Chapter 6
Mitchell looked at Patterson first. "What I'm about to tell Recruit Reed is classified at a level I do not expect you to have clearance for. You can remain because Sergeant Patterson's discretion is not in question and because what happens in this range today is going to affect her future in this service and her understanding of that future should not happen without a witness."
Patterson nodded once and said nothing.
She looked at me.
"Ghost Actual was a designation used between 1987 and 2001 by a unit that does not appear in any public record and for which declassification has been pending review for fourteen years. The program trained twelve operators across three cohorts. Their specific function was long-range precision work in environments where conventional military presence could not be acknowledged." She paused. "One of those operators left service in 1998 and was resettled under a civilian identity in Bridger, Montana, where he raised cattle and, apparently, taught his granddaughter to read wind by the cheek."
I stood with the rifle still in my hands and said nothing, because there was nothing to say that was not inadequate to the size of what had just been placed in front of me.
"James Reed's actual name is classified. His service record is classified. His training methodology, however, is not — it exists in the program's documentation as the most effective individual marksmanship protocol ever developed within that unit." She looked at my groupings, then at me. "You have been trained by one of the twelve best marksmen this country has ever produced. The question I need to answer today is whether the training transferred."
I thought about every morning I had stood in open grass with him behind me, never touching the rifle until he decided the wind was worth listening to. Every afternoon he had made me lie in a field and wait until I forgot I was waiting. Every lesson that had never been called a lesson, only work, only attention, only the ordinary practice of noticing the world before doing something to it.
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"Sir," Patterson said, "with respect — it transferred."
Mitchell almost smiled. "I know, Sergeant." She looked at me. "There's a program being rebuilt. Classified. The unit was dissolved in 2001 and is being reconstituted with updated protocols. We've been looking for candidates." She glanced at my groupings on the range record in Kowalski's folder. "We've been looking for this candidate specifically, as it happens, since we flagged your grandfather's file during the reconstitution review and cross-referenced his reported dependents." A pause. "Your grandfather knew you'd be here. He called us six months ago."
