Dead Shot
By Erik Schubach
Copyright © 2014 by Erik Schubach
Self publishing
P.O. Box 523
Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026
Cover Photo © 2014 Tatonka / ShutterStock.com license
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Manufactured in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-9909806-2-9
Chapter 1 – Camp Guinevere
I looked downrange at the various tin cans and bottles arranged on the rocks and crumbling low walls at the base of the sandy hill. They were arranged randomly anywhere from twenty to thirty yards out. One was half hidden by a loose mud brick. I kicked some clumped sandy loam from the treads on my ACBs.
I unholstered my sidearm and cleared it. I liked the balance of my M9 Beretta. I preferred it to the M1911 that some soldiers still preferred for the stopping power. My hands were smaller so the nine mil was a better fit for me. I underwent all kinds of razzing about women and smaller weapons until the first time I hit the range in Basic. That shut the men up. This “girl” as they put it, got her expert marksmanship qualification medal without breaking a sweat.
I slid a magazine partially into the magazine well and looked back over my shoulder with a grin, “You sure you want this Chief?” I asked Chief Warrant Officer Danes. Come on McKenzie, don't get cocky.
He just rolled his eyes and harrumphed. “Stop stalling Meyers. Remember, constant motion.” My grin increased as I looked around at my fireteam, the Bugbats, who were just grinning like a bunch of fool meerkats.
They have been with me the last five years of my dubious military career, funny how we all seem to keep getting stationed together. The big brass knows not to break up a good thing. I'm good at what I do, good at being a soldier. It's probably why I've gotten away with being busted back to Specialist five times in my eighteen years in the army. I don't need the added responsibility of higher rank. Besides, Specialist Meyers sounds so much better than Corporal Meyers anyway.
It just struck me that I have been in the military for exactly half my life. Just two more years before I retire. I thought about home again.
I hadn't been back to the Vancouver/Seattle area since my old girlfriend, Monica, sent me that dear Jane letter while I was in Basic. Dad is always traveling the world with his Wild West trick shooting show. So we always make a point of meeting up when he is anywhere remotely close to one of my duty stations. I smiled internally at the thought, that's where I learned to trick shoot, I played a young Annie Oakley in the show.
Dante prompted, “Come on Dead Shot, show him the shit.” Larson chimed in, “You got this DS.”
I sighed. “If you're sure Chief. Liberty passes for my whole team right?”
He grinned. “Ain't gonna happen Meyers. You're all gonna be servicing all of the sidearms for the entire camp in the armory tonight.”
Danes was new to Camp Guinevere here in Africa, in the Ennedi Region of Chad. My personal opinion is that the big man pushes too hard. We do things a little different in the Joint Peacekeeping Taskforce, assigned to the United Nations to help stop human trafficking. But you can't begrudge the man, he was a Chief Warrant Officer and my new immediate superior. The intermediary channel to God himself, the camp CO. I grinned... that was going to make this all the sweeter.
I shrugged and turned, and cataloged all the targets in my head as I took a slow calming breath like my father had taught me, committing each to memory. I slammed the magazine home, and disengaged the safety as I started pacing toward the makeshift mess hall in the old crumbling schoolhouse on the edge of the camp.
I racked the slide and chambered a round. More grunts were coming out to watch, this was turnin' into a goddamn spectacle. I took one last look at the targets then my path and started briskly walking parallel to the makeshift range as I fired. I took in each target and exhaled as I squeezed the trigger gently as I caught the targets in my sights. Step, step, squeeze. Glass exploding and cans being knocked from their perches.
I dove over the crate of MREs and started my barrel rolling. Always leading the roll with my eyes, firing as I hit my belly each time, and each time a target falling. Then I rolled up onto a knee as I fired the last shot. I grinned and stood and ejected the empty magazine into my hand, cleared my weapon and holstered it and slid the empty magazine into one of the slots on my beltpack.
I turned with a grin and said, “Fifteen for fifteen.” The crowd that had gathered was cheering and some were laughing. They'd seen this often enough.
Chief Danes slid his cover off his head and wiped some sweat from his brow in this ungodly heat. His silvering buzzcut fit the big man to a T. “Well that is the damnedest thing I ever did see Specialist, but you missed one.” He nudged his head toward the one that was still only half exposed.
I grinned. “No, sir, as you know there are only fifteen rounds in an M9 magazine and you set up sixteen targets. No doubt purely just an oversight.” I narrowed my eyes knowing damn well it hadn't been. “But if that bitty can is a problem...” I crouched and rolled, pulling my ka-bar from my leg sheath and released it with all the force I could muster. It was a thing of beauty watching it tumble end over end and slice almost cleanly through the tin can, sending it tumbling to the ground.
The crowd of men cheered again as I shrugged and said, “Sixteen for sixteen. Now pay up Master Chief...” I added, “Sir.” I wiggled my fingers and he narrowed his eyes, clearly not amused.
Then he shook his head slowly as he started smiling and saying, “Well I'll be goddamned. I thought all this Dead Shot horseshit was exaggerated,” He pulled some liberty passes from his belt and handed them over. Oh... I didn't expect him to have them on him, I was just pushing his buttons. Then I cocked an eyebrow as I took the passes from him. He had expected to lose! He was evaluating me... I nodded in approval, sneaky bastard. Maybe he wouldn't be that bad of an SO after all.
He shook his head. “With skills like that I can't understand why they never sent you through sniper training.” I blanched at that, I swore to myself and to the Army when I enlisted that I'd never pick up a sniper rifle. It just didn't sit well with me taking out a target that didn't see me coming. If I was going to kill a man, it was going to be face to face, defending myself, my allies or my country.
I played it off like I always did. “I make a better grunt than I would just lazing around layin' on my belly all day.”
He nodded and grunted something that sounded like approval, then said, “I hear tell you can do that with just about any weapon.” I shrugged.
Larson chimed in, “It's how she got saddled with the Dead Shot callsign Chief.”
The fourth one of our team, Kid, ran off to police my brass and retrieve my ka-bar. He was the youngest of our fire team and I'm pretty sure he may be sweet on me. His name was really Specialist Emanuel Ortega, he got saddled with Kid when he was first assigned to the Bugbats. At twenty-five, he looked like some snot nosed kid with a baby face and not old enough to shave. He had a knack with equipment and was a first-class grenadier. Now he's thirty-one and still looks a might young.
The Mas
ter Chief said with a smirk, “Be back on base before zero six hundred.” Larson, Dante, and I straightened and saluted the man chiming out, “Yes sir!”
Then he dismissed us as Ortega returned with my knife. I winked at him, “Thanks, Kid.” Then I looked around at my team as I handed out the passes.
I grinned ear to ear as I removed my cover, and wiped the sweat from my shaved head with it. I typically kept my brunette hair longer, at regulation length until I was assigned to Guinevere. It's like living in a sauna, 'cept it's sweat we're all percolating in, not steam. I had to shave my hair off a week into my station assignment just to keep it from matting with sweat and dripping into my eyes all the time. I tried a buzzcut first, but it felt prickly and uncomfortable to me.
I said loudly and belligerently as we headed toward the barracks and the motor pool, “Bugbats saddle up!” My team yelled in excitement, “Hooah!”
Chapter 2 – Liberty
We hopped a transport heading into town and before long we found ourselves in Fada. The capital of the Ennedi Ouest department of Chad. It is a smallish city of just over twenty thousand people. Much of it held older buildings weathered by the ravages of the desert, but a significant percentage consists of huts and tents, especially in the market district.
I looked back at the sunset in its brilliant oranges and reds, shimmering through heat mirages in the desert on the horizon. I sighed, knowing the heat of the day would bleed off over the next couple hours, the welcoming cool in the mid fifties was going to settle in. I craved the evenings here, I have never been a fan of the heat.
The guys went ahead, I wanted to wander the market for a minute to find something for Nana back home, her seventy-sixth birthday was comin' up soon. I wandered through the crowded street with merchants all shoving their wares in front of me, vying for my money. My fatigues marking me as a potential buyer since soldiers and foreigners spread more money about in the marketplaces than the locals.
I stopped at a street vendor who's wagon caught my eye. It was an elderly lady in some traditional head-to-toe robes in modest colors. She had an old spoke wheel vendor push cart with various hand woven necklaces and colorful scarves. The color made your eyes just snap to them since everything seemed to be painted in bland shades of tan here in the desert.
I took a close look at the weave pattern of the delicate looking materials, they showed slight irregularities indicating they were most likely handwoven fabric. I loved this kind of thing, I wasn't gifted with any artistic abilities so I have always been amazed by people who could create beautiful things with their hands.
I glanced down at my hands. There was too much proverbial blood on my hands to do anything constructive. I was a soldier through and through. I took a sharp breath and clenched my fists then turned my attention back to the scarves. I looked at one that looked just like the sunset on the horizon I had just watched, and ran the material through my fingers. It was more coarse and sturdy than it looked.
I took a quick sniff of the orange and red fabric that bled into the tannish cream colored base material at the ends, that reminded me of the sun bleeding into the sand on the horizon. There was a tang to the scarf, indicating organic dyes. It solidifying to me that this was handmade and I looked over at the woman, cocking an eyebrow and asking the price in Arabic “Masa' al-khayr?”. She held up three fingers then one.
Thirty-one hundred Central African francs. I did some quick math... about six dollars. That was a little steep for here, but I never pushed the prices, I'd never find something like this in the States for this price. The people here needed the money more than I did. It isn't like I used my money for anything anyway, being career Army. I handed over thirty-five hundred francs and thanked her and bid her goodnight with a tip of my head, “Shukran jazilan. Laylah sa'idah.”
She quickly tucked away the money, either noticing I didn't want the change or hoping I didn't realize that she didn't offer. She bid me good night as I walked off, “Laylah sa'idah.”
I wound the scarf up into a ball and stuffed it into a zippered pocket then turned toward the bar to meet up with the guys. I skirted into the back alleys to avoid the other vendors as they got progressively more insistent. The tents and huts slowly bled away into some of the brown mud brick walls of the city and a couple blocks later I emerged on a heavily trafficked road.
There was a couple 700MV Troop transports and an M1152A1 Humvee parked there along with a few vehicles from other armies tasked to the UN joint task force. Off to one side there was, hand to God, three camels. First time I saw the stinky beasts on my first assignment here, I thought it had to be a novelty catering to the tourists. I quickly found out that around Fada, they were actually more common than I would have believed.
I rolled my eyes as I looked around, just like any port of call, there was always a street just like this one. More bars and eateries per square foot than you can shake a stick at, all catering to the foreign soldiers stationed nearby. Then I added sardonically, possibly more street walkers and illicit gambling dens per capita than any other location in the city too. I knew we'd be losing Dante to one of those ladies later that night. Which always struck me as absurd.
He had the ruggedly handsome looks to pick up about any woman he wanted to, but never seemed to want to put the effort into it. Or maybe he just really didn't want to put himself out there in a real relationship. He had the sturdy jaw of the Italian heritage his name eluded to. Carlo was a consummate grunt and his beefy muscled physique was well suited to be the automatic rifelman of our fireteam. There wasn't anyone better at slinging fire than him, which earned him his callsign Ripper.
I looked at our regular dive across the road and smirked. I don't think the place even had a name, but it is one of the few open front bars that served chilled brews. The small building basically had three walls and the front was just a huge tented awning to give protection for the various tables from the sun during the day. Uniforms of all types with flags of about a dozen allied nations swarmed the place and packed it in.
Up front, on the walk under the awning, were the Bugbats, lounging at a table that I thought might be an old huge wooden cable spool with a cloth thrown over it. My men draped over the chairs like they owned the place. By the looks of it, they were already a round in on me with the three empties sitting in the middle of the table.
I pushed past Kid, forcing him to sit up in his chair and giving my team a “Hooah!” in greeting as I made my way to the bar. There was a new bartender. I held up four fingers and said, “ 'arba a tun.”
The man stopped and squinted at me then said something about me being a woman. Well, no shit Sherlock. Then asked something about nation or home, my Arabic was for shit and he was speaking too fast. I knew just enough to be dangerous. I held up a hand and asked him to speak French instead so I could follow him, “Mon arabe est fragile, se il vous plait francais.” I had to snort at myself, I sucked at French in high school, I always thought it was a waste of time. When would I actually use it in life? Well, welcome to Chad, McKenzie you fool.
The past two years my French had improved exponentially, and now I feel like I owe my old instructor, Mrs. Dean, an apology. It has been invaluable here. Ah, he wanted to know where I was from that they let women fight. I just pointed at the American flag on my uniform in answer, slightly perturbed about his attitude. There were plenty of nations with female soldiers. He slid four bottles of beers to me that had beads of sweat dripping down them from the condensation on the chilled glass. I threw down some cash and asked for some food for our table as I turned away to push through the crowd.
I flopped down into the saved chair and slammed the beers on the table. My men each grabbed one as I twisted the cap off of mine and took a few deep swallows then settled back into my chair as they saluted me with the beers murmuring, “Hooah.”
Yeah, this was the life. I slouched a bit and let the cooling breeze wash over me as I slipped into people watching mode, my favorite pastime hobby. It was fascinating
to watch all the personalities and try to pick out cultures without looking at the flags on the uniforms. I've gotten real good at reading people. Words are cheap, you can get the real story about someone by the subtle shifts in their body language and their eyes. You can sling all the horseshit you want, but the eyes never lie.
As Dante and Larson bragged about their sexual prowess to each other, Kid engaged himself in his usual nervous habit of peelin' all the labels from the beer bottles on the table and joked with the guys. Allowing me to do my people watching undisturbed for a few minutes. Then I noticed the tragedy of my bottle bein' empty. That needs to be rectified!
I clomped it down in front of Shorty, Specialist Elrod Larson, as it was his turn to buy a round. He grinned and the short man headed off to solve our problem of low liquidity.
As I watched him go, I wondered just what kind of parents go and name their son Elrod? I mean that's just beggin' for a beating growing up. At barely five foot two, and maybe one hundred thirty pounds sopping wet, the term I would apply to our rifleman is 'scrappy'. He may present a small target for the enemy, but he can sure as hell put a hurting on them as our second best shot in the fireteam.
He's the only one of the team that is married, and happily so. To a lovely lady named Sally. From the pictures of her, I would have to wonder what a pretty young thing like that saw in the guy, but I knew him, and knew his character. He was dedicated to his family and serving his country and our unit, and that elevated him in my view. I could easily see a woman falling for him, no matter how much we may tease him.
I bestowed the Shorty moniker on him on day one. He's the shortest on our squad, then Kid at around five foot eight and Ripper and I top out at six foot even.
When he returned, he was balancing a tray that looked almost like an old cookie sheet that had our beers and four bowls of what looked like some kind of stew. Lots of vegetables and some sort of mystery meat. They didn't have a menu here and you ate what they served you since the primary focus of the place was drinkin'.
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