Chapter 15 - THE TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT
"I have three conditions," Claire said, running her bare fingers along the cold fluted barrel of the TAC-50.
Kane straightened up immediately. "Name them."
"First, this is my op from the moment we leave the wire," Claire said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp, authoritative cadence that brooked no debate. "You provide the transport and the spotter platform, but tactical decisions at the ridge are mine. If you try to command my fire, I walk."
"Agreed," Kane answered without a second's hesitation.
"Second, you come with me," she continued, her hazel eyes locking onto him with terrifying intensity. "You wanted to see what elite marksmanship looked like on a sterile training range, Admiral. Now you're going to come up the mountain and carry my spare magazines. You're going to see what precision shooting actually costs when the targets shoot back."
Kane blinked, caught off guard, but his jaw hardened. "Done. I won't slow you down."
"Third," Claire said, looking at the junior officers hovering behind him, "tell your little entourage to stay in the air-conditioned briefing room. Their perfumed aftershave will give away our hide position before we even reach the lip of the canyon."
Within four minutes, the Land Cruiser and the tactical command vehicle were roaring out of the base’s northern checkpoint at full throttle. The convoy bypassed the standard patrol routes, cutting straight through the treacherous washboards of the jagged badlands.
Inside the Land Cruiser, Claire checked her loadout. She pulled on a lightweight, dust-colored windbreaker over her t-shirt, strapped a combat knife to her left boot, and began methodically inspecting five-round magazines loaded with hand-turned .50 BMG match-grade cartridges. Each massive bullet looked like a piece of polished artillery, heavy and lethal.
Kane sat in the passenger seat, gripping the dashboard handle as the vehicle violently bounced over dry creek beds. He watched her hands work. There was no hesitation, no frantic rush. Her movements were slow, smooth, and perfectly economical.
"Why fifteen hundred meters?" Kane asked, having to raise his voice over the roaring suspension. "The operational envelope of the TAC-50 can stretch to two thousand, but in that canyon, the thermal turbulence must be insane."
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"It's not just the thermals," Claire answered, not looking up from her magazines. "Devil's Throat forms a natural venturi tube. The wind at the canyon floor blows south at twelve knots, but halfway up the ridge, the heat rising from the shale pushes the air vertical at twenty knots. At fifteen hundred meters, a bullet doesn't just drop—it surfs. If you don't calculate the cross-draft correctly, your round will drift twelve feet off target before it reaches the limestone ledge."
Kane looked at her in silent awe. She wasn't just a shooter; she was a walking, breathing computer of lethal physics.
