Thedoctors308

After The Fact

Jack tugged his parka tighter to him as the cold crept in from the ground beneath
him. Shit. It was just his luck that the weather would decide to take a turn back towards
winter when he was on a job. The previous few days had been warm and sunny. The
provisional troops in this compound had taken the opportunity to leave their lodgings and
spend the days partying out in the woods. The distraction of sunshine and booze had
provided the men with enough to occupy their minds to allow Jack to slip through the
lines, something that would have been dangerous if the weather were wet and cold. Jack
knew men are far more attentive to their surroundings when they are miserable. He sure
was.
Part of him wished he was back in the safe zone in the farm house, seated in front
of a warm fire, drinking a cup of coffee with his friends. Why did he always volunteer
for these jobs? It seemed his hand always willed itself up when word came in of an
opportunity to get some licks in. Sitting in a copse of woods, his back against an oak
tree, he looked out over what had once been an apartment complex in a suburban town. It
looked a far sight different now. Windows were boarded up to keep the cold out, and
some buildings were burnt out shells, either from the fires people kept inside for heat or
from the fighting. Jack subconsciously shook his head at the thought of having a fire ring
going inside his old place – the thought struck him as savage. In the past 5 years, living
had gotten to be pretty dangerous.
Food, shelter, heat, and electricity; all were once a given; now they were a luxury
for most. Many people lived in camps run by the provisional governments that had
sprung up in the wake of Washington’s fall. They starved and froze mostly, but they
were free from the violence that plagued the countryside and suburbs…mostly. Morals
and civilized behavior seemed to have gone out the window in the resulting chaos. Jack
couldn’t blame all of them – while some of the thugs were born that way, many more had
been forced into their behavior by the circumstances. Few people had grown up knowing
anything more than a comfortable life where anything they desired was nothing more
than a phone call and credit card swipe away.
At the thought of phones and credit cards Jack suppressed a derisive snort, lest he
give his position away to the lackluster guards 300 meters to the north of his position, in
what passed for a listening post. He hadn’t carried a wallet for some time now, with both
plastic and paper money being useless. The last time he had used a phone was 4 years
ago, unless he counted the army surplus field telephones his group used to communicate
between strong points on the farm.
‘My, my,’ Jack thought ‘the world certainly went to hell in a hurry.”
His eye caught the movement of the guards below walking inside the main troop
quarters to get warm by the space heater. Jack checked his watch and decided it was as
good a time as any to get into position. He slowly leaned forward, and eased himself onto
the ground, careful to not knock his rifle around. Since having dropped out of the world
when things first started spiraling down, he had learned that one kept alive by taking care
of their equipment and their body.
Once reaching the prone position, he slowly dragged himself forward, making
certain to keep a low profile so as to not give himself away by silhouette. He never wore
a ghille suit, finding them hot, uncomfortable, and generally unnecessary. After all, he
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thought, rolling his eyes, he wasn’t in a war zone or anything. The guards, or what passed
for them, were still inside smoking cigarettes and shooting the bull.
‘Sloppy, sloppy,” he chided them in his head, ‘you boys are no soldiers, and God knows
why they try to use you as that.’
He knew the professional soldiers were all in the cities, protecting the men who
had found themselves in charge of the fractured country. The men of gold, as Jack
thought of them, had been pretty smart in organizing the provisionals, or provos as they
were nicknamed. Men needed jobs, and in a chaotic society, what job was more needed
than soldiers, symbols of stability. Most didn’t join the detachments to be soldiers, most
joined as a way to get out of the cold, find a bed, and have a decent guarantee of a meal.
Some joined because they liked being in a position of power over the helpless majority,
and it couldn’t be denied that even those that didn’t join for that began to enjoy the rush
of exercising authority. Jack thought of the men as opportunists, and didn’t hold too a
grudge against them, or anyone for that matter. He simply saw them as a threat to his
way of life.
Jack cradled his rifle in his arms as he inched forward to the spot he had picked
out earlier. As he eased himself into a serviceable shooting position, he undid the rear
cover on his rifle’s scope and let it dangle by its leather strap. He’d wait until later to
undo the front covering, lest his position be given away by the glint of his lens. Jack
doubted the men below him knew enough woodcraft to take notice of the reflection, but
he hadn’t made it this far by being careless. He could see well enough at this distance to
understand what was going on downrange anyhow. He’d save the lens for when the
shooting started.
He looked down at his rifle and considered it. Many men he had run into over the
years, both at rifle ranges in happier times, and in the field in the recent troubles, had
asked him whey he chose such a rifle. With the money he used to make, he could have
easily afforded a more modern, more precise rifle with better optics. In the events of the
recent past, he had come across such rifles as well, just there for the taking. Jack knew
the other men had a point – the damn rifle was built in 1944, with the scope being made
about 5 years earlier. The caliber was a bit oddball as well too – 7.62x54R wasn’t made
in country, so Jack had to depend on old lots of foreign produced ammo to keep in
practice. Luckily the ammo had been imported in large amounts and sold for dirt cheap
prior to the unpleasantness, and Jack had quite a bit squirreled away.
The truth was, Jack just plain old liked the rifle. It was built like a tank, light for
its size, and was combat proven. It had character too. The rifle started out as a snap
purchase at a gun show when he was in college. He always liked the old rifles, and for
$100 Jack figured he couldn’t go wrong. He spent a weekend cleaning the rifle up, and
he was impressed at what he found under 60 years of dirt and grease. The finish on the
outside was a bit rough, which was to be expected of any wartime production weapon.
The internals were the surprising find – the bore and rifling were crisp and strong, like
the rifle had just rolled off the line yesterday.
After finding this, Jack began studying up on how the former users of the rifle
accurized them. Some aluminum shims under the sear mechanism brought the trigger
pull down from a horrendous 15 pounds to a very manageable 6 pounds. Jack sanded the
rifle’s stock channels to ensure that the trigger mechanism moved freely, with no hang-
ups. The action screws were kept in place with thread lock and witness marks, to keep
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the rifle as repeatable as possible. He cut and turned down the bolt handle so it would
clear a mounted scope. Then Jack spent more than double the amount the rifle cost him
for a telescopic sight and mount, made in 1938. Folks thought he was nuts, as many
considered the rifle to be commie junk, but he wanted an exact replica of the rifle used to
great success by Red Army snipers against the Nazi invaders of World War II. Finally,
he had it; a Soviet Mosin-Nagant 91/30 bolt action rifle, chambered in the archaic
7.62x54R, topped by a genuine Soviet PE sight. Jack loved dragging the rifle he called
“Katarina”, out at the range.
“If I can see it, I can hit it,” he used to boast.
It was a bit of a stretch, but not by much. It was a snap to hit pie plates at 300
meters, past that more skill came into play, things like mirage, holdover, and reading the
wind, things that Jack admitted he wasn’t too good with. Eventually, unsatisfied with the
performance of surplus ammunition, Jack began to make his own rounds. He got into
hand loading and worked up some pretty good formulas, eventually settling on one of his
hotter loads. It was a bit more work on his shoulder, but it kept the rounds flying
straighter for a greater distance, which meant he had less to do from a shooting
standpoint. It became a matter of point and shoot.
‘It’s funny how life works out. A decision to buy an old rifle at a gun show leads me
here; lying in the mud and bushes waiting to kill someone I’ve never met.’
Because the Mosin-Nagant design lacked a practical safety, Jack carried the rifle
with an empty chamber. Now that it would be needed in short order, he slowly lifted the
bolt and slid it back. Jack let his index finger walk forward, into his rifle’s magazine,
keeping his eyes on the building he was watching. The cool, smooth brass of his hand
loads rested beneath his fingertips. Satisfied that his rifle was ready, he slid the bolt
forward and slid the handle down, slowly and deliberately, so as not to give himself up
with a tell tale metallic clink. There were 4 shots in the magazine, more than enough for
what he needed to do.
What he needed to do. Jack felt the butterflies rising up in his stomach, like
always. He felt his heart rate increase, and he attempted an internal dialogue with
himself to calm down.
‘Nobody ever got anything done right by getting all shook up,’ he told himself, ‘Just
relax, you’ve been here before. Do it by the numbers and everything will go fine.”
Jack twisted his head to his left, and took a few sips from the hydration unit he
carried on his back. The water filled his parched mouth, and as he swallowed it, he felt
the chilly water soothing his nerves. Water, wind, and fire - symbols of God’s power,
and capable of lifting a man’s spirits when he needs it.
The sound of car motors interrupted his attempt at theological contemplation. Jack
blinked a few times to focus his vision, then took a deep breath and slid off the forward
scope cover. The world leapt into clarity under the scope’s precision ground glass. He
swept the parking lot that was in front of the former apartment building. All clear, with
the same debris that had been there the previous day and a half. The two guards, who had
also no doubt heard the motors, were back at their post, which was a crudely constructed
sandbag and plywood affair. It offered reasonable protection against a frontal attack, but
it was nearly useless against a man with a rifle, with distance and elevation on his side. A
man like Jack.
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What had once been a nice SUV, but was now painted an ugly mix of matte black
and olive drab, pulled into the parking lot, accompanied by a similarly painted pickup
truck with a belt fed machine gun mounted in the bed.
‘A technical,’ thought Jack, “that’s much better for me than the dirt bikes they normally
use for escorts.”
He knew that in the resulting frenzy that would soon follow, it was far better to
have the gunner spraying the hillside where he no longer would be with gunfire, than for
there to be a highly mobile reaction force on his ass. The technical wasn’t a bad decision
on their part – the display of force kept the bandit types from attacking the supply
convoys and VIP motorcades. Jack wasn’t a bandit though, and he didn’t want their cars
or their supplies. He wanted the life of the man who was being transported in the SUV.
The man, who Jack knew only as an Assistant Prefect, was out here on a fact
finding mission. He was to inspect the varying outposts, report back on the condition of
the provo’s, the hostile activity, and the attitudes of the civilian population. The man was
important by the standards of the time, and could best be called the number two man of
the council that was in charge of this area.
The man had been told that hostile activity in this particular sector had been
nearly non-existent in the past few weeks. The man did not know that this had been done
on purpose, to lull the provo’s into complacency, and to convince the Assistant Prefect
that he did not need to travel with a heavy security force. Luckily for Jack, the tactic had
worked.
‘By way of deception shall ye make war,” he repeated under his breath.
As the mini-motorcade came to a stop at the checkpoint, Jack allowed himself to
become a predator. As he eyed the two vehicles and the checkpoint through the scope, he
began matching rounds with heads. One for the Assistant Prefect, he was the priority.
One for the driver of the technical, to keep the gunner stationary and panicked. The last
two rounds would belong to the Assistant Prefect’s personal bodyguard and the provo
who appeared to be in charge of the checkpoint. This would serve to keep the rest of the
bodyguards from mounting an effective counter attack, having been denied leadership
and knowledge of the area. Killing those four should sow enough discord and shock to
allow him to extricate himself from the immediate area. He knew the provo’s of this
compound had been living the soft life lately, and they were not in the mindset for
fighting. Jack was counting on this to gain him valuable seconds when it came time to
un-ass the area.
He pulled down into the scope, and let the crosshairs settle over the rear passenger
door of the SUV. The scope’s crosshairs were a popular pre-WWII design that
eliminated the top hair, leaving what looked like a cross. The significance of
“crucifying” men with his rifle had occurred to him on several occasions, but this was not
one of them.
Jack let his breathing slow as the bodyguard stepped out of the front passenger
door and walked to the rear of the SUV. He opened the door and the Assistant Prefect
stepped out into the parking lot. It was the last thing he ever did. As soon as he was fully
in view, Jack took up the slack in the trigger and sent a 174 grain slug into the target,
sending a geyser of blood, brain, and bone fragments out the back of his head. The
bodyguard stared in shock as his charge fell backwards into the SUV, and as he did a
round transected his torso, left to right fatally wounding him.
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Jack worked the bolt a second time, arcing a spent casing over his right shoulder
as he swiveled and acquired the driver of the technical, who was desperately trying to
undo his four point safety harness. Jack let the crosshairs settle on his right ear, and sent
his third round on its way. The lead and copper projectile arrived just a bit low, due to
deflection by the passenger side window. It struck the driver just behind the carotid
artery, and traveled through to sever his spine. He was already dead as Jack slammed the
bolt home on his final round. By now the gunner on the technical had opened up with the
M240G machine gun mounted there, and he was spraying the hills in his direction with
bursts of tracer fire. As Jack frantically searched for the leader of the checkpoint, a round
snapped into the trunk of the tree to his left rear. He knew the gunner was reconning by
fire, but it was enough to convince Jack to give up the search for his intended fourth
target. He elected to silence the main gun, as none of the two men who had previously
manned the check point could be find by a cursory glance with his scope. The fourth and
final round fired by Jack in this engagement slammed into the gunner’s chest at 2,600
feet per second, and the M240G fell silent.
By now, men were beginning to come out of the building. They were smarter
than their recently deceased comrades, keeping low and behind cover. Jack was up and
on his feet and slinging his now empty rifle. He lightly jogged, replacing the scope covers
as he did. He heard the shouts and sporadic gunfire from the compound as he made his
way 50 meters to the south of his previous position. There, he knelt down and pushed
away leaves and dirt to expose a Tupperware box. Jack opened the lid, reached into the
container and withdrew a 6 volt lantern battery. Working quickly Jack felt for the wire
he had nailed to the tree trunk the previous day. Finding it, he stripped the protective
electrical tape off the ends, and connected the first, and then second lead to the battery.
Satisfied, Jack picked himself up and headed west at a slow run.
He was almost a quarter mile away before the first artillery simulators went off.
There were two more simulators, each would activate 1 minute after the previous,
hopefully misleading the men below and causing more confusion. The noise and smoke
did exactly what Jack had intended. The provo’s were now moving towards the site
where the first artillery simulator had gone off, in the opposite direction of Jack. He
checked his wrist mounted compass to ensure he had the proper heading.
After about 8 minutes of dashing quickly through the woods, Jack allowed
himself to relax a bit. The apartment complex was almost 2 miles behind him, and there
was still no sign of pursuit. He squatted, and sipped from his hydration unit. Jack figured
now was as good as time as any to make his preps for the next 3 miles. He un-shouldered
his pack and rifle, laying them on the ground. He secured his rifle to the left side of his
pack, and undid the straps securing his submachine gun on the right side of the pack.
Jack then withdrew a long, curved magazine from the chest pouch he wore, and pushed it
firmly into the weapons magazine well. Jack then laid the submachine gun on the ground
and reached into the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants, bringing a section of a
topographical map into view. He checked his position on the map, and mentally
reviewed his route. Two more miles until he was in the safe zone and another mile until
he reached his ATV, carefully concealed beneath an unused bridge.
Satisfied, Jack replaced the map, re-shouldered his pack, and adjusted the load
straps so the weight rode on his hips. He kneeled down and cradled the Sterling
submachine gun he had just loaded. Jack locked the bolt into the firing position, and
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flipped the safety lever on. With any luck, Jack would reach his ATV shortly after dark.
He would camp there for the night, and make his way back to the farm by noon the next
day. With the muzzle of the old British gun leading the way, he strode further into the
woods, back to safety, and back to home.