Chapter 19: Sniper Competition Monday 17 September 2007

Khudabah, Pakistan — Morning of day nineteen

With the new, cleaner mattress, I slept much better last night, but woke up with a headache and stiff muscles and joints. It helps to be away from the rats, but I still suffered some "phantom" rat bites on my feet that woke me up kicking a few times.

Today is much the same as yesterday; the guards take me back to my cell and tie me up to my chair, leaving my left arm untied. Zarika brings our breakfast. I'm getting pretty good at eating with my left hand.

We talk some more about life in America. Right before she leaves, she confides that she is working on a plan for us to escape, and to make sure I'm ready when the time comes. Maybe with her help, there's hope of getting out of this hellhole.

Once again, I'm left alone again with Mustif, and the first thing he does is inject me with the drug. My headache and stiffness gradually disappear, and I'm horrified to recognize that I'm starting to get hooked on the crap he's giving me.

Mustif notices, too. "Ah, you're starting to like my little drug. Good; this will help us to become very good friends. Now tell me all about the American forces."

I feed him a bunch of bullshit. He's a bigger fool than he looks, if he thinks I'll ever tell him anything.

Towards evening, Zarika comes in with our dinner. Mustif grabs her, shoves his hand up under her dress and starts playing with her, staring at me the whole time. We both start yelling and fighting, her to escape from Mustif, and me to get loose from my bonds.

Finally, Mustif turns her loose and throws her to the floor. He sticks his hand in front of my face. It's quite wet.

"Look, Barack's little whore is in love with you. She wants you to fuck her." Then he leaves laughing.

Zarika scrambles to her feet, refusing to look at me, and runs out of the room crying. Shame at my helplessness rises to rage. That motherfucker is dead. He just doesn't know it yet.

Awhile later, the guards come in and eat my food. Then they move me up to my bed. It's not the first time that I've gone to bed hungry, and it won't keep me from thinking about home.

Kaneohe Bay Hawaii — Monday Day Seventeen

I woke up even earlier than normal this morning; I had my mind on the sniper competition. With a little care, I was able to slip out of bed without waking up Jens, went to the kitchen and started the coffee.

It wasn't that I was nervous; I was quite sure with Jens help that we would win. I just wanted to prepare myself mentally for the day. I couldn't afford to be distracted or to make a mistake, and I was still bothered by all the fame that had fallen on us just for doing what we normally do. Ever since I'd met Jens, my life had been some sort of fairy tale. With the contest coming up today, I needed to push all of that out of my thoughts.

The coffee pot started making the I'm-all-done noise, so I poured a cup and went out onto the patio to watch the sun rise. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day — clear skies without much wind would make a great day for shooting.

I was looking forward to meeting the other snipers this morning. Some were old friends, and others I had never heard of. I was sure that Jens had studied all of them and could tell me all their weaknesses. That was our advantage.

Jens slipped up behind me with a cup of coffee, ducked under my arm, and wrapped her arm around my waist. "Hey, the bed got cold and woke me up. Thanks for making the coffee."

I gave her a good morning squeeze. "Just one cup today, my love; we don't need to be jittery for shooting this afternoon," I reminded her.

She swung around in front of me and gave me a kiss with a little bit of tongue. "Mmmm, maybe I'll drink my coffee this way."

I gave her my no-nonsense look, and she smiled. "Yes, my love, I know we have to be serious today. I just need a little lovin' from you first thing in the morning. You can bet that we'll both be very professional today."

I held her close and gave her some "lovin'" because I needed it too.

After about fifteen minutes, we were both satisfied, and walked back into the kitchen holding hands. We split breakfast duty that morning. I took care of the toast, and Jens made the oatmeal.

Jens had her back to me, and I couldn't resist reaching over and swatting her hard on the butt.

She jumped and squealed, "Hey, what's that for?"

"It was a target of opportunity," I answered.

"Well, that hurt. I think I'm bruised. You need to kiss it and make it better," Jens said, pulling down her pajama bottoms and shaking her butt at me.

I turned several shades of red and she said, "You're so—," and laughed when I finished:

"—Cute when I blush. I know, I know."

She went back to making the oatmeal, and I slipped over, knelt down, and kissed her on her butt where I had spanked her.

She spun around and looked at me.

"There, it's all better now'" I said. "Anything else you'd like for me to kiss while I'm down here?"

"Uhh, uhh, uhh..." Jens was so shocked she couldn't say anything, and then she started blushing.

"You're even cuter when you blush." I laughed, and stood up. I pulled her close to me and gave her a hug and a kiss. "I guess I win this time."

"Just remember, the war isn't over,." Jens answered. We heard the distinct blub, blub of oatmeal bubbling. "Hey, I better take care of the oatmeal or it'll burn."

While she did that, I finished the toast. We sat at the table and Jens bowed her head to pray, but I still didn't feel comfortable doing that.

Halfway through breakfast Jens smiled at me and announced, "You're going to win the shooting part of the sniper competition today."

I corrected her. "We're going to win first and second in the shooting part of the sniper competition today. I think I forgot to tell you that I signed us up as two teams — the Bravo Juliet team where I'm the sniper and you're the spotter, and the Juliet Bravo team where you're the sniper and I'm the spotter."

Jens dropped her spoon in the bowl and oatmeal splattered all over the table. She jumped up and came to my side of the table and slid into my lap.

"You're the best man in the world. You treat me so well. I really wanted to compete, but I was afraid it would keep you from winning."

"Don't worry; I've got it all figured out. We'll each take turns," I answered.

Jens gave me a big kiss. "Thank you my Ben, I love you so much. I promise you that I will do my best and make you proud of me."

"I'm always proud of you," I answered. "Now, let's get up and get going; we need to meet the rest of the snipers."

Jens jumped up and held out her hands to help me up. I grabbed the dishes, rinsed them, and put them in the dishwasher. Jens headed off to her bathroom, and I went to mine thirty minutes later. We both entered the living room wearing our service uniforms. It's not one of my favorite Marine uniforms, but Jens could make a burlap sack look nice.

The doorbell announced the arrival of Dad and Mom. I answered the door, and they gave us big hugs.

Mom beamed. "Good morning. How's the 'All American Couple' doing this morning?"

Jens and I blushed; we weren't used to the title yet. Mom looked at Dad. "Oh, they're so cute when they blush." Natually, we blushed even more.

I didn't know what to say, but Jens bailed me out. "So, Mother, did you come over here to see us or harass us?"

"Both. I couldn't wait to see my little girl and son-in-law-to-be," she answered.

I excused myself, went to the kitchen, and brought them each a cup of coffee. "Thanks son," Dad said. "Are you both ready for today?"

"Yes, Sir. We're going to kick butts and take names," I answered. "I promise you that we will come in first and second today in the shooting competition."

"That's the attitude that I like to hear," Dad replied as he slapped me on the back. "Are you two ready for all the press today? They're waiting at the reception hall and will follow you to the shooting range."

"Shit," I thought, "I was hoping that they would leave us alone."

I realized that wasn't going to happen, and I was starting to get pissed off. Then I remembered what Dad told me last night, and I calmed down.

"Sir, it would be nice if they could leave us alone, but I realize for now that isn't going to happen. So we'll make the best of the situation and we'll give them the best damned show they've ever seen."

Jens hugged me tight and gave me a kiss on the cheek, "Wow. I don't know what's come over you, but whatever it is, I like it."

"Dad told me how expensive it is to keep you in pantyhose and feminine products, so I figured I needed to make as much money from our newfound fame as possible," I joked, and planted a kiss on her nose.

Jens started getting all flustered until she heard Dad start laughing. Then she figured it was a joke and started laughing too. "Wow, you really had me worried for a minute. I thought you were serious."

Little did she realize that I was serious about making as much money from all this as possible. I may have accepted that the press was going to invade our lives and steal our privacy as much as they could, but I'd also determined that they were going to pay through the nose for it.

We all discussed the upcoming day. Dad had some suggestions on how we handle ourselves, but I had a few secret surprises that were going to really blow their socks off. When it was time for us to go to the reception, Dad took his car and we took our Humvee, both of us with escorts.

The reception was being held at the base gymnasium. I looked at Jens as we drove up, "Well, this doesn't look as bad as yesterday. There doesn't seem to be as many fricken news crews."

"Don't worry, my love; I'll protect you from those news bitches," Jens answered, sliding her dress up to show me that she had a leg holster on with a Kimber in it.

The vision of Jens pulling a pistol on Ms. Morgan made me laugh. "I'm sure if you pull that on them, they will all piss themselves and faint," I chortled, causing us both to laugh, remembering the incident with Ms. Morgan.

Our laughter was cut short by the sight of the crowd inside. I had been wrong; most of the fricken news crews were inside. Damn.

When we walked in behind the general and his wife, a Marine band started playing the Marine hymn. Jens and I took our assigned seats and the general and his wife went up onto the stage. She took her seat, and he waited for the band to finish and then went to the podium and gave his welcome speech.

In the speech, he gave an overview of the whole competition. This was more for the sake of the press; all the participants already knew what was going on. Even during his speech, we had some news cameras watching us. It made me feel like I was a fish in a fishbowl.

After the speech, General Donaldson introduced each sniper team and had them come up to the front. Jens whispered details about each team to me as they were introduced. She had really done her homework.

They introduced a second Spetnaz team from Russia and Jens leaned over whispering to me, "I don't like this; I didn't know anything about them sending a second team."

We were introduced last, to the loudest cheers. All of the snipers had an hour to greet each other after the introductions. Unfortunately, the press demanded interviews during the introductions. We promised to save them fifteen minutes at the end to talk to them, and they sort of left us alone.

Aside from a female sniper from the Mossad, Jens was the only woman among the snipers. I made sure I held Jens's hand while we were greeting the others; I wanted everyone to know that she was taken.

Jens amazed me by greeting most teams in their natural languages. I found myself wondering if there was anything my beautiful fiancée didn't know.

I did surprise her when we greeted the Russian teams. She knew I spoke some Russian, but I was actually able to carry on some short dialogues with them.

"When did you learn Russian?" She asked.

"I taught myself," I replied. "I wanted to learn a language. It was going to be either Klingon or Russian, and Russian seemed more practical. Ya gavaru pa Russki chut chut, e panimau pa Russki ne ochen horasho." (I speak Russian a little bit and understand Russian well).

Jen replied, "Ya ochen lublu teba." (I love you very much.)

"Ya torza." I replied (I love you too.)

When we met the new Russian team, I didn't speak much Russian to them. After we walked away, Jens asked me, "So what was that about? You hardly spoke any Russian with them."

"I don't care for them; something doesn't feel right about them. I thought it would be better to keep my mouth shut and listen," I answered.

"I'll see what I can find out about them," Jens said, her eyes dark with worry.

We gave the press several great photo-ops without making any major blunders. Then we jumped back into the Humvee with our escort following us and headed back to the house to change and load up for the rifle shooting competition.

I rushed through changing and took out a couple of boxes that had been delivered from my old bedroom and put them in the back of the Humvee. Inside were my surprises for later that day. Then I grabbed both of the M107 Barretts and the 98 Bravo Barretts, my two favorite M1911s, and one more rifle that was a surprise. I finished loading right as Jens came out of our bedroom.

"Thanks for loading the Humvee. You must be in a hurry," Jens said, giving me a kiss.

"Well, I'm a little excited today, and I wanted to get to the range with plenty of time to set up," I replied. We walked out to the Humvee, I opened the door for Jens and we were off to the range.

Jens turned around and looked in the back of the Humvee, "Hey, what's all this crap doing in here? And what's in those two boxes?"

"It's a surprise for you later. Don't open them," I answered. I had planned this surprise for almost a week. I wanted to distract Jens from the shooting competition so that she wouldn't be too tense, and it boy, did it work. She was bugging the hell out of me to know what the surprise was.

We were both surprised when we pulled into the shooting range and saw a tractor trailer with a picture of us walking out of the training area carrying the Barretts on our shoulders and the lettering 'Barrett Rifles — The Best Only Use the Best' under the picture.

I pulled the Humvee over next to it and saw Chris Barrett. He waved at us and came over to the Humvee and opened the door for Jens. I jumped out and went over to them.

"Good, I'm glad you two are early," Chris said. "We have the factory armorers and a full machine shop here to support you in this competition. We will take care of everything for you. All you two need to do is shoot. Where are your rifles?"

I looked at Jens. We were both dumbfounded. "I don't understand why you would do this for us," I said.

Chris smiled and pointed to the picture. "I guess you didn't know, we signed an agreement with your advertising firm. You two are now the first members of the Barrett factory team and are paid Barrett consultants. Besides, since your use of the Barretts in the exercise, we can't build them fast enough to keep up with the demand. We've had to go to three shifts at the factory and are looking at expanding. Everyone wants a Barrett."

Jens and I grabbed the Barretts out of the back of the Humvee and took them into the back of the semi trailer. I'm sure our jaws must have hit the floor when we saw what was inside. As complete an armorer's machine shop as I have ever seen was laid out in the trailer, and I have seen many.

We were met by Frank and Jon, our personal armorers. They took the Barretts over to their worktables and started to work on them while Chris showed us around the rest of the trailer; it had lathes, milling machines, hydraulic presses, ultrasonic parts washers, ovens, and a full reloading area. Shit, it even had a special sighting machine to sight in the Barretts.

I looked at Chris and said, "Wow. I'm impressed. This must have cost a fortune to build, and even more to bring to Hawaii."

He replied, "The Best only use the Best and only deserve the best. When you two are through winning the shooting competition today, I figure that Barrett will sell about fifty million dollars'- worth of rifles to the competing teams. Once they get a look at the 98 Bravo and what it can do — especially with the special loads we have for you two — they will be begging us to buy one."

"Special loads?" I asked.

"You bet." Chris grinned. "It's sort of a secret, but let's just say that neither of you will need your M107s today. We have developed a bullet and a load that will let you shoot the 98 Bravo accurately to at least two thousand meters. We also have a new rifle for you to try. It's secret, and we want you to try it at the end of the competition."

I asked Chris, "Do you mind if I store a couple of boxes in here? I don't want to leave them in the back of the Humvee. Also, I was wondering if I could use your ultrasonic parts washer."

"Sure, make yourselves at home. We even have an area where you can relax, and a fridge full of food and drinks," Chris replied.

I brought in the boxes and stowed them in the corner. Jens was still bugging me about getting to take a look inside, but I stood firm. Then I brought in one huge gun case, which got the attention of Frank and Jon. I opened it up and pulled out my 1874 Shiloh Sharps black powder rifle in 45-120¹.

Frank whistled, "Wow, that's one beautiful rifle. Would you mind if I held it?"

I opened the breech to show it was unloaded and handed it to him. He let out a low whistle. "I always wanted to see one of these, this is a Quigley² Special isn't it?"

"It's a bit more," I said, "The Quigley was a 45-110, this is a 45-120. I was wondering if we could throw the barrel in the ultrasonic cleaner; I'd like to take this out and get in some shots before the competition."

Frank jumped right on it and had the barrel clean as a whistle and the Sharps reassembled in just a few minutes.

"Damn, you're good," I told Frank. Then Jens and I, Chris Frank and Jon headed out to the range to have some fun. Jens grabbed her spotting scope when we stopped by the Humvee to grab my cartridge belt and an ammo box for the Sharps.

We stopped by the RSO to get permission to fire the Sharps. He looked at it and chuckled. "You're not really going to shoot that today?"

I looked at him and replied, "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can shoot a bullet-sized group at five hundred meters."

He looked at me. "No way in hell I'm going to take that bet. I've already lost enough money to you. The only time you bet is when you're going to win."

I just smiled at him.

Jens was excited. "I can't wait to see you shoot the Sharps today. Ever since I saw it in your gun safe, I've wanted to see it fired, and maybe even shoot it."

"Of course you'll shoot it, my love; we're all going to shoot it," I answered, and then leaned over and whispered to her, "We're going to use this to intimidate our competition and to keep them from saying we're winning because we have the Barretts. Wait till we shoot a bullet-sized group at five hundred meters with this. They're going to be crapping in their pants."

We walked down the firing line to our station, and I whistled the theme song from "Quigley Down Under." It was annoying, and had the effect I wanted. Namely, the other sniper teams were turning around to see what the hell was going on and were laughing and pointing at us as we walked by.

Jens said, "This is brilliant; they're thinking that we are fools for even bringing this out to the range."

Meanwhile the press had seen us headed towards our station. They were held behind a fence and couldn't get to us, but that didn't stop them from clamoring for an interview.

I looked at Jens. "Shall we go over and talk to our press?"

Jens arched her brow. "Our press?"

"You bet. We own these bitches right now," I answered, and we went over to the fence. They had a bunch of questions about the Sharps, so I gave them the history of the it, and how kill shots had been made at a surveyed 1500yds.

I told them that this was just going to be for fun and to warm up for the real shooting later, and to make sure they had their cameras running because this old rifle was going to put out a bunch of smoke when we fired it.

At our station, Jens set up the spotting scope and I stood up beside the table. I said, "Please run a target out to five hundred meters, call the RSO and tell him this is my five-hundred-meter qualify round, and range me, my love."

"Aren't you going to sit down and use the bench?" she asked.

"Nope, this is the way they shot this in the old days, and this is the way I'm going to shoot it now," I replied.

She called the RSO and told him I was qualifying at 500m and said, "Range, five hundred meters; elevation, zero; wind, two at one seven eight."

I raised the vernier tang sight and turned the screws until the windage and elevation were correct. slipping a round out of my cartridge belt, I opened the action and dropped the round into the chamber.

I closed the action, and looked over at Jens and smiled. "This is going to be so much fun."

Looking around, I saw that we had an audience. Most of the other sniper teams were behind me watching. I smiled to myself; just what I wanted. I raised the Sharps to my shoulder, cocked the hammer, set the first trigger, and tickled the second trigger.

The Sharps belched out a cloud of black powder smoke. I opened the action, threw in another cartridge, and did it again, repeating three more times for five shots in all. I lowered the rifle.

"Please bring in the target, my love."

She ran in the target and brought it to the table. I pulled a cartridge out of the belt and handed it to her. Jens measured it and started jumping up and down and yelled, "Five shots dead center in the target, all in the same hole. And from a standing position and with iron sights. That's my man!"

I raised my voice to be audible to everyone. "Well, let's run this target over to the RSO; this is my qualifying round for five hundred meters.,"It's a perfect score."

I'd thrown down the gauntlet, and the other sniper teams looked worried.

The RSO looked at it and certified it. "Damn. I'm glad I didn't bet you."

I grinned. "Jens is shooting next. She's never even fired this rifle. How about we bet two thousand dollars that she can put all of them in the same hole at five hundred meters?"

He declined the offer again. Damn; I was hoping to make some more money today.

On our way back to the table I was whispering to Jens, "You'll find this is the easiest damned rifle to shoot at five hundred meters that you've ever fired. Now, don't argue with me. You're going to fire this from the bench; this rifle is so damn long and heavy, unless you've practiced, you can't hit shit standing up.

"The hardest part is seeing the target without a scope at five hundred meters. I always set the range so that my aim point is the bottom of the bull's-eye and adjust the range so it hits the center of it. Make sure that your sight picture is exactly the same on each shot, and the rifle will do the rest."

"I love and live to serve you, my dear. I'm just excited to shoot your big gun," Jens said, almost making me blush.

Jens sat at the table and I showed her how to operate the rifle, she took a few practice dry fires to get used to the trigger setup. We had the same crowd as before.

I walked back to them and said, "I've got a thousand-dollar bet that Jens will put all five rounds in the same hole. By the way, she has never fired this rifle." Five teams took the bet. I just smiled at them; this was going to be easy money.

I walked back to the table and sat down beside Jens. She looked nervous.

I reassured her. "Don't worry, my love; you'll be shocked how easy this is. Remember, I still have a surprise for you later." That was the right thing to say; it took Jens's mind off the shooting.

I ran a target out to 500m and had Jens practice sighting on it until she was comfortable. Then I called the RSO and told him this was Jens's qualifying round at 500m and I ranged her, "Range, five hundred meters; elevation, zero; wind, one at one eight seven." I helped her set up the vernier tang sight and watched as she fired her 5 shots.

She looked worried as she told me to run in the target. I did, she handed me a cartridge and I compared it. I looked over at her and smiled.

she came over and started jumping around, "Five shots and one hole? Woo, hoo! A perfect score. I love you, my dear, and I love this rifle." She was jumping all over the place. The rest of the snipers looked pretty glum.

We left the rifle with Chris, Frank, and Jon so they could each take five shots. Then Frank was going to clean it all up, which made me happy; I love shooting the Sharps, but cleaning it up was hell and it needed to be done each time immediately after you were finished firing it, or the black powder would corrode the rifle.

Jens stopped by the reporters to show them her target as we were taking it to the RSO. She was as excited as I used to get on Christmas morning. The press had a bunch of questions and were ecstatic that we'd only fired ten rounds and were already in the lead. I told them that it wasn't over yet and other teams would also have some perfect scores.

"When we're done winning this competition today, I would like to invite all of you over to the pistol range for a little exhibition shooting." That got the press and Jens all fired up. They wanted to know more about it, but I told them they would have to wait.

Jens dropped of her target, and the RSO just shook his head. "How much money did you make today Banzai?"

Jens gushed, "My fiancé made five thousand dollars off my shooting."

When we got back to our table, the Barrett guys were just finishing up. They'd all hit the bull's-eye, but no perfect scores.

Chris said, "That's the most fun I've had shooting in many years. I've got to get one of these for myself."

Frank agreed. "It hardly kicks at all."

Jon added, "It's accurate, but I'll be damned if I know how you two could see well enough without a scope to shoot a perfect score."

Jens and I both said together, "It a secret. If we told you, we'd have to kill you." We all laughed as we walked back to the Barrett semi, andFrank took care of cleaning up the Sharps while Jon was finishing up the 98 Bravos.

Chris said, "I think when we're done setting up the Bravos. You two should take them out and qualify at a thousand meters. Just to let you know, the rounds that your firing today are extreme wildcat rounds. The Bravo will easily handle the pressure, but instead of the barrels lasting four thousand to five thousand rounds, they'll barely last a thousand.

"After the competition today, we'll re-barrel your rifles. We've also developed a new muzzle brake that will reduce the felt recoil to less than a .300 Winchester magnum, but make sure when you're spotting you stay out of the way of the blast cone; it hurts like hell if you don't."

We both thanked him and grabbed a bottle of water, then sat down in the chairs to watch the guys work. Jon finished one Bravo, took it over to the side of the trailer, and bore sighted it. Then he put it in a box and actually fired a round. It shook the whole trailer. He pulled it out of the box, tweaked the scope some, put it back in the box, and fired it again.

I was getting pretty interested in this so I went over to talk to him. "Hey, Jon, don't tell me you're able to sight in my rifle this way."

He grinned as he glanced up from his work. "Yeah, we sure can. Isn't this cool? I need to fire about three more shots, and your rifle will be sighted in perfect for a thousand meters."

I was flabbergasted and asked a few more questions about how it worked. He showed me, and only had to fire two more shots until it was perfect. Jens came over and watched when he finished her rifle.

Jon handed both our rifles to us and said, "Give 'em hell. These are spot-on at a thousand meters with the ammo that you have. I expect that you'll have two more perfect targets for us."

We all left the trailer and walked to the RSO stand to check in our Bravos. I whistled the Quigley tune again, and chuckled when the other snipers looked up. This time, they were pointing at our guns, but they weren't laughing.

The RSO looked at the rifles and said, "Damn, those are fine rifles. I wouldn't mind having one of those."

Chris Barrett said, "That can be arranged for about seven thousand dollars. The rifle is about forty-five hundred, and the scope is another twenty-five hundred."

The RSO whistled. "That's a bit rich for my blood."

I looked at the RSO and said, "I'll bet you this rifle that we both shoot less than one inch groups at a thousand meters. You lose, you pay me seven thousand dollars."