Jack reached in and came out with a fist-size lump of metal that he flipped over the counter. Tom caught it, saw what it was—a smooth metal sphere the size of a tennis ball, with a key ring at the top attached to a safety clip—and felt his heart trip over a beat.

“A grenade?”

“M-67s. I had a dozen sent down after seeing that gator.”

“Sent down when? I never saw any—” And then it hit him. “The toys. They were in the toys, right?”

Jack gave him a tight smile. “Right. I also—”

“Hey!” Carl called from the bathroom. “You got a gun in this wall!”

“What?”

A gun? In his wall? Tom started toward the bathroom but Jack got there first. Carl had pulled the medicine cabinet from the wall, exposing the studs and the unfinished backside of the Sheetrock of the opposite wall. The end of an empty metal tube jutted a couple of inches up from the lower end of the space. It had a blued-steel finish and looked like an open plumbing pipe until Tom spotted the bead sight on the end and realized this was the business end of a shotgun barrel.

Jack fished it out and handed it to Carl. Its black polymer stock barely reflected the overhead lights.

“Ever use a shotgun?”

Carl laughed. “You kiddin’? Fed myself mostly by fishin’ and huntin’ before I came to work here. If’n I wasn’t no good, I’da starved.” He took it from Jack and hefted it. “But I ain’t never see one like this before.”

Neither had Tom. He saw a breechlock, a magazine tube, but where was the slide handle?

“It’s a Benelli—an M1 Super 90, to be exact. I think the semi-auto action will work best for you.”

“A semi-auto shotgun?” Tom said. “I didn’t even know they made such a thing.”

“She’s a beauty,” Carl said. “I like the rubber grip. Kinda like a pistol.”

“Very much like a pistol. Will you be able to handle it?”

“Sure. I told you—”

“I mean”—Jack glanced at Carl’s right sleeve—”will you need to modify the stock or anything?”

“Nuh-uh. I’ll be fine.”

“Great. Excuse me, Dad,” he said as he turned and edged by Tom into the front room. “Be back in a minute.”

Without another word he ran out into the storm. Two minutes later he returned, dripping, carrying an oblong object wrapped in a blanket Tom had last seen in the linen closet. He pulled it off to reveal another shotgun.

“I’ll use this one,” Jack said.

With its ridged slide handle riding under the barrel, this one was more like how Tom pictured a shotgun. Its polymer stock was done up with standard camouflage greens and browns.

“It looks military,” Tom said.