Free Dead Shot by USMC (Ret.) with Donald A. Davis Gunnery SGT. Jack Coughlin

at the bullet hole. “Oh, fuck,” he said.

7
    J EREMY M ARK O SMAND —J UBA — awoke from a disturbed sleep into an unsettling moment during which he did not know where he was. The former British paratrooper was drenched in sweat. Why does it still bother me? Familiar and terrible memories flooded up during long nights and sat on his chest so heavily that he could hardly breathe. Palestinian kids blown apart by Jew rockets and Russians doing the same thing to Muslim children in Chechnya. A baby dead on its dead mother’s breasts in Afghanistan, flies on their open eyes. Pakistan, the Balkans, Colombia, Ecuador, and, for too many months, Iraq.
    Then he realized that he was not in some war zone but safe at his family’s home in England, awakening to the smell of cooking eggs and sausage. His mother had gotten up before dawn because she knew he had to leave again. He showered and dressed in a blue Armani suit and a D&G Bengal stripe shirt with a solid blue tie, with soft black Cole Haan shoes, and a Fortis watch on his wrist. The upscale clothes were just another uniform, one that said “successful business executive.” He looked around his old room. Soccer trophies, club flags, ribbons, and photographs of the young striker scoring goals. His old prep school jacket with the golden crest on the pocket still hung in the closet. Yesterday’s hero.
    He went downstairs. The house was small and immaculate, everything in exactly the same place it always was. A photograph taken ten years earlier would show the same furniture in the same spots, the time difference marked only by the changes in the faces of the people in the pictures. They were all younger then. He lifted his mother from the floor and twirled her in a circle in the tiny kitchen.
    “Stop that this minute, Jeremy,” she commanded with a giggle. “I am cooking! The toast will burn.” As if that were important. He loved her without reservation.
    Martha Goodling Osmand thought her son traveled too much, although she had put in more than a few miles herself as a young firebrand human rights attorney when she went out to the hellholes and recorded what the devils were doing. An Israeli bullet shattered her knee during a raid on a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank and clipped her traveling wings but not her spirit. Now she worked from home, hosting a Web site to help Muslim refugees.
    His father, Dr. Allen Osmand, came into the kitchen and gave his wife an affectionate good-morning peck on the cheek. A thin man with a neat beard, he, too, was impeccably dressed for work, The doctor sat across from his son at the table.
    “How long do you intend to keep up this schedule, Jeremy?” his mother scolded as she poured hot tea. “When are you going to get your company to assign you to the home office here in England? I want to be able to play with the toes of my grandchild before I am too old.”
    “Look who’s talking.” He laughed. “You two hauled me all over the world as a kid, taught me languages, how to travel and to get along with people. Now you complain because I’m taking advantage of that training to make a living.” He sipped the tea and cut his toast into triangles, dipping them into the egg yolk. “I am just a poor salesman, forced to hustle for my next meal at some five-star restaurant in Berlin or Paris, and it’s your fault.” He looked at the clock. Almost time to go. “Are you going to watch the wedding today, Mum? Not going down there, are you?”
    “Oh, wouldn’t dream of getting mixed up in that crowd. Barbara is quite lovely, and a fine match for Prince William, but my leg tells me to stay here and watch it on the telly. A volunteer from Amnesty International is dropping by to help me catch up on some work on the site.”
    His father spoke. “We expect things to be quiet around the hospital today because of the wedding, so Professor Grosvenor and I shouldhave the lab almost to ourselves.” Jeremy nodded. Good. Perfect alibis,