Chapter 8 - THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE MASTER
Mercer looked around the range.
Every single SEAL candidate was staring at him. Petty Officer Grant at the ammo table had stopped working entirely, leaning over his counter to watch the standoff. The atmosphere on Range Delta had shifted from a standard training qualification into an unscripted, high-stakes duel between an arrogant lieutenant and a woman with no name tag on her chest.
Mercer knew he was trapped. If he refused the call, he proved he was terrified of her calculations. If he accepted and she was right, his authority was permanently broken.
"Fine," Mercer spat, turning back to Miller on the bench. "Miller! Dial four and a half left! Three-tenths down! Send another round!"
Miller’s fingers flew across the tactical scope turrets, clicking the aluminum knobs into the precise position Lena had dictated. He loaded another .300 Norma Magnum round, closed the heavy steel bolt, and settled his cheek back onto the comb.
"Shooter ready!" Miller called out, his breathing fast and shallow.
"Send it!" Mercer barked.
CRACK-BOOM!
The rifle roared again.
One point two seconds later—the exact time required for a 215-grain projectile to travel fifteen hundred feet through shifting atmospheric gradients—a clear, loud, bell-like metallic chime rang out across the canyon:
CLANGGGGGGG!
Target Alpha shuddered violently on its heavy steel chains, a white impact mark appearing precisely in the dead center of the red bullseye circle.
"Impact!" Ryan Cole shouted instantly, a sudden, sharp grin breaking across his sun-burned face. "Dead center! X-ring!"
The candidates on the firing line let out an audible collective gasp.
Mercer stood completely paralyzed. He stared downrange through his binoculars at the white impact mark on target Alpha, his hands trembling slightly against the rubberized casing.
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He turned around slowly, his eyes wide with a terrifying mixture of shock and realization, looking at Lena as if she were a ghost that had just materialized out of the desert heat.
"Who the hell are you?" Mercer whispered, his voice stripped of all its former bravado.
