Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

“Gunnery Sergeant Jack Valentine,” Cesare Alosi said, going downstairs and through her living room, heading for her Georgetown town-house front door. “He writes some romantic stuff in his email to you.”

“I’ll fucking shoot!” Liberty raged.

“Ciao,” Alosi said, waving, skipping down the steps to the P Street Northwest sidewalk. He stopped and looked back at her, still holding the gun in her right hand and the cigar in her left, the bath towel breezing open, exposing way too much of Liberty Cruz to the world. “If I see Gunny Valentine in Iraq, I’ll be sure to give him your regards. Oh, and dear. Do cover up. Your puberty is showing.”

Liberty threw down the cigar and grabbed her bath towel closed around her nakedness.

“You better not say a fucking word to Jack Valentine!” she yelled. “You hear me? Not ever!”

Two weeks of togetherness, and Gunny Jack had his platoon trimmed to eighteen finalists. The dozen culled out went to battalion sniper platoons or to the newly formed Marine Special Operations Battalion for additional training and seasoning.

Lieutenant Colonel Elmore Snow, wearing the new Marine Corps desert-camouflage MARPAT pixel-pattern utility uniform with the slanted breast pockets, crisp and squared away, stood at the front of the classroom and said nothing for a long time, studying each face.

After five minutes of silent, cold gray eyeballing, several of the Scout-Snipers began to fidget. Jaws stared back, locking his dark brown eyes on his senior commanding officer.

“He wants to do Mexican sweat, I’ll show him how a real Mexican plays that game,” Alex Gomez thought to himself. Then he wondered if the colonel could read his mind, maybe his face. So Jaws worked hard to show no expression. Just a hard-assed stare.

Bronco Starr broke first, seventeen minutes into the standoff.

“What’s going on, sir?” Cortez asked.

Snow took a breath, looked at Gunny Valentine, and smiled. “Broke the old record by two minutes.”

Then he strolled down the center aisle where the men sat at schoolroom-type desks, their eyes and faces following him. He made an about-face, smiling, and walked back to the front of the room.

“Very good, gentlemen,” he said. “I do have your undivided attention.”

“Sir, we could have saved seventeen minutes,” Bronco said, a bit perplexed. “You had our undivided attention from the get-go.”

“But you’re just a touch impatient, Corporal Cortez, aren’t you?” the colonel came back.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Jesse politely argued. “I just don’t like wasting people’s time.”

“I’m wasting your time, Corporal?” Snow said in a voice that could crack plaster at a hundred yards.

“Oh, no, sir!” Cortez exclaimed, and got to his feet, snapping at attention. “Sir. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just all that staring and waiting. For what?”

Elmore Snow smiled at the corporal.

“Take your seat, young man,” he said in a friendly, fatherly voice. “My point with the silence and the waiting is very simple. Patience in our business is everything. We are a handpicked Special Operations team with a mission to go to Iraq and work the entire theater. We’re not going there to work a base camp or patrol a road. We are going there to hunt.”

Snow paused, waiting for the dramatic moment, then added, “Hunt the devil himself. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

“That, gentlemen, requires persistence, ingenuity, and the utmost profound patience.

“We are part of a greater, Joint Special Operations Command that combines our Marine operators with the best that Delta Force has to offer, the best that Air Force Pararescue, Combat Control and Special Operations has, and the best of the Navy’s SEALs. Our operators today scour the mountains in Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden, our number one target. And soon we will scour the Iraqi deserts for an even worse devil, in my opinion, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”

“Gentlemen,” Gunny Valentine said, walking to the front of the classroom, on cue, and taking a position to the left of the colonel. “Staff Sergeant Terrence Martin and Staff Sergeant Bill Claybaugh, whom you now know well after our two weeks of evaluating and testing each of you for fit on this team, will lead our two nine-man squads. I will lead the platoon. Captain Mike Burkehart, a Force Recon mustang officer, whom I have known for many years, joins us Monday as the platoon officer-in-charge. Lieutenant Colonel Snow will command our platoon, and two others like it.

“Do not write letters or make phone calls home telling Aunt Sally or your best friend Jody Boy, or your girlfriend he’s keeping warm while you’re gone, or your mama and daddy what you’re about to go do, or that this team even exists. Everything we do is classified top secret.

“You’re deploying to Iraq as a MARSOC detachment, augmenting Marine Corps Scout-Sniper operations in al-Anbar Province should anyone ask. Do not say any bullshit like, I’m going on a secret mission, or go buy a T-shirt that has TOP SECRET stenciled on the back. Am I clear?”

The whole room answered, “Yes, sir!” as if they were back in boot camp and Gunny Valentine was their senior drill instructor.

“Our weapons systems will include the standard M40A3 sniper rifle,” the gunny continued, “shooting our faithful 175-grain Sierra .30 caliber bullet launched by 7.62-by-51-millimeter cartridges. Added to that we will be shooting the M40A3 sniper rifle with the Remington 700 long action, similar to the one the Army shoots, and that gun will be chambered for the .300 Winchester Magnum caliber ammunition, also shooting the same Sierra MatchKing bullet as our .308, but one hell of a lot flatter, hotter, and farther. We will also have six Barrett Mark-82 .50 caliber long rifles, and six Barrett .50 caliber Bullpups.

“Bill Ritchie, out in Utah, at EDM Arms, has built us a dozen .338 Lapua Magnum rifles that he guarantees will drive nails at two thousand yards. That’s the gun I am looking forward to carrying in my hands. We’ve also got a set of M40A3 rifles with threaded crowns chambered for .338 Lapua Magnum as well, for special applications.

“Zarqawi got away from me because I was shooting that weak-ass .308 NATO, and had fifteen hundred meters to cross. Too much drop, and I dropped it between his feet. That’s not happening twice.

“Rifles will be here Monday,” Jack concluded. “We have the coming two weeks to get them and our ammo tuned to our liking. Then we’re off to the sandbox. You’ve got the weekend free, so go have some fun. Someone said that C. J. Quinlan has a HOG party at his Rally Point tomorrow evening. I might see you there.”

Billy Claybaugh barked from the back of the room, “If you get put in jail, you better break out or kiss your ass good-bye. If I have to come to the Onslow County brig or some other drunk tank up or down this coastline, I will fucking kill you. I will rip out your throat and piss on your collarbones.”

Several Marines shot him the finger as they left the classroom.

In the back, Cotton Martin had Gunny Valentine’s cell phone. It had buzzed and he was exchanging text messages with someone.

When Jack first saw it, he thought he recognized the phone and checked his pants pockets to be sure. Gone!

“What are you doing?” Jack asked, running to Cotton and grabbing for the phone.

“Getting you laid.” Cotton grinned and held the flip-top Moto with the tiny screen high over his head. “You’re pissed and grouchy, all crabby like an old hen with PMS. You need to get your pipes cleaned, brother.”

Jack kneed him in the nuts and grabbed the cell phone when Martin doubled over.

“Fucking asshole,” Jack grumbled, looking at the string of text messages. “Do you know who the fuck this is?”