"Four, two, three, one!"
Constable Kevin 'Wordy' Wordsworth, already squared to the targets, took aim and squeezed the trigger of his handgun four times in reply to Constable Donna Sabine's shouted instructions.
Sam, Jules and Spike had already come through the shooting phase of the requalification without issue, and Wordy had high hopes he would follow suit.
He lowered his arms after his split-second volley of fire. The #1 and #4 targets remained, mocking him and his inability to take them out the first time through.
Damn, he thought, giving his head a shake in frustration.
But Constable Sabine, all business, reached for his weapon. "Let me see," she said.
Wordy tried not to show his astonishment. He'd failed to hit two targets, that much was obvious to everyone present. His team mates didn't even have to voice how they were feeling; they all knew it didn't bode well for him.
He heard Sabine fiddling with the weapon; heard her check the magazine and load it back into place.
"It was jammed," she declared, "go again."
She directed him towards the targets and re-activated them so they sprang back to their original position.
Hands, don't fail me now, he prayed, almost afraid he might screw up again with this undeserved second chance. He couldn't figure out why Donna was choosing to look the other way; she could get them both into serious trouble if this little imbroglio came to light.
Hands that he had counted on to defend the defenseless, to protect the innocent and comfort the frightened victims of countless crimes were now unsteady and unreliable. Hands he had insisted on keeping clean in spite of the temptation to use brute, unrestrained force and violence against the equally brute and unrestrained actions of criminals were causing him untold torment and grief.
When, exactly, had he started to notice the tremor in his right hand? Imperceptible at first, he'd ignored it, believing it to be a muscle spasm brought on by over-exercise. He blamed stress and insomnia next, then too many double-doubles from Tim Hortons.
Before he could continue his depressing train of thought, Donna called out the order of targets she wanted him to shoot.
"Three, two, four, one!"
Without hesitation, Wordy fired off four quick shots. He held his breath, almost too afraid to look at the targets.
"You're good," Donna said, noting he had indeed been successful this time. He gave a decisive nod in reply, but was still not at peace with himself.
He wondered again why she'd given him preferential treatment, and didn't know whether to be thankful and relieved about it, or guilty and miserable. If what he suspected about his shaky hand was true, this rule-bending was simply prolonging the inevitable.
Wordy thought of the first call Donna had gone on with Team One, having been tasked with a sensational prisoner transfer. Her disgust with having to protect a murderer was evident, but she quickly learned how he felt about the whole mess. Even after he'd taken a few bullets in the vest in a botched assassination attempt, he'd humbled Donna with his response that no matter what happened, he was determined to go home at night, his integrity intact and his hands clean.
Were his hands sullied now that he had not protested Donna's assertion that his weapon had jammed? Was she now complicit in his impending downfall?
Would Greg have even noticed had it not been for Dr. Toth? Would Greg have looked the other way as Donna had, believing it to be a one-time flub; a trifling matter? After all, his specialty was close-quarters combat and entry. But sometimes entry required the fine-motor skills necessary to handle a lock-pick. Shaky hands compromised that ability.
How can I tell the boss? How can I tell Shelley? How long can I remain in denial that this isn't going to go away?
As the team made their out of the shooting gallery, Wordy plastered a look of calm on his face, a look that was at complete odds with the terror that was paralyzing his insides and making it difficult to breathe.
He'd always thought he would step down from the SRU before he became a liability, but that had been when he was younger, newly married; a hotshot cop with strength to spare. Now, he was a family man with a mortgage and three little girls to raise. The SRU was the only thing he knew how to do, and it was slowly slipping through his shaky hands.
Shaky hands can't stay clean hands forever, Wordy's inner voice seemed to taunt him. If those missed, numbered discs in the shooting gallery had instead been Scorpio subjects, your hostages would most likely be dead. And there are no do-overs when there are real lives at stake.
Wordy stood by silently with Sam, Spike and Jules as Donna filed the results of the day's testing. That was it. His chance to come clean about his poor performance in the shooting gallery passed.
He went home to his waiting girls, eager to see them at play and enter into their little-girl games and pretend to be the valiant prince to their princess. Wordy hadn't even been on a post-requalifying call where his shaky hands could be put to the ultimate test, yet he already could not sweep away the cloying sensation that his hands were no longer clean.
END
