Last Light Part 19

"My father -what's the use of having one if you don't know how to use it?"

I checked chamber clear and took the weapon from her.

"What service was he in?"

She sat down and picked up her coffee cup.

"Army. He made general before retiring." She nodded over at the fridge pictures. The beach? Those are his Army buddies."

"What did he do?"

Technical stuff, intelligence. At least there's one good thing that can be said about George he's got smarts. He's at the Defense Intelligence Agency now."

She allowed herself a smile of pride as she gazed at the picture. There's a senior White House adviser and two other generals, one still serving, in that photograph."

That's some bad-looking scar on the end. Is he one of the generals?"

"No, he left the service in the eighties, just before the Iran-Contra hearings.

They were all involved in one way or the other, though Ollie North took all the heat. I never did know what happened to him."

If he was part of the Iran-Contra affair, George would know all about jobs like this one. Black-ops jobs that no one wanted to know about, and people like him wouldn't tell anyway.

The connection between these two, George and the Pizza Man, was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. But I was a small player and didn't want to get myself involved with whatever was going on down here. I just had to be careful not to b.u.mp into it, that was all. I needed to get to Maryland next week.

Luz called from the other room, "Mom, Grandpa needs to talk with you."

Carrie got up with a polite "Won't be long," and disappeared into the next room.

I took the opportunity to have a double-take at the tall, square-jawed, muscular George smiling with Luz on the veranda. It was easy to see where she got her big green eyes from. I checked out the digital display on the bottom right of the picture. It was taken in 04-99, only eighteen months ago. He still looked like the all-American boy with his short hair and side parting, and, what was weird, he looked younger than Aaron. The Pizza Man, on the other hand, looked like death warmed up compared with his black-and-white former life. He was skinnier, greyer and probably had lungs like an oil slick, going by the way I'd seen him take down that nicotine.

TWENTY-TWO.

I got back to the real world and examined the weapon, which looked basic and unsophisticated compared with the sort of thing around nowadays. Not that the basics had changed for centuries: trigger, on and off switch, sights and barrel.

I wasn't a weapons anorak, but I was familiar enough with the Russian weapon's history to know that, regardless of how it looked, these things had sent thousands of Germans to their graves on the eastern front in the forties. The a.r.s.enal marks stamped into the steel of the chamber showed it had been made in 1938. Maybe this was one of them. It had probably quite a history, including zapping American targets in Vietnam.

The one I had in my hands had been beautifully maintained. The wooden furniture was varnished, and the bolt action had been lightly oiled and was rust-free. I got it into the aim and looked through the quite unconventional optic sight, unsure if it was the original. It was a straight black and worn tube about eight inches long and about an inch in diameter mounted on top of the weapon.

It had to be a fixed power sight as there was no zoom ring to adjust the magnification, just two dials half-way along the sight the top one to adjust for elevation (up and down), and the one on the right-hand side for windage (left and right). The dials had no graduation marks any more the top discs were missing just some scratch marks where it had been zeroed.

Looking into the sight and aiming at a fuzzy book spine at this short distance, I could see I had a post sight to aim with. A thick black bar came up from the bottom of the sight and finished in a point in the centre of the sight picture.

Just below the point was a horizontal line that crossed the whole width of the sight.

I'd never liked post sights: the post itself blocked out the target below the point of aim, and the further away the target was, the smaller it became and the more the post blocked it out. But beggars can't be choosers, and as long as it went bang when I pulled the trigger, I'd be half-way happy. There were also conventional iron sights on the weapon a rear sight that was set just forward of the bolt, about where my left hand would go on the stock. The sight could be set between 400 and 1200 metres. It was set at the all-round 'battle sight' setting of 400. The foresight was protected by a cylindrical guard on the muzzle.

I placed the weapon on the table and went and helped myself to more coffee from the cooker. Thinking about this rifle's possible history reminded me that, years earlier, in the early eighties, when I was an infantry squaddie in BAOR (British Army of the Rhine), I'd owned a Second World War bayonet that an old German had given me. He told me he'd killed over thirty Russians with it on the eastern front, and I wondered whether he was bulls.h.i.tting me, since most Germans of that generation said they fought the Russians during the war, not the Allies. I'd put it away in a cupboard at the house in Norfolk and forgotten about it; then, along with everything else, it had been sold to pay for Kelly7 s treatment. A skinhead with a stall in Camden Market gave me twenty quid for it.

I'd nearly finished pouring when Carrie returned.

"Do you know how to adjust the sights?"

"No." It would save me a lot of time if I didn't have to experiment.

"It's got a PBZ at three hundred and fifty yards," she said, walking to the table.

"Do you know what that is?" I nodded as she picked up the weapon and turned the dials.

"Stupid, I'm sure you do."

I could hear the clicks even above the noise of the fans before she handed it to me. There, the notches are in line." She showed me the score marks levelled off against the sight on both dials to indicate the correct position for the sight to be zeroed.

I put down my coffee, took it off her and checked out the dull score marks.

"Anywhere I can go to check zero?"

She waved her arms. Take your pick. There's nothing but s.p.a.ce out there."

I picked up the ammunition tin.

"Can I have some of your printer paper and a marker pen?"

She knew exactly what I needed it for. Tell you what," she said, I'll even throw in some tacks for free. See you outside."

She went into the computer room and I went out through the squeaking mozzie screen and on to the veranda. The sky was still brilliant blue. The crickets were going for it like there was no tomorrow, and a monkey or something was making a happy noise somewhere in the canopy. But I wasn't fooled. No matter: after a shower and some cream on my back, the love affair with the jungle was back on.

Even in the shade of the veranda, it was already much hotter out here. I was glad I was beginning to feel better, because it was an oppressive heat.

My dizziness had all but disappeared, and it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get to grips with what I was here to do. The mozzie screen squeaked open and chopped off my train of thought as Carrie came out carrying a crunched up paper bag. She handed it over.

"I've told Luz you might go hunting later, so you want to try out the rifle."

I'll be over there." I indicated the treeline about two hundred metres away, to the right of the house. It was on the opposite side to the track, so if Aaron came back early from rescuing jaguars he wouldn't get a 7.62 in his ear.

"See you in a bit."

As soon as I left the shelter of the veranda, the sun's fierce glare blinded me.

I screwed up my eyes and looked down. Most of the moisture had evaporated off the gra.s.s, but the heavy humidity meant the puddles were still intact apart from a muddy crust around the edges.

I could feel my shoulders and the back of my neck burning as I kept my eyes on the rough, thick-bladed gra.s.s. I knew that once I got to the treeline things would improve. It would be just as hot and sticky, but at least this rabiblanco wouldn't be getting blow-torched.

I had a quick check of Baby-G. Unbelievably, it was only 10.56. The sun could only get hotter.

Carrie called out from behind me, still on the veranda.

"Look after it." She pointed to the weapon.

"It's very precious to me." I had to squint to see her, but I was sure there was a smile.

"By the way, only load up four rounds. You can place five in the magazine OK, but can't close the bolt without stripping off the second round got it?"

I lifted the weapon as I walked. I'd keep the PBZ (point blank zero), if it still existed. Why mess with something that might already be right? I might c.o.c.k it up by trying to improve it.

I let my hand drop with the weapon and carried on towards the treeline, thinking of how the three snipers in London would have reacted to the idea of using a PBZ to drop a target, on top of ammunition that could have been made by the local blacksmith. To ensure consistency, they'd have pulled apart every one of the rounds I supplied them with to check there was exactly the same amount of propellant in each cartridge case.

PBZ is just a way of averaging out the averages to ensure the round at least hits the target somewhere in the vital area. Hunters use it; for them, the vital area is an area about seven inches centred on the animal's heart. The way it works is quite simple. As a round leaves the barrel, it rises, then begins to fall because of gravity. The trajectory is relatively flat with a large 7.62mm round like these: over a range of 350 metres the round won't rise or fall more than seven inches. As long as the hunter isn't further away than 350 metres, he just aims at the centre of the killing area, and the round should drop the bear or whatever else is charging towards him. My shoot should be from a maximum of 300 metres, so if I aimed at the centre of the target's sternum, he should take a round somewhere in the chest cavity what is known in sniper world as a target-rich environment: heart, kidneys, arteries, anything that will make him suffer immediate and catastrophic loss of blood. It was not as sophisticated as the London snipers' catastrophic brain shot, because the weapon and rounds weren't exactly state-of-the-art, and I hadn't had enough practice.

A heart shot would probably make the target unconscious, and kill him in ten or fifteen seconds. The same went for the liver, because the tissue is so soft; even a near miss can sometimes have the same effect. As the round travels through the body, crushing, compressing, and tearing away the flesh, a shock-wave comes with it, causing a ma.s.sive temporary inflation of neighbouring tissues that messes them up big-time.

A hit to the lungs would incapacitate, but it might not kill him, especially if he was treated quickly enough. The ideal would be for the round to hit the target's spine high up, above his shoulder-blades, as it exited, or entered if I took him back on. This would have very much the effect the three snipers had been trying to achieve: instant death, dropping him like liquid.

This was all very fine in theory, but there was a host of other factors to contend with. I might be trying to hit a moving target, there might be a wind. I might only have one part of a body to aim at, or only one weird angle to take the shot from.

Trying not to think about the boy smiling out of the Lexus, I wandered the two hundred or so metres to the treeline, put down the ammunition box, and stood for a while in the shade, looking towards the hill, the target area. Then I set off towards the rising ground.

I found a suitable tree and pinned a sheet of paper to the bottom third of the trunk with one of the drawing pins. With a marker pen I drew a circle about the size of a two-pound coin and inked it in. It was a bit of a lumpy circle with uneven edges because I was pushing it against the bark, but it would do.

I then pinned a sheet above and another below the first, then, making the best of the shade, turned and walked back with the weapon and rounds, counting out a hundred one-yard paces. At that range, even if the sight was wildly inaccurate, with luck I would cut paper to see how bad it was. If the zero was out by, say, two inches at a hundred yards, then at two hundred yards it would be four inches, and so on. So if I lay down initially at three hundred, I could be six inches out, either up, down, left or right, possibly missing the paper altogether. Trying to see my strike as I fired would waste time, of which I didn't have much.

A hundred paces later and "still in the shade of the treeline, I checked for beasties, sat against a tree, and slowly closed the bolt action. It was extremely well made: the action was soft, almost b.u.t.tery, as the oil-bearing surfaces moved over each other without resistance. I pushed the bolt handle down towards the furniture (the wood that shapes the weapon), and there was a gentle click as it fell into its locked position.

Before I fired this weapon I needed to find out what the trigger pressures were.

Correct trigger control will release the firing pin without moving the weapon.

All trigger pressures are different, and nearly all sniper weapons can be adjusted for the individual firer. I wasn't going to do that because I didn't know how to on a Mosin Nagant, and I wasn't that particular anyway I usually adjusted myself to whatever the pressures were.

I placed the centre of the top pad of my right index finger gently against the trigger. There was just a few millimetres of give as I squeezed backwards until I felt resistance. This was the first pressure. The resistance was the second pressure; I gently squeezed again, and instantly heard the click as the firing pin pushed itself out of the head of the bolt. That was fine for me: some snipers prefer no first pressure at all, but I quite liked having that looseness before firing.

Pulling the bolt back once more, I took one of the twenty-round boxes of large bra.s.s 7.62 rounds out of the ammunition box, and fed in four, one at a time, from the top of the breech, into what should have been a fixed five-round mag.

Then I slid home the bolt once more, watching as it pushed the top round into the chamber. There was a slight resistance only as I pushed the c.o.c.king handle down towards the furniture and the bolt locked into place, securing the round so it could be fired. The on off switch was at the back of the c.o.c.king piece, a flat circle of metal at the rear of the bolt about the size of a fifty-pence piece, and turning it to the left I applied Safe. It was a pain in the a.r.s.e to do, but I supposed there wasn't much call for them when this thing was made it was too busy killing Germans.

I looked for a small mound in the rough ground to double as a sandbag, and after a beastie check, lay down behind it in the p.r.o.ne position. The steel plate of the weapon b.u.t.t was in the soft tissue of my right shoulder and my trigger finger ran over the trigger guard. My left forearm was resting against the mound and I let my hand find its natural position along the stock of the weapon, just forward of the rear sight. There were grooves cut into the furniture each side to give a better grip.

Your bones are the foundation for holding a weapon; your muscles are the cushioning that holds it tightly in position. I had to make a tripod of my elbows and the left side of my ribcage. I had the added benefit of resting my forearm against the mound. I needed to ensure that the position and hold were firm enough to support the weapon, and that I was also comfortable.

I looked through the sight, making sure there was no shadowing around the edges of the optic. There was no problem about closing my left eye: half the job had already been done for me yesterday. The biggest mistake made by novice firers using a post sight is that they think the point to aim at is where the horizontal line crosses the post. It's not, it's the top of the post, right where the point is. The horizontal line is so you can check there's no canting (weapon tilting).

I took aim at the centre of the not-too-circular black circle then closed my eyes and stopped breathing. I relaxed my muscles slightly as I emptied my lungs.

Three seconds later, I opened my eyes, started to breathe normally, and looked through the sight once more. I found that my point of aim had shifted to the left-hand edge of the sheet of paper, so I swivelled my body round to the right, then did the same thing twice more until I was naturally aligned to the target.

It was pointless trying to force my body into a position that it didn't want to be in: that would affect the round when I fired. I was now ready to take the first shot.

I took three deep breaths to oxygenate my body. If you're not oxygenated you can't see correctly; even if you're not firing a weapon, if you just stand and gaze at something in the far distance and stop breathing, you will see it go blurry very quickly.

The weapon sight moved up and down with my body as I sucked in air, and settled to a gentler movement as I started to breathe normally. It was only then that I took off the safety, by pulling back and turning it to the right. Acquiring a good sight picture once more, I aimed before taking up the first pressure. At the same time I stopped breathing, in order to steady the weapon.

One second, two seconds ... I gently squeezed the second pressure.

I didn't even hear the crack, I was so busy maintaining concentration and non reaction while the weapon jumped up and back into my shoulder. All the time I kept my right eye open and followed through the shot, watching as the point of aim came back to settle on the centre of the target. That was good: it meant my body was correctly aligned. If not, the point of aim would have moved to where my body was naturally pointing.

The round needed to be followed through because although there might only be less than a second between me taking the second pressure, sending the firing pin forward and striking the round, and the bullet heading up the barrel as the gases forced it out towards the target, the slightest movement would mean the point of aim not being the same at the instant the bullet exited the muzzle as when I fired. Not good news if you're trying to kill somebody with a single round.

That was the end of the firing sequence. I became aware of the different colours and sizes of the flocks of birds lifting from the trees. The canopy rustled as they screamed and flapped their wings to make their getaway.

In real time there are many occasions when these drills can't be used. But as long as you understand them, and have used them to zero the weapon, there's a good chance you can take on an opportunity target and drop it.

I looked through the sight to check where my round had fallen. I'd hit the top of the main sheet of paper: about five inches high. That was OK, it should be high at this close range: the optic was set at 350. The main thing was that it wasn't higher than seven inches.

The problem was that, although the round was at more or less the correct height for the range, it had gone to the left of the centre line by maybe as much as three inches. At 300 yards that would become nine inches. I would have missed the chest, and maybe hit an arm if he was static and I was lucky. That wasn't good enough.

I lay back and watched the birds coming back to their nests. I waited maybe three minutes before reloading because I needed this to be a cold barrel zero: when I took the next shot, the barrel had to be as cold as the last. Variations in the barrel's temperature will warp the metal. Taking into account the inconsistency in the ammunition, it would be stupid to zero with a hot, or even warm barrel, since it would be cold when I took the shot.

That got the little sniper in my head ticking away. It reminded me that damp, humid air is thicker than dry, causing the bullet to drop faster. Hot air has the reverse effect because it is thinner, so offers less resistance and sends the bullet higher. What was I supposed to do on a very hot day in a very humid jungle? f.u.c.k it, I'd leave it alone, I'd only just got rid of my headache, I didn't want it back. Five inches should be OK. I'd be confirming back at 300 anyway.

I took another shot and followed through, my point of aim staying on the circle.

My round still cut paper to the left, less than a quarter of an inch in from the first. The shots were well grouped, so I knew that the first round wasn't just a wild crazy one; the sight did need adjusting.

The birds were well p.i.s.sed-off at being disturbed a second time, and I sat up and watched them as I waited for the barrel to cool. It was then that I saw Carrie making her way towards me from the rear of the house.

TWENTY-THREE.

She was about 150 metres away, swinging a two-litre bottle of water in her right hand. I waved. As she looked at me and waved back, I got a flare of sunlight from her wraparounds. I sat back against the tree and watched her get nearer.

She looked as if she was floating above the heat haze.

When she got closer I could see her hair flick back and forth with each stride.

"How's the zero going?"