Defender(64)
They had been shooting for an hour in the purpose-designed indoor range, buried deep below the streets of London. The state-of-the-art range sat at the eastern end of a long-abandoned section of London's Victorian sewer network. Built in the 1860s as a consequence of the infamous Great Stink of London in 1858, the area they stood in had been intended as a junction and overflow adjunct of engineer Joseph Bazalgette's modern sewer system. However - as Rodgers reminded his charges - it had, thankfully, never been commissioned.
Of course, that salient point was lost on the agents, all of whom customarily referred to INTREPID's half mile of pristine sewer as The Pit, and, with a less than charitable reference to those pitiable 19'h Century souls whose job it was to keep the sewers clear, Rodgers was tagged The Mudlark, although no one would ever dare consider calling him that to his face, not even jokingly or even within 100 yards of him for that matter. When news of the scurrilous moniker had inevitably filtered down to The Pit, Rodgers had embraced the irreverence of it and hung a picture of a mudlark over the entrance to the range. With the assistance of his French wife, Sophie, he'd added the phrase 'une fois charognard, toujours charognard' above, which loosely translated as 'Once a mudlark, always a mudlark'.
The Pit had become a cluster of large rooms, host to those activities undertaken by INTREPID agents requiring secrecy. The availability and suitability of the old sewer had been one of the deciding factors in General Davenport's decision to take the office building five floors above them. Training sessions were, according to Davenport's edict, a routine occurrence for those agents not deployed on ops. And Sergeant-Major Rodgers saw to it that all field agents attended their sessions, particularly the unarmed combat sessions. The agents joked that they weren't sure what was worse about the unarmed combat sessions: the wrath of General Davenport if they failed to attend, or the hiding they would invariably cop from Rodgers when they did. At least, a few rounds on the mats meant they could stave off the paperwork that awaited them upstairs, but mostly it meant that they could cross swords in some friendly - albeit dangerous - competition.
"Right, last serial. A single string of six and then we'll bin it." "Okay, Tom. But with stoppages. I need the practice."
Rodgers smiled. "Okay. You know, it won't make any difference." Both prepared a magazine with six live rounds and one dummy round,
placing the dummy randomly amongst the six live. They exchanged the magazines, so they were unaware when the dummy round would appear, cause a stoppage and force them to clear it.
"Keep a steady rhythm. Evenly spaced shots to the head and chest. Reassess the target between each shot. The shot clock is set for 4.25 seconds," Rodgers announced.
"Yes, Master," replied Morgan.
Morgan in shirt and tie and Rodgers in a Royal Australian Regiment t-shirt and navy blue overalls, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, facing targets depicting armed offenders seven metres back from the firing line.
"By the way, Sophie keeps asking me to invite you around for dinner some time."
"Love to, as long as she doesn't try to poison me with seafood again," replied Morgan.
"Mussels are her signature dish! Anyway, that was years ago," Rodgers scoffed. "How were we to know you'd get crook?"
Without warning, the shot clock uttered its shrill warning. Both men drew the SIG Sauer P226 9mm automatics from their concealed holsters. Rodgers was faster on the draw, but Morgan was smooth, both firing a series of shots in a fluid rhythmic action. Suddenly, two bright strobe lights flashed the range with a blinding white light, and two deafening explosions echoed from the range's digital sound system. These programmed mechanical actions were designed to distract them in the same way flash bang grenades would during an actual assault. At Rodgers insistence, the range contained all manner of such devices, designed to evoke an adrenal response from participants so they would become inoculated to such effects in readiness for combat situations.
From the cry of the shot clock, the sustained crash of a dozen consecutive shots hammered the walls. With smoking barrels trained dead ahead, both men stood facing the targets as the shot clock sounded the end of the timed period. They individually cleared their weapons, then inspected each other's pistol for added safety, before re-holstering.
"Not bad, Sir. Not bad at all," Rodgers said as he examined Morgan's target. "Three to the head and three to the chest. All in the zone. Although I think you dropped your third shot. It cut the line. Any lower and he would have only ended up with a shaving cut!" The bullet hole to which Rodgers was referring, was slightly below the terrorist's left eye, but well within the allowed six inch square.