Free Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) by Corinna Turner Page B

fairly innocent – citizens, and insisting on that’s just not our style, is it.”
    “True.”
    “Useful to have the credit now, you must admit,” said Father Mark. “Whoa… you’d better catch Jon…”
    I hastily slipped an arm around Jon and sat him up. He stirred enough to nestle his cheek against my shoulder and nodded straight off again. Guessing he’d not got much more sleep than we had.
    “Hey, guys!” Sister Krayj raised her voice. “It’s a rifle . It’s a really good rifle. End of story. Now I don’t know about you but I’d like to get some shut eye so shall we take a look in that last crate?”
    Reluctantly, the sniper rifles were passed back and put away. The final crate was opened. Everyone stared in bewilderment.
    “What are they?” asked Jack.
    Father Mark lifted out a cylindrical object he could just touch finger to thumb around and examined it.
    “Looks like a grenade. But there’s no pin.”
    “There aren’t supposed to be any explosives!” Eduardo began to stab rather indignantly at his networkAccessor with his stylus.
    Father Mark dug around in the layers of foam at one end of the crate and pulled out something like a machine gun mated with an ancient crossbow.
    “Grenade launcher. NonLethal grenades, is my best guess.”
    Eduardo lowered his networkAccessor again.
    “I’ve heard about those in the pipeline. Could be very useful – but if they’re too early in the development process they might be pretty unreliable. It’s not easy to get into the Top Secret military files, but I’ll get on it right away.”
    A mutter of disappointment as Father Mark replaced everything carefully in the crate and rammed the lid down...
    “ No .” Father Mark sounded equal parts humorous and exasperated. “We are not messing around with potentially unstable early prototypes of a weapon we aren’t sure what is and have no idea how to use. Are we?”
    An embarrassed shuffling of feet.
    “Okay, you crazy lot.” Bane wore an amusingly similar look of adult disapproval. “That’s all for now. We’ve got what we need, so we’re on for tonight. Get rested, get fed, briefing at nineteen hundred, departure at twenty hundred. We’ll have plenty of time to zero the new guns under cover of the French forest tomorrow. Any questions?”
    “What’s zeroing?” asked a voice from near the door.
    Bane glanced that way and started slightly – all the guards in the room leapt to attention with such enthusiasm Giraffe’s head scored a direct hit on a dangling strip light.
    “Oh, your holiness, I didn’t see you. Uh, zeroing means adjusting the sights according to each person’s aim so they’ll hit what they’re shooting at.”
    “Oh, I see. Have I missed all the fun?”
    “Of course not,” said Eduardo. “We’ll find something for you to look at.”
    Grinning gleefully, the Foxes yanked up the lid of the sniper rifle crate and Fox Two deposited one of the rifles in Pope Cornelius’s hands.
    “Oh, I say.” While the Holy Father was looking at it as though he wasn’t even sure which way around it went, Bane snapped a picture on his omniPhone, to a chorus of delighted cheers.
    “All right, you got me,” smiled Pope Cornelius.
    “Perhaps we should send a copy with the invoice,” murmured Sister Krayj.
    “Tempting, my dear, but you must admit, not very tactful. Well, this thing looks very, hmm… dangerous .”
    “Dangerous to the EuroGov, but not to life,” said Eduardo. “At least if used responsibly. You’re holding the pride of our new arsenal.”
    “Well, er, thank you for showing it to me. Does someone want…” At least six people leapt to relieve him of it, then tried to pretend they hadn’t.
    “You all look shattered,” went on the Holy Father. “I’ll go away and let you get on.”
    The Swiss guards all leapt to attention again as he left, with a Crash-Clatter and several hisses of, “ For pity’s sake, Giraffe! ”
    “Okay...” Bane was still grinning at his