto itself, with a stone tower and curtain walls.

I was not equipped to deal with that.

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