Page 65 of Casualties of War
Chapter Fourteen
Adán couldn’t rid himself of the sensation that he had fallen in with a well-trained unit of guerillas. For villagers who were hiding from Insurrectos, they were a disciplined bunch. Not even the boy, Ciaro, made more than a whisper of sound as they moved deeper into the forest.
The camp they reached was basic. A series of tarpaulins stretched between trees for shelter fromthe rain, with sleeping bags beneath. Only one small fire was lit, to warm a battered pot of food that turned out to be stew. The chunks of meat were gamy and tough although the meal warmed Adán’s belly and he was grateful.
Ciaro dropped beside Adán sometime later. “My Da says you should stay until sunrise. You will, won’t you?”
Adán nodded. “I need to find a way off the island. I can’t do thatstumbling around in the dark.”
“You won’t get off, my Da says. The Insurrectos control the coast.”
“The Loyalists in Acapulco think the Insurrectos control the whole island.”
“Except up here where they can’t reach us,” Ciaro said. In the low firelight, Adán saw him grin.
Adán considered that. “Then I may head for Pascuallita and get a message out from there.” There were people there, DuardoPeña’s family, who could help him get out. Pascuallita was in the highlands, too. It was closer than the coast, for they had walked a long way.
Ciaro shook his head. “You can’t go there. The Insurrectos have the town locked up good and tight. No one in or out. It’stheirtown. They sleep there. You understand?”
Adán understood more than what the boy had said. The Insurrectos were using the townas a dormitory. They were likely using the people in it as slaves, too. His gut twisted. “I will decide tomorrow which direction I will go,” he told Ciaro.
To change the subject, Adán pointed to the gun strapped to his hip. On the boy, the pistol looked oversized. “Can you even get your hand around the grip of that thing?”
Ciaro glanced down at the gun, looking surprised, as if he had forgottenit was there. “Don’t need to, do I? Long as I can get my thumb over the grip and my finger on the trigger, it’s all good.”
Adán tried to be appalled that a twelve-year-old could be so cynical and knowledgeable about small arms. The wonderland he had just stumbled into was too full of surprises for him to have any capacity left to be shocked. “It’s a Glock, isn’t it?”
Ciaro grinned. “Glock G23,”he said, pulling the gun out of the holster. He held it out to Adán.
Adán took the gun and studied it. He used a model of this exact gun for the movies. The real thing looked the same. It felt heavier, though. He hefted it. “Your hand doesn’t fall with the weight?” He dropped the clip out of it and raised the gun as he might for an action sequence.
“No, you’re doing it all wrong,” the boy said.“Here.”
Amused, Adán handed the gun back.
Ciaro held up the gun in both hands, so the muzzle was pointing up at the canopy overhead, his forefinger resting alongside the trigger. “Silva does this all the time, right?”
Adán nodded.
“It’s a dumb way to hold it.”
“It is?”
Ciaro tapped the muzzle. “Watch how the end moves.” He brought the gun down to aim at an imaginary target. Then he broughtit back up again and tapped the end. “From here, to…” He traced the quarter circle the muzzle had moved to reach the aim position. “…here, the gun isn’t pointing at the target. It’s wasted movement.”
A tendril of horror touched Adán. “Wasted,” he repeated and cleared his throat. “So the better way is…?” he prompted.
The boy stood up and brought the gun down by his side, so the muzzle was pointingat the ground. Slowly, he brought it swinging up, then stopped with it lifted perhaps three inches. “See where the muzzle is pointing? I’ve already got the target’s feet in range.” He lifted the gun another couple of inches. “Crotch and belly.” Another inch. “Center of the chest.” Another two inches and the gun was horizontal, his arm straight. “Head,” he said.
Adán shifted uneasily.
Ciaro grinnedand crouched back down beside Adán. “See? You only have to lift it a couple of inches and you can fire straight away and have a good chance of hitting him. Keep pulling the trigger, all the way up to the horizontal, and you will totally take out the target.”
Adán took the gun off him and slid the clip back in and seated it with a hard slap of his hand. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “In return,I want you to do something for me.”
“Name it,” Ciaro said happily.
Adán held the loaded gun out toward him, grip-first. “You like the Silva movies?”
