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Story No. 1 |
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VOL. 3, No. 39 |
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Education |
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needs to take a lesson from the instinctive amateur... |
of TheColumnists.com
Some might call it a numbers game. Numbers that were
not so much a counting measure as a way of reading signs. There
was a significance about them, secret messages that directed
you on your way. Devlin Bliss knew all about reading signs. His
survival depended on it, something he’d learned long before
Marine boot camp, years before sniper school, a lifetime before
now. The numbers game was part of the process of learning but
this time, he’d be the teacher.
His earlier recon had located this building. Deserted for more
than a year, surrounded on all sides by empty lots and steeping
garbage, it was the perfect site for his mission. From the roof,
visibility would be perfect, and from the street, detection unlikely.
Hefting the sleek aluminum case, he began to climb.
There were 68 steps leading up to the rooftop. Sixty-eight--the
year his Marine sergeant daddy was killed in ‘Nam. Although
his mama never talked about it, Dev knew he’d died an artless
death. There was no technique or symmetry in the random shrapnel
that sliced through his brain, no precision or skill that sent
another body bag stateside. A casualty before he even got to
witness Devlin’s June birth. Baby boy Bliss, born 6/8/68.
More numbers. More signs.
Dev’s backpack carried 68 rounds of match-grade rifle cartridges--168
grains of jacketed hollowpoints. Numbers that swam in his head
as he trudged up the stairs. An earlier call to the weather bureau
told him it was 68 degrees today with a five knot northwest wind.
Details important to any tactical sniper who knows that distance
shooting is an art and a science. You had to check the wind direction
and velocity--all critical factors in ‘doping’--adjusting
your shot for windage and drop.
Thanks to a stint at Camp Lejeune’s Sniper School, Dev was
a master at his craft. Daddy would’ve been proud of how
he’d toughed out boot camp, went from Parris Island to the
USMC’s Designated Marksman’s Course. It was in Sniper
School that he finally understood his mission. Devlin had been
born with a talent for killing. Today, if the signs were true
and his numbers played out, he’d have 68 confirmed kills.
At the third floor landing he stopped to stare through the soot-filmed
window. There was a clear view of the high school from here.
Not the panoramic access the roof provided, but enough to get
off a few warm-up shots if he chose. But it wasn’t time
yet. Devlin stroked the aluminum case reverently. The sleek finish
was warm as a woman’s flesh, a bitch who’d shriek on
his command. But not yet...
The kids were out there, clustered in groups or lounging on the
school steps. From this distance they looked like droopy puppets,
laughing and posing in their big-legged jeans, flipping the occasional
gang signs. Adolescent poser thugs, pretenders in the numbers
game.
Clenching his case, Dev watched them. They were little gangster
wannabes who talked tough and hadn’t a clue about the art
of death. They strutted in packs and used punk-ass handguns that,
as far as he was concerned, were sacrilege. They had no rights,
had paid no dues. Their shootings were acts of ignorance, committed
by the unenlightened. There was no discipline or beauty to the
killing, no artistry...just like Daddy’s.
He knew such ignorance was remedied only with lessons learned
by example. Dev considered himself both teacher and a disciple
meant to deliver the word. Something he planned to do from the
rooftop with 68 hollowpoint rounds.
One more flight to go and the case was getting heavier. It weighed
20 pounds in all, a burden he carried gladly. Inside the case
was the wet dream of snipers everywhere, the Heckler-Koch PSG-1.
Initials that abbreviated the yard-long German name for the world
renowned state-of-the-art stock rifle.
At sniper school they’d talked of it reverently, claiming
the name translated to English as: “shoot the balls off
a flea at 100 yards.” Its only purpose was precision shooting,
and with an $11,000 price tag, was a weapon most military personnel
only knew in their dreams. After Devlin’s discharge, he’d
gladly spent his life savings for this holiest of gunmetal grail.
He considered it a business investment. What better way to instruct
the ignorant?
The rusted lock on the rooftop door gave way with one sharp kick.
Squinting in the sudden light, he dropped into a crouch. The
wind was stronger here, blasting around him in fitful gusts,
but it wouldn’t affect his shot. Although his weapon came
with a standard Gambini tripod, he’d brought a bipod for
more precise swiveling action while he acquired his sight picture.
The metal legs snapped open with a distinctive click, a sound
that aroused Dev as much as a moaning woman. Funny how the protocol
of killing was so much like fucking. So many people who attempted
it didn’t have a clue. What they thought was a great performance
was usually quick and mechanical with no style at all.
Stroking the rifle’s barrel, he felt himself stiffen. There
were 25.5 inches of cold forged rifling, enough to fuck the life--literally--out
of anyone he chose. No sharp internal edges on this baby, only
rounded surfaces to create the twist of the projectile, increasing
its velocity by 300 feet per second. More numbers to ponder,
but all it meant was that he shot his wad as soon as he pulled
the trigger. Firing this bitch was the best sex he’d ever
had--a double handful of hell he cradled in his arms.
Like a sacred ritual, Dev adjusted the bipod and settled the
weapon in carefully. The scope was permanently mounted with a
lighted range recticle for distances up to 600 meters. Peering
through it, he focused on the students below. This time, he could
see their faces, their cheesy tattoos, the goddamn pimples on
their stupid faces. And soon, the blood that would cleanse them
of past sins and teach them the ways of righteous killing.
Squinting again, he noticed one of the kids wore an Army field
jacket. Little bastard still wet behind the ears had no right
to wear a combat officer’s clothes. He thought of his own
father’s Marine dress blues, the jungle camos that must
have been drenched with his blood. The numbers on the kid’s
jacket pocket began, “92068.” Like the nine months
his daddy had been in country, the last twenty hours he’d
laid awake waiting for this moment, and the 68 lives that would
be sacrificed today in the name of higher education.
More numbers, more signs.
He had to teach them. Life was cheap but the art of killing,
the skill and precision and sheer beauty of a master’s touch
was its own kind of immortality. He reached for the hollowpoints.
The kid in the army jacket would be the first one down.
It might have been the wind that whipped around him, or Devlin’s
own admiring grunts as he fondled the heavy butt stock. He never
heard the footsteps behind him, a quick approach on worn sneakers
that had followed him up those four flights. And while he muttered
numbers and adjusted the scope of his $11,000 killing machine,
the hand that rose and fell behind him delivered death in one
swift blow.
There was no artistry to the brick that crushed Dev’s skull, no particular precision required for such a close range target. But his 14-year-old assassin knew plenty about numbers games. Eyeing the sniper rifle, the kid figured he could fence it on the street for 50 bucks easy. Enough to buy an eight ball, a few cold forties, and maybe a dozen donuts for later on when his sugar jones kicked it.
Shouldering the weapon, the kid started back down the stairs. It was too bad the guy got whacked, but it served him right comin’ in the hood. Some people just never learned.
© 2002 by Gina Gallo.
The Gina Gallo caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel. The other
illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco
Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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autobiographical book "Armed and Dangerous" has been optioned for both a feature film and a TV series. This is her seventh fiction piece for TheColumnists.com. |
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