The Doomsday Prophecy (16 page)

Ben opened the case and peered down at the scoped rifle inside. ‘May I?’

‘All yours,’ Carl said.

Ben lifted the weapon out of the foam lining and checked it over. It was a bolt-action Winchester Model 70, chambered in.300 H&H Magnum, an extremely potent calibre that launched its slim, tapered bullet at well over two thousand feet per second. The kind of rifle that, in the hands of a gifted shooter, could reach out to incredible distances. A top-flight instrument, with probably hundreds of hours invested in bringing it as close to perfection as was humanly and mechanically possible. It had a heavy competition-grade barrel. The action was slick, and the scope alone was worth as much as the Chrysler he was driving.

He took out a cigarette, clanged open his Zippo and thumbed the wheel. It had run out of fuel. He swore softly and patted his pockets for the book of matches he remembered taking from the hotel. Finding it, he struck a match and lit up. ‘Anything I need to know?’

‘Trigger’s awful light,’ Carl said. ‘Watch out for accidental shots.’

‘What’s it zeroed to?’

‘Point of aim at three hundred yards,’ Carl said.

Ben nodded, turning the rifle over in his hands and peering through the scope. He laid it back in the case, opened Carl’s ammunition box and inspected one of the long, tapered cartridges. ‘You handload your own ammunition?’

Carl nodded. Ben could see in his eyes the love he had for his sport, shining through the pain. Target shooters like Carl devoted a huge amount of time and energy to handcrafting their own match-grade ammunition, selecting the best combination of case, bullet and powder and putting it all together with extreme precision and attention to detail on the most expensive handloading presses they could afford, striving for the ultimate perfection in performance and accuracy. And it was all so that the shooter could drill a little round hole in a piece of paper. Their whole world was a little black circle on a white background. The closer together they could group those little round holes in the dead centre of the circle, the more trophies they could take home.

That was where the huge gulf opened up between the pure target shooter like Carl, and those men who were trained to use these rifles on a real target, a human target. Ben had been one of those men, once. He wondered if the young shooter had any idea of the nightmarish destruction a round like this could inflict on a man, when used for that more applied purpose.
At a thousand yards, the descending arc of the bullet as it ran out of kinetic energy meant that it would strike its target from above. Aim at a man’s forehead from that extended kind of range, and the shot would take him on the crown of his skull and drill downwards through his whole body.

Ben had been a young SAS trooper when he’d first seen the remains of a man shot that way. The Iraqi soldier had been hit in the head by a.50 calibre sniper round at twelve hundred yards. He had been peeled apart, exploded into pieces by the bullet and the hydrostatic shock that followed in its wake. One of his arms had been found nearly a hundred yards away.

The sight of the shattered corpse had haunted Ben a long time. What had haunted him more was that the sniper who had taken that extreme long-shot, dug into the dirt on the top of a hill after hours of waiting in absolute stillness, had been him.

Today, the only casualties would be tattered pieces of paper. It made the fearsome weapon seem almost benign.

‘You think you can do it, Benedict?’ Miss Vale asked, standing over them with a worried expression.

‘I can try,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while since I did any rifle shooting.’

‘We’ll be praying for you. Carl, you need to get to the hospital. Can Andy drive you, or shall I call someone?’

‘I’m not leaving here till this is over,’ Carl said. ‘I want to watch him.’

The match referee’s voice announced over a loudspeaker that the fullbore rifle competition was about to start.

‘We’d best hurry,’ Miss Vale said.

Ben tossed away his cigarette, picked up the rifle case and his bag and headed towards the ranks of competitors. Carl followed, his eyes red with pain, clutching his hand. Miss Vale went to talk to the match referee, and within half a minute had persuaded him to let the substitute shooter come in.

There were thirty competitors on the firing line. Ben stepped over the rope cordon and took his place on the line. He dumped his bag on one side of his shooting mat and the rifle case on the other. Opened up the case and lifted out the Winchester. It was too late for sighting-in shots, or to warm up the rifle’s bore. A hundred yards away, range officers were taking down the practice targets and putting up fresh ones.

As he slipped on Carl’s electronic ear defenders and settled himself into the prone position that his sniper training had instilled in him so long ago, Ben hoped he hadn’t taken on more than he could deal with. His heart was beating fast. It had been a long time since he’d taken shots like this. Too long.

He glanced over at the shooter in the next lane. The man had his name stencilled, military-style, on the green metal ammunition box at his side. B.L. Johnson. The ex-Marine sniper Carl had mentioned. For a second they made eye contact. Johnson had the look about him that Carl didn’t have – the look of a man who hadn’t only shot at paper targets. He smiled, not
friendly, not aggressive. Just a little knowing smile. Then he went back to his rifle.

Ben felt his heart begin to race as he peered through the scope at the targets. Only a hundred yards away, but the target face was no bigger than a dinner plate. It was divided up into a series of concentric rings, and at its centre was a black circle the size of a saucer. The very middle of the black was a ring that shooters called the ‘x-ring’. It was the size of a large coin. The x-ring was worth ten points, the next ring outwards worth nine, the next worth eight, and so on.

The tournament rules were brutally simple. The shooters would engage targets at one hundred, five hundred and a thousand yards. Ten shots per target, and anything below a ninety score was a disqualifier. It was a tough course of fire. Ben held his breath as he clicked in the magazine and worked the smooth bolt of the Winchester.

Here we go
.

The crowd was silent.

Glancing back over his shoulder he saw Carl, Miss Vale and her assistants huddled behind the cordon twenty yards behind the firing line, watching. At the old lady’s elbow was Cleaver, staring coldly at him.

The referee gave the command to commence firing.

Ben thumbed off the safety catch. He did a quick ballistic calculation and let the crosshairs hover on a point a few inches low of the centre of the target to allow for the three-hundred-yard zero.

To his left, Billy Lee Johnson’s rifle boomed, dust flying up off the ground near the muzzle.

Ben controlled his breathing. The sight crosshairs wavered against the target. Up, down, sideways. Sweat ran down his brow and prickled his eyes. He blinked it away.

In his mind, he saw Charlie again. He thought of the bombing victims on Corfu, the maimed and the dead. Thought of Nikos Karapiperis, and Zoë Bradbury, and the torment that her family was going through. Rhonda and the child who would never know its father. All because of the man standing behind him. He could feel Cleaver’s presence there, almost touching him.

Different people reacted differently to anger. For some, it was a form of stress that affected their concentration, dulled their thinking and slowed their reactions. He’d seen it happen many times.

But for him, it was different. He’d always been able to control his rage, to channel it, making the energy work for him instead of against him. It made him focus. He could feel every tiny detail of the texture of the rifle stock in his hands. He peered through the scope. Now the sight picture held rock steady. The target was sharp and clear. In his mind, he was aiming right at Cleaver’s head.

He hardly felt the smooth trigger face against the first joint of his finger. The trigger broke and the rifle kicked back hard against his shoulder. He lost the sight picture for a moment, and when he brought the rifle back to aim he saw the little black hole he’d made in the target. The first shot had cut the edge of the x-ring.

Looks like you haven’t lost it
, he thought.

And an hour later, he knew it for sure.

After the first round, seven of the thirty shooters were eliminated from the competition. There was a twenty-minute break so that the range officers could take down the targets and set up the new ones, four hundred yards further downrange. They were slightly larger than the first ones, but through the sights they were minute.

Round two began. Ben had imagined that the five-hundred-yard course of fire would have a devastating effect, and it did. When it was over, only nine shooters were left. He was one of them. So was Billy Lee Johnson, the ex-Marine sniper. Now, when he looked at Ben, the smile was gone.

But Ben wasn’t interested in Johnson. He was enjoying the fact that Clayton Cleaver was still there, watching. He was giving him a message, as surely as if he was telling him to his face. He wanted Cleaver to fear him, and he knew it was working.

Then the five-hundred-yard targets were taken down, and the survivors settled in for the real test. At a thousand yards, things look very, very small, even through the magnifying lens of a powerful scope. But it wasn’t simply a question of holding the gun steady and pulling the trigger. At such extreme range, there were many other factors involved. The wind could send a bullet’s trajectory way off course. It had to be anticipated. So did the parabolic arc of the bullet as it gave way to the forces of the Earth – and from such a range Ben expected it to drop several feet. He had to compensate by aiming high, and that was where the true art of the sniper came into play.

The referee gave the call to fire. Ben worked the bolt, peered through the scope. He could barely see the target. It was such a tiny thing, almost outside the realm of his physical senses but so, so tangible in his mind’s eye that it was the centre of everything.

Fuck it
.

He fired. Bolt back, case ejected, bolt forward, next round chambered.

Fired. The rifle bucked like a live thing in his arms. He worked the bolt again. He was lost in a world of his own, deep in the zone. Nothing existed except him, the target and the forces trying to prevent him from hitting it. Even the rifle didn’t exist – it was just an extension of his mind and body.

In that moment, not even Cleaver existed. He let go. Kept firing until his ten shots were spent. Only then did he look to see how he’d done.

He exhaled deeply. There was only one hole in the target. It was a ragged vent where all ten shots had gone in. A perfect score. His heart jumped. He’d won.

Except he hadn’t. The range officers came bouncing back uprange in their golf buggies and the results were announced to the crowd, amid a lot of cheering. Two shooters had come through the final round. Him and Billy Lee Johnson, neck and neck. It was a tie.

The Marine sniper ambled up to congratulate Ben. ‘Pretty hot shooting, friend. Where’d you learn?’

‘The Boys’ Brigade,’ Ben said.

‘Tie-breaker, guys,’ the ref said. ‘How do you want to settle it?’

Johnson grinned. ‘Your choice,’ he said to Ben.

‘Whatever I want?’

Johnson nodded. ‘You call it.’

‘Let’s bring it back a little,’ Ben said. ‘One hundred yards. One shot, best man wins.’

‘One hundred? Are you kidding?’

Ben didn’t reply.

‘Whatever you say,’ Johnson said. He rolled his eyes at the ref, who shrugged his shoulders.

They walked out and set up the targets at a hundred yards. ‘Hold on,’ Ben said. He kneeled down in the grass to tie his shoelace. Johnson and the ref turned and headed back towards the firing line. Ben got to his feet and jogged after them to catch up. As he approached the cordon, he could see the eager faces of the spectators all watching him closely. Miss Vale was still there, and there was Cleaver still at her elbow and still staring coldly at him. Ben returned his gaze all the way to the firing point. Cleaver’s face turned from white to red. Then he broke eye contact and glanced down at his feet.

They took positions. ‘You first,’ Johnson said.

Ben took his time aiming. The sun was hot on the back of his neck. The cicadas were chirping loudly all around, mixing in the warm air with the murmur of anticipation from the crowd.

The trigger broke under his gentle squeeze. The rifle recoiled harshly upwards and back, the image in the scope lost in a blur.

The crowd’s murmur grew in volume as everyone searched the target for a bullet-hole. At that short range, every mark on the paper could be seen clearly with spotting scopes and binoculars.

‘You missed.’ Johnson was grinning. ‘Way, way wide.’

‘Not even on the paper,’ someone called out from the crowd. There was a general mutter of disappointment.

Ben looked back through the scope and smiled.

‘Hold on,’ said another spotter. ‘Look down. He weren’t aiming at no paper target.’

Carl had seen it. He slipped under the cordon and walked over to Ben’s side. His eyes were wide. ‘Holy shit,’ he breathed.

Johnson had seen it too. His face went pale.

In the short grass at the foot of the target, two matches were stuck in the ground a few inches apart. One of them was lit, its pale flame flickering in the breeze.

‘He struck the goddamn match,’ someone yelled.

Carl’s mouth was hanging open, speechless.

The mutter of the crowd became an excited buzz. People were staring at him in amazement. ‘Best shooting I ever saw,’ the ref said, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘One in a million. Hell, ten million.’

‘Impossible,’ Johnson said. ‘He lit it when he was over there.’

The ref shook his head. ‘No way. It’d be burned all the way down by now. That’s why you waited so long to fire, right, mister?’ He smiled at Ben.

‘To hit a match at a hundred yards,’ Carl mumbled. ‘That’s one thing. But to strike it and light it ..?’ He blinked and broke into a grin.