“That’s gonna be a long shot, Mikhal.”
For the first time, Lammeck noted Alek’s slight Southern accent.
“What kind of training did you get in the Marines?”
“Sharpshooter. Mostly out to three hundred yards. Some five. This looks like five.”
“It is.”
“Why so far?”
Lammeck swept a hand over the wide cane brake. “My guess is you’ve done mostly range work, open field like this. Some jungle training.”
“Yeah.”
“Judging by the bipod you had CIA put on the Win 70, you’re a prone shooter.”
“Right.”
“This shot’s going to be different. It’s urban. Buildings, streets, alleys—all those make canyons of wind. Havana’s an oceanfront city. Always a breeze. My guess is you’ll be elevated, in a window or on a rooftop. Four, five stories at the most. I don’t want you so high you can’t get out fast.”
“I never did much downhill work.”
“Don’t worry about it. At five hundred, the extra distance is about one yard. Simple trigonometry. Elevation’s not a concern.”
“But it’s not my best range.” The boy said this sulkily.
“The point, Alek”—Lammeck patted the boy’s narrow shoulder—”is for you to hit the target and get the hell out of there. There’s going to be a lot of people looking for you the second after you pull that trigger.”
The two tromped over the ugly field in a rising morning heat. Alek stuffed hands in his pockets, walked with his chin down. He seemed a loner, lost without Rina.
“Alek?”
“Yeah?”
“When did you join the Marines?”
“Five years ago.”
“How’d you like it?”
“It was rough sometimes. Got to see some of the world, mostly Japan. I went to language school. Learned my Russian.”
“When did you get out?”
“Fifty-nine.”
“Was that when you defected?”
Alek shook his head, still kicking at scorched clumps. “I don’t think we ought to be talking too much about this stuff.”
“I’d like to know.”
“Why? We both been told it isn’t smart to do that.”
Lammeck did not tell the boy he had a poison pill in his pocket that would seal his own lips if he were found out and arrested. He wasn’t worried about keeping secrets.
“I’m an historian. To be honest, you might be an historic figure. An assassin. Those are the people I study.”
“You’re saying you want to study me?”
“In a way.”
Shyly, Alek chuckled. “That’s a first. No one ever wanted to do that before. ‘Cept Rina. She wants to know everything.”
“You two are crazy about each other. I can see it.”
“Yeah.”
The boy had deflected the question. Lammeck asked again. “Why, Alek? Why leave the United States?”
“I don’t like the way things are there. Racism, unemployment, exploiting the workers.”
“But why go to a Communist country?”
“I’m a Marxist.”
No you’re not, Lammeck thought. This wasn’t the 1930s, before Stalin and the purges, the war, when people came from around the world to help build the new socialist paradise. Lammeck had made his career teaching young men. He was certain this one was no ideologue. Those answers about America—racism, exploitation— were stock criticisms. They sounded coached. Alek was just a confused boy. A boy Calendar and the CIA were using to do their bloody work.
“How long have you been in the Soviet Union?”
“A year and a half.”
“What’s it like?”
“The way you’d figure. Folks are nice, for the most part. But there’s too much bureaucracy. Too corrupt. And it’s pretty much a police state.”
“So why come to Cuba to shoot Fidel? He’s a Marxist, too. Don’t you like him?”
They were within fifty yards of the Cottonwood stand where the rifle, range scope, and cooler waited in the only shade.
“I don’t want to talk anymore, Mikhal. No offense. Let’s just shoot.”
Alck picked up the Winchester and sullenly set about loading the magazine with five .308 rounds. Lammeck stood aside and watched. When the mag was full, Alek slid one more round into the chamber and closed the bolt.
Lammeck took the rifle from him. He opened the bolt, flipped out the live cartridge, and caught it in midair.
“That’s not good range safety, son. Always leave the bolt open ‘til you’re ready to shoot. And clean up your attitude. Right now.”
The boy spit once in the dirt between his boots before lifting his gaze.
“Yes, sir.”
Lammeck did not hand the Win 70 back. He reached to the Styrofoam cooler and from the lid broke off four small white bits. He handed down two to Alek.
“Stuff your ears.”
He plugged his own, then fired the rifle into the earth where the boy’s spittle had landed. Dirt and bits of cane sprayed up from the small, sudden crater. Alek jumped.
“What the hell?”
Lammeck worked the bolt rapidly, firing the remaining four rounds into the earth. When he was done, he handed the rifle off to the boy.
“Can’t calibrate a clean barrel. Load it again.”
Alek obeyed. One more time Lammeck emptied the rifle into the ground, away from Alek this time, enjoying the speed of the Winchester’s bolt, getting a feel for the trigger. With only the wire stock, absent the weight of a big piece of walnut, the recoil was magnified.
He handed the rifle to Alek with the barrel warm.
“Alright. Load five rounds. Keep the bolt open. Set up prone.”
Alek did as he was told. He lay on his belly in the dirt. Lammeck drank water from the cooler, then set himself behind the range scope. He found the hundred-yard target and sharpened the focus.
“Alright. Let’s zero this rifle. Give me one round on center at the first target.”
Lammeck pulled his eye from the scope to watch Alek take aim. The boy’s small frame worked to his advantage; he splayed behind the rifle and scope with ease. Alek let out a breath, deflating his torso even flatter to the ground. His head was solid on the cheek-piece, both eyes open, his right eye did not flinch behind the scope. When he fired he took the recoil firmly into his shoulder so the rifle would not jump off target. His right hand was quick and practiced off the trigger, to the bolt chambering another round, to the trigger again, in under a second. Through the Styrofoam plugs, Lammeck heard the echoes flee the field.
Lammeck bent to the range scope. A hole pierced the target’s outer ring, six inches low and three inches right.
“Make your adjustments, Alek.”
The boy unscrewed the caps off the elevation and windage knobs of the Weaver scope. Lammeck made no suggestions, he needed to see the boy’s skill. Alek wound the elevation knob counterclockwise twenty-four clicks—one click for each quarter-inch of elevation at one hundred yards. The windage knob he turned clockwise only eight clicks, not the twelve Lammeck expected. Alek was admitting that one of the three inches right of the target was his own error, not the rifle’s. Good, Lammeck thought, good. He has feel.
When the boy was set again behind the Winchester, Lammeck instructed him to fire when ready. Alek took only moments to squeeze off another round. Through the scope, Lammeck watched a neat hole punch into the left edge of the center bull.
“Alright, reload.”
Alek pressed two more rounds into the Winchester. The chest of his OD T-shirt was encrusted with clinging black dirt.
Lammeck said, “Slow fire, at will.”
He let the boy fire thirty rounds, taking time between shots and reloading to make minor adjustments to the elevation. When he was done, the heart of the target was perforated and the Win 70 was zeroed in. Lammeck watched, saying little, letting Alek get comfortable behind the trigger, with the extra recoil, and with t
aking instruction. Lammeck didn’t know what lay ahead for either of them, but his suspicions of Calendar and the CIA were acute. He wanted to lay the groundwork for Alek to trust him and accept his authority. Lammeck knew he was tied to the boy beyond what he could guess; in the end, Alek’s reliance might not matter, or it might save both their lives.
“Reload.”
Alek snapped five more cartridges into the magazine. He fixed himself again to the Weaver scope. Lammeck sensed the boy’s focus was a tactic to avoid talking.
“Upper right-hand corner. Give me a small grouping. Five rounds. Rapid fire.”
The rifle barked in Alek’s hands. The next instant he flung back the bolt, ejecting the spent casing. Never pulling his eye from the scope, he fired again. With remarkable pace, he chambered another round, fired. In under ten seconds, Alek emptied the magazine. Lammeck checked the target. All five rounds formed a star in the upper right-hand corner, three inches across. If this had been a torso, they all would’ve been killing shots.
So this was Alek Hidell’s special skill. Speed.
“Reload.”
When the magazine was full, Lammeck said, “Again. Lower left. Go.”
Lammeck observed the target while Alek drained the magazine. Hole after hole tore into the target exactly where he’d ordered, at an uncanny rate. He muttered under his breath, “Holy smokes.”
To the boy, Lammeck said, “Pick up the casings. Then grab a sandwich.”
Alek sat up, flicking dirt clods off his shirt. He left the Win 70 and set about gathering the spent brass. Lammeck walked away, to let the boy collect himself in the silence he preferred. He headed to the hundred-yard target.
What did this odd boy know? That he was part of a fantastically broad campaign to assassinate Fidel in advance of a military invasion? That he was just one strand in a web spun by the CIA, the Mafia, Unidad? That he was no different than the exploding seashells, black operation hit teams, plastic explosives, poison cigars, toxic pills?
Lammeck reached the tattered target. He detached the paper and kicked over the stakes. The center of the bull’s-eye seemed to have exploded out of the sheet. One .308 round could do this to Fidel’s chest.
Lammeck strode back to the cottonwoods. Alek had already finished a sandwich and a beer. All the empty shell casings had been gathered into the box.
Without appetite, Lammeck picked up the duffel bag. He rolled it into a rough pillow. This he rested on top of the cooler.
“We’ll go for the five-hundred-yard target from a seated position. Get set up.”
Wordless, Alek collapsed the bipod at the end of the rifle. He settled himself on his rump in the black dirt behind the cooler, lifting the Winchester’s barrel onto the duffel. Lammeck watched him yield to the gun, pull it close, and cradle his eye, cheek, and hands to it. A finger crept to the trigger.
“You’ve got to adjust for the extra distance.”
The boy didn’t raise his head. “Already did. Five hundred yards. Fifty-one clicks.”
“How about windage?”
“I’ll fire a test round.”
“You think you’ll have the chance to do that when you’re aiming at Fidel?”
Alek pulled his eye from the scope. He licked a finger and held it up.
“Don’t do that,” Lammeck said. “We’re looking at the wind a third of a mile away. Over that distance your round’s going to lose a third of its speed. For the first two hundred yards, the bullet’s got enough velocity to push through the wind. We want to adjust for the second part of the trip. Look through your scope. The shot you’ll take will be about this time of day. The temperature should be similar. Look at the ground. You see a heat mirage?”
The boy peered for seconds before responding. “Yeah. I do.”
“What’s the wind doing at the target? Read the wavers in the heat.”
“Figure... five to seven knots, right to left.”
“So at five hundred yards?”
“Each minute of angle is five inches of correction.”
“How much correction for that wind?”
“Call it three minutes to the right. Twelve clicks counterclockwise.”
“Do it. Slow fire when ready.”
The first round missed the center by one ring, left of center. Carefully, Alek emptied the magazine. He scored no bulls. His best two rounds struck an inch out. The rest landed in the second and third rings. If these were head shots, he’d miss. If his aim was Fidel’s torso, they would all be hits, but not kill shots.
While he reloaded the magazine, Lammeck lectured: On the day of the shot, look for flags, pennants, cigarette smoke, anything near the target that’ll tell you the wind’s direction and speed. Correct for it, and if you guessed wrong, forget the windage knob and make the adjustment with the crosshairs on the fly. With your swiftness on the rifle, you’ll get off at least one deadly shot.
“But try to do it with one bullet. If the wind is too unpredictable, go for the chest.”
Alek launched five more rounds into the target. When he was done, two were bulls. Alek was right, five hundred yards was a challenge for him. But with the right conditions, he could do it. Lammeck had him turn back the twelve clicks that corrected for today’s five-knot breeze. The Winchester 70 was set up now for a zero-wind, five-hundred-yard shot, as Heitor had instructed.
“Give me the rifle. And take out your earplugs.”
Alek handed over the Winchester, then dug the Styrofoam pieces out of his ears. Lammeck picked the plastic Clorox bottle out of the dirt. He unscrewed the cap.
“Hand me the tape.”
While Alek watched, he secured the empty bleach bottle to the end of the rifle barrel with several wraps of the tape.
“This is a trick a Spetznaz soldier showed me once. Here. Load two rounds.”
He handed the weapon to Alek. The boy slipped two more .308’s into the magazine. Lammeck pulled out his own earplugs.
“Aim and fire once.”
Alek rested the barrel on the rolled-up duffel. He took his position behind the gun and dropped his eye to the scope. He pulled the trigger.
Instead of the loud, sharp burst of gunfire, the rifle issued only the pop of a balloon. The bottom of the plastic bottle burst open like a party favor.
Alek lowered the Winchester. He nodded, impressed with the ruptured bottle.
Lammeck explained: “It’s better than a suppressor. No loss of trajectory. Quieter. No extra weight to carry around.”
The boy pulled it off the end of the barrel and cleared away the tape. “Okay.”
“Understand, anyone along the path of the bullet is going to hear a supersonic crack when the slug flies past. But they won’t be able to pinpoint the direction. This little trick will get you a single quiet shot at Fidel. After that, if you still need more rounds, you better be quick.”
Alek tossed the bottle on the ground. He rubbed a hand down the rifle in his lap.
“I will be.”
“One more round,” Lammeck told him. “Take up the gun.”
The boy blinked, surprised. There was nothing left to calibrate on the Winchester. He hefted the rifle into place, worked the bolt to chamber the last round, and found the target through the scope.
“Alek.”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to see Fidel Castro under the crosshairs. Imagine his head. His beard, glasses, white skin. He’s giving a speech in front of twenty thousand people, waving his hands, his mouth is open. There are men and women on the platform next to him. They’ll watch him die. The crowd will see him die. The world will see it on television. You’ll see his head explode and his body go down. You’ll see it for the rest of your life. History might call you an assassin but in your own heart you’ll be a murderer. Forever. This is your last chance to walk away. Right now. I’ll handle Calendar and Heitor. I’ll tell them you weren’t right for the job.”
The boy peered through the scope. He blinked.
“Let me stop you, Alek.”
“No.”
The Betrayal Game - [Mikhal Lammeck 02] Page 15
