SNIPER 

By

Terry Wright

            Crawling on his belly, Specialist Fourth Class Rodney Gantz was sure his camouflaged fatigues and blackened face would meld his features into the surrounding jungle. Sweat seeped from under his helmet as he made his way through dense underbrush, barely making a sound. A bayonet was clamped between the wiry Marine’s teeth. He would be ready to silently dispatch any perimeter guard he encountered. Stealth was his greatest asset. Success or failure of his mission depended on his uncanny ability to get in undetected. And Rodney was a pro. His target would never know what hit him.

            Commander O Ben Lai was due to arrive by bus. Back at HQ, Rodney’s general had briefed him on the situation. The enemy was planning to overrun the base. Hundreds of GIs would be slaughtered if O Ben Lai wasn’t stopped...here and now. The United States and the Marine Corp were counting on Rodney Gantz to fulfill his mission and get the kill, a responsibility and an honor that he embraced wholeheartedly. He had trained with tenacity and brilliance, achieving the highest marksman ratings with his Harris M-89 sniper rifle at 1000 yards, the same rifle he’d lived with, slept with, and now crawled with strapped to his back. 

He knew the outpost, in the clearing just beyond this thicket, was heavily guarded. The general had warned him that soldiers would surround O Ben Lai when he disembarked the bus. A clear shot would be difficult, and then Rodney Gantz would have only seconds to escape afterwards. His route was well planned, though. His confidence was high.

Reaching the edge of the clearing, and now shielded from view by leafy bushes, Rodney took in the scene before him through powerful binoculars. Heavily armed troops scurried in and out of their headquarters, a large building off to his left. It had a glass façade and automatic doors, which he thought strange for a military post. In loose formations, soldiers marched across the compound, a blacktopped area sectioned off in rows of parallel sections. Jeeps, tanks, and armored personnel carriers had been parked neatly inside each of these sections, a show of strength and strict organization. Rodney grinned. He was about to show them just how vulnerable they really were.

“General to Sniper One, come in.”

Rodney set aside the binoculars and keyed the satellite radio mike clipped to his collar. “Sniper One is in position,” he whispered.

“We’re all counting on you,” the general said.

A movement through the trees on the other side of the compound caught his attention. It was the bus. “Over and out.”

With heart beating wildly, Spec 4 Rodney Gantz knew it was time. He sheathed the bayonet and retrieved the sniper rifle from off his back. Settling into a prone position, he firmly planted his elbows in the loose soil and zeroed the scope reticle in on the scene. His nose began to itch, but he ignored it. Nothing was going to distract him from this history-making shot.

And he waited. The goddamned bus was delayed at a red traffic light. For the briefest of moments, he wondered why the enemy had erected such a thing this deep in the jungle. Undaunted, he concentrated on the reticle crosshairs of his scope, the bus driver’s head now framed ominously from three hundred yards, well within the rifle’s calibration parameters. Because there was no wind angle to correct for, he knew he could place a bullet square between the driver’s eyes. However, a professional sniper would not take such a high-risk shot. At this range, center chest was not only a bigger target, but it had a high kill rate: severing arteries, collapsing lungs, and with a perfectly placed shot, exploding heart ventricles. Rodney considered himself a chest man and waited with the patience of a vulture.

He didn’t have to wait long. The light turned green, and the bus proceeded into the compound, stopping in front of the headquarters building. And just as the general had predicted, a throng of soldiers emerged from the bus. Rodney tightened his finger on the trigger, crosshairs aligned and steady. Seconds went by, maybe five, maybe ten, and then there he was, Commander O Ben Lai. Rodney could tell by the hat he wore, the blond hair flowing to his shoulders, and the small soldier hanging on to his hand.

Bang!

A perfect chest shot. Now Rodney slipped silently away. He had to report to the general.

Deckers department store parking lot was bedlam, women screaming, children crying, men cursing. In an instant, terror filled the air as everyone scrambled for cover behind cars and benches. Someone had even crawled under the bus.

Mr. Carlson, the veteran driver, crouched in the doorway and shouted out, “Somebody call 911.” On the asphalt in front of him, Mrs. Henry, her long blond hair in a tangle, was sprawled out, motionless in a growing pool of blood. Her five-year-old child, Danny, had fallen to his hands and knees and now shrieked in horror. His mother’s blood was splattered all over his face and shirt.

“Good God,” Carlson said, wishing he were invisible as he scanned the thicket just west of him. A cracking shot had come from that direction, a bullet breaking the sound barrier, and as Carlson knew from his Vietnam experiences, it was fired from a high-powered rifle at long range. A sniper, he was sure of it. Fear pumped through his veins, fear that the killer had framed someone else in his scope, perhaps a shocked and helpless bus driver. One shot, one kill; the sniper had to be an expert, and Carlson did not want to become his next victim. In earnest, he dove under the bus.

Sirens screeched through the air. Deckers police were on their way, and possibly an ambulance, which would not be of any benefit to Mrs. Henry lying lifeless in the hot Texas sun not ten feet from where he cowered.

The escape had gone exactly as Rodney had planned. He’d broken down the sniper rifle (something he could do blindfolded) and stashed it in a toolbox behind the front seat. Quickly, he changed into street clothes and wiped the black grease off his face. As he drove down Deckers main drag in his jeep, he had to chuckle at the incompetence of the reinforcements racing toward the compound where Commander O Ben Lai lay dead on the ground. He knew the general would be pleased. All his men had been saved by one well-placed shot.

Arriving at HQ, he burst through the door and across the front room. The place smelled like chicken soup, which he thought strange for Marine headquarters. “General, mission accomplished.”

The general was sitting at his desk, his back to the door, hunched over some paperwork. His gray hair was tied up in a bun, and he was wearing a flower-print dress.

“The target was terminated.”

Suddenly, the general spun around in his wheelchair. “What are you babbling about, boy?” For a general, his voice was squeaky as an old woman’s.

“I got...him...general.” Rodney gulped. Something wasn’t right about this. “I mean...I...” He suddenly realized he wasn’t at HQ. And something was wrong with the general. He looked like...like... “Ma?”

“Don’t stand there gawking, boy. Eat your lunch.” She indicated an empty seat at the table, a sandwich on a plate, a bowl of chicken soup, a glass of milk.

          “I...” Rodney felt sick in his stomach. “Where’s the general,” he shouted.

She glared at him with bloodshot eyes. Some of her sandwich was stuck between her teeth, and soup dribbled down her prickly chin. “There ain’t no general, and you know it. They done kicked you out of the Marines, or have you forgotten? You’re nothing but a screw-up.”

“I was a marksman, the best shooter on the firing range.”

“You shouldn’t have stole their rifle.”

“They couldn’t prove it.”

She cackled. “Got you a dishonorable discharge anyway.”

“That was my rifle, damn it. I wanted to show it to my father.”

“You’re a damn fool for trying to please that man. He knew you were a screw-up, too.” With quick command of her wheelchair, she spun around to face the table again, leaving him staring at her hunched back. “Your father was right about you.”

Rodney’s insides started to squeeze the life out of him. The thought of his father festered hatred and spite. There was no pleasing that bastard. To him, his son was nothing but a bum, a failure, a screw-up, and not a day went by that he didn’t pound that into him with words and fists, over and over: You’re a bum, a failure, a screw-up. In everything Rodney did in his life, he strived to prove his father wrong. However, in everything he did, Rodney failed, just as his father had predicted: the Marines, college, marriage, everything. He was a bum, a failure, and a screw-up...but not any more. Now he was the general’s main man. “Father was wrong about me. Don’t you see?”

She gave him a canted look. “I see just fine, boy. It was that darn floozy you took up with, what’s her name, Sarah Shitforbrains?”

“I loved her, ma.”

“She showed you things that weren’t no good for you, and you, the screw-up that you are, you lapped it all up like some kind of puppy dog. God knows what she saw in the likes of you. She made more money than you ever did, that’s for sure. Hell, I don’t blame her none for dumping your sorry ass. She didn’t want you, your father didn’t want you, the Marines didn’t want you.”

“They made a mistake; they know that now. I saved them all, ma.”

“Who’s gonna save me, I ask you? I’m stuck with your lousy good-for-nothing ass.” She chucked a mouthful of sandwich. “You gonna eat your lunch?”

Rage rolled in Rodney’s guts. “I’ll show you. I’ll show my father. I’ll show the Marines. I’m the best sniper in the world.”

“You’re a screw-up.”

Rodney stormed out. He was going to show them all.

Captain Holland sped to the shooting scene, siren wailing. Chatter over the radio was frantic. A sniper had taken a victim, a random innocent victim, and all officers were on extreme alert, barricading roads and searching citizens’ vehicles with weapons drawn. They had no idea who they were looking for or what kind of person would do such a thing. Neither did Captain Holland.

By the time he got to the crime scene, Deckers officers had cordoned off the area with yellow police tape. The body of a young woman laid still on the pavement, covered with a white sheet, her blood already seeping into the fabric. In a nearby police car, a policewoman held a crying child. They were awaiting the arrival of a Social Services agent. Holland approached the lieutenant in charge. “What have you got?”

“A shot came from the woods over there,” he said, pointing. “My men are combing the area now.”

“The sniper is long gone,” Holland said, feeling totally inept.

“I’m hoping they find some trace of him.”

“Has her husband been notified?” Holland indicated the victim with a tilt of his head.

The lieutenant nodded. “He’s being questioned downtown. We’re not leaving any stone unturned.”

“This is going to be a tough one to solve. It’s so random and senseless.”

Now the lieutenant regarded Holland solemnly. “Word has it, you’ve got connections, sir.”

“Connections?”

“You know, with Justin Graves.”

“He’s dead.”

“Sir, rumor has it...”

“That’s all it is,” Holland snapped. “A rumor.”

“Maybe...” The lieutenant paused thoughtfully. “Maybe he can help us.”

“Nonsense.” Holland didn’t want anyone thinking he was some kind of loony-toon talking to a dead man. He headed for his squad car. “Call me if you find anything.”

Again, Specialist fourth class Rodney Gantz found himself in the middle of a war zone, this time Sarajevo in the former republic of Yugoslavia, now under siege by Serb forces. And again, he wore his camouflaged fatigues and blackened face. The general had given him a covert assignment, one that only a professional sniper of Rodney’s caliber could accomplish. Bring the citizens of Sarajevo and the U.N. troops to their knees.

“General to Sniper One, do you read?” The satellite radio crackled during the high-tech transmission. Spec 4 Rodney Gantz could be reached anywhere in the world, such was his high status with the Marines. Burrowing deep in the woods with a clear view of a white U.N. truck and the citizens gathered around it, he triggered his mike. “I’m in position, sir.”

“Good work, Sniper One. Now do your duty.”

Rodney didn’t answer. He knew his call to duty was of the highest priority. Terrorize the community; paralyze the city. A sniper’s mere presence instilled fear in the enemy and decayed their moral. The general would be proud, his father would be proud, for Spec 4 Rodney Gantz was as brave and loyal as they came, and he was about to prove it.

With the enemy all round him and stealth as his shield, Rodney trained his M-89 sniper rifle on a small boy holding his mother’s hand as they talked with a U.N. troop sitting in the white truck. At one hundred yards, this would be a chip shot. He found the boy in his scope sight, looked at his face, and squeezed the trigger. With practiced speed, he chambered another round and shot the boy’s mother in the stomach. She would die a much slower and painful death, but she would live long enough to see her young son’s life bleed out on the ground. Now, the community of Sarajevo knew that even their children were not safe and that the U.N. could not protect any of them. With the skill of a surgeon, he’d accomplished his mission. Assured the general would be proud of him for the terror he’d inflicted on the populous, Spec 4 Rodney Gantz slipped through the underbrush and made his getaway.

From the seat of his white ice cream truck, the ice cream man heard the first gunshot, and then the second. He recoiled instinctively and dropped a fudge sickle that he was holding out for a little girl’s anxious hand. A crescendo of screaming and crying suddenly drowned out his dinging music box. Mayhem had erupted around his truck, and he searched dreadfully for the reason why. His worse nightmares could not have prepared him for what he saw. By the rear tire, seven-year-old Timmy Stewart laid face down on the ground, blood spilling from a hole in his head. His mother writhed in pain on the sidewalk, clutching her stomach, her hand and arm soaked with her own blood. 

“Timmy! Timmy!”

The boy didn’t move.

A jolt of adrenaline shot through the ice cream man. Children scattered in every direction, and he feared he’d see them cut down by a hail of bullets as they ran. A madman was on the loose in Deckers, but in spite of the danger, he rushed to the wounded woman’s side.

“Timmy! Oh God! Why Timmy?” she wailed.

He was sure nobody could survive a shot like that. “I think he’s dead.” 

“No! Not my Timmy!”

“You’re hurt, ma’am. Please be still. Help is on the way.”

She moaned, fell unconscious in his arms, and died.

Captain Holland parked his squad car in the shade of an oak tree, just down the alley from Deckers Family Restaurant where trashcans were piled high with garbage. His car radio was going crazy. He jotted down details in his notepad. Reports were coming in at an unbelievable rate. The sniper was killing victims all over town. A child and his mother were shot while buying ice cream. A policeman directing traffic took a single bullet to the chest; he was dead before he hit the ground. Two super market employees were gunned down while gathering carts in the parking lot. A florist, a mailman, a paperboy, they were all dead, all killed by the same high-caliber rifle. It was an afternoon of hell on earth.

“Justice...for God’s sake, help us!”

          In the light of the afterlife, Justin watched the horror that plagued Deckers Texas. Thoughtfully, he rubbed his smooth chin with manicured fingers. The aroma of Stetson cologne filled the air. His clothes were sharply pressed, his long brown coat clean as new, and his cowboy hat sat on his head, tipped forward slightly. He was comfortable; he was content, but now it looked as though he was needed again. Again he would have to materialize, return to his smelly, decaying body and dole out justice for those who could no longer speak for themselves.

“Beware, Justice,” said the light.

“I have to do something,” he replied. “I can’t allow this maniac to continue his rampage.”

          “If you’re not careful, you’ll turn Deckers into the OK Corral: a showdown at noon, a gunfight, a dead man. If you shoot the sniper, the devil will have your soul.”

“I need an edge. Can you help me?”

          “It may require you to take more shots than your rotted body can withstand. Remember, it might not be much, but it’s the only body you have.”

“I’ll take my chances. What must I do?”

“One thing is in your favor,” the light explained. “A sniper’s rifle is not intended for multiple firings, one right after the other. Such overuse causes the heavy contoured barrel to heat up and distort, ever so slightly but enough to throw off the sights. After ten or twelve shots, Spec 4 Rodney Gantz won’t be able to hit a barn door at fifty yards.”

Justin grabbed his Winchester. “I wonder if he knows that.”

“He does,” the light said. “But he’s a screw-up.”

There wasn’t anything Rodney wouldn’t do to prove his father wrong. He wasn’t a screw-up. The general had faith in him. Why else would he have recruited him for this mother of all missions, the most clandestine, the most dangerous of all? After today, the name Rodney Gantz would be enshrined in the history books...forever.

          “General to Sniper One,” the satellite radio squawked. God how he loved his status with the Marines, the respect he commanded. Even the general’s voice was full of pride, for this mission was the highest honor, the envy of all Marine snipers. Spec 4 Rodney Gantz was the only one capable of an assignment of this magnitude.

          “I’m in position, sir.”

          In the oil fields of Iraq now, with his M-89 rifle cleaned and polished, he crouched behind fifty-five gallon oil drums that smelled like restaurant garbage cans full of discarded food rotting in the sun. He thought that was a strange odor for oil. Flies buzzed around him chaotically. Undeterred, he spotted his priority target sitting in an official car at the end of an alley of towering oil derricks. Shaded by an oak tree, which Rodney thought an odd sight out here in the desert, the man was talking into a radio mike and writing notes in a tablet. He’d never know where the bullet came from. With practiced precision, Rodney framed the doomed man’s head within the reticle of his sniper scope and put his finger on the trigger.

“I’ve acquired the target, sir.”

“Presidential clearance has arrived,” the general reported. “Take out Sadam Hussein. You’ll be a hero, Sniper One.”

“Good as done, sir.” He worked the rifle bolt, chambering one of twenty rounds from an M-14 magazine. Just then, the smell of oil drum garbage swelled in the air like a mushroom cloud. The stench of maggots and rotting meat made his stomach clutch and his aim waver. His concentration on the target began to falter, and bile rose up in his throat; he thought he was going to be physically ill. Holding his breath, he fought for control of his senses and his rifle. This was the big kill. He could not fail now or his father would be proven right. The general would discharge him from the Marines, a disgrace to the sniper corp. No. He had to finish his mission in spite of the horrid conditions under which he’d suddenly found himself working.

“Spec 4 Rodney Gantz?” a grating voice came from behind him.

He whirled around in surprise. A stinking old man was standing in the desert sand, a dusty cowboy hat shading his gnarly face, a Winchester rifle held at his side. Slimy worms wiggled out from holes in his long coat, which was caked with mud and sticks and leaves as if he’d just crawled out of some ungodly foxhole. “Who the hell are you, soldier?”

“My name is Justin Graves,” he said hoarsely. “But you can call me Justice.”

“This is my kill,” Rodney shouted. “Get out of here.”

“Give it up,” Justin said. He opened the flap of his coat, revealing a bullet-riddled chest and a Texas Ranger badge. “Drop your rifle.”

Gasping at the stench of this freak, Rodney showed him teeth. “The general gave me this mission.”

“He thinks you’re a screw-up.”

“You’re lying.” Spec 4 Rodney Gantz was not a screw-up. He’d performed gallantly under fire. This old cowboy ghoul was just trying to turn the general against him. He wasn’t going to get away with it. Rodney raised the M-89. At this range, he didn’t need a scope. Point and shoot. It would be an easy kill.

He pulled the trigger. The heavy round tore into the old cowboy with horrendous force, square in the chest and knocking him backward, but to Rodney’s amazement, the aberration just stood there and grinned. Now Rodney Gantz went to work, showing off his skill at working the rifle bolt and firing rapidly: two rounds, four rounds, eight rounds, ten. Parts of the ghoul went flying; rib bones, an ear, and shreds of his long coat that scattered in dusty clouds. Rifle reports echoed down the alley of oil derricks. The M-89’s barrel was turning blue from the heat. And the whole time, not once did Justice raise the Winchester in his own defense, which Rodney thought very strange. “Why don’t you fight, old man?”

“It’s against the rules.”

Rodney thought the ghoul must’ve taken ten direct hits. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“I already am.”

“Then you’re on your way to hell.” Rodney chambered another round and fired.

“You missed,” Justin said.

“I never miss! The bullet went right through you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Drop the rifle!” a stern voice ordered from behind him. Rodney spun around in total disbelief. His target, Sadam Hussein, had been alerted by all the gunfire. He was approaching from fifty yards down the alley, a Winchester rifle propped in his right arm, and a silver badge glistening in the sunshine, a Texas Ranger badge. Now that was really bizarre.

“Captain Holland. Drop your weapon!”

With imminent failure staring Rodney in the face, he didn’t have time to think twice about a last-ditch effort of redemption. He jerked the M-89’s scope up to his eye, framed his target’s chest in the crosshairs, and pulled the trigger.

Sadam Holland flinched but kept coming closer. “You missed.”

Panic raced through Rodney’s mind as he suddenly realized that his rifle barrel was overheated. His scope was useless. Now he’d have to adjust his aim, but how...?...a little higher and to the left, or perhaps lower and to the right, or left? In his confusion, everything became perfectly clear. He screwed up.

          “Drop it,” Sadam said.

Rodney chambered another round. “I’d rather die.” He raised the M-89 again.

“Have it your way.” Sadam fired his rifle. The bullet tore into Rodney’s stomach and came out his back, painfully dispensing parts of his insides on the ground.

Staggering, Rodney turned around clutching his wound. “Justice!”

“Your father was right. You are a screw-up.”

“Sniper One to the general! May Day!” Spec 4 Rodney Gantz choked on blood and fell into the garbage cans, scattering flies in every direction.

With a gust of wind, the ghoul was gone.