The day’s exercise was on targets at a confirmed distance of a thousand meters, or roughly three quarters of a mile. The rifle they were using for the exercise was an American-manufactured Barrett M82, a. 50 caliber rifle with an effective range of eighteen hundred meters, or considerably over a mile, although accuracy became iffy after nine hundred to a thousand meters. Sixteen hundred meters was considered acceptable if you were trying to hit a bomb or something larger than a human torso, but there were too many variables that could affect accuracy. Many snipers preferred the smaller. 338 rifles for precision, however, the official sniper rifle for the marines was the Heckler amp; Koch PSG1 firing a 7.65 millimeter round. The problem was that the weapon’s accuracy dropped off at eight hundred meters, so special forces had secured fifteen of the much larger payload Barrett rifles as a trial for standardization – to substitute the PSG1.
Each sniper cadet had been assigned a coach, who gave the firing order and then received a report from down-field. Accuracy had dropped off markedly once the seven hundred meter threshold had been crossed, and there were few who could deliver precise hits at over eight hundred.
“What does your nose tell you?” the coach asked Raul.
“Moderate humidity.”
“Guesstimate on wind speed and direction?”
“Seven to ten knots, out of the north-east,” Raul replied.
“Adjust your bearings accordingly. Good luck.”
Raul concentrated on controlling his breathing, and soon his entire awareness was synthesized into the tiny world within the scope. He made some minor adjustments for his wind-speed guesstimate then gently massaged the trigger until the weapon discharged. He’d long ago learned never to pull, as it could throw off accuracy. A deliberate squeeze was best.
The radio crackled and the report came back. A bull’s eye.
“Good shooting.”
They repeated the exercise for ten shots, all of which landed within a one inch grouping.
“I think we’re done here, young man.”
Raul looked up at the coach. He was emboldened by his success, and wanted to try for a personal best. He got along well with the man, so he floated his idea.
“Why don’t we try it at fifteen-hundred meters? Just to make it interesting?” Raul suggested.
The coach looked at him like he was crazy. “Pretty cocky, huh? That’s an impossible range with that weapon and that ammo, not to mention that scope. You want to put money on it?” the coach asked. Fifteen hundred meters was just under a mile away, and was the absolute maximum of the rifle’s range.
“Two hundred pesos says I nail it three out of five. Although I agree that this ammo is crap for that distance. I’d prefer to load it myself for better consistency, but hey…” Raul said.
“Fine. But three misses, we go home and I’m two hundred richer.”
The coach got on the radio and issued the instructions to the man downrange, who obligingly moved the target to the farthest point on the range before taking cover.
“It’s your funeral. Fire when ready,” the coach said.
Raul took his time, made further adjustments to the scope, then repeated his meditation process where he became one with the weapon. The discharge almost startled him, so focused was his concentration. There was no need to wait for the radio to report. He knew what it would say.
“Bull’s eye, eleven millimeters off center,” the radio crackled.
“To the right, or the left? Or low or high? Tell him to be specific, would you?” Raul groused.
Wide-eyed, the coach studied Raul like he was from another planet, then posed the question.
The response came back. “To the right.”
“That’s what I thought he’d say. Wind’s died down a hair in the last thirty seconds. Tell him to clear,” Raul said.
Once he got the go ahead, he repeated the impossible shot. Four more times. All shots grouped with under an inch of variance.
The coach gladly handed over the two hundred pesos for the single most astounding display of marksmanship he’d ever witnessed.
“You’re a fucking monster, you know that? That’s superhuman voodoo shit right there. I’ve really never seen anything like it and I’ve been teaching for over ten years. Before that, I was one of the top three marksmen in Mexico,” the coach acceded.
“Those that can, do…”
Both men laughed together, in spite of a twenty-five year age difference. Raul would never again shoot with that accuracy at that distance, preferring to limit his performance to more average expectations. It wouldn’t do to show off, or to develop too much of a reputation. Better to have had a one in a million day and then graduate in the top third of the class than at the top. He remembered Emilio’s sage counsel from when he was just a sprout. Never show too much of your hand. To give your enemies information is to make a gift. And friends can become enemies. So know how good you are and then take private pleasure in that accomplishment. Becoming celebrated makes you a target. Better to be in the middle of the herd when the hunters came, than at the head.
Into the evening, Raul enjoyed his place in the spotlight amongst his peers, as news of his exploit circulated. As much as he enjoyed the adulation, a part of him knew that the hubris that came from being the best was a fickle charm, so he resolved to enjoy it for now, because it would be the last time he allowed others to get a glimpse of what he could actually do. Information was power, and allowing, no, inviting others to understand his capabilities was foolhardy.
His goal was to drain what experience he could from the service and then slip away like a ghost. It would serve no useful purpose to be noticed any more than he already had been. From that point on he would adopt a lower profile and continue to accumulate the pearls of experience until his work there was done. He calculated that another three months of training and perhaps six months in the field would be sufficient, making for a total of a year and a half of his life devoted to the pursuit of excellence with Mexico’s finest.
That night, as he lay his head upon his bunk, he began a silent mental countdown.
To when he could begin his new, new life.
Patience, he told himself, was a virtue that would pay enormous dividends – it became his bedtime mantra. He needed to maximize his learning while he was still in school. That’s how he viewed his life to the point he’d arrived at – it was his education. The time would soon come when the pupil proved himself to be the master, but for now, he had lessons to absorb. He still wanted to master parachuting – not jumping out of planes and controlling his descent, but rather precision-guiding his drop to within a meter of his target point. And he still needed more hours of scuba time, as well as some orientation on flying planes and helicopters. The latter two weren’t on the curriculum, but he was lobbying to get them added. You could never know too much.
With visions of his future cascading through his awareness, he slowly drifted off to sleep, his day’s toil finally at an end.
Chapter 5
Ten and a half years ago .
The battered, rusting hull of the freighter ground against the old tires fastened to the concrete dock at one of the more remote cargo offloading piers on Veracruz harbor. Flying a Panamanian flag, Caruso was at least forty years old, and had made the long trip from South America countless times. The dark green paint on her dented steel sides bubbled at the rivets from underlying rust. She looked to be on her last legs, as did many of the freighters that made their way into the busy deep water port. She was manifested as delivering coffee and bananas from Colombia, which was largely true, although the money-making haul was the ten tons of cocaine stashed in the specially-constructed compartments in her lower hold, which to cursory inspection appeared to be the floor of the cargo area inside the hull. Even if a nosy customs inspector had cared to pry open one of the scarred hatches, all he would have found was what appeared to be the slimy metal lining of the waterlogged bilge. It was an ingenious design; the modifications had taken place at a discreet shipyard in Colon, Panama while other refits were being attended to.
