Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista by Matthew Bracken Page A

He was seated in his wheelchair at the head of the table opposite Ranya.  Mark Fowler, the range master, sat on one side facing the screens and across the fields.  Another man sat across the table from him, he was a middle-aged black man with a shaven head, wearing a red Western shirt with blue piping. 
    After devouring a plate-sized steak and all the trimmings, Ranya had told them her real name and her story, going all the way back to Virginia. To before her escape to Colombia, her return to America, and her betrayal. Before her baby had been born in prison, and was then stolen from her.
    Before D-Camp.
Before Brad Fallon.
Back to her father’s murder, the week after the Stadium Massacre.
Back to the day her world had been turned upside down.
    She didn’t mention her sniper killing of Eric Sanderson. That secret had gone to the bottom of the Potomac with Brad, five years before.  But she told them the rest.
    Barlow said, “Come around here; let me see your hands.”
    Ranya got up, walked around the table behind Fowler, and extended her hands to the old man.  He took them into his rough hands like a palm reader making an initial appraisal.  He turned them over, stroked them, and fingered her calluses.
    “Well,” he said, “you certainly didn’t just get these today.  These are from field work, years of field work.  I’ve never seen a government employee yet with hands like that.  In fact, if you hadn’t of had these calluses, you’d have torn your hands bloody today.  What did you fire up there, 500 rounds?”
    “At least,” she replied, returning to her seat.  “I lost count.”  She was wearing her khaki-colored nylon hiking pants with the legs zipped on, and a plain black t-shirt, which matched her dyed hair.
    “Closer to 800,” added Mark Fowler, beaming.  “And she did pretty well, I’d say. She won a couple of pistols, a ton of ammo, and over nine thousand bucks.  Those boys just had to keep trying again and again; they were regular gluttons for punishment!  It purely kills ‘em to get beat by a woman.”  
    The black man in the fancy cowboy shirt raised his long neck beer bottle in toast to her and said, “You know what they say: ‘your ego is not your amigo!’  Those Tennessee boys just didn’t know when to quit.”
    Ranya toasted him back, sipped her own beer and said, “I just sort of slipped into the zone.  I was pretty much floating along after the first couple of steel plate matches.  Mark kept me fed with fresh mags, and all I had to do was pull the trigger.”
    “Pull the trigger!” exclaimed the black man, snorting his beer.  “Hell, you won everything from bowling pins on the table to long range metallic silhouette!”
    “I guess I had a good day, considering I haven’t touched a gun in five years. But remember, I was raised in a gun shop with an indoor range.  I mean, I was shooting against grown men since I was a little kid!  I used to just shoot for free ammo; it was strictly for fun.  I never won a pile of cash money like I did today!  Not to mention the guns...”  She took a pull off her own beer.  “Pretty weird to see the new dollar bills though.  There was no money at all in the camps.  When did they switch over to blue money?”
    “Blue bucks,” said Mark Fowler.  “They’re new, just this year.  All the old greenbacks had to be turned over in January.  Everybody’s bank accounts had a zero knocked off, just like that!  Ten for one—and the prices are still going through the roof.”
    Barlow said, “You did well by yourself today, Miss Bardiwell.  Very well. We’re all impressed with your shooting skills, especially after not touching a gun for five years.  I’ll admit that had us all wondering about you, but our law enforcement sources confirm most of your story.  A female prisoner did escape from a federal facility in Oklahoma yesterday. That’s just gone out on the police wires.”
    The black man winked across the table at