Running the Maze Read Free Page A

shit out of him.”
    “How?’
    “I have all night to plan it.”
    *   *   *
     
    B OATSWAIN ’ S M ATE F IRST C LASS Ryan Powell readied his weapon and growled at the man who would be going with him into the Ghost House. “Don’t get in my way, old man. We’re using live ammo today.” Powell was somewhat pissed at being paired with this over-the-hill Marine. Dude had to be way into his thirties, about ten years older than Powell, which meant he was going to be slow. Some kind of hotshot sniper, back in the day.
    Swanson said nothing as he studied the rangy SEAL: less than six feet tall, shaggy brown hair, wide shoulders, and corded muscles that flexed through the strong forearms like ropes. Even in jeans, he had the stiff look of a Transformer robot, as if he were about to turn into a pickup truck. Swanson looked beyond the taut, healthy body. The weight was evenly distributed but back on his heels, and the eyes were black dots, twitchy. The fingers drummed lightly on the Heckler & Koch SOCOM pistol in the belt holster. Anxious, or just normal jitters in facing the unknown?
    “The fuck you staring at, Pops!” Powell barked. He was confident that he would master the Ghost House again and put the old Marine to shame while doing so. Then he would ride the jarhead mercilessly, and try to pick a fight just to have the pleasure of whipping his butt. Youth, strength, ability, determination, and pride were all on his side. It still bothered Powell that he had not been part of the bin Laden hit. The Marine had nothing. Powell gave Swanson a mean grin, like a pit bull eyeing a kitten. “I’m gonna kick your jarhead ass.”
    “Ready on the range?” called the range safety officer.
    Swanson racked a round into the chamber of his reliable Marine Corps .45 ACP pistol and clicked off the safety. “Ready,” he said.
    “Ready,” echoed Powell, bringing out his pistol and getting into his stance.
    “Stand by,” ordered the range safety officer. A double door swung apart to let the shooters enter the target zone and closed behind them. “The range is hot.”
    Swanson and Powell were alone on Main Street, guns up. Aunt Bee was looking at them from a window, her eyes wide with fear. The bodies of two children lay dead in the street, and people were running into houses for safety, away from the rattle of automatic weapons down the street at the sheriff’s office. Smoke poured from the windows. Powell stepped forward, pistol grasped in two hands while his eyes probed the surroundings and the shadows. Swanson was five feet away on his right, matching his advance. There was a crackle in their earbuds; then the radios went silent.
    “Control?” said Powell, and heard no reply. He pushed the microphone closer to his mouth. “Control?” He glanced at Swanson and tapped his ear. Something was wrong. The Marine ignored him and took another step forward, ducking into cover behind a foam block that looked like a Dumpster. Powell got his eyes back on the street scene. Part of the scenario assumed that the area behind them was already cleared. A little girl in a doorway stared at them as if they were interplanetary aliens, and a dirty pickup truck suddenly sped out of an alley and dashed across the street into the grocery store parking lot, where the driver bailed out and ran inside. Civilian. A misty smoke snaked along the ground.
    Powell was tense, beginning to sweat. First the radio glitch, and now he had almost pulled the trigger on the dude in the pickup. He slowed down to ease his breathing. Where was the damned tango?
    Then came a thunderclap of two fast shots almost in his right ear as Swanson fired twice right over Powell’s head, missing him by no more than six inches. Powell flinched, took a knee, and yelled, “Cease fire! Cease fire! What the fuck are you doing?” He safed his weapon and put it away, but nothing changed. The rules were that anybody on a range could stop an exercise if he saw something going wrong.