Chapter 6 - HEAT SHIMMER
Far downrange, at the eight-hundred-meter mark, a heavy steel torso target painted faded white sat mounted on a metal frame against the shimmering desert dust.
Under the noon sun, the heat rise was immense. Through a standard rifle scope, the target appeared to dance, distort, and liquefy in the boiling air currents rising off the sand. A light twelve-knot crosswind was blowing from left to right across the canyon floor, kicking up small plumes of dust near the five-hundred-meter marker flags.
Lieutenant Brooks leaned over toward another staff officer, trying to regain his composure, though his voice lacked any of its earlier bravado.
"She's aiming blindly," Brooks muttered under his breath. "The mirage at eight hundred is at least three mils thick right now. You can't make a center-mass hit without reading the wind flags at six hundred."
Claire’s right hand adjusted the elevation knob on her precision scope by two crisp clicks.
CLICK. CLICK.
She didn't consult a written dope card. She didn't use a laser rangefinder. She didn't drop her head from the stock to look at the turrets. Her thumb and index finger moved instinctively, adjusting for the density altitude, the ambient temperature, and the crosswind shear sweeping through the draw.
Behind her, Admiral Kane slowly reached up with a trembling hand.
He lifted his dark sunglasses off his white officer's cap and pulled them down, holding them in his fingers.
His eyes were wide, bloodshot at the edges, and filled with a profound, quiet dread as he stared at the back of Claire’s head. He wasn't watching the target eight hundred meters away. He was watching the quiet woman who sat in front of him, connecting her face, her movements, and her faded shoulder mark to a dossier he had filed away in a steel vault twenty years ago—a dossier marked with a red seal that declared the subject deceased.
"Sir..." Brooks whispered, noticing the Admiral's hand shaking as he held his sunglasses. "Sir... who is she? What unit is she from?"
Kane didn't answer him.
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"Admiral?" Brooks pressed, his voice rising in alarm. "Is she a security threat? Should I call Base MP?"
"If you call Base MP, Brooks," Kane said, his voice dropping into a cold, terrifying register that froze the young lieutenant in his tracks, "I will personally see to it that you finish your career standing watch on an icebreak station in Alaska. Shut your mouth and stand back."
