Elites; Bullet 1 Part 1

Elites

Bullet 1

By Jimmy Loong

‘There is also this intense feeling of looking death in the face, tempting fate, challenging the reaper, so to speak.......’

U.S Marine Corporal Ron Szpond, Vietnam - 1966

Day minus One

Late Evening

1840 hrs

The weight of the L96A1 rifle is just under 6 over kilogramme; well rested on the double stand tripod which comes with it. I relaxed my shoulder and my right arm as my eye is fixated on the scene at about 400 yards away on slight recline of 10^0.degree gradient. I adjusted my Zeiss Telescopic sights to get a clearer view.

My target is moving inside the target scope screen, but he will lose it all when my .338 magnum hits his head. I twitched my nose to the humid condition of the place of concealment which already seeps into my dark clothes now. It occupant is away for a short holiday and they kept the place all sealed up with closed windows and drawn curtains, except for this slightly raised window frame here.

Damn, I hate these sniping jobs at times compared to those smash the door and pulled the trigger on the automatic rifles. In twenty two seconds, you have cleared one clip and you are attaching the next clip of the 30 rounds. And then you walked in on the undead and clear them with a single shot in the head with the Glock. From there its back to the car and all is completed within five minutes, or four if you as good as me.

The target walks into my sight and he is on the hairline view. I pulled the trigger with my index finger and I can feel the recoil on my shoulder as the .338 travels down the 42 inch barrel to muzzle velocity of over 800m/s to reach the selected target within the split second of time.

Its over, and my job is done.

I got up from my prone position and unscrewed the rifle. She will be back in her display box for the shipment back to her dealer for a ‘none too perfect’ works on the barrel. Its out by slight uneven groove line near the end of the barrel which made my shot out of position by one centimetres, which I have compensated with my bullet casing; nick of the edge to push the trajectory back to correct the adjustment for the barrel.

She is packed up and sealed in the courier box, and I am in my car. I turned the ignition key and paused with my breath held in. Its a ritual of mine since Carlos died in his car explosion not 20 metres away from mine in the carpack. Its been months now but I still remember every detail of that explosion. Its like a sniper’s bullet in your head; you don’t feel for it, or knows its coming at all. It just come and then its over.

I moved the car out of the low lit alley onto the main street which is filled with early evening crowds, mostly tourists and window shoppers. It must be the summer sales which is calling in the crowds. I got the call on my call radio to check on a possible shootout at downtown 2^nd Street. I am on 3^rd Street and the place of the incident is behind here.

I reached for my siren box and push the button.

1835 hrs

The bar room is situated at the back of the building with its neon lit entrance secured by a brash looking punk who is dressed to look casual. Once the punk verifies your identity, he will key in the codes to open the door. Its a doorway to the bar room which I am sitting now nursing my scotch on the rocks. Its the real stuff with no dilution of the real drink. I am seated at the far end of the L shaped bar watching the evening crowd. There is the bartender and there are two guys besides me on the bar but they are sitting on the longer stretch of it. They are regulars as I can see the bartender just filled up their beer mugs as they finished their last rounds.

And its their third round now while I am still nursing my scotch.

Across the room only two tables are occupied; one by a couple who is probably hitting off soon for their evening rendevous while on the adjacent table is Pedro Mano, or The Fixer. He fixes that needs fixing including your wife’s preganancy if you tell him to do so. But today, he is fixing for someone to fly to safety and that person has not arrived yet. I spoke too soon I guess as the person did arrived to land in. He is Manuela, attorney at law and personal confidante of the boss. He screwed up big time with the boss’s mistress case, and he knows the score. But instead of pleading for his clemency, he chooses to run and that is also thru The Fixer which is a bad score for us.

Manuela cannot see me at this bar end, as he is fixated on seeing the Fixer. He walked up to the Fixer and sat down next to the scum. Manuela took an envelope from his coat pocket and passed over to the Fixer. The Fixer picks up the envelope and open the flap to see the contents. You can tell he is happy as he stand up and asked if Mr Manuela would like a drink. The other man nodded and ask for a dry scotch. The Fixer walks towards the bar and placed his order, and add on another scotch on the rocks, leaving it on the bar.

Meanwhile, the young couple got up and the lady walked up Manuela’s back. She took out her favorite took, a picklike instrument about the length of twelve inches on the straight pointed needle length. She pushed it into his brain from the back of his left ear uptowards his cortex of the brain. It was an instant death with some blood spurting out when the needle was pulled out.

Upon the Fixer return to the table, he finds his drinking companion lying facedown on the table. He took the glass of dry scotch and poured it over the dead man. And he told the bartender, that his friend is too drunk to drink any more. So the Fixer left the bar room following the earlier exit of the couple. I soon followed suit but not before taking the scotch on the rocks left on the long bar for me.

When I came out of the place onto the street, I can hear the sirens blaring on the adjacent block. I walked to my scooter and sat on it. I took out my key and turned on the engine. The ten year old scooter bike of mine spurts its dark mass of exhaust adding more to the evening pollution.

It was then my janitor cap fell off my storage bin on the bike. I stopped the bike and reached for it, and placed it back inside the storage bin. I can’t have Mrs Ram telling me how much it cost to replaced one cap. She will go on about the budget cuts for the school and the expenses. Sometimes I like to just pushed her into the toilet bowl and flushed her thick layers of cosmetics.

But I had to respect her as my admin supervisor. She signs my cheque weekly.

1855 hrs

The paper works is hell in this office, despite the number of secretarials we have around. The Governor trusts no one except me, his personal aide in all the official matters. And also the unofficial matters. I have just indexed and filed away the Stellar Corporation Contract, and now I see beneath it is the new smelthing plant proposal from some far away company to the Governor. The Governor asked me to check on that company and what I could find was most disturbing; there is none to check on them. The records are there on their home office activities and several plants in some far out countries like here, and all is above the desktop in a manner of speech. But the names of the director triggers my mind; I have seen them before but I can’t placed it in my head.

I reached for my coffee and noticed its empty. And I cannot be having another one at this hour, or I will be totally hyped till supper. I promised Alicia I will be back for her birthday party at eight. And its now almost seven and the sun is down, and the night life is about to begin for the coming weekend.

Oh, God. I hate this mess but its mine to contend with. Both my hands cupped my jaw and I frowned at the load on my table. Besides those files, there is the list of documents on the terrors which is in the news. There has been some sporadic killings in the island city. Its alarming the people and of course the Governor. We are a small island within a cluster of ten islands which formed the Republic of Man, with the country population of less than a million people and a hundred thousand of immigrants. Our biggest attractions is the beautiful atolls that are lined around the islands.

This island named Genoe which the Governor takes the helm is an elongated land mass and its the third largest among the ten islands with our length is about 60 miles and widest width is 18 miles across. On the island is the small city of Meon, which housed half the population of a hundred thousand inhabitants excluding a regular supply of tourists which comes in on every season.

But the recent years of discovery of rare earth metals namely the lanthanides category ie. scandium, yttrium and lanthanum, it has propel us into the world commodities map. The world demand for these metals are small in comparison to coal or iron, but the supply is so small, that the price is higher than even gold. Its not even quoted at some market because of its supply and demand trends.

But what was a boom to the island has also resulted in pain for the people, as armed coalition are muscling in on the mining trade. Even the Goverment is curtailing these monopolies from the main island, but we are about 120 miles away by sea boat. So its the Governor’s role to hold the peace here, with a small police force of over five hundred officers and two hundred guards of the coast. The President was nice to send over a contingent of two hundred troops but we are outgunned by these gangs. More to it, he does not want the presence of troops to scare the tourists.

These thugs are mostly foreigners, and come in from the different countries by boats or swim I guess, and they are fierce fighters. The official report said there are four of such gangs and they numbered close to eight hundred on the report. But I think we are tripling that figure in the unofficial list. The only consolation is they are not shooting the tourists, but themselves plus some locals who stand in the way and the mines they are engaged to protect.

But two reports which intrigues me more; one is the geographical test done on commission by the Governor, and the next is on the ‘Mahua’ Gang; a mercenary group run by an old retired general with a passion for crocodiles. General Mahua; hence his gang’s name, keeps some crocodiles in his villa by the beach.

But I got to go now or I will be late for Alicia’s brithday.

The phone has a message. Its said of another killing on 3^rd Street. That is the fifth in two weeks. And a dead drunkard mugged on 9^th Street.

Damn these killers.

1900 hrs

Three souls with one passion; to live peacefully.

Isn't that a nice way to start the weekend?

Call it a combination of Hawaii 5-O and NCIS Los Angeles.

Cheers........