Free The Team by David M. Salkin Page B

the time everyone was over and they were reassembled at the base, they were all soaked with sweat. Mackey was huffing and puffing, and managed to cough out his usual, “I’m getting too old for this shit…”
    Moose had everyone back in formation, screaming to “finish strong” and the group ran all the way back to the beginning of the course. There was no way for them to know they had just set a new course record.
    Once back at the main building, the men showered and changed clothes, then ate lunch and took a bus to the shooting range located about a mile from the building in the middle of the property.
    At the range the men assembled weapons and set up targets. Eric Hodges spent extra time assembling his new toy, a prototype sniper rifle known as a PSR. The Precision Sniper Rifle had been issued to Special Forces snipers over a year ago as the replacement sniper rifle for American forces.
    While the other men blasted away at targets, relentlessly hitting bulls-eyes, Hodges took his time assembling and admiring his Remington. As he began snapping the large rounds into the clips, Moose walked over.
    “New toy fires mortar rounds?” he asked, eyeing the large shells.
    “Lapua .338s,” he replied in his heavy Oklahoma drawl.
    “Lapua. Why does that sound familiar?” asked Moose.
    “Higher velocity at long range. These are what that British sniper was using in Afghanistan when he set the record for longest confirmed kill. Twenty-four hundred and seventy-five meters. That’s a little over twenty-seven hundred yards.”
    “Jesus. Yeah, I think I remember that. He must have fired the round on Monday and hit the guy on Wednesday.”
    Hodges smiled. “Muzzle velocity is three thousnd feet per second. I’m guessing the Taliban dude had enough time to hear the shot and say, ‘ What was that? ’”
    “Snipers. Sit around all day waiting for one shot,” mumbled Moose. “Give me a belt-fed weapon any day.”
    “Spray and pray, Moose? Nah. I’ll wait all day and fire one round. And you can be damn sure I’ll hit what I aim at.” He glanced around. “Shame about those kids, though.” He clucked his tongue and spit. Eric had seen the windshield explode when he killed the driver of the truck. He didn’t have enough time to see that the other occupants were children, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—Cascaes was in danger, and he had acquired a target with an AK47 at the ready.
    Moose nodded but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t there at the ambush, but he knew what had gone down. Eric snapped the five-round magazine into his rifle and hoisted it on his back along with his field pack, and then began walking further away from the range. Moose looked back at the target, which was barely visible in front of a large earthen berm.
    He shook his head and decided to follow Hodges. They walked for five minutes before Eric stopped and dropped his pack gently on the ground. Moose could see the large berm off in the distance, but not the target.
    Eric opened his pack and rummaged to find a box with a spotter scope in it. He handed it to Moose. “Earl’s busy trying to learn to shoot straight. You can play spotter.”
    Eric knelt down and pulled his rifle from his shoulder, then pulled the covers off his scope. He laid down on his stomach and made himself comfortable. Moose laid down next to him and opened the small tripod on the spotter scope, then looked through it.
    “Wow. These are powerful.”
    “You mean to tell me you never looked through a spotter before?”
    “Why would I?” asked Moose.
    Eric shrugged. “I figured everyone in the world wanted to be a sniper or a spotter. Don’t worry about wind speed or range. I’ll do everything. Just look through and watch the vapor trail after I fire. You should see the round impact the target.”
    “How far is that?” asked Moose.
    “Range is eighteen hundred meters. Or, if you want, I can hit Ripper from here. He’s only about fifteen hundred and a much bigger