Hunter was afraid he would suffocate or black out or have to tap out. He held John off from getting a choke utilizing the minimum of effort while he caught his breath. He moved elbows and knees and bucked his hips to keep John off balance. He remembered his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor’s lessons on breathing and staying in the fight and living. He took in short small breaths and exhaled in long slow breaths through pursed lips. Gradually, despite his struggles and the skill of his opponent, Hunter grew aware that he was able to breath normally again. His heart rate slowed even though his defensive efforts were still only about three-quarters of his full energy capacity.
He now made a display of being short of breath, reached up and laid his fingers softly on John’s tree-branch hard arm, the preparatory motion to a tapping which would signal Hunter’s submission. He felt the vice-like grip of John’s strong thighs on his lower chest relax ever so slightly. In an instant, Hunter threw his hips up to full extension then dropped them back to the ground even more quickly. He rolled quickly but minimally to his left side while John’s body was separated from his by a fraction. He was able to throw his right knee under John’s thigh and to hold him away from his own torso effectively. Hunter could feel that John was off-balance. He locked his hand on John’s right wrist, scissor-kicked upward and to his own left and turned John over. Now he was in the guard position—not a full advantage, but light years better than where he had been two seconds previously.
John smiled benignly up at Hunter, “Nice,” he said as he tapped Hunter’s arm.
It was no tap-out, but Hunter had learned lessons two and three: Never let down your guard and get caught with a sucker move, and work to get time to regain your breath and to let your brain and body find the energy resources earned by hard training and to use the skills you worked into your muscle memory. Oh, and there’s no such thing as a fair fight; that would only be a failure of your tactics.
Hunter nodded.
“Thanks. I will try not to forget the tutorial. It won’t be as easy for you to sucker me next time, and you might pick up a bruise or two.”
“Give me a minute to stop trembling,” John mocked.
“Time for breakfast…unless you’re too tired,” Hunter said as he stood up and offered John his hand.
They ate cooked oatmeal fortified with brown sugar, raisins, and cream. Hunter downed two glasses of orange juice and a piece of toast with crunchy peanut butter and apricot-marmalade jam. The sniper arrived ten minutes late, and both Hunter and John raised a quizzical eyebrow as he came through the doorway.
“Had some stuff to round up,” the sniper said laconically.
Through the open door, Hunter and John turned to see the sniper’s 1038 version HMMWV four man troop/cargo carrier with an attached small covered trailer. The vehicle had a very large winch on the front and a very high ground clearance owing to having had a sixty inch deep water fording kit applied after manufacture—by the sniper himself, it turned out.
“Sweet ride, no?”
“Whatever gets you off,” John replied, remembering his own experience with the rough ride related to the absence of shock absorbers or cushions on the seats as he recalled.
“Ready for a big day?”
Hunter answered, “Sure. We’ve had a restful morning, who wouldn’t be?”
John just smiled.
The three men piled in and headed to the same rifle range as the previous day. The hill they climbed then was clearly not navigable to any ordinary truck or car, but the humvee moved sprightly up the 60% [31°] slope as easily as most trucks moved up a 5% grade. Near the top, the sniper turned to the right and traversed the side slope which was approaching a 40% [22°] incline. Hunter was sitting on the downhill side and made it a point not to look down. The humvee moved along as if it had claws. For the fun of it—boys will be boys—the sniper took off along the ridgeline at the vehicle’s maximum speed of 55 mph powered by the 6.2 liter, 3,600 rpm engine, presumably reworked by the sniper in his copious free time. Hunter was sure that he would pee blood before this day was out. He decided that he was too old for this sort of fun as it was apparent from the sniper’s face that this was something approaching ecstasy in the fun department.
The sniper made an overly sharp and bone jarring turn and put the three men at the same location where they had had the marathon shooting drills the day before.
“We’re here, gentlemen. Everybody out.”
Both Hunter and John breathed theatrical sighs of relief and hobbled out as fast as their stiff and sore muscles and joints could move them.
“Today we’re gonna do the same as last, but today we’re gonna work a little fast to quote Harry Belafonte,” the sniper quipped, “and we’re gonna do some quite different stuff. After today, you’ll be on your own to practice. That’s how you get to Carnegie Hall—practice, practice, practice,” he laughed.
John rolled his eyes.
“Bring your weapon, John?”
“Whatta you think?”
“Good man. But I brought an updated version. I’ll trade you.”
He reached into the trailer and brought out a very long camo gun case. Hunter pulled out the sniper rifle and noted the attachment of a silencer.
“This is the best there is,” the sniper said, “the same SSG-69 PII sniper rifle but this time with a permanently attached chrome molybdenum 4130 steel sound suppressor. Chrome moly steel is hard, tough, very durable, and holds its zero so long as it’s properly attached. It takes non-reflective surfaces—Parkerizing—and holds paint very well. Paint is now the coating of choice, since it is corrosion resistant, and can be easily changed to camo. Baked on polymers are great as well, but I thought it would look too much like American manufacture; so, I went with paint. Incidentally, a suppressed rifle should be stored and carried in its assembled, ready-to-go configuration.
“We’ve all have seen action thrillers in which a spy or a sniper carries a fitted case full of components—stock, action, barrel, forearm, scope, mount and silencer—which was then assembled quickly in the field, and then used to complete an important assassination, sometimes with more than one shot. That is pure Hollywood. No military sniper or law enforcement officer in his right mind would ever assemble a rifle on the spot on an assignment and expect the weapon to hold its zero. It might, but such an occurrence would be a rarity. Some suppressors cause shots to stray with various degrees of tightness or looseness on a rifle’s barrel. My testing indicates that a rifle with a suppressor fixed permanently in place with a properly executed, two-point, conical, tensioned barrel mount will remain in zero. This zero remains even after the suppressor has been removed for cleaning and replacement. As long as the replacement torque is close to the same, the zero will be unaffected—and I mean no discernable, cold shot shift after a day, a week, or a year, at 180 to 2000 m.
“If you’re going to suppress a sniper rifle, that rifle should he totally dedicated to suppressed fire. Using a rifle which is only occasionally silenced is an invitation to either a lawsuit for law enforcement or to poor field shooting, which is the crucial issue for you who will not likely be able to get off more than a couple or three shots in as many seconds, since any rifle will carry a different zero without a suppressor, as opposed to its zero with one.”
Hunter nodded his understanding and said, “So, let’s shoot.”
“Let’s.”
The weapon was heavy, considerably heavier than the comfortable rifle he had become fairly proficient with the day before. The sniper briefly described the particular suppressor he had chosen for Hunter’s sniper rifle.
“The suppressor—and that’s the politically correct term—since the public sees hit men and other murderers as the only people who would use a ‘silencer’ is a modified LRM M1 169 upper on an AR15/M16 type platform. The modification is for the NATO supersonic ammo you’ll be using instead of the 9 mm used in the regular production. It’s long—12.75 inches—and weighs 4 pounds, 4½ ounces. With the suppressor plus the upper
half, the whole set-up comes to 21.5 inches. It is admittedly cumbersome, and you will have to practice, practice, practice to get used to it and to be effective. I’ll tell you, though, this thing keeps its zero through any amount of shooting and most abuse. You won’t be able to sneak it through TSA or customs; so, your friendly Company friends will have to get it to you in the diplomatic bag.”
The sniper was right. The weapon was unwieldy in Hunter’s unpracticed hands. He could not fire it with any hope of accuracy standing cowboy style. He fired round after round from the prone position and from a semi-sitting-one-knee-up position. He felt himself getting discouraged as he fired dozens of rounds that were no closer than 2 MOA. After a two hour stint, he took a breather, wiped the sweat from his brow and hands, clenched his teeth, and determinably started again. Finally, half an hour later, his shots on the 800 m target were coming fairly consistently in the sub l MOA area for five consecutive shots. After another half an hour, something clicked in, and he ceased finding it such a strain. It was like learning how to drive a stick-shift vehicle. Once you understand the feel of the clutch lifting up and the accelerator pushing down smoothly together, it is difficult to remember why it was so hard to do earlier. He had been at it for four and a half hours before the sniper called a lunch break.
“How do you think you’re doing, John?”
Hunter answered the sniper with his learning-to-drive analogy. The sniper smiled his understanding.
“Let’s chow down and then work on the 1600 meter target, okay?”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to feel like I get it. I’ll have to shoot a thousand rounds before I get really confident, though.”
“More like two thousand.”
The three men ate two BLTs each and downed a couple of liters of bottled water. Hunter took a twenty minute power nap and awoke fully refreshed. He was gradually getting back into his LRRP form from Viet Nam and remembered his long range reconnaissance patrol experience with more fondness than he had at the time.
John I announced, “It’s time to get on with it. I know you’ve got more toys than this in your little vehicle and trailer.”
The sniper nodded his agreement, but he said, “first our novice sniper has to learn to shoot a man on the run. I’ve arranged for a cardboard man to dart between two walls. His trip will take two seconds. There was a sniper in Fallujah who killed something like 32 men in five days at 800 yards, a significant number of which met the conditions you are going to be in during the next hour or so. When you can hit five targets in a row in a kill zone, you graduate.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
White House, 0630: Daily CIA Briefing Present: POTUS, DCIA
The sleepy president, still in his white pajamas with a White House emblem pattern, gestured to Gerald Lang to sit in front of The presidential desk while he settled into his own large leather swivel chair.
“I have some early appointments, Director. Let’s get right into the meat of the briefing.”
The jowly DCIA began in the quiet, precise, monotone for which he was known, “Mr. President, we have two items that matter. The first is that overnight two arrests were made. Our operatives apprehended a terrorist…”
The president shook his head.
“A facilitator,” Director Lang said, working to suppress his disdain for the euphemism, “was apprehended attempting to board a flight from Lagos Murtala Muhammed International Airport to Detroit Wayne County Airport. Our people had been watching him for the past five weeks. He’s on the TIDE list—along with 550,000 other…uh, facilitators—and has been active in a mosque known to be a recruiting site.”
“Refresh my mind, director, what’s TIDE?”
“It’s a mouthful. It’s the National Counterterrorism Center’s massive Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database. Our friend, Umar Betullah Moussaoui—no relation to the famous Zacharias—lives in a section of Lagos called Akinogun. Early last night, we watched him go into his house looking slim and come out in a trench coat looking fat. Our operatives there—who are, incidentally, indigenous folks—followed Umar’s beatup 1950 Russian “ZIS”—Zavod Imieni Stalina—Model 110 in their equally beat up 1940’s Ford pick-up along Idimu Road to the Abeokuta Express and off onto the Agege Motor Road. There, a cut-out unit followed him onto Airport Road. They parked a couple of spaces away from him and followed him into the terminal. He headed directly into the exit way bypassing security without a soul bothering him, and our guys tackled him. He had on a suicide vest and carried a very sharp Yoshi Blade ceramic knife. He had no ID, no passport, and no ticket; but somehow, he had gotten what appeared to be a valid boarding pass. Fortunately for all concerned, the surprise was complete; and he was unable to detonate his huge bomb made of high grade PETN. We had a discussion with him before turning him over to the Nigerian authorities, and he was quite forthcoming.”
The president raised an eyebrow.
“I haven’t gotten the details of the level of intensity of the discussion, Mr. President,” the director lied.
“Maybe it’d be better if I didn’t know.”
“Might well be, sir.”
“Good work.”
“Indeed…this time, but it is worrisome that still something like half of the world’s major airports have not initiated our demands for their security. Anyhow, that is the first arrest. And incidentally, our Nigerian counterparts took a dim view of Mr. Moussaoui’s activities. It appears that they intend to be somewhat more direct with the fellow than we were. Perhaps we will gain some more insight into the underbelly of Nigerian politics.”
“You said there were two arrests.”
“Yes, sir. The second one is somewhat more of a problem. Faizah Batool al-Faisal—the name means victorious ascetic virgin—a young, very well educated girl, a physician—was rounded up in a raid by the National Security Agency, one of Yemen’s two main intelligence organizations, in a basement bomb making factory in Sana’a. She was caught in the very act as the Bible would say. She had a sophisticated fuse in her hand and several bomb making guides in her clothing when she was grabbed by the Yemenis. They have not laid a hand on her and have not interrogated her beyond learning her name, since then for a couple or three reasons.”
“Which are?”
“First, she looks like she has a lot of information; second, she has extensive contacts with Hamza Ali Saleh al Dhayani, AKA Aldhaini and al Dhajani, who is a prime suspect in the September 17, 2008 suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen that killed 16 people, including an American citizen. Yemen also named him as a suspect in mortar attack on the U.S. Embassy in March of the same year. Our sources indicate that al Dhayani was the recruiter and driving instructor for the suicide car bomber who murdered eight elderly Spanish tourists in Mareb in July 2007. Dhayani is a Mareb under the protection of the Jahm tribe and is immune to Yemeni prosecution—it’s sort of like diplomatic immunity; third, and most important—although we can’t establish it beyond doubt—Dr. al-Faisal, appears to be closely related to the Saudi royal family. We think she is a niece of King Abdallah; and, further, we have reason to believe that she may be married to a brother of Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz.”
“Head of Istakhbarat, the Saudi Intelligence Service?”
“The very same.”
The president’s face visibly blanched.
“Fourth, she was educated at Vassar as an undergrad, Yale for a masters in nuclear physics, Harvard Medical School for her M.D., and at Johns Hopkins for her radiology residency, largely a research type of post grad program.
“Aren’t you full of good news.”
“I’m just the messenger, Mr. President.”
“Now what?”
“I’ll have to send that ball back to your court, sir. Everyone everywhere is handling this with the utmost secrecy and delicacy. The Yemenis have said point blank that they want nothing to do with her, and want you, Mr. President, to tell them what to do next. They insist that she is an American citizen. She insists that she is a Saudi
and therefore cannot be extradited. She is confident that she will not be subjected to Yemeni interrogation, and demands to be sent to Saudi Arabia where she can face any criminal charges that might be in the offing. She is no dummy, sir; and she is sure that she has us over a barrel.”
“I’ll have to ponder a bit on this, Gerald. I’ll get back to you.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I’ll await your instructions.”
The president shuffled a few papers, the usual signal that the daily briefing was over; and Director Lang made his exit.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The three shooters all assumed prone positions on the low rise that looked over the field of fire between them and the two distant targets. The sniper insisted that Hunter cover himself all the time he was shooting to help him to get used to the somewhat uncomfortable camouflage cloak. Hunter was then ordered to fire at a moving target with his now familiar SSG-69. It took an hour before he could kill 5 targets in a row. He asked to continue with five more before he was satisfied.
“Do I graduate?” Hunter asked, smiling at the sniper.
“Not quite. I have some more toys for you.”
“Hey, you promised.”
“I lied.”
The three men laughed, and the sniper fetched two well-worn old canvas gun cases and handed each of the men a handsome, but obviously old, sniper rifle.
“This is the model 1891/30 Sniper rifle. These rifles were used all over the world for much of the 20th century and are still available to killers in underdeveloped areas because they are cheap, accurate, and reliable. The weapon is no match against your SSG-69, but it is very useful. It has the distinct advantage to you—John—in that it is unquestionably of Russian—even Soviet—origin and cannot be traced to the U.S. To create the sniper version of these rifles, high quality examples of the 1891/30 were pulled off of the Russian stock production line in the early 1920s. The Sovs specifically looked for high quality barrels. They took these hand picked rifles and then turned the bolts down for operation while using a scope. They mounted a scope using either the PV (4x) or PU (3.5x) version. There was no bayonet issued, and the trigger was lightened. The 1891/30 Sniper proved to be exceptional, probably the best in World War II. The rifles were mass-produced, with as many as 330,000 of the sniper variants being produced between 1941 and 1943; and, therefore, there are tens of thousands of them floating around the world unregistered and uncontrolled. If either of you were in Viet Nam, you might have seen them around, since the NVA used them as their preferred sniper rifle.
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