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Letty was in the last group of three in the first round. She had nerves until she walked to the firing line. When the starter clock beeped, the Sig was up and fast and accurate, but Cartwright, also shooting in the last group, was two-tenths of a second faster and nearly as accurate. In the close-up shooting, as might occur in a street fight, speed counted for more than accuracy.
Longstreet came over and said, “My. You’re pushing Barb. If that’s her real name, which it might not be. That doesn’t happen very often.”
“She’s fast,” Letty said. “And good. We worked together last month and she told me so.”
Longstreet leaned toward her and lowered her voice. “Most all the women here work with the military or specialized law enforcement of one kind or another. Often, undercover with agencies like the DEA. Others are... consultants. I guess you know that Barb works for what we call the Unspecified Agency, as do two of the other women. That’s the CIA, of course.”
“Of course.”
In the second round of shooting, Letty and Barb exactly tied in time and Letty was barely more accurate.
When the results were announced, a short break began, and the twenty-five-meter targets were set up. Cartwright wandered over to Letty and said, “You aren’t that bad. I wasn’t sure what to expect. When did you start shooting?”
“When I was five,” Letty said. “I didn’t shoot targets until I was twelve.”
“You were shooting with a .22 single-shot rifle,” Cartwright said. “Rabbits and squirrels.”
“Cottontails in Minnesota, sometimes. I stopped shooting squirrels the first time I cooked one and the meat turned black. Mostly I used it on racoons when I was running a trapline at the local dump,” Letty said.
“That thing down in Pershing,” Cartwright said, popping a stick of gum into her mouth. “Pretty fine.”
“It was interesting,” Letty admitted.
“Who was that big guy?” Cartwright asked. “The guy who picked you up like a football and ran you off the bridge?”
“John Kaiser. Former Delta. He’s an investigator with DHS. We work together sometimes, if there’s a threat.”
“Cool. Listen: good luck in the last round.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
When Cartwright had goneto get ready for the slow-fire, twenty-five-meter round, Longstreet slipped back over and asked, “Barb trying to psych you?”
“She wished me luck.”
Longstreet smiled. “What did you think about that?”
Letty was loading her Staccato, the one she’d use for the slow-fire round. “Fuck a bunch of luck.”
Longstreet laughed and touched Letty on the shoulder, like a mom might; people turned to look.
The third roundwas five shots at twenty-five meters in less than ten seconds; time didn’t count unless the shooter went longer than ten seconds. Nobody did. Letty took it easy with her big gun and put all five shots in a group the size of a ragged quarter.
Cartwright didn’t. She put them in a group that might have been covered by the rim of a teacup. She came over to shake hands and asked, “Okay. You were the best shot in North Carolina. How did you get hooked up with Homeland?”
“I was working for Senator Colles as an aide. He spotted an opening that he thought I might be more interested in,” Letty said.
Cartwright nodded. “You went to Stanford. Master’s in economics.”
“Yup.”
“You ever think about moving, give me a call.”
“What?” Letty was packing up the Staccato. “You mean, go outside and yell? People here aren’t even sure your name is Barbara, so I don’t know how I’d call you.”
“You’ll get a link, and my name really is Barbara,” Cartwright said. “Anyway, nice shooting.”
The day’s honoree,Elaine Shelton, was a willowy redhead who gave an interesting account of using a .177-caliber air pistol to win a silver medal in the Olympics; she was both funny and crisp.
