CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Reparations and Preparations

 

Crockett took a sip of warm tea and leaned back from the table. Virgil and he had landed at Ivy’s only moments before; and Crockett was attempting to settle his motion sickness down before lunch. Clete looked at him and grinned.

“So how ya feelin’ there, pard?”

“Bite me,” Crockett said.

“Find out anything?”

“In some ways, more than I wanted to. Thanks to a young woman one might choose to lease for an evening, I have acquired certain information that could be invaluable in our quest for truth, justice, and the American way.”

Clete’s eyebrows went up. “You leased a lady?”

“I purchased some time from a young woman with the unlikely name of Puma. Puma’s grandfather once owned the property in question. It was he that told me where to locate his eminently rentable granddaughter.”

“And you rented her.”

“Two grand for a couple hours of stimulating conversation and fine dining.”

“A grand a hour?”

“Somewhat above her usual level of remuneration I would imagine,” Crockett said.

“Christ, I hope so or she’s gonna be pretty lonely. Them’s Park Avenue rates. What’d she tell ya?”

“She told me that Razor gets violent sometimes, Boomer likes to ass fuck, that the two of them double up on her, but the money’s good enough she can take a little time off to heal if she needs to.”

“What?”

“She also told me she had no gag reflex, and that I was a nice man. Even offered me complimentary fellatio to help me get to sleep.”

Carson and Satin rounded the corner from where they’d been eavesdropping on the conversation, stopped, and looked at Crockett. Neither of them said a word.

Crockett winced. “Perhaps I should start this charming tale from the beginning.”

Clete grinned. “Only if you don’t want to bleed,” he said.

 

“So Virgil flew over the place then circled for a while. I got a pretty good look at the terrain. Ridgelines everywhere. Cover everywhere. I think we should wait a while before we get too froggy, though. Tourist season shuts down out there in another week or so. If we were to go around the end of September or early October, we should have a lot less transient population wandering around.”

A light lunch of finger foods was completed, and Stitch and Goody had joined the conversation.

“Right,” Goody said. “A bit of time to put things in order, then. Jolly good. In view of the mission and the terrain, I will have some new toys and things to prepare for you lads.”

“We haven’t exactly decided on what we’re gonna do,” Clete said.

“You’ll do what I trained you to do,” Goody went on. “On our last venture, as I recall, you got all dressed up and then had no place to go. You, Cletus, were lying on my sofa with food poisoning, and Crockett had his giblets removed from the hearth by a kidnapped child swinging a baseball bat. Nothing as wasteful as training never used. We will have to brush you up a bit, sharpen your skills somewhat. Shouldn’t take long. Much as riding a bicycle, it would seem.”

“Back to crawlin’ around in the weeds, huh?” Clete said.

“You two are good at it, dear boy. Hole up and watch the enemy encampment to get a sense of logistics and such, pull out to re-supply if necessary, then carry out the mission.”

“And the mission would be?” Crockett asked.

The little man’s eyes grew cold. “Termination with extreme prejudice, I should think,” he said.

“I guess so,” Crockett said. Goody peered at him.

“Do you suppose any of these lads are without guilt?”

“No.”

“Do you think it is safe to assume that everyone there takes orders from Metzger, Phillips, or whatever his name is?”

“Yes.”

“The bomb in your car, your near death at the airport, the assault on this house and the subsequent death of the valiant Ruby LaCost were at his desire, were they not?”

“I’m sure they were,” Crockett said.

“Fancy a bit of a lash at this lad, then?”

“I just don’t want to get any civilians hurt.”

“Hence the observation of the target and the judicious application of situational flexibility.”

“Good old situational flexibility,” Crockett said.

“It saved your great Scottish arse the night you got the young lad Zeke away from those idiots in their enclave, did it not?”

Crockett smiled. “That it did.”

“And it shall again, lad,” Goody said. “It shall again.”

 

During the next three weeks, Crockett resurrected some of the fitness equipment that Ivy had installed for his therapy when recuperating from the loss of his leg and went to work. He dropped nearly ten pounds, toned up considerably, and dedicated himself to a life of total leisure once everything was settled in South Dakota. Satin brought it up one morning over early coffee as he lurched, sweating, into the kitchen.

“Over three minutes on the Stairmaster,” she said. “What a man!”

“Kiss this,” Crockett said, staggering to the coffee pot.

Satin grinned. “Not unless you shower first.”

“Can I use the spray nozzle in the sink? I don’t think I’m strong enough to go all the way up to my room.”

“You been working out a lot, huh?”

Crockett nodded, taking a seat across from her and lighting a Sherman. “Have to. If I’m gonna drag my tired old ass up and down a few of the Black Hills, I got no choice. As you may have noticed, thirty is only a distant memory for me.”

“You at thirty,” Satin said, staring into the near distance. “The mind reels.”

“I was six inches taller, had three percent body fat, a fifty-two inch chest, a thirty inch waist, coal black hair, and was of Swahili extraction. You would have loved me.”

“I do love you.”

“I love you, too, pal.”

“How are you and Carson getting along?” Satin asked.

“You say that as if you aren’t getting regular reports from the lady in question. She’s an outstanding woman. How are you and Clete doing?”

Satin flushed. “What?” she said.

“You heard me. You and Clete doing all right?”

“We’re, uh, fine.”

“That’s, uh, good,” Crockett said.

Satin snorted. “You don’t miss very much, do ya, Davey?”

“I think you and Clete are probably very good for each other.”

“He’s a good man, Crockett. But I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

“No. Clete’s the best there is.”

“About this whole mess in South Dakota,” Satin said. “You gonna go out there and just shoot these guys?”

Crockett smiled. “That’s a little bit of an oversimplification.”

“Are ya?”

Crockett’s smile contained no humor. “Yes.”

Satin thought for a moment. “I know you, Crockett,” she said. “I have seen you at your best and worst. You’re not a killer.”

“I’m not?”

“No, Dummy. And you know you’re not. But yet, you can go take a gun and shoot people. You shot two right here in this house.”

“Some people need to be killed, Satin.”

“No argument from me,” she said. “I think that, for me at least, deciding to do it would be harder than actually doing it.”

“The less likely an individual is to respect my life, or the lives of people that I care for, the less likely I am to respect his life.”

“That’s fair.”

“Metzger has shown no respect at all.”

“Do you think he’ll try here again?”

“I don’t know about here, but I believe he’ll keep trying until he eventually kills Carson. His mission is based on ego. He has to kill her. He told her he was going to. For him to remain the person he sees himself to be, he must complete the threat.”

“So you’re gonna kill him before he can kill her.”

“Or you, or Clete, or Stitch, or any of us. That’s the plan.”

“That night they came into the house, they would have killed us all, huh?”

“Sure.”

“Can’t let ‘em get away with that shit, Crockett.”

“Didn’t. Killed ‘em.”

“I mean him, too. Carson’s ex. The guy that sent ‘em. Can’t let him get away with that.”

Crockett smiled. “Probably not,” he said.

He and Satin were regarding each other with ex-lover’s eyes when Carson wandered in. In a massive robe, she was barefoot, yawning, and a long way from awake. Crockett chuckled and guided her to a chair. Once she was seated, he poured a cup of coffee and sat it before her.

“Thanks,” Carson mumbled.

“You never treated me like that,” Satin said.

“It never took you an hour to wake up.”

“What are you two talking about?” Carson asked.

“We’re talking about how Crockett treats you so well, and how he always treated me like shit,” Satin said.

Carson smiled. “No comment.”

“Actually,” Crockett said, “we were discussing the flowering relationship between the marginally acceptable Cletus Marshal and the harpy that sits across from me at this very table.”

Carson looked at Satin and laughed. “Told you he’d know,” she said.

“Oh, shut up,” Satin growled.

 

That afternoon, Goody summoned Crockett and Cletus to his basement workshop. “Do come in, Lads,” he beamed, throwing wide the door. “I’ve been mucking about a bit. Might have a thing or two you’ll appreciate.” They stepped inside the inner sanctum.

While it was not the magnitude of the facility Goody had maintained at his home where he and Crockett had first met, the space bristled with firearms and pieces of firearms on pegboard and scattered across two workbenches. The air was acrid with the scent of solvent, oil, and smokeless powder. Goody wheeled himself to a low bench and presented each of them with a headset and pocket power unit.

“Communications, Gentlemen. A significant upgrade from our last mission.”

Crockett looked at the device he’d been handed. The headset was of the two-ear variety that inserted both into the ear canal, and covered most of the exterior ear. It sported two additional straps and a small boom mic. He looked at it suspiciously.

“Both ears?” he asked.

“Indeed,” Goody said.

“But that’s gonna interfere with normal hearing, isn’t it?”

“Augment it, actually, should you need it to. You see, this unit is built to resist removal by either accident or design. There is the standard graphite compound frame for over the head, supported by a forehead strap, and another band to secure the unit with support around the rear of the head. The result is that it is very secure and stays where it is needed.”

“Well yeah, but…”

“This unit is voice activated and has adjustable output. That means that the two of you can set the transmission levels on your headsets where you can comfortably converse at whatever distance necessary, and yet minimize the transmission of power so that your batteries will have a longer life, and your target, being a significant distance away, cannot possibly receive your signal.”

“That’s kinda slick,” Clete said.

“In addition to that, the activation of the augmentation switch powers the headset to allow you to hear sounds from your surrounding environment three to four times better than you could without the unit. Sort of super hearing aids, as it were. Not only that, but horrendously loud sounds are suppressed by the unit to avoid ear damage, in no matter what mode the unit is functioning.”

Clete finished adjusting his headset. “Feels real secure,” he said. “Take a pretty good lick to knock it off.”

“The batteries aren’t charged at this point,” Goody went on. “I’ll do that overnight. The unit is very efficient. At fifty percent mission mode, a full charge will last thirty-six to forty-eight continuous hours.”

“Why the sound suppression?” Crockett asked.

“Ah, yes,” Goody said. “That’s because of the rifle to which you will be assigned. It is necessary to use ear protection with this particular firearm, Crockett, if you want to leave the field and still be able to hear.”

“We’re not using the Accuracy International?”

“I’ve studied the terrain maps and photos that Cletus has been kind enough to provide, and gone over some of them with Stitch. We have found what appear to be three, perhaps four, possible landing zones within three miles of your target location. While the Accuracy International was fine as it was used in your last application, a way of demonstrating accuracy from distance, for this exercise the shooting will be defined by a more, shall we say, lethal parameter. That’s assuming you want to eliminate the opposition.”

“I do,” Crockett said.

“Quite.” Goody rolled to a bench on which rested a long and slender object covered by a lightweight tarp. “This, then,” he went on, “is what you shall use.”

He lifted the cover away to reveal a darkly brutal offspring of the conventional rifle. It was long and lean, the barrel, receiver, and stock all in a continuous upper level line to transmit recoil directly toward the rear. A massive muzzle brake covered the end of the barrel, a folding bipod supported the weapon from the front of the forearm, and a removable carrying handle sprouted upward from a Picatinny rail mounted on top of the upper receiver. A massive magazine projected below the action in front of a pistol-grip trigger mechanism. The butt plate depended from the rear of the rifle, supported by a short framework that doubled as another carrying handle. From the base of the butt plate protruded a monopod, adjustable to raise or lower the rear of the weapon. The rifle gleamed an evil dull green in the shop lights. Crockett could almost hear it hiss.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Gentlemen, may I present the M107, .50 caliber, LRSR, or long range sniper rifle.”

“Damn,” Clete said. “That thing is a monster!”

“Indeed,” Goody went on. “This rifle customarily uses the fifty caliber Browning Machine Gun round, twelve point seven by ninety-nine millimeters, as its standard means of destruction, along with such other adaptations as armor piercing, explosive, and incendiary rounds. It is designed to work well on material targets such as buildings, aircraft, motor vehicles, radar sites, and such, from a distance of two thousand yards. It is also designed to acquire and defeat enemy snipers at a thousand yards or more. Muzzle velocity is nearly three thousand feet per second, total range about four and a half miles. Muzzle energy is eleven thousand five hundred foot-pounds.”

“Good Lord,” Clete said. “This sumbitch’ll shoot through a fuckin’ Humvee!”

“Or a concrete wall, or into an engine block, or set off a explosive dump, or cut through significant sheet steel,” Goody added. “I expect, with a bit of tinkering with the loading of rounds, I should be able to get the material distance out to twenty-five hundred yards, and the anti-personnel effectiveness out to, at least, fifteen hundred yards. Perhaps even a full mile. Of course the total range and muzzle energy will increase correspondingly.”

“You expect me to shoot that thing?”

“I expect you to not only shoot this thing, Crockett, I fully expect you to hit that at which you are aiming.”

“It’s like the T-Rex of rifles. Look at it! What the hell does it weigh?”

“It’s a bit robust,” Goody said. “Unloaded, with the scope, twenty eight and a half pounds.”

“That’s almost twice as much as the Accuracy International.”

“Quite,” Goody said. “The magazines are rated to ten rounds, but you know how that is. With eight, each magazine weighs a little over three and a half pounds.”

“Big rounds,” Crockett said.

“Immense. And it is an auto loader.”

“What?”

“Eight rounds as fast as you can maintain your sight picture and squeeze the trigger.”

“But that’ll put brass in the air,” Crockett said.

“At the range from which you’ll be shooting, and with your targets being, essentially, in a non-military circumstance, flying brass is of little consequence.”

“Jesus.”

“Son,” Clete said, “this sumbitch’ll tear down a house if you want it to!”

“Next week,” Goody said, “I will have finished my work on it and loaded some ammunition. We’ll zip off to my old homestead where we can, safe from prying eyes and ears, touch this beauty off. Also by then, I will have more surprises for you.”

Clete grinned. “I can’t wait.”

“Right. Off you go then. It’s time for my afternoon nap. I’ll see you lovely lads at dinner.”

 

In the hallway, Crockett peered at Clete. “Twenty eight pounds,” he said.

“Twenty eight and a half pounds. And that’s not countin’ the weight of the magazines and ammo. You better git some rest, Crockett. You know, save your energy. Want me to break the news to Carson for ya?”

“May as well,” Crockett said, turning away and walking off down the hall. “Satin and I already had a nice conversation about you this morning.”

“You what?”

Crockett waved over his shoulder and continued to walk away.

“Hey!” Clete said, setting off in pursuit. “Wait a minute, goddammit!”