Chapter 3 - THE SLIP OF THE SLEEVE
Claire didn't argue. She didn't smile.
She stood up from her wooden stool in a single, fluid movement. Lifting the heavy M110 rifle by its handguard with her left hand, she picked up a twenty-round box of match-grade ammunition with her right, placing the rifle cleanly onto its integrated front bipod at the center of the bench.
As she stepped forward to shoulder the heavy weapon, her movement caught against the hard, rectangular corner of the aluminum rifle transport case resting beside her stool.
The rough fabric of her camouflage sleeve caught on the metal latch.
As Claire pulled her arm upward to raise the rifle buttstock to her collarbone, the sleeve slid backward four inches down her left arm.
High on her upper arm, two inches below the shoulder joint, her pale skin was exposed to the blinding glare of the desert sun.
Etched into the fair skin was a small, faded black mark.
It was not a colorful unit patch tattoo, an eagle, a trident, or a standard military brand. It was a faint, jagged geometric mark—a quarter-inch black circle intersected by two razor-thin parallel lines, faded by time into a dull, charcoal-gray shadow beneath the skin. It looked impossibly old, worn down by years of exposure, scars, and deep tissue healing.
Range Master Ellis, standing near the shadow of the control room, was the first to see it.
The old range master’s body went completely rigid. The stopwatch he was holding in his right hand slipped from his fingers, dangling by its black lanyard against his leg. His jaw went slack, his eyes widening in pure, unadulterated shock.
Lieutenant Brooks, still smiling, happened to catch Ellis’s sudden, dramatic paralysis out of the corner of his eye.
Brooks stopped chuckling. He frowned, looking from the old range master back toward Claire. "Ellis? What's wrong with you?"
Then Admiral Kane’s eyes followed Ellis’s frozen gaze.
Kane looked directly at the upper arm of the quiet woman standing before him. His blue eyes locked onto the faded black circle and its parallel lines.
In an instant, every drop of color drained from Admiral Victor Kane’s face.
The condescending smirk, the authoritative posture, and the amused detachment vanished as if struck by lightning. His hands, resting on his uniform belt, tightened into white-knuckled fists. His breath hitched sharply in his chest, making his dark Navy tunic strain against his shoulders.
Claire felt the shift in the air. Without looking at any of them, she reached her right hand up, unhooked her sleeve from the latch, and calmly pulled the camouflage fabric back down over her arm, snapping the wrist cuff securely into place.
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She didn't offer a word of explanation. She didn't look at Kane's pale face.
She lifted the M110 and stepped toward the prone shooting pad.
