Chapter 2 - THE EIGHT HUNDRED METER CLAIM
Lieutenant Brooks stepped forward, placing one boot on the wooden support frame of the adjacent firing bench, leaning in to stare down at Claire’s work.
"Twenty says she's never fired one," Brooks called out to the group, grinning widely to impress the Admiral.
Range Master Ellis, a sixty-two-year-old veteran contractor with short gray hair, leathered sun-damaged skin, and a faded tactical vest, stood six feet back in the shadow of the Range Control office. He said nothing. His quiet gray eyes were locked not on the Admiral or Brooks, but on Claire’s hands. Ellis had run military sniper facilities for thirty years; he knew the difference between someone who was trained to clean a rifle for an inspection and someone who handled a precision firearm like an extension of their own body.
Claire calmly picked up the lower receiver, aligned the assembly pins with the upper, and pushed them home.
CLICK-THACK.
The solid, perfectly matched tolerances of the M110 locked together seamlessly.
Admiral Kane took two heavy steps closer to the edge of her bench, the shadow of his white officer's cap falling across her workspace.
"What's your rank?" Kane demanded, his tone turning crisp and authoritative, though the smirk remained at the corners of his mouth.
Claire set the assembled rifle down on the bench mat. She slowly raised her head, looking up into the Admiral's face. Her light brown eyes were completely calm, holding neither deference nor hostility.
"No rank to report, sir," Claire replied smoothly.
Kane’s eyebrows twitched, his smirk widening. "No rank? Then what are you doing on my long-range facility?"
Claire wiped a drop of oil from her index finger onto her cloth.
"I'm just here to shoot," she said.
Brooks let out another loud, barking laugh, shaking his head as he looked at the other officers.
"At what distance?" Brooks mocked, waving his arm toward the short-range pistol targets forty yards down the dirt embankment. "The paper silhouettes? Or are we aiming for the metal plates at one hundred?"
Claire didn't turn her head to look at Brooks. Her eyes drifted past the covered overhang, looking out across the vast, heat-shimmering expanse of the desert range toward the base of the mountains.
"Eight hundred meters," Claire said flatly.
The laughter from the officers behind Kane erupted again, louder this time, bouncing off the steel roof of the firing shelter.
"Eight hundred!" Brooks snorted, wiping his eye. "In this heat shimmer? With a crosswind coming off the ridge at twelve knots? Sweetheart, most scout snipers spend two weeks calibrating their dope cards before they hit the eight-hundred-meter steel out here."
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Admiral Kane folded his arms over his chest, stepping right up to the firing bench.
"Then show us," Kane said, his voice dripping with dry challenge.
