Sniper

by Vaughn C. Hardacker

  Anne picked up the rifle for him and was surprised by its weight. “That’s heavy.”

  “Fourteen and a half pounds,” Houston said. “That and the fact that it’s bolt action is probably why it was never popular with the grunts.” He saw the question on Anne’s face. “The infantry call themselves grunts. This weapon would be too heavy to carry for hours on end and in a fire-fight it’s difficult to gain fire superiority with a bolt action. It doesn’t fire fast enough—accurate, but slow. We scout-snipers became accustomed to it.”

  “I don’t know about anyone else,” Winter added, “but I wanted more than five rounds in my magazine; then there’s the problem of having to manually work the bolt action in the middle of a shit sandwich where gaining fire superiority means survival.”

  “I agree,” Houston said, “but to a sniper it’s all about accuracy.”

  “One shot; one kill,” O’Leary said.

  “It has an effective range of a thousand meters. At that distance you have plenty of time to work the bolt action.” Houston took the rifle from Anne and picked up two boxes of 7.62 mm ammunition.

  Winter walked to his truck, opened the door and motioned for Houston to join him. “I’ll go with you and spot.” He picked up a black plastic case and tossed it to Houston.

  “What’s this?” Houston asked.

  “A Leupold Mark 4 Tactical Spotting Scope. All we need now is someplace big enough to sight in these weapons.”

  “That gravel pit we passed last night will be ideal.” Houston placed his rifle, targets and ammunition into Winter’s truck. “Shall we go?”

  They reached the pit in ten minutes. While Houston cleared a shooting position, Winter used duct tape to mount targets to some plywood stands he had in the back of his truck, then paced off an estimated one hundred and three hundred meters, setting targets at each benchmark. He returned to the shooting position and stood beside Houston. He used a range-finder scope to measure the distance to the hundred-meter target. Winter sat on the ground and watched the target through the Leupold.

  Houston got into a prone firing position and peered through the scope. When he was satisfied that he had good sight alignment and sight picture, he used his thumb to take the rifle off safe and fired.

  “Low and to the left . . . bring it up one and right two,” Winter said.

  Houston turned the elevation knob up one click and the windage two to the right. He settled back in, worked the bolt to eject the expended cartridge and loaded a live round into the chamber. He took three deep breaths, exhaling slowly after each one. When the scope’s crosshairs centered on the bull’s-eye, he fired again.

  “Bull.”

  Houston fired four rounds as fast as he could work the bolt action.

  “Nice tight group in the bull,” Winter said. “Do you miss it?”

  “Miss what?” He removed a small spiral notebook from his hip pocket and recorded the scope’s elevation and windage settings for the hundred-meter distance.

  “The military—the high of going into combat with a group of guys you’d bet your life on and hunting an armed enemy.”

  “I did for a while. It’s been over fifteen years since I was in and it fades.” Houston fed another load of cartridges into the rifle’s magazine.

  “I hope I never get that way. I loved being in.”

  “Why’d you get out?”

  “Wasn’t entirely my choice. There was this sergeant who rode my ass from sunup to sundown. I finally had enough of it and took action.”

  “You get a dishonorable?” Houston asked.

  “No, the members of the courts martial realized that the asshole had pushed me too far. Nevertheless, like everywhere, lifers always rally together and look out for each other. I got an honorable discharge under general conditions.”

  Houston glanced down range and turned his attention to the three-hundred-meter target.

  It took a little over an hour for Houston to zero in the scope, record the windage and elevation settings for each distance and feel comfortable in his ability to hit anything he shot at out to five hundred meters.

  Winter walked to his truck and returned with an assault rifle. He fired a full magazine of twenty rounds into the hundred-meter target. The barrage of supersonic rounds shredded the target and Winter smiled. “I don’t think I’ll be using this past one hundred meters—seems fine to me.”

  Houston stared at the target. Winter’s volley had ripped it in half and the pieces flapped in the breeze like pennants.

  “Not exactly a subtle weapon, is it?” Winter asked.

  “No, I’d say it’s about as subtle as a kick in the nuts.”

  “Can’t beat one of these in a firefight though.”

  “Does Jimmy have you use that much?”

  “No way I’m going to answer that. Who knows, once this is over we could be facing each other from different sides.”

  “If I know Jimmy as well as I think I do, I’d bet he does a lot of his own wet work.”

  “He believes in a hands-on managerial approach,” Winter said. “Besides, his smoker’s breath is lethal enough.”

  Houston laughed and packed up his equipment. As they drove back to camp, they passed the time chatting about their time in the military.

  Once they were back in the campsite, Houston changed into camouflage coveralls and pulled out his Ghillie suit. He had chosen an oak color so he would blend in with the hardwoods that inhabited the northern woods. Once he started stalking, Houston would gather native flora, weave it into the netting, and tie the suit to his camouflaged coveralls. It was obvious to him that he was going to have to move through heavy brush and didn’t want to worry about the suit snagging on branches and bushes as he moved. He carefully rolled the Ghillie up and fastened it with Velcro straps to the bottom of a backpack.

  Once the sniper suit was secure, the backpack was filled with ammunition, beef jerky and canned cheese and crackers. He strapped two canteens of water around his waist and made a mental note to ensure the canteens were full at all times; all the camouflage in the world would do no good if his quarry heard water sloshing around in a half-full canteen. He poured a cup of coffee and, while drinking, conducted a mental inventory. Damn it, he thought, it’s been so long and there’s so much to remember.

  Had the sniper not taken Susie, he would say to hell with it and return to Boston where he would be on familiar turf and could use conventional police procedures. He knew those thoughts were folly. After eight days and seven deaths, he was no closer to getting the shooter than he had been on the first day. It had to be done this way: using the rules that had been hammered into him and the assassin long ago. What bothered him most was that his quarry had obviously kept his skills honed, while he, on the other hand, had let his deteriorate.

  Thus far, Anne had left him to his thoughts, but now that the time for the operation to commence was upon them, she broke her silence. “I don’t like the thought of you going in without backup.”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “Still.”

  “Anne, don’t worry. I’ve done this before.”

  “When you were a lot younger! It’s been a long time since you were a marine, Mike.”

  “Like riding a bicycle . . . it never leaves you.”

  “Mike . . . ”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “This is nothing to take lightly.” She knew Houston didn’t want to debate with her in front of the others and glanced over her shoulder to see if either O’Leary or Winter were within earshot. “Fatigue raises the percentage that you’ll make mistakes and you’ve only slept a few hours in the past two days. It could be fatal. What if you become exhausted on the island?”

  “I’ll deal with it.” Houston was curt, ending the discussion. “I’ll be all right. Trust me on this.”

  Jimmy stood beside Winter’s car and called out. “Anne, we better get moving if we want to get to the island before midnight.”

  Anne wiped her hands on her je
ans, reluctant to leave.

  “Go on,” Houston said. “I’ll be fine.”

  She nodded, stood still for a second and then walked to the truck.

  Previously, they had agreed that they would leave both vehicles at the boat launch, so O’Leary got into Houston’s SUV. Anne paused, then turned and gave Houston a final look before getting in beside him. Winter waved out the driver-side window of his SUV and backed out of the campground.

  Houston waited until they were out of sight, opened his backpack, took out the pistol belt that held his Glock 9mm automatic pistol with holster, and strapped it around his waist. He doused the campfire, slid the backpack over his shoulders, shrugged a couple of times to settle it on his back and started down the trail with the sniper rifle slung over his right shoulder.

  O’Leary smoked a cigarette and flicked ashes out the open window. He finished smoking, dropped the butt into a disposable cup of cold coffee and glanced at Anne.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  Anne stopped staring at the forest and looked at him. She made no sign of recognition.

  “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  “Jimmy, I don’t know you enough either to like or dislike you on a personal basis. It’s what you do that’s my problem.”

  “That’s bullshit and we both know it. I can see it in your face every time you’re around me. You aren’t one of those broads who hate the fact that her man had a life before her, are you?”

  “Not especially.” Anne continued to glare at him. “Besides, Mike isn’t my man. He’s my partner.”

  “Either way, I know women like that. They think that everything that happened to him before they came along is a threat. Well, Anne, all I can say is this: Mike and me grew up together. Yeah, we’ve had our differences, but ain’t nothing going to happen to him as long as ol’ Jimmy O has any say in the matter. So what you say we bury the hatchet until we get beyond this—then you can go back to disliking me.”

  “Jimmy, as I said, it’s not that I don’t like you . . . ”

  “I know, I know. I smoke too much, I’m a chauvinistic asshole, I’m uglier than road kill, and you don’t like what I do for a living—other than that I’m a prince. Ain’t I right?”

  Anne started laughing, in spite of herself. “Jimmy . . . ”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mike and I . . . we’re nothing more than friends and partners.”

  O’Leary looked at her. “Whether you know it or not, you mean a lot to him. I saw him like that once before. With my sister. Mike and Pam married young. Hell, as close as we were as kids, it didn’t surprise anyone. Still, you ever know two people who were crazy in love, but at the same time were toxic to each other?”

  “A few come to mind.”

  “Well, that was my sister and Mike. Pam had gotten her fill of craziness and violence when we was kids. All she wanted was a quiet life away from Southie and all the bad shit that happened to her there. On the other hand, Mike’s like me. I guess you could say that we’re adrenaline junkies. We need action. Things that are normal, if there is such a thing, bore the shit out of us. The only difference between him and me is the way we get our fix.”

  Anne remained quiet, mulling over what O’Leary had said.

  “In her own way, Pam was as fucked up as we were. I done some reading and I think I know what her downfall as a wife was. After years as a helpless victim, she wanted to control the uncontrollable . . . ”

  “And by uncontrollable, do you mean Mike?”

  “Yeah, no matter how much anyone tries to convince him otherwise, he’s gonna do what he has to do. I know that and he knows that. Hell, I’ll take it a step further—sometime down the road he and I are gonna come up against each other professionally. Well, I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

  Anne offered him her hand and when he gripped it she said, “Truce until this is over?”

  O’Leary shook her hand. “It’s going to be a nice day for a boat ride.”

  30

  “At dawn and dusk, the flash from a shot can usually be clearly seen and care must be taken not to disclose the position of the hide . . . ”

  —US Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Training Manual

  The morning was warm, beautiful and sunny, and in no time Houston fell into the easy rhythmic ground-covering gait familiar to experienced infantrymen. He felt fortunate—giant trees sheltered the trail from direct sunlight and beneath the thick canopy the temperature was in the mid-seventies, while in direct sunlight it was most likely in the mid-eighties. In short time his muscles warmed, loosening the knots that had formed while he had slept on the cold, damp ground.

  After he’d hiked what he estimated to be two miles, the trail downgraded from an old logging road to a footpath. After walking for two and a half hours, his leg muscles began to burn. He did a lot of walking on the job, but that was on paved city streets, a completely different thing from hiking through virgin forest. Houston knew if he ceased walking his legs would cool and stiffen, so rather than pause for a break, he pushed forward.

  The trail followed a brook and sloped to the north. In short time, it became rocky and wet, making the footing treacherous. Rain had carved a narrow wash along the path, deep enough that an unwary or careless hiker could twist or sprain an ankle. Houston wanted to avoid any foolish accidents and slowed his pace, cautiously studying the terrain beneath his feet. Suddenly he stumbled and his left foot slid into the gully and rolled over as he slid forward. Pain lanced through his ankle. Houston cursed, held the injured foot out and dropped to his haunches. He removed his pack and gear and shook his head in a futile attempt to deal with the pain. It didn’t help. Sitting on the edge of the gully, Houston removed his boot. His luck held; he was able to see that while he had rolled his ankle and it hurt, it was neither sprained nor broken. He replaced his boot and tightened the laces as much as he could to provide the ankle with enough support to continue on. He struggled into his backpack and used his rifle’s butt as a crutch to get back on his feet. He hobbled down the hill following the brook, waiting for the exercise to diminish the pain.

  Fifteen minutes later, he came to Aroostook Lake.

  The sniper sat in front of the shack, smoking a cigar. The noon sun warmed his ravaged skin. He glanced at his watch. Mikey should be gettin’ close, he thought.

  “You think he’ll come?”

  “He’ll come.”

  “What’s to stop him from notifying the FBI of the kidnapping and sending them here?”

  “His pride will drive him here—pride and anger will be his undoing. I’m sure that by now, he’s thoroughly pissed off. I’ve killed his friends, his kid’s mother and he’s never gotten close enough to see me. I know that would grate on my ass. The truth of the matter is that he not only wants to see me dead, but he wants to be the one to do it. If the Feds get involved, they won’t let him kill me.”

  “He won’t be alone.”

  “He’d be stupid if he was. If he’s shot, who’s going to get the kid? You’ll have your hands full too, Frankie. There will be plenty of opportunity to prove your marksmanship abilities.”

  “Don’t call me Frankie. What is it between you two?”

  “It goes back to ninety-three, in Somalia. I was a corporal and Houston was a sergeant and my squad leader. We had different ideas on how the war should be fought. He was too selective when it came to picking targets.”

  “And you weren’t?”

  “That wasn’t my job. My job was to kill skinnies. It was God’s job to keep the innocent safe. My ol’ man was in ’Nam. He told me about how there were no civilians there. The guy who cut your hair in the base barber shop in the afternoon was the same one shootin’ rockets and mortars at you that night. The gooks would have a kid hold a grenade—with the pin pulled—behind its back and walk into a bunch of our guys to beg for candy. When the kid reached for what the grunts offered, the grenade fell and killed the gook kid along with the Americans. If the enemy doesn’t gi
ve a shit about their own, why should we?’

  “So your philosophy was to shoot everyone.”

  “And let God sort out the innocent.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you hate him so much.”

  The sniper inhaled and removed the cigar from his burn-scarred lips. He stared at the burning tobacco. “Ever wonder how the fiery end of this butt feels? I know. I was on fire once.”

  Since Estes had met him, she had gone to great lengths not to question him about his scars. She remained silent as he told her what happened on that fateful day.

  Houston stopped on the shore and stared at the massive body of water. When Rosa gave him his instructions, Houston had researched the lake, but he hadn’t expected anything this rustic and beautiful. Before him, nestled in the forest, was 6,700 acres of clean water with a maximum depth of 160 feet. In the summer, the population swelled with the influx of people who own cabins—called camps by the locals—on the lake and its islands, places for seasonal “getting away from it all” rather than year-round living. Even then, the population was so sparse that no telecommunications or power company found it profitable enough to run phone and power lines beyond the general store and boat launch on the lake’s southern shore. If a resident wanted electricity anywhere else on Aroostook Lake, he or she had to bring in a generator by boat.

  Houston decided to take a break for a meal and let his weary legs and sore ankle rest. He opened a topographical map of the lake and its surrounding area and located his destination, which wasn’t difficult, as it was the largest island in the lake. However, depending on the type of boat Rosa had left for him, it could take hours to get there.

  Houston made a small fire and ate a hot lunch. It would have been faster to eat a cold meal, but he had no idea how long he would be on the water and unable to cook. His hunger sated, Houston dipped his mess kit into the surprisingly cold lake water. He scoured the metal dishes with sand and gravel. Once he was satisfied all was in order, he searched the shoreline, looking for the boat Rosa had hidden. When he found it, he knew it was going to take him some time to reach the island. “The bastard left me a canoe and a paddle!”