copy. This one was the older version, with pistol grip safety and mag housing, and big chunky working parts that operated on the blowback system. The only difference I could see was that the safety-catch markings were in Serbo-Croat.
The girls left and Stu helped himself to a handful of arse from both on their way out.
The Mini-Ero wasn't in bad nick. A bit rusty, but at least it had a firing pin.
I'd always thought the Uzi overrated. After the Six Day War it got rave reviews it didn't deserve. Both the Uzi and the mini Uzi were heavy for their size. Almost every comparable weapon did the same job more efficiently. It was just marketing that made the weapon so popular in the eyes of people who didn't use them. Bank clerks and south London drug-dealers would be the only people ignorant enough to part with good money for one.
There were three mags taped round the barrel. 'I'll take this and two hundred nine-millimetre. How much is that going to set me back?'
Whatever the figure should have been, he probably doubled it. 'Three hundred.'
No point haggling. 'Done.'
He unlocked the freezer as I put the weapon back together. I took off my Bergen, bunged in the bottle of water, and waited to add the weapon, mags and rounds.
'You going south for long?' He handed me four cardboard boxes of fifty 9mm and I ripped one open. I'd always found it easy to speed-load, even as a boy soldier. Many guys try to position the rounds in their hands so that the percussion cap is going to be fed in first, but the easiest thing is to pick the things up and turn them between your thumb and forefinger as you press them into the magazine.
'Don't know.'
'Well, son' – he locked up the ammo freezer– 'you come back with that thing and I'll buy it back. But I don't give money, we just trade with honey.'
He locked up the first freezer and came over to do the same to the second. I moved the magazines and kit. 'That's how half of these shites pay. Some, they come in, they've got fuck-all left but their weapons.'
I shrugged. 'Maybe I'll bring it back.'
'I'm not sticking my nose in your business, son, but that James shite and his like – stay away from them. They're fucking acid.'
I finished the first mag.
'You liked my chessboard, didn't you?'
'Yeah, nice.'
'My boy.' He was grinning. 'He carved them. He's good at that sort of thing. It's a special edition, black Taliban, white ISAF. I'm going to try and get it marketed.'
He took a last drag and flicked the butt on to the floor. 'You see, son, you got the Taliban pawns in turbans, but the ISAF pawns, none of them match. That's because we spend so much time out here wondering if they're on the same fucking side.'
I was treated to another flash of his black stumps. 'If it was going to be true to life, obviously the Taliban king would be missing – there'd just be a video of him in a cave. And no Taliban knights, no Taliban castles. They'd all be bishops, see – mad mullahs.
'And once the ISAF pieces were set up, most of them would refuse to move from their own squares. The bishops, well, they'd have to be paid regularly or they'd move over to the Taliban side. Are you getting this, son?'
I sort of was and sort of wasn't, but I nodded anyway to make him feel a bit better. I finished loading the last mag and counted out three hundred-dollar bills.
'Sorry for being a bit of a shite with you in the beginning, son. But when they called they said you were one of those cowboys. People like that, they come here and fuck it up for everybody else who's trying to make a living.'
'No worries, mate.'
The money went into his jeans pocket.
I shoved the mags and spare ammunition into my Bergen and he fired up another Chesterfield.
The other side of the door, somebody loosed off a double-tap in the bar. The music kept playing, but the background noise changed. Girls screamed. Men shouted, more pissed off than afraid.
I threw everything except the weapon and a mag on top of the Gunga Din outfit and hoisted the Bergen on to my back.
Somebody out there yelled for calm, but the monkeys weren't having any of it. They screeched their heads off.
There was another shot, then a burst of .53 on automatic drowned