Free Countdown: H Hour by Tom Kratman

plates, of course, but I can get those and a harness to hold them. Will that do?”
    “It’ll have to,” Graft agreed. “Now as for firearms; We need half a dozen .45’s with four mags and five hundred rounds each. Suppressed would be nice, but only if you can get us some subsonic ammunition . . .”
    “No sweat.”
    “Good. Also, two AA-12 shotguns; those, or Akdals, or Saiga 12s. And I’d like to get a pair of these Russki PP-90M1’s . . .”
    “Can’t help you with those,” Ben said. “Sold the few I had a while back, maybe three months. I’ve got Sterlings , though,” he added brightly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    O Curse of marriage,
    —William Shakespeare, Othello

    MV Richard Bland, mid Atlantic

    I suppose it had to be something, thought Warrington, seated behind a built-in desk in the office that went with the ground force commander’s quarters, within the Bland ’s superstructure. Why not this?
    “This” was an altercation, verbal only, between Captain Stocker and Sergeant Hallinan, on the mess deck, centered on proper safety procedures for a rifle but really about the very different kinds of personnel that tended to gravitate to, on the one hand, the special operations world and, on the other, the—more or less—“regular army.” Strictly speaking, of course, there was precisely no segment of M Day, Inc. that was actually regular. Still, attitudes carried over. One of these attitudes was concerned with the technical; what, in fact, was safe and what wasn’t. The other was legal and moral. Among the American and even Commonwealth spec ops types, rank had long been a fairly fuzzy proposition: Captains cut grass and picked up cigarette butts, while, often enough, sergeants led missions. Let a PSYOP major show up to support a Special Forces A Team led by a captain? That captain was in charge. Conversely, among the regulars, rank and position were hard, fast, and even sacred. “If senior, I will take command . . . ”
    The regulars’ position was, generally speaking, that the Special Forces community sacrificed long-term order, stability, and discipline for short-term tactical gain. SF generally thought the regulars had something up their butts, possibly a stick, but often enough, their heads.
    They were both at least partially right.
    And they’re both basically right, here, too.
    Warrington looked up at the tall, skinny, brown-eyed Hallinan, with distaste. “And your story, Sergeant?”
    Standing just forward of his company’s sergeant major and the first sergeant for A Company, a few feet from the seated Stocker, Hallinan braced to attention. Sure, special operations forces, to include 2nd Battalion, M Day, were pretty informal. But there’s a time and place for everything. Since he didn’t know how much, if any, trouble he was in, this seemed like it might be one of those times and places.
    “Sir. It’s like this. I’d just come off the sub-cal range, forward. I was heading to stow my rifle in the arms rooms. The galley was on my way—can’t avoid it really—and it was lunchtime, so I got in line. Didn’t bust the line or anything, just jumped in behind one of the Guyanans. Then Captain—”
    “Major,” Warrington corrected, even while thinking, Silly damned custom .
    “Right, sir. Major Stocker came over and asked me about my safety, which was not, per SOP, engaged. I help up my hand, extended my—be it noted, sir— trigger finger, and said, ‘This is my safety.’ The captain—”
    “Major.”
    Hallinan glanced down at the line officer, then returned to attention. “Right; the major told me to engage my mechanical safety. I said we didn’t do that. He made it an order. I said my orders come from Lava, who’s a colonel, and Terry, who’s a real major. At that point . . . Cap . . . Major Stocker told me I was under arrest. Then the sergeant major showed up and marched me here.”
    Warrington nodded. “Is that substantially correct, Sergeant Major?”
    Straight faced, Puerto