Torsten returned to his desk, sorted out a few things, and then took Jimmy to the break room.
Jimmy had not had a drop to drink since early morning, and Torsten seemed to have considered this. The DEA's break room was much more well-stocked than the county police's, probably because the folks here work more overtime, complete with various snacks and coffee machines.
The two grabbed something to eat to hold them over and poured themselves some coffee, chatting as they drank.
"Torsten, there's something I've been meaning to ask you, and it might be a bit abrupt.
Why, when we reported that drug dealer case, did your Dallas branch take over instead of the office in Little Rock?"
"Good question," Torsten said, taking a sip of his coffee.
"That office ran into a bit of trouble; there was a serious dereliction of duty. An obvious sign was that the local drug lord Nut had been replaced for two or three months, yet the Little Rock office had no clue, which was completely abnormal. Even if they couldn't identify the new boss, they should've at least sensed the change."
"Then how did you guys find out? Shouldn't our police station have contacted Little Rock office directly?"
"Of course we have our own channels. Alright, let me take you to meet the operations chief, and then we'll head out for a tour."
Clearly, Jimmy had touched on a sensitive topic, and Torsten had to divert the conversation. They finished their remaining coffee and headed towards the chief's office.
The operations chief was just the head of the division's agents, not the overall DEA headquarters operations chief—a high-ranking official within the top brass of the DEA.
After a quick handshake and a brief chat about Jimmy's previous help with a case, the chief sent them on their way.
Jimmy wasn't bothered by his attitude; after all, his travel expenses to Dallas were reimbursed by them, right? One should be grateful in life.
Jimmy and Torsten took a quick tour around the office building, admired their achievements, then went downstairs to drive to their most important destination, the DEA's training ground set up on the outskirts.
Before Jimmy and Torsten arrived, the small house used for on-site simulations had been reconstructed, and the few special agents who had participated in the simulation had paused their training and gathered to see the person who could achieve that speed.
Beyond that on-site simulation, the special agents hadn't been idle the next few days and had squeezed in several training sessions, but none reached Jimmy's speed, always lagging 1-2 seconds behind.
After arriving at the shooting range, what Jimmy saw was this exact situation, with the position of the shooting range now arranged with a room layout and several burly men standing at their firing positions watching the two of them.
The special agents were surprised to see Jimmy, a slightly stocky Asian young man who looked around 20 years old—could it really be him, the maniac they had talked about for so long?
All of a sudden, Jimmy felt like he was in hot water. If he screwed this up, could it be the end of the road for him? He went over to the firing line to shake hands and say hello, then looked towards the gun bench.
Jimmy glanced at the weapons on the bench—all revolvers: Ruger, S&W, Colt. But since this was meant to be a demonstration, he decided to use his own gun. As for bullets, he could afford to mooch off them a bit.
He pulled out his M686-1, unloaded the bullets into his pocket, grabbed six .357 bullets from the gun bench, and loaded them into the chamber. He then picked up a speedloader, filled it, and clipped it onto the holster at his waist. With earmuffs in place, he walked to the outside of the simulated room.
Jimmy didn't take the time to peek at the arrangement inside the door beforehand; his Heart Eye had already shown him the setup, which was essentially the same as the factory layout from last time.
To the special agents, Jimmy's actions signified utter confidence. Not knowing the arrangement of the targets, relying solely on observation after the start, was inconceivable to them. They would know the specific target locations during their training, yet still couldn't meet the speed requirement.
"Stand by!" "Beep!"
Upon hearing the "beep," Jimmy began his performance.
First, he took two swift steps to the doorway, fired six shots at the target on the left, retreated to the wall, reloaded, returned to the doorway, gun pointing to the right, entered, and shot two low-set targets placed behind the cabinet along an overhead line.
"Clear!"
Torsten, holding a stopwatch, clicked it when Jimmy signaled completion. The special agents gathered to check the time.
"WTF! How did he do that?" "Holy shit!"
Excited swear words flew around, Torsten's stopwatch displaying a time of 7.8 seconds—less than their previous estimate of 9 seconds, with the best time of the special agents being around 10 seconds.
In a gunfight, if the opponent reacts faster, it usually decides life or death. Being 2 seconds faster in the same movements meant that even if they were in the suspect's position, they wouldn't be able to return fire, because by the time they would emerge, Jimmy's bullet would already be there.
Another crucial point was that, from their perspective, Jimmy didn't know the positions of the targets and had to observe first before firing rapidly. Of course, since it was a simulation, they had a rough idea of the target locations.
The team entered the simulated room to check the targets. Two standing targets on the left: the one on the left took two bullets to the head and one to the chest, while the other got one in the head and two in the chest—death would be certain if these had been real people. Jimmy's .357 Magnum bullets were no small caliber like .22s, packing a heavy punch.
The two low-set targets on the right, the one in front took one bullet each in the head and chest, while the one behind just one in the head, all hits were lethal.
"Great job, Jimmy," Torsten exclaimed, tapping Jimmy's arm excitedly. On the day of the case, Torsten was unlucky to be wounded by shrapnel and taken away in an ambulance, missing Jimmy's extreme performance. Witnessing it firsthand today, the direct, door-busting kills truly thrilled him.
"Hey, Jimmy, do it one more time," called out someone from the special agents team.
Jimmy nodded, went back to the firing bench to reload, as one of the special agents stepped into the booth to replace the target papers.
The rest of the special agent team grabbed a few stopwatches, discussed responsibilities for timing various actions, and seemed to plan to break down and analyze Jimmy's moves.
Jimmy returned to the side of the doorway. "Stand by!" "Beep!" He repeated the same process as before. With the first run laying the groundwork, he felt more at ease, his movements even more coordinated. He ejected the spent case and reloaded while stepping back from the doorway, and as he finished, the overall time improved to 7.5 seconds.