Read Online Remo The Adventure Begins by Warren Murphy - Free Book Online Page B

specifications said. The specifications justified the fifteen-hundred-dollar price tag that went with each rifle. And the Army’s estimate of how much it cost to train, feed, and transport a footsoldier justified the additional cost per unit. It all made so much sense, the Army had already ordered enough to equip a full division.
    No one could deny its feasibility for combat. The gun was a miracle of design. The AR-60 field test was then just a formality. And of course to have a field test, one had to have a field. So the training center at Fort Baxter, Virginia, was chosen. And footsoldiers were chosen, and on this bright autumn day the squad marched to an open field in front of a reviewing stand and then as if in combat crawled forward across the field. Again, as if in combat, enemies appeared a thousand yards ahead of them. But unlike enemies these were all made of reinforced cardboard. And unlike most enemies they all exploded as rounds of AR-60 slugs poured into them. All of them, except the one Private Anthony D’Amico aimed at.
    It remained unscathed. The man on his right had to mow it down. D’Amico was wincing in pain, holding his rifle limply in front of him. The sergeant came running over.
    “D’Amico. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
    “The housing is loose. Touch the barrel. It’s hot,” said Private D’Amico.
    “Screw the housing,” snarled the sergeant under his breath. “Brass is on the reviewing stand. This is a show. Just shoot the damned thing. Don’t feel it up.”
    “It jammed.”
    “Unjam it.”
    “It’s the Grove AR-60.”
    “I know that. Just give it a bang, it will work. Now get moving. My squad is not going to foul up in front of brass, not Sergeant Johnson’s squad.”
    Sergeant Johnson waved the squad forward. Few people on the reviewing stand had cause to notice what was going on between a sergeant and a private. Most of them had a master’s in business administration in addition to their military educations. What one sergeant said to one private had little effect on the columns of numbers that symbolized modern defense to them. If one wanted to concern himself about battles and sergeants and privates, he was in the wrong mode for advancement. Unit cost, not flags and victories, was the way to stars.
    But one officer did notice. Major Rayner Fleming focused on the private even while other eyes in the stand were focused on her full bosom and stunning good looks. She was used to that. She could have been a model, but being looked at was not exactly her idea of a career. She was Army, Army since her father raised her on a military post, Army since she graduated from West Point. And to her what went on between sergeants and privates was very important. Those were the people you fought wars with.
    “What happened there?” she asked, pointing to the private holding his rifle a little bit farther in front of him than the others.
    “Nothing,” a colonel answered Major Fleming.
    “I saw something. I think there may be a problem with that AR-60.”
    “I am sure the sergeant has taken care of it, Major. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
    “Yes,” she answered, knowing that the colonel was not staring at the day when he said that. “Both of them,” she added.
    “What?” asked the colonel.
    “Nothing,” answered Major Fleming. “They are going to rapid-fire now.”
    The squad fell to prone position on the far side of a ditch, and with a loud roar sent screams of lead slugs crashing into wood and paper targets of soldiers.
    This time D’Amico’s gun fired. It shot the housing back through his eye, throwing him with its force to the back of the ditch. D’Amico only remembered pulling the trigger and then watching the darkness of the universe close in around him.
    In this last darkness, D’Amico thought he saw a single star, a very cold and small light in all eternity. And in communication far greater than words, it assured him that a force had been aroused that would