Gunsite Academy sat nestled in the high desert outside Paulden, Arizona.
Its legendary founder, Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Cooper, was revered across the firearms community as the founding father of modern combat marksmanship.
Cooper had codified the ubiquitous “Four Rules of Gun Safety,” popularized the two-handed Weaver stance, and developed the lethal “Mozambique Drill”—two to the body, one to the head—a tactical sequence later immortalized in modern action cinema.
Nick’s training was scheduled for a month out.
In the interim, he had little to do besides wait for the Bureau’s logistics division to process his travel vouchers and airline tickets.
Having just been saved three to four thousand dollars in training fees by Captain Renard, Nick felt a rare sense of financial breathing room.
Over the weekend, he dragged his partner, Hank Griffin, to Northwest Armory, a sprawling, modern gun store and indoor range in downtown Portland.
Northwest Armory maintained strong commercial ties with local law enforcement.
It was the preferred choice for PPB officers looking to buy off-duty sidearms, custom holsters, or duty ammunition.
In truth, Nick privately favored a different shop: The Gun Room, one of the oldest firearm establishments in Oregon.
Its interior smelled rich with gun oil, dark walnut, and aged steel, functioning less like a store and more like an living arms museum stocked with rare military rifles, antique revolvers, and high-end collector pieces.
However, those historical pieces carried astronomical price tags.
Until the small fortune Nick had quietly invested in early Bitcoin paid off, The Gun Room remained out of his daily budget.
His goal today was straightforward: acquire a secondary service weapon—a heavy, reliable handgun that would never jam during a high-stress confrontation.
There was a concrete reason veteran street officers often expressed skepticism toward polymer-framed pistols like the Glock.
While the Glock held an undisputed reputation as the ultra-reliable “AK-47 of the handgun world,” its lightweight plastic frame came with clear trade-offs.
While manageable in 9mm platforms like the Glock 17, the higher-pressure .40 S&W cartridge fired from a Glock 22 created a snappy, jarring recoil impulse.
The lack of weight in the frame forced the shooter to work twice as hard to control muzzle flip, degrading speed and precision during rapid strings of fire.
Furthermore, Glock’s “Safe Action” trigger featured a long, spongy pull with a vague wall that Nick—accustomed to traditional crisp single-action/double-action triggers—found thoroughly uninspiring.
Listening to Nick’s requirements, the gun store salesman smiled knowingly, reaching beneath the glass showcase to pull out a heavy matte-black lockbox.
“If you want weight, reliability, and precision, you want this,” the salesman said, opening the case to reveal a brand-new Sig Sauer P226 Tactical Operations (TacOps) model.
“Full alloy frame, stainless steel slide with Nitron finish, factory SIGLITE night sights, an integrated Picatinny rail for tactical lights, and custom textured G10 grip panels,” the salesman pitched.
“It’s built like a tank.”
Nick was already familiar with the legendary P226 platform—in his past life, domestic manufacturers had built exact clones of the P226 for export under the NP22 designation.
What immediately caught his eye wasn’t the salesman’s marketing pitch, but the five extended steel magazines neatly arranged inside the case.
“Are those twenty-round extended mags?” Nick asked, eyebrows raising slightly.
“Twenty in the stick, plus one in the chamber,” the salesman grinned.
“Twenty-one rounds of 9mm Parabellum at your immediate disposal.”
Seeing Nick’s interest, the salesman added, “I know .40 S&W is the current golden child for the FBI and law enforcement, but mark my words, the industry is going to swing right back to 9mm. This chapter was taken from novelping . com without permission.
Modern hollow-point ballistics have bridged the gap.
Putting two fast 9mm rounds on target is always better than missing with a heavy .40.”
It was 2008, a transitional era when American law enforcement was just beginning to re-evaluate magazine capacity versus cartridge caliber.
Within a few short years, standard 9mm platforms would once again dominate police duty holsters nationwide.
An hour later, smelling faintly of burnt powder and solvent after putting two hundred test rounds downrange, Nick walked out into the cool afternoon air with Hank.
Hank grumbled under his breath as they walked toward his battered Mercury sedan.
“Man, you really pulled out the checkbook today.
Eleven hundred bucks for a sidearm?
That shootout off Alberta really put the fear of God into you, didn’t it?”
In 2008, eleven hundred dollars was a steep sum for a handgun—nearly double the cost of a standard duty Glock.
But Nick considered it money well spent.
With Captain Renard absorbing his Arizona travel and tuition costs, investing eleven hundred dollars in a secondary life-preserver was a sound tactical decision.
Moreover, the salesman had recognized Nick from the evening news broadcast, offering a 10% law enforcement discount and throwing in a box of premium defense hollow-points.
The store’s gunsmith had even adjusted the P226’s Short Reset Trigger (SRT), bringing the trigger pull down to a crisp, clean three pounds in single-action.
“Hey, unlike a certain detective I know, I don’t blow my paycheck in precinct bars every Friday,” Nick shot back smoothly.
“If your three ex-wives had borne you any kids, you’d be mooching dinner off me every night instead of just on weekends.”
“Hey!
That’s below the belt!” Hank protested.
Their bantering was interrupted by the soft chime of a bell above the entrance of an upscale sidewalk café across the street.
A striking, elegant blonde woman stepped onto the pavement, laughing casually with a female friend.
She wore a tailored charcoal business suit that emphasized her poised figure, carrying a leather designer bag and a sleek BMW key fob in her manicured hand.
Hank stopped in his tracks, staring openly.
“Alright, Detective…
give me your expert profiling assessment.”
Nick glanced over, evaluating the woman with a quick, practiced sweep.
“Tailored Armani suit, BMW 3-Series key, mid-thirties, immaculate poise.
She’s either a senior partner at a corporate law firm or a high-level real estate developer pulling at least a quarter-million a year.
Out of your league, Hank.
Don’t embarrass yourself.” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“Hey, I’ve dated lawyers before!” Hank huffed defensively, turning around to unlock the driver’s side door.
Nick remained leaning against the passenger side, his eyes lingering casually on the blonde.
As if sensing his gaze, the woman turned her head.
Her eyes met Nick’s, and for a fraction of a second, an polite, acknowledging smile began to form on her lips—the natural reaction of an attractive woman noticing a handsome man.
Then, without warning, the air around her face seemed to warp.
Her smooth, pristine skin underwent a sickening, instantaneous decay.
Her facial features withered into a terrifying, pale husk—the skin sloughing off to reveal blackened, rotting tissue beneath, her full lips peeling back to expose jagged, discolored teeth in a ghoulish, demonic grimace.
A monster!
Nick’s body reacted instantly.
His right hand dropped to his belt in a lightning-fast defensive draw gesture.
Then, just as abruptly as it had appeared, the hideous vision vanished.
The woman’s pristine, beautiful face was back.
But her smile was completely gone.
Her eyes were wide with genuine, primitive terror.
She stumbled backward half a step, let out a soft gasp, turned around, and hurried down the street as fast as her high heels would allow, vanishing into the crowd.
Nick stood frozen, his hand still resting near his belt, his heart hammering against his ribs.
“Did you…
did you see that?” Nick asked, his voice strained as he looked over the roof of the car at Hank.
Hank popped his door open, looking over at Nick with a baffled expression.
“See what?
Looks like our precinct’s star cop doesn’t have as much charm with high-society blondes as he thought.
She looked at you like she saw a ghost.”
“No, Hank…
her face,” Nick muttered, struggling to articulate what he had just witnessed.
How could he describe it?
Should he say her face had suddenly decayed into the withered, horrifying countenance of an ancient fairytale witch?
Or that she looked like something straight out of a nightmarish horror film?
Hank hadn’t seen a thing.
Once again, the horrific reality had been visible to Nick alone.