Miss your picked shot, and your opponent gets to choose. First person to reach HORSE loses.
Word had spread quickly that a rookie had not just challenged Rodriguez, but that it was the hot young blonde that had caught many eyes in the past few weeks, and what the bet was. Classes were halted, runs cut short, and by the time we were settled into adjacent positions there was quite a crowd around us.
I had issued the challenge, so he went first. He hit his first eight shots, all from the prone position while I missed three. I was a HOR before he finally missed a target at 850 yards.
I had noticed how comfortable he was prone, and decided to mix it up. Looking out at a target I figured was 350 yards out, I called out “Yellow. Standing.” The M40 was a heavy-barrel weapon, not well suited for offhand use. It quickly wore out your muscles, causing them to twitch and move. What the Gunny didn’t know was that I was a hell of a lot stronger than he was.
I set the scope and found the target, then focused on my breathing. The shot hit just below center with a clang. He made it as well, so I moved out to a target at five hundred yards and made the hit.
He didn’t. H for him.
I shifted to kneeling, and made a shot at six hundred yards. HO. I was on a roll. I went back to standing, forcing him beyond his limits as he couldn’t hold the target and was soon down HORS-HOR. I couldn’t afford to miss, just like pool, he’d go back to what he was used to and run the table on me. I thought for a bit; I was in better shape than him as a runner, and getting your heart rate back down after exercise was key to shooting.
“Next one- combo platter. Fifty burpees in under two minutes, then 30 seconds to take a shot. Sitting, red X.” The red X target was five hundred yards downrange.
“You sure about this, E? It would suck to miss this shot and give me control again.”
“You worried about little ol’ me, Sarge? I’d start worrying about how many Facebook posts are going to contain your pale ass in the next hour.” I put my fist out to him, he bumped it. “Let’s do this. Matthews? Give me a clock.”
I set my rifle down, action open, and stood behind the position in my camo utilities. “Two minutes, ready, GO.” I started doing the burpees at a comfortable pace, from stand to squat, back to pushup position, back to squat and standing. I finished the fifty with three seconds to spare, not even breathing hard. I picked up my weapon and sat at an angle to the target, chambering a round. Using the estimated range and windage, I made the scope adjustments and focused on calming my breathing. When the shot left, I smiled, I knew it was good before it hit. CLANG. The crowd went wild, knowing Gunny had everything riding on this shot.
I safed the weapon and stood up, making a round of high fives with the crowd as Gunny stared down the target. “Two minutes, ready, go.” I watched as he completed the exercise, then sat behind his weapon. I could see the end of his barrel moving slightly and smiled; he was having trouble holding the target, so it would all be a matter of whether he could settle it and fire at the right time. The thirty seconds went by quicker than he expected, and his shot rang out a second after time was called.
It hit, by some miracle, but it didn’t matter. The cheers rang out as I raised my arms in victory. Gunny stood up slowly and moved towards me, pulling me into a brief hug. “That was some damn good shooting, E.”
“Thanks Gunny. Now… strip.” I backed up and watched with the rest of the group as he pulled off his utilities and T-shirt, exposing the hard muscles and deep scarring on his chest from his time in Fallujah and Afghanistan. Smirking at me, he dropped his boxers and pulled his socks off, then posed. “Like what you see?”
I put my finger to my chin, looking him up and down. “Not bad, but I’m married. Come on, it’s a long walk.” I rolled up his clothes for him and stuffed them in my bag while he went back to get his rifle. He grabbed his shooting bag in one hand and his M40 in the other, and I waited for him with my rifle and bag in my right hand. I took his arm with my left hand, and we walked back together while he glared at anyone who was starting to laugh. Me? I just looked at the crowd and said, “If anyone thinks they can do better than Gunny, put up or shut up.”
There were no takers.
We left the crowd behind and reached the parking lot alone. “Shit, E, that was the most fun I’ve had in years. This match will become legend around here.”
“Even if you lose in it?”
“I’m not worried, in a few years I’ll have lost to a two thousand yard shot, standing in a gale.” He looked over at me. “You’ve got all the skill you need, E. I don’t know what you are training for, I don’t want to know. I just know you will do it.” He reached his car and I handed him his clothes. “If you make it this way again, stop by. I’d love to hear how it went.”
I waited until he was decent, then gave him a hug. “You and your team have been great, Gunny. If I make it, a large part of the credit goes to you.” He put his rifle and bag in his trunk. “Now go change, I’m hungry and you guys owe me steak and beer.”
I walked back to my car and drove back to the house to get changed. Ker was there and met me at the door, and Al was behind her. “Have fun tonight, you’ve earned it,” she said. “We leave in the morning. You’re ready.”
Two days later and I had changed the humid, swampy forests of Virginia for the humid, tropical jungle of Mexico. We had flown in to the Minatitlan airport, on the Carribean side just north of the Yucatan. From there, we were whisked from the hanger into a Range Rover, the three of us hidden in the back behind the dark windows. Our driver couldn’t see us due to the bulletproof glass divider between his seat and ours, and we didn’t pass through customs or any security.
Al had arranged it so we could come and go without being seen by anyone. The cartels lived on human intelligence, and three Americans arriving this way would be noticed if we weren’t careful.
It took almost a day to drive to the safe house we were using as mission headquarters. Our driver parked, then got out and went to another vehicle and drove away. “We’ll call him if we need him again,” Al said. “Come on.”
The small, three bedroom house was by itself at the end of a dirt road that wound back through the valley. I had slept as much as I could during the drive, as most of my activity for this operation would be at night. Food had been prepared and left on the table for us, but no one else was around. The pantry had been freshly stocked. “So I leave after sunset?” I looked around at the place, it had no communications, no electricity, it was truly remote and rustic. A fireplace in the corner provided a place to cook, and a stack of firewood by it the heat against the cool night.
“Yes,” Al replied as he set his bag by the door to a bedroom. “Let’s eat then we’ll go over the plan one more time.” I left my backpack and rifle by the door and walked over to the table, where a tantalizing spread of authentic food was under wraps. I scooped a few enchiladas, some rice and a side of roast chicken onto my plate and dug in. It was going to be my only good meal for I didn’t know how long, so I was going to gorge myself on it.
Gorging is a real challenge for a werecat, I had found out. Our stomachs are designed to hold a huge amount of meat then slowly digest it, so we only have to kill a large animal once a week or so. Ker looked like she had already eaten a deer, her pregnancy belly was rather large now and she had to be careful as she sat down. She was one of those athletic women who didn’t gain weight all over, it just looked like she had swallowed a basketball. At this point in her pregnancy, she was getting tired and shifting was more of a challenge, so she had stopped doing it two weeks ago.
We washed the food down with the jug of tea, and after the plates were clear we got down to business. The map was spread out and it showed the path I was to take, twenty-five miles of jungle to reach the hideout of one Jose Hernandez. I had studied the maps and the aerial images on the flight and the drive, so I was as familiar as I could be with them. I had a small GPS navigator in my pack that was programmed with that target, and the coordinates for this house plus fifty other potential return points. If I couldn’t make it back to the safe house, I was to head for one of three designated points and call for pickup.
If I didn’t make it back in ten days, they would assume I was dead.
Al had several cases of portable electronics he would use to monitor Cartel communications and a satellite phone if he needed to talk to Foggy Bottom. He and Ker would alternate shifts, but it was clear to me there would be no Calvary coming to save me if things went bad. I was the ultimate in expendable, the very definition of plausible deniability.
When the sun slipped down below the horizon, I got dressed. I was using generic jungle camouflage, with moisture-wicking undershirt and underwear. It was heavy enough to protect against bugs and branches, but light enough to be comfortable in this climate. My backpack contained food, two canteens of water and a filtering survival straw, ready to eat foods and mosquito netting. There would be no fires, no cooking, as that could attract attention. My trusty rifle was slung over my shoulder, the armored scope protected, and a Glock 23 with two extra magazines was in a holster on my hip. A machete hung from my other hip, both for making way through the jungle and for silent kills if needed. I put on the floppy jungle hat, it had mosquito netting hanging down to protect my face and neck, then said my goodbyes.
“Good luck,” said Al, bringing me in for a hug. Ker couldn’t say anything, we just hugged and I put my hands on her belly before I turned away and walked out the door. I walked around the house and entered the forest, heading towards the gap between the two hills as I headed to my first waypoint.
I performed a partial shift as soon as I entered the jungle, causing my ears to lengthen and my eyes to change. The panther was a master at night hunting, and the cat eyes were very sensitive to the low levels of light. I couldn’t see much in the way of colors, but I could see my way just fine. No human would be able to function on a night like this without a flashlight or night vision goggles.