It's a hot night. The mind races. A 17 hour flight to La Paz etched in red traces on my eyeballs. I had packed my HK USP .40S&W with its captured recoil buffer system and Peters Stahlish lock up. I had two of its priceless magazines in a futuristic custom Bladetech retention system. Sweat trickles down the small of my back, saturating my black lock-knit HK polo shirt and threatens to soak my Royal Robbins Khaki travel pants. Good thing I am carrying strong-side. My feet are resilient in my Himalayan walking shoes. I thumb the decocker--or is it the safety? I can never tell and in the thin air I vow once again to never admit to anyone it might bother me.
Against a haze of air starved bugs and the cacaphony of a strange tongue clawing its way into the oxygenless atmosphere, I feel the Hostile Environment finish on the lever of the USP where I have it hidden from prying eyes. I try to reassure myself about my beyond top secret assignment. I feel the stippled black polymer--never call it plastic--and it feels like money--or at least like a credit card chewed upon by a teething kitten.
Nevertheless I feel better now. If I ever have to shoot from the bottom of an outhouse, the inside of a fish processing ship, Pamela Lee's boudoir--any repellant place at all--I have been reassured by the Company and literally thousands of internet street pros that I carry the final say in handguns. Tension is in the air, maybe I will torture my pistol before the dawn breaks. Maybe I will be tortured myself. . . .
Thirty hours later, lost near the Rio Camblaya following the coup attempt, a welcoming smile. Thank God she spotted the epaulettes on the Norwegian ice-fishing vest concealing my USP. I climb aboard the helo on my way to my next exotic assignment, my HK having proven itself in "combat" once again without firing a shot in anger. . . .
The World of Compromise Uncompromisingly cries out to my inner poseur. . . beckoning to me to tell the world of the superiority of my sidearm.
