Chapter 2 - Silver Duct Tape and Scorched Walnut
The silence that followed her indifference only irritated Cole further. He lowered the phone slightly, his grin hardening into a smirk of sharp wounded pride. The recruits were watching him now, waiting to see how the squad leader would handle a civilian who simply refused to acknowledge his presence.
"I said, step back from the bench," Cole commanded, taking two aggressive strides toward lane seven. His combat boots crunched heavily into the loose gravel. "You’ve got five seconds before I have the MPs carry you off this installation in zip-ties."
Evelyn reached into her pocket. The soldiers flinched reflexively, their hands dropping toward their sidearms, but she merely withdrew a dull pocketknife. With a quick, smooth incision, she slit the yellow twine securing the box. The twine fell away into the dust like dried grass.
She folded back the cardboard flaps.
Inside lay an instrument that looked as though it belonged in an agricultural dump rather than a modern military range.
Evelyn reached into the depths of the carton and lifted the weapon out with one hand, her grip settling naturally around the wrist of the stock. It was a bolt-action rifle, its original profile obscured by decades of hard use, field modifications, and unceremonious repairs. The walnut stock was scarred with hundreds of minute gouges, dark burns near the chamber, and scratches that had long since oxidized into dull charcoal lines.
Most absurd of all, the entire forearm of the stock—extending from the receiver forward past the front sling swivel—was bound tightly in layers of heavy silver duct tape. The tape was weathered, peeling slightly at the edges, and grayed by years of sun and solvent.
A full-throated roar of laughter exploded from the assembly behind her.
"What is that, an old hunting rifle from Sears?" Corporal Miller howled, slapping his thigh. "Look at the tape! It’s holding the barrel on!"
Cole laughed openly, turning his smartphone camera down toward the rifle to capture the weathered duct tape in macro focus. "You brought that? What are you gonna do with that piece of junk, shoot tin cans off a fence post? That thing's going to blow up in your face before the primer even seats!"
Evelyn remained completely deaf to their commentary. Her attention belonged entirely to the steel.
With practiced efficiency, her fingers moved over the rifle's mechanisms. She did not operate it with the frantic speed of a modern three-gun competitor; she operated it with the effortless, hypnotic intimacy of someone handling an extension of her own nervous system.
Her right hand lifted the bolt handle. The metal emitted a crisp, heavy clack-slide that carried clean across the concrete deck. She inspected the extractor claw, checked the cleanliness of the chamber with the tip of her index finger, and tested the tension of the internal magazine follower. Every motion was silent, methodical, and economical.
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She reached back into the cardboard box and retrieved a small, unmarked pasteboard box of ammunition. Resting inside were hand-loaded centerfire cartridges, their copper jackets polished to an immaculate, mirror-bright sheen that stood in stark contrast to the decrepit rifle that would chamber them.
She laid five rounds on the concrete bench, each positioned at an exact thirty-degree angle relative to the receiver. She never once looked at Cole, nor did she acknowledge the dozen camera lenses recording her every breath.
