Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire Read Online Free

could be at the bus nearly on time.”
    “Never happen,” Jaybird said. “We’re downhill on loose rock and gravel. If we run we have a high probability of some sprained or broken ankles. I’d opt for an eight-minute mile and come in a little late.”
    “Any other bids?” the JG asked.
    Nobody spoke up. The JG grinned. “Hell, I was thinking more like a ten-minute pace, but if you really want to hit the eight-minute one …”
    He was shouted down and Gardner grinned. “On your feet, single-file patrol formation. Lam in front and set it at ten minutes to the mile. The demo at the bus can wait a half hour, since our very own Commander Murdock is going to be making the presentation.”
    Lam fudged a little and moved them out at near a nine-minutes-to-the-mile pace and brought the troops into the bus where they always parked it in just over fifty-one minutes. It was August and the mountain was hot and dry. The area was in a one-hundred-day run without a one-hundredth of an inch or more of rain. The SEALs took off their floppy hats and shrugged out of packs and hit their canteens. There was no water control. If you drank too much and ran out, it was your problem.
    Murdock went into the bus and brought back a folding card table and two boxes. He took out of one of them a stack of papers that he anchored on the table with a magazine from his Bull Pup. The second box held a plastic-wrapped item he lay on the table and beside it he put a series of long tube-like devices of different diameters.
    “Okay, men, gather round and relax,” Murdock said. “What I have to show you here today, some of you won’t believe. But it is true. What’s the fastest gun in the world?”
    “The AK-47 will go six hundred rounds per minute,” Bill Bradford said.
    “The M-16 cranks out seven hundred and fifty per minute,” Miguel Fernandez said.
    “Any other bidders?” Murdock asked.
    “The Colt Commando will go from six hundred to one thousand rounds depending on the ammo,” Paul Jefferson threw in.
    “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Murdock said. “I thought you guys knew weapons. What about the good old Armalite AR-18? No takers? It will do eight hundred rpm. Then the Famas from France will spit them out at nine hundred and fifty rounds a minute. Not bad.” He picked up the padded plastic-covered item from the table. “Here we have a little item that puts all those submachine guns to shame. Yeah, this is a handgun, a little bigger and heavier than you’re used to, but it’s the fastest gun in the Old West or the new east or anywhere in the world.”
    Murdock slowly unwrapped the weapon from the concealing covers. It showed up about twice the size of a Colt. 45, all black and what looked like six barrels coming out of an oblong shielded muzzle.
    “A handgun?” somebody asked.
    “Yep, just a handgun. This little dandy can fire a hundred and eighty rounds in less than one-hundredth of a second. For those of you who were not math majors, that’s eighteen thousand rounds in a second. Jaybird, how many would that be fired in a minute?”
    Jaybird frowned a moment. “Hell, Commander, that would be well over a million rounds a minute.”
    “Told you it was fast. The only problem is you couldn’t load that many rounds in a weapon this size. But look at the muzzle. There are seven barrels inside that housing. One is a forty-five-caliber, one is a thirty-eight-caliber, two are nine-millimeter and the other three are twenty-two-caliber.”
    “Yeah, but how can it shoot so damned fast?” Omar Rafii asked.
    “I’ve been hoping somebody would ask that. The rounds are held together with small wads of propellant. No casing, no primer, nothing but the round and the propellant and they are jammed together in one long connectionthat is inserted into the barrel. Then, when triggered, the rounds are fired electronically. No moving parts, not a damn one. That’s why they can be fired so fast. Now, this weapon is not ready for combat