From Filth & Mud (10 page)

The gathered crowd was unimpressed and audible murmurs began to carry among them. All, but John, were confused as he began to strip away the front pistol grip, the three-point tactical sling, the tactical flashlight, the infrared designator, and the ACOG. Jacob placed all of these on the shooter’s bench behind the firing line and flipped up the iron sights on the stripped down rifle. He quietly adjusted his windage and elevation. 6/3 – 2, right 4, his natural zero, on every M-16 he’d ever shot. He looked up at the range flags to determine the wind and made no corrections because the wind was blowing straight in on him: a zero value wind. He stood statuesque in the steady breeze and took perfect sight picture and sight alignment with the target. He centered the front sight post of the rifle into the rear sight aperture and then centered the aligned sights onto the target. The small silhouette, man-sized bust focused then blurred 300 yards away. At this distance, the target appeared no bigger than a penny held out at arm’s length. He closed his eyes for a three count, and then opened them to find that his sights were perfectly centered on the silhouette. What followed was the mantra that he had learned so long ago on Parris Island. Breathe, release, aim, slow, steady pull of the trigger to the rear, and fire. The crack of the round caught him by surprise, a perfect shot. He continued the cycle until he had fired all ten rounds. Jacob detached his magazine, engaged the safety, picked up his spent shell casings, and walked off of the firing line.

The spotter confirmed that every shot had hit the x-ring. The grouping was no more than a half dollar wide. John was cackling among the stunned group. He looked like a proud older brother seeing his baby brother kick a bully’s ass for the first time. The reactions of the gathered contractors ranged from “Unfucking believable” to “No fucking way did he just put ten fucking shots in the x-ring with a cold-bore.” “Cold-bore shots! Did you fucking see that? With fucking iron sights! From the fucking off-hand. No sling.”

John congratulated him, throwing an arm around him. “You still got it Duckhunt!”

Doug came up and threw a big paw on him, nearly dropping him with the heavy blow. “Duckhunt huh? I was the kid who sat up close to the TV and touched the gun right onto the glass and shot my ducks that way! Perfect score every time!”

Jak nodded her approval as she walked back to the firing line and smiled the most beautiful, sexually inviting, and yet standoffish smile he’d ever seen. The smile did not quite meet her eyes, which held a steady, penetrating aim on his.

As the crowd dispersed, John introduced Jacob to a small group that was hanging back: Tanner, a burly tattooed, biker type with a shaved head and long, well-groomed beard; Odin, a thick, intense man who looked every part the Viking. “You’ve already gotten acquainted with Doug here.”

“And…
Where’s Tim?
Oh yeah, he’s kind of hard to spot.” John pointed over to a slender kid who looked all of twelve years old. Tim looked five and a half feet tall, one hundred and fifty pounds, and that was being generous. His torso was almost absorbed by the flak jacket that he wore. His eyes were covered by his ill-fitting, boonie cover, the frill of which broke in waves around his head. Tim’s pubescent voice cracked as he introduced himself. Jacob heard the mixed twang of a rural New England accent. Tim extended his hand. His delicate fingers protruded from an equally delicate wrist, which was attached to the smallest arm Jacob had seen on a military man. But tattooed in green ink, up on the shoulder, was the unmistakable Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

Tim smiled sheepishly, “Yup. My one and only motto tattoo! I got it during SOI, out in J-Ville!” The most successful establishments surrounding Camp Lejeune were strip-clubs, tattoo parlors, bars, and IHOP. Tim hardly looked the part of a Marine turned private contractor. He was a soft-spoken, intellectual type, who sported the body to support that assessment. Perhaps the most important lesson that Jacob had learned in his time in the Marines, however, was to never underestimate anybody who had earned the EGA.

“I’ve got some bad news,” John interrupted. “You know your Parris Island record?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Tim here broke it.”

“That’s not possible,” he retorted with incredulity. “I shot a perfect score and hit x-rings the entire course of fire.”

“That you did, but Tim here shot a perfect score on Pre-qualification Day
and
on Qualification Day. From what I remember you dropped a shot on the five-hundred yard line on Pre-qual day.
Not
Tim.” John’s emphasis was accompanied by another shit-eating-grin.

Tim squinted behind the drooping rim of his boonie. “Sorry about that. I wish I could do something to change it if it meant a lot to you.” The apology was sincere, and it was delivered with the affable, nervous stutter of Jimmy Stewart.

- - - - - - -

Jacob spent the next week engulfed in intensive training at the XPS facility. Jak pushed the training tempo of the teams. John coached Jacob and his team throughout. By week’s end, they were operating as a well-oiled machine gun. For Jacob the training was remedial. And though it had been etched into his mind, it had also been buried under years of soft, nasty, civilian life. And to a Marine, ‘nasty-civilian’ was the
n-word
! Though his body faltered, and his movements came forced and labored, his mind was sharp and his leadership skills had not faded. While his muscles were older, slower, weaker, and atrophied at times, they slowly remembered. He accepted it and adapted to his new limitations.

Jacob had been expected to fill the leadership void and he surpassed expectations. His leadership was so effective that his team matched most of the other teams’ performance. The teams practiced convoy security in both day and night operations, with and without enemy contact. They also practiced tactical assaults in urban areas. Jacob’s team honed its skills in leaps and bounds mostly due to his ability to make accurate and quick assessments of each scenario.

John, prouder than ever, commended Jacob for his progress. “Your guys looked like dog-shit just a couple of days ago, especially you, but you’ve picked it up over the last couple of days.”

Jacob took the ribbing in stride. It was an honest assessment of his progress. “Thanks John. I’ve been trying to get used to wearing all of this gear again. I’m old man. This is a young guys’ game. No forty-year-old fart should be trying to weekend warrior his way through this.” Jacob knew that John would appreciate the self-deprecation and the indirect jab thrown his way. “By the way, John, you weren’t kidding about the training here. It’s pretty impressive. Plus this gear,” Jacob patted his ballistic vest, helmet, and night vision goggles. “This stuff is no joke. This is better gear than we had back in the Corps.”

“Yeah, pretty sweet, isn’t it. I thought you’d enjoy all the perks of working for the
dark side
of XPS.”

“My question is what’s with all of the getup anyways? Whatever we’re escorting must be worth a fortune because all of this gear seems like it would set XPS back a pretty penny, especially outfitting a few teams.”

“Well, here at Special Services, we actually need all of this equipment. We deliver and protect very, high-value assets for our employers.”

“So what kind of assets do we protect?” It was an innocent enough question but John’s response was guarded.

“They don’t tell us, and it’s not our job to know. We just get package X from point A to point B. The rest is need-to-know. And guess what?”

“Got it,” Jacob was used to not being told about details beyond his paygrade, but he’d always had the knack for finding them out.

“If we need to take special precautions with a package, for example, if it needs to be carried in a box with lead shielding, or in a cryogenic box, or if it needs to be shipped in a box with air holes, we come prepared. Other than that, the client ensures that the asset is ready for transport before we pick it up. From that point forward, from the time we step off and hit the line of departure until we rendezvous with the client, it’s our ass if something happens to it.”

“Jesus John, lead shielding, cryogenics, air holes, what the hell are we talking about here?”

“Jacob, we get paid good money. I mean really good money for what we do and it isn’t because we’re delivering Girl Scout Cookies. One time, we delivered an endangered Javan Rhino from Indonesia to Texas. We weren’t supposed to know, but come on, how do you really hide a rhino?”

“A rhino? Are you serious? I’m guessing this wasn’t on the up and up? It’s not like you showed up to customs with a rhino.”

“Nope. We snuck him in through Mexico!” John started cracking up as Jacob stood dumbfounded. “One of my team members almost became rhino paste. Do you know those things are insanely mean? We almost had to shoot it to make sure that it didn’t kill our guy, but that of course would have cost us our fucking paychecks, if not our jobs. Rumor has it the contract was worth five million dollars just so some old, fat-fuck could wake up, have a nice breakfast, take a sloppy shit, get driven up within a few feet of the rhino, and shoot it from his Land Rover as if he was some
great white hunter
on safari. Well the rhino’s head is probably mounted in that asshole’s living room somewhere in Texas right now.”

Jacob shook his head with incredulity and a bit of pause. He had imagined something a little more toned down, but then again he had asked John for more action. John noticed his hesitation.

“Don’t get cold feet, Jacob. Most of the time, all of this hardware is more of a show of force than anything, but sometimes we need to use it. There have been occasions when people have taken shots at our guys.” John was deadly serious. “You won’t be near any of that action. You’ll be working safe jobs stateside, nothing overseas. Those are the ugly ones.” Jacob recognized the cold stare that filled John’s eyes. It was the stare that he had seen looking back at him in the mirror during his deployments in Iraq. It was the hollow stare of a soul that had absorbed and dealt death. His stare had faded over the years, but John’s had never gone away.

- - - - - - -

Friday evening came, and the week’s training was complete. After the final debrief, Jacob headed to his room and packed for the trip home. He was sore but he was happier than he had been in a long time. He had survived! The bruises, cuts, and scrapes throughout his body told the story of the week. Reflecting in the mirror, they looked more serious. He didn’t know how Sarah would receive them. He remembered a time when she liked them. She would protest, of course, worrying that her husband was getting hurt, but deep down she liked them. It reinforced her idea that she was a warrior’s wife. He liked when she played nurse. But that was years ago. Now he was a father, and a warrior’s life seemed incompatible.

Jacob grabbed his suitcase and slung his sea bag over his shoulder as he left his room. He bumped into Doug in the hallway. Tim was not too far behind him as well. “Looks like it’s us three,” Doug bellowed. “The others took off right for town. They’re
gonna
be hitting the bars pretty hard. Us married guys are heading home to see the boss!”

Jacob looked at Tim trying to hide his disbelief, “You married, Tim?”

“Not legally, but spiritually.” Tim blushed with genuine embarrassment.

“Tim here is dating a girl he met back when he was at infantry school. Can you believe that and he hasn’t married her yet?”

“I’m working up to it.”

“Do you want to know the best part?” Doug could hardly wait to give the answer. “She was a stripper and she gave it all up for him!”

Jacob’s jaw dropped. “No! Timmy. Tim. Say it
ain’t
so. And here I thought that you were a nice boy.”

“Don’t sleep on young Tim here. He is a straight killer with the ladies. He recites them poetry and uses all of this emotional shit to get into their panties.” Doug slapped Tim across the back with his giant telephone pole of an arm, sending Tim careening into the corridor wall.

“You two philistines are so vulgar,” Tim retorted.

The ride home was full of laughter and vulgarities. Though they were polar opposites physically, Doug and Tim shared a good-natured personality that made them easy to get along with. Neither one of them took himself too seriously unlike Tanner and Odin, who never let their guard down. Those two were the serious type. They had been former Delta Force, or at least claimed to be, but who could ever really be sure. They were boastful, loud, annoying, and unintelligent. Their conversations never strayed from military talk: tactical operations, shooting, the latest gadgets, gear, and outlandish war stories.