"For Christ's sake will you shut up about that? If you had told me exactly what you were doing, what do you think I would have done?"

"Well, I...." Raymond's voice trailed off, and he realized he hadn't a clue.

"Exactly!" Tony said with satisfaction. "You tell me you're about to demand a huge pile of money from Allied for making the mistake of branching out into the freak-show business, what can I do with it? Nothing. Two minutes to crunch the numbers and anyone with half a brain comes to the immediate conclusion that Allied can afford one hell of a fine without breaking a sweat. All the clowns with fifty shares might dump it, but they don't have enough stock to make a dent. Did you see where Allied closed yesterday?"

"No," Raymond admitted.

"Down a quarter. A quarter," Tony repeated, "and Becker's stock is unchanged. How do you make money on that?" Raymond shook his head to show he had no idea.

"That's just it-you can't. Thing I'd like to know is the same thing you would: What's going through that Allied lawyer's mind right now? He's the one I'd have to get private dope from if I wanted to profit from it. He settles out of court, sale goes through, business as usual." Tony grinned and his eyebrows went up.

"But, if he and Allied have a two-by-four up their ass, say 'Fuck you, let a jury decide', then Becker and their checkbook might be on the next plane back to Berlin and Allied's CEO wakes up the following morning to find his stock down ten, to thirty-eight bid, trading halted due to order imbalance."

"So you're not mad?"

"Hell, no! But listen, last night I dug into Allied's financials a little more carefully than that quick-and-dirty method I scratched out on the napkin three weeks ago, and I think their assets are more valuable than what's shown on their books. That's no real news, since Becker made the offer to buy them out, and that always requires a premium over the current stock price to do. Becker saw the hidden value as well, and if the buyout goes through, all the Allied stockholders will get paid for that value.

"Anyway, I ran some numbers a few different ways to see what kind of figure I came up with that Allied could cut a check for without losing any sleep over it, given that Becker was still going to go through with the purchase. I assume you did the same thing. What number did you come up with?"

"A little over four million."

Tony Kearns shook his head emphatically. "Don't go for less than six. I brought over some stuff for you to look at, if you're interested, that lays out my thinking on the numbers. Anyway, I assume that you're going to do a complete fuck-job on the guy from-What is it? MacKinnon?-and he probably won't be up on exactly what their financial situa-"

"It's Ames MacKinnon the third of MacKinnon, Reed," Raymond broke in, "but what do you mean you assume I'll do a 'fuck-job' on him?"

"Old man's progeny himself, eh? That's even better." Tony waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I just meant the lawyer stuff you guys always do with each other's minds." Raymond gave his friend a quizzical look.

"You know-he comes over to your office to discuss a potential settlement, and you've got all these blownup pictures of the medical labs at Auschwitz lying around, and big posters showing Allied's cash flow, like you're in the middle of preparing your presentation for the trial." Tony suddenly thought of something.

"Hey, my cousin has an empty can of Zyklon-B he brought back from the war, unless he's thrown it away by now. If he's still got it, I'll get it from him. It's about the size of a quart paint can, and the label's bright orange. Have it sitting on your credenza next to a quart can of some stuff Allied makes, preferably something with an orange label. That ought to get old Ames the third's attention." Raymond was both appalled and fascinated at Tony's suggestion, and the cavalier manner in which his friend had assumed it was what Raymond had planned.

"But Tony, Allied wasn't doing medical experiments on its workers! To be accurate, there's no proof that the chemicals in the plant had anything at all to do with what happened to my client's wife and child." Raymond hadn't intended to make this admission, but it came out anyway. "And they're not Jews-they've been in America since they were children, and were born in Guatemala!"

Tony Kearns waved his hand again, to show that his friend was digressing onto irrelevant issues. "You can be damn sure defense counsel won't let anyone sympathetic to either ethnic group on the jury, so you're going to have a bunch of cab drivers and the like deciding your case. Guys like that would have a hard time picking a favorite between Jews and Mexicans, so the difference is immaterial. They won't like krauts, and that's something you can take to the bank. If you give 'em an excuse to render a decision that will make Becker put their Prussian asses on a boat and forget they ever thought about expanding into America, the jury will do it.

"Also, with all this hoo-haw going on in Washington, at least a few of 'em will want to show compassion for the downtrodden. Maybe some on the jury would prefer the downtrodden make something useful of themselves-like fertilizer-but they won't say it out loud. They may not give a damn about the bedridden lady, and what you say may be entirely true-Allied had nothing to do with it. But people don't get away with even the possibility of blinding little kids in America, not if they're about to sell out to the same guys that turned the kid in the chess club into air pollution."

"You're saying you think I should push this thing to a jury?" Raymond exclaimed, disbelieving. "Hell, you're the lawyer, what are you asking me for? No, I assumed you wanted to get a quick settlement." "That's right, I do."

"Well, hell, Raymond, with this Becker deal on the table, all the contracts guys are poring over the paperwork, and I got to assume there's some kind of legal clause in the agreement that says this kind of shit has to be settled before anyone signs or cuts any checks, right?"

"Yes, that's standard."

"Well, what you got here, at least from where I sit, is an absolute deal-killer of a lawsuit. MacKinnon goes back and tells the Allied brass you're going to have the jury thinking the Germans are about to set up gas chambers on Long Island, well, Christ on a crutch! The CEO's going to sprain his wrist grabbing for the pen to sign the check."

"I hope you're right."

"Thing you got to do, Ray, is make it look like you're rubbing your hands together at the very thought of a jury trial, and this needle-dick lawyer better not try to blow smoke up your ass with some chump-change settlement offer."

"And you think six million is a fair figure?"

"Maybe a little bit more. Here, let me show you what I got." Tony Kearns reached for his briefcase. "But if this all works out and you wind up with two million bucks in your pocket, I got to warn you: You're going to owe me a blow job."

Henry Bowman closed the trunk of the six-year-old Corvette and walked around to the passenger door to get in. "Why do you think Mr. Mann wanted to come with us today, Dad?"

Walter Bowman stabbed the gas pedal once and turned the key in the ignition. The 283 Chevy immediately burbled to life and settled down into a slightly rough idle. The valvetrain made a mild clattering noise, for the engine's camshaft acted on solid lifters, rather than the more common hydraulic ones. "I'm not sure, Henry. It's the first time I've ever heard of him showing any interest at all in shooting." Walter reflected a moment before continuing.

"He had a very rough time of it in the war. His whole family was killed, and he barely got out alive. He doesn't talk about it, although I get the impression Uncle Max has a pretty good idea about what happened to him." Walter did not need to tell his son not to ask Irwin Mann about his experiences during the war.

"I hope he has a good time with us," Henry said to his father.

Irwin Mann looked out his window and saw the black and silver car pull up in front of his apartment. He was not sure why, but on an impulse he went to his bookshelf and selected a volume which his put in his briefcase before going out to meet Walter and Henry Bowman.

As Irwin neared the car, he realized it had no rear seat. "Are you sure there is enough room for me?" he asked. Walter and Henry were standing by the Corvette as he came down the concrete steps.

"Catherine's going to be home all day with her father. We could have taken the station wagon, but Henry really likes this car. He rides in the middle between the two seats whenever there's another passenger. He's got his own pad to sit on. Come on-we do this all the time."

Walter took Irwin's briefcase and stowed it behind the passenger seat before ushering his son into the car. Irwin Mann slid in beside the boy, and realized that there was indeed enough room for all of them in the sports car. Walter started the engine, engaged first gear, and accelerated briskly away from the curb. The passenger side window was down, and Irwin Mann rested his right arm on the top of the door with his elbow in the breeze. He looked over at the boy sitting next to him. Henry was grinning, as was his father. Their mood was infectious.

"I brought some ear plugs for you, Mr. Mann," Henry said as they laid their gear down on one of the big limestone rocks on the riverbank. Irwin Mann started to wave Henry away, but the boy continued. "No, really, guns will damage your hearing if you don't wear ear protection."

"He's right," added Walter. "I didn't shoot any guns during the war, but unmuffled aircraft exhaust has taken its toll on my ears. The doctors say I've got a thirty percent loss. It won't grow back, either," he added with a rueful grin. Irwin Mann accepted the plugs Henry held out for him.

"Isn't there something they could put on the end of the gun, like a muffler on an engine, so that it would not be so...destructive on one's hearing?" Irwin asked Walter. Walter was about to say he did not know, but Henry, who was looking in the other direction and did not realize their guest was addressing his father, replied to Irwin Mann's question.

"There is, and up until the early 'thirties they were sold in gun stores and hardware stores for a few dollars. A man named Maxim invented them, and he called them 'silencers'. They didn't make the gun silent, but they took some of the blast out. They screwed on the end of the barrel, and trapped some of the burning powder gases, so the noise wouldn't be so apt to hurt your ears."

"They don't sell them any more?" Irwin asked. Henry shook his head, as he reached into his shooting bag for some ammunition for the Mauser. The 8mm cartridges were on five-round stripper clips, which slid into a groove in the top of the receiver so that the shooter could charge the magazine with five cartridges very rapidly.

"In 1934, the government made them almost completely illegal. If you want to buy one now, you have to give the government a $200 tax first. On each one. Almost nobody is willing to pay $200 extra just to have his gun quieter. There was a man I met out at the gun club when I was there with Uncle Max who had paid the $200 and had one on his 1911 .45 Colt automatic. He let me shoot it. The extra weight on the barrel wouldn't let the gun cycle normally, so you had to operate the slide by hand for every shot. It did make the gun a lot quieter, though. You could shoot it without plugs and it didn't hurt your ears."

"Why are they illegal?"

Henry shrugged as he dropped a handful of the five-round stripper clips into the right pocket of his shooting coat. "I don't know. Everybody says it's because silencers would make it too easy for murderers, but I never could see how that made any sense. The gun with a silencer still makes pretty much noise, just not enough to damage your hearing. Any murderer can still wrap a big piece of an old wool blanket around the gun barrel before he shoots someone with it, and that's a lot quieter than a silencer that screws on the end of the barrel-I know, I've tried it."

Irwin Mann felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he remembered how, twenty years before, he had shoved the barrel of the .38 revolver into the wool coat of the Lithuanian militiaman before pulling the trigger.

"Also," Henry continued, "a knife or a piece of pipe is completely silent. I never have been able to figure out why they want to have people that go out shooting make as much noise as possible and bother all their neighbors." The boy grinned. "My aunt lives up the hill from here, and I know she'd like it better if all my guns had silencers on them."

Henry retracted the bolt of his Mauser with his right hand and charged the magazine with a five-round stripper clip. He left the bolt open as he tossed the empty clip into his shooting bag and reached into the canvas sack next to it. He withdrew two scrap pieces of 2x4 pine from the sack, each about four inches long, and tossed them into the river about ten feet from shore. They floated in the water about eight feet apart.

"Got your plugs in?" he asked the two older men. Irwin Mann took the rubber plugs from his left palm and pressed them into his ears. "I've been practicing this one, Dad, but I'm still a little rough," Henry said in a loud voice so that his father could hear. He had a big grin on his face as he took his shooting glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. Then Henry turned toward the blocks floating in the river. He closed the bolt of the Mauser, chambering the first round, and threw the rifle up to his shoulder. He leaned forward and took aim underneath the block on the left and squeezed the trigger.

At the blast of the rifle, a geyser of water erupted and the pine block disappeared. As recoil rocked Henry to a vertical stance, he released his grip and flicked his right hand upwards, catching the round knob of the bolt handle in his palm and swiftly operating the bolt without loosening the grip of his left hand or letting the butt of the gun leave his shoulder. He slammed the bolt forward on the second cartridge as he aimed the rifle almost straight up. Walter Bowman and Irwin Mann instinctively looked up in the same direction as the gun's muzzle just in time to see the pine block forty feet in the air and almost directly overhead. The Mauser cracked again and the descending block split into two pieces, one about twice the size of the other, as Henry pulled the gun down out of recoil.

The instant Henry regained his original forward-leaning position, the gun boomed a third time and the second floating block was launched into the air. Henry repeated his rapid operation of the bolt, and when the second block was about twenty feet above their heads, Henry fired a fourth round and the wood exploded into several chunks and many splinters. The entire shooting demonstration had taken eight seconds.

Henry lowered his rifle to his waist with the muzzle pointed at the river's edge, and grinned at the two men. "Nailed that second one in the end grain, I think," he opined.

Walter Bowman, who had seen his son shoot many times before, was nonetheless very impressed. "Who needs a shotgun, right Henry?" Walter said, quoting one of his son's favorite comments. Irwin Mann was absolutely dumbfounded.

"If you shoot right under them when they're floating in the water," Henry explained, "the splash comes up more on the far side, and it throws the block back towards you, as well as up in the air. That way, if you want to shoot them in the air, you're firing almost straight up, and the bullet will land five or six hundred yards out in the water where it can't hurt anyone." The river, where they stood, was almost a mile wide, and empty fields stretched for more than that distance on the Illinois side before the first road appeared.

"How far up does the bullet go, do you know?"

"I wrote a ballistician about that." Walter Bowman lowered his camera and listened. He had not heard of this. "He said about 2400 yards for the 8x57 Mauser military round fired straight up, and that the bullet would hit the ground after about seventy seconds." Neither man made a comment, and Henry turned his attention back to his rifle.

Henry racked the Mauser's bolt a final time, ejecting the case and pushing the last round into the chamber. He did not raise the rifle to his shoulder, but continued to hold it at waist level, looking around in the water near the shore. His eyes fell on the thing they had been seeking: the larger piece of the first block, which floated fifteen feet out in the Mississippi River.

Henry made a slight adjustment to where he was aiming the rifle, which he still held at his waist, and pulled the trigger. The piece of wood vanished, and all three people instinctively jerked their faces towards the sky. The piece of pine was spinning fifty feet in the air and beginning to arc down towards the two grown men. Walter Bowman took a step to his right, Teached out his arm, and caught the block in his right hand. Irwin Mann's jaw was hanging open.

"I like to shoot things from the hip, and I've always practiced that, too," Henry said with a big smile. Henry Bowman did not know that three decades later his life would hinge on this skill.

After doing some longer range shooting at pieces of driftwood floating in the river and chunks of limestone two hundred yards down the riverbank, Henry handed the Mauser to Irwin Mann. "You know how to use it, don't you?" Henry asked. Irwin held the rifle and stared at it. He was remembering the efforts he and his compatriots had made long ago, trying to figure out exactly how to properly use the German weapons Irwin had captured.

"Please instruct me," Irwin said, handing the rifle back to the boy.

Henry explained how to operate the bolt and the safety before discussing how to use the sights. "You can move the rear sight for longer ranges, but that's if you have time and want to take the trouble. I usually just leave the rear sight on the lowest setting. When I want to shoot things at longer ranges, like you just saw me do, instead of lining up the sights so the top of the front one is even with the top of the rear, I hold the front sight up a little. If you hold the rifle so the front sight is about one sight-width above the rear sight, with the target sitting on top of it, you should be on at about 225 yards." Henry simulated a front and rear sight with his left forefinger held between his right fore- and middle fingers.

"Hold up more front sight if the range is longer. I can't really say exactly how much-you have to get a feel for it. Leave your left eye open, but ignore it. Focus your right eye on the front sight. Let the rear sight and the target be fuzzy, even if it seems unnatural. A front sight in sharp focus is the key to hitting what you're aiming at." Irwin was listening intently to the boy's words when Henry thought of something.

"And always use something to brace yourself on if it's available. I've been shooting from a standing position today because I'm just shooting wood blocks close up in the water, and out of the air, but if your shot has to count and the target isn't moving, always find a rest.

"Most importantly, don't guess or assume that the gun is empty, even if you just checked it. The only gun that's empty is the one that has had its barrel removed from the receiver. Every accidental shooting I've ever heard of has been with an unloaded gun. Henry felt a little awkward as he quoted his Uncle Max, but Irwin Mann's expression remained serious.

"You can use the safety if you want, but here on the river I don't load the gun until I'm ready to shoot, and then I start firing right away. If you're hunting and carrying a loaded gun around you should use the safety, but I don't think a person should rely on them. They do malfunction sometimes. Keep your finger off the trigger until you've got the gun aimed and you're ready to shoot. If you get in the habit of resting your trigger finger along the side of the trigger guard when you pick the gun up, like this," he said, demonstrating, "it will become automatic. Always point the gun in a direction so that if it goes off nothing bad will happen. If the gun fires, the bullet will be a quarter mile away in less than a second, and as my Uncle Max says, 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry' won't bring it back."

Irwin Mann nodded his understanding. Walter Bowman remained silent. "Put your plugs back in. Put these on, too," he said, handing Irwin his shooting glasses. "If a case ruptures or a primer leaks, the gas can come back in your eyes." Irwin Mann slid the glasses on his face and Henry handed him the rifle and a stripper clip. He retracted the bolt and charged the weapon as he had seen Henry do. Henry tossed a wood block out into the river.

"Hold a little under it if you want to throw it in the air." Irwin raised the gun awkwardly to his shoulder. "Lean forward a bit, and move your face a little forward. Keep your right elbow up. That's it. Make sure the butt is pulled firmly into your shoulder." Suddenly the rifle boomed and a fountain of water appeared where the block had been. Irwin looked at the water, unable to see the piece of wood. Just then there was a splash as the block landed ten feet away from where he had fired. Henry started laughing.

"You blew it thirty feet in the air, Mr. Mann. You should have been looking up. I Watch the muzzle!" He yelled. Irwin had started to turn towards Henry, the rifle turning with him. Irwin Mann looked horrified and ashamed. "I'm sorry I yelled, but Dad yelled at me the first time I started to do that, and it's never happened again."

"You are quite right. It will not happen with me again, either." Irwin racked the bolt and fired at the block a second time, with similar results. He scanned the water for other floating debris and saw a log floating about fifty yards out from the bank.

"Hold right on the center of it," Henry said, when he saw Irwin's intentions. The rifle cracked and a splash appeared twenty feet on the other side of the log. "About ten inches over the top," Henry said immediately. "Squeeze the trigger slowly, so that when it breaks, it's a surprise. Forget about the bang and the thump on your shoulder. Neither one will hurt you." Irwin Mann worked the bolt and took aim again on the log. This time the splash was right in front of the log, and the bullet made it rock in the water. "You hit it, just under the waterline." Irwin Mann chambered the last round and took aim once more. As the rifle cracked, a piece of bark flew from the log. The water around the log remained calm. Irwin turned towards Henry, the muzzle of the rifle pointing towards the sky. He was smiling as he opened the bolt and ejected the fired case.

"Thank you," Irwin said with feeling as he handed Henry his rifle.

"Shoot it some more-I have lots of ammo," said Henry. "Try some longer shots.

Like that rock up on the bluff." He pointed at a limestone outcropping about a hundred yards away as he took the rifle from the older man and loaded the magazine. Mann took back the rifle, chambered the first round, and aimed at the outcropping, which was about eighteen inches square. "Hold right on the center of it. The rifle will hit dead-on at that range with that ammo." Irwin squeezed the trigger and as the rifle cracked, a splash of limestone fragments erupted on the bluff two feet below the outcropping. Henry remained silent as Irwin Mann racked the bolt and chambered the next round. This time his shot was high, almost the same amount. He ejected the fired case and steadied himself for a third shot.

Click.

Irwin saw the muzzle of the rifle jerk as the firing pin fell. An instantaneous wave of nausea swept over Irwin Mann and his knees sagged slightly as the metallic sound of the weapon misfiring wrenched him back to that April afternoon twenty years before. Then the moment passed and he operated the bolt. The gun was empty. He turned towards Henry with a quizzical look, still keeping the rifle pointed at the bluff.

"I only put two in it and didn't tell you. Did you see the muzzle jerk when the gun dry-fired?" "Yes."

"You're starting to flinch-jerking the trigger because you know the recoil is coming. That's why you're missing. Hold on the rock now, with an empty gun, and squeeze the trigger." Irwin did so, and the rifle remained steady. "You would have hit it that time, I bet. Let me get you a different rifle." Henry took the Mauser from Irwin and slid it into its case. He laid it down and picked up the other rifle case that contained his Winchester .22. "I think you might like this one better," he said, withdrawing the lighter rifle and showing Irwin how to load it.

"Remember, this one's a semiauto. It's cocked, loaded, and ready to fire every time you pull the trigger. You've got ten shots before you have to reload." Irwin Mann vaguely recalled that the Lugers had operated that way, but he said nothing as he listened to the other instructions Henry was giving him.

After about twenty minutes, Irwin Mann was hitting wood blocks at fifty feet with the Winchester. He smiled at Henry and Walter as he handed the boy back his rifle. "It's time for you to get back to your own shooting. You didn't come here today to watch me."

"Hey, it's fun," Henry said, realizing something his father had known for many years: Teaching someone a skill was as satisfying as practicing it yourself.

"How far away can you hit something with a rifle?" Irwin asked.

"It mainly depends on which rifle, what kind of ammunition, and how big the target is. Many people that have never fired a gun think that if the gun is aimed in exactly the same place-clamped in a vise, say-the bullets will all hit exactly the same spot. That's not true at all. The bullets aren't all exactly the same-they vary in weight a little, and aren't perfectly round. The powder charges vary slightly, the barrel isn't absolutely uniform inside from one end to the other, and with all the parts touching the barrel, it vibrates a little differently with each shot. That Mauser we were shooting is wartime production. So is the ammo. With a perfect hold on sandbags and no wind, it will place five shots in a seven- or eight-inch circle at two hundred yards, and maybe three feet at five hundred yards. You can't do any better than that no matter how good you are, because that's as good as that gun and ammo combination can manage.

"A handmade target rifle, or one made for shooting crows at long range, using ammo you assemble yourself with bullets made to the tightest possible tolerances and powder charges individually weighed, will put five shots in an inch and a quarter at two hundred yards and maybe six inches at five hundred. Uncle Max has rifles like that, and he's let me shoot them a couple of times. I can hit a beer can with one at two hundred fifty yards or a coffee can at four hundred if I have something to steady myself on, like a log or a big rock. With my Mauser, I can hit the coffee can at a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty most shots, but that's about my limit on a target that size with a thirty-dollar war surplus rifle and three-cent ammo." He smiled at his guest. "But a heavy target rifle with a powerful scope is useless for rapid fire and moving targets. The Mauser has a smooth action, and at fifteen yards any halfway decent rifle is plenty accurate. With three-cent ammo, you can practice a lot, too."

"How much would a target rifle such as you have described cost?"

Henry scowled. "Sixty for a used Remington 722 to get the action. Another eighty or so to have it trued up perfectly by a top-flight gunsmith and barreled with a Hart stainless match barrel chambered with a match reamer. I'm saving up to have that done by a man that lives up in Baden. He's built a bunch of guns that hold world records." Henry reflected a moment.

"I don't know how much it would cost to have a target stock made. Dad and I are going to do that part ourselves. A Unertl target scope is about another ninety, but they're the best. John Unertl's dad was a sniper in World War One who killed over two hundred soldiers on the Bulgarian border. He said he'd have done a lot better with better optics. He set up a factory in New York in the 'thirties, and the scopes his son makes are better than anyone else's in the whole world," Henry said matter-of-factly.

"You two ready for lunch?" Walter Bowman asked. Henry looked at Irwin Mann, who shrugged. "If it's okay, Dad, I'd like to shoot my K-22 some first. Fifteen minutes all right?"

"Take your time."