Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 121 days from today. This off-season, the countdown will be based on books. Each day between now and Opening Day 2008, I will pick a random book out of my library and excerpt a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I will try not to repeat a book during the countdown.
This week is Tom Clancy Week at Rattler Radio.
Today’s excerpt is from Clear and Present Danger. Ding Chavez is trying out an H&K MP-5 SD2.
Chavez had the weapon on single-shot. He squeezed off the first round, just to get a feel for the trigger. It broke cleanly at about eleven pounds, the recoil was straight back and gentle, and the gun didn’t jump off the target the way some weapons did. The shot, of course, went straight through the center of the target’s silhouetted head. He squeezed off another, and the same thing happened, then five in rapid fire. The repeated shots rocked him back an inch or two, but the recoil spring ate up most of the kick. He looked up to see seven holes in a nice, tight group, like the nose carved into a jack-o’-lantern. Okay. Next he flipped the selector switch to the burst position—it was time for a little rock and roll. He put three rounds at the target’s chest. This group was larger, but any of the three would have been fatal. After another one Chavez decided that he could hold a three-round burst dead on target. He didn’t need full-automatic fire. Anything more than three rounds just wasted ammunition. His attitude may have seemed strange for a soldier, but as a light infantryman he understood that ammunition was something that needed to be carried. To finish off his thirty-round magazine he aimed bursts at unmarked portions of the target card, and was rewarded with hits exactly where he’d wanted them.
“Baby, where have you been all my life?”
Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.
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