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comfortable with this, better shot with it ?”
    "Yessir."
    "Let's check it out."
    We go down to the range in the basement. Dugal calls over McKibbin, who gives me a nod and wink. I know him already, spend a half-hour on the range every day since I joined, to get back my groove after not shooting for almost a year. He's an Irish guy, Northern, ex-Royal Ulster Constabulary with some military cross-training, I'd bet on that, maybe even with the SAS, since he knows more about weapons than any cop I've ever met. One of the lucky lottery winners, he calls himself. He won a green card and here he is.
    "Ah, a very lovely Heckler and Koch," McKibbin says as he handles the pistol Dugal's extended to him. "Did you just buy it, sir? Excellent purchase indeed."
    "No, I did not buy it. It's the personal weapon of our new ; detective, Ewing. Ewing, meet McKibbin, our shooting instructor."
    "Well, lad, can you use it?" McKibbin asks me with a broad smile as we shake. He puts my pistol back in its case, hands it to me.
    "I'll go first," Dugal says. We all put on muffs, he steps into a booth, McKibbin sends the silhouette target racing down the wires to twenty-five yards, and steps behind the LT. Dugal draws his Ruger, takes maybe twenty-five seconds to settle himself into the isosceles stance, aiming for center of mass. He lets off three pretty deliberate rounds, then empties the clip as fast as he can. McKibbin hits the recall button and the target comes fluttering up to the bench.
    "Good shooting, sir," I say. He's got two holes in the X-ring about two inches apart, a third just outside the ring, and then seven holes climbing up and right until the last two aren't even in the man-sized silhouette.
    "Well, I'm rusty," Dugal says, "but it isn't the pistol's fault."
    "With due respect, sir, ye've done what I warn everyone against. Pullin' the trigger too fast, without waitin' for recoil recovery. Muzzle climbs with each round. That's why ye've got this trail," McKibbin says as he sticks his pinky in the seven wild holes, "runnin' right off the target. Natural tendency, sir. Have to fight it until it's instinct."
    "Well, I'm rusty," Dugal concedes.
    "Right, then, Mr. Ewing," McKibbin says, clipping up a fresh target. 'Twenty-five, is it?"
    "Sighted in for thirty-five, if that's okay?" I say, fighting the temptation to send the target all the way out to fifty yards. But I don't want to humiliate the LT here, just get him to let me carry my own gun
    I take the HK Mark23 out of its case and slide home a clip. Dugal doesn't realize it's a SOCOM model I stole off a drunken SEAL in Kuwait City after the party there was over. He doesn't notice the small extension of the barrel, threaded to take a suppressor, though I know McKibbin spotted it immediately. Dugal's standing behind me with his arms folded across his chest, sure a thin guy like me is gonna splash rounds all over the place with a heavy-recoiling .45.
    Fuck the isosceles, the Weaver, fuck even a two-handed grip, you never have time for that in combat. My eye's already zeroed on where I want to hit, and I raise the HK as if it's just an extension of my hand until the sights align with my spot. I squeeze off a round, pause a beat, squeeze off two more fast—a double tap. "He's dead," I call out. But then I put another three rounds rapid into the silhouette for good measure.
    McKibbin's already laughing when he hits the recall button, and I hear Dugal start to chuckle too. He isn't seeing holes in the X-ring.
    "Five-O," he says, in a tone that's close to jovial for him, "I think you need an hour a week down here with McKib-bin."
    "Nothing I can teach him," McKibbin says, holding the target up against his body so Dugal can take it all in. The first shot's taken out the tiny white X in the X-ring. The second's gone through the left eye, the third through the right, and the last three are clustered exactly between them, all holes touching and forming one big hole.
    "Shit, Ewing! How the hell did