Pointblank, p.4
Pointblank, page 4
The snipers had their own corner of the main room, and a stretch of the long bar was unofficially reserved for them, and just about everyone knew to vacate those places when the snipers came in.
Of course, except for the snipers not many of The Peepsight’s patrons knew what a peep sight was.
So it wasn’t surprising that The Peepsight was the place where Lance Corporal Bella Dwan was most likely to be found when she pulled liberty in Havelock.
As usual when she was there, Bella Dwan sat more or less alone, nursing something pink in a tall glass. The “more” was because nobody much engaged her in conversation. The “less” was because Sergeant Ivo Gossner, her team leader and spotter, sat at the same table with her, though he engaged with snipers at other tables far more than he did with her. Dwan didn’t feel at all put out by being virtually ignored by the other snipers. She seemed interested in nothing but weapons, marksmanship, and kills, while the other snipers indulged in a much wider range of conversational topics.
Bella Dwan was petite and pixie-faced, with tight, blondish curls haloing her head. She looked like your best friend’s favorite kid sister, the one you felt protectively brotherly toward. Until you looked into her eyes. Nobody’s favorite kid sister had eyes like that. They were cold and hard and looked as if she were painting a pretty sight-picture on you, were only waiting for a vagrant breeze to blow its course before squeezing the trigger and ending your miserable life.
Everybody at Camp Howard and Camp Hathcock knew about the Queen of Killers and knew to stay out of her way.
But then there were those who might be called sniper groupies.
“Hi, Bella,” a tall, muscular, blond man said, sitting down at Bella Dwan’s table without asking. He was in civilian clothes, but his way of holding himself and his high-and-tight haircut marked him as surely as would a uniform as a Marine. “Evening, Sergeant,” the tall Marine said to Gossner. He either didn’t see or chose to ignore the warning look Gossner gave him and turned his attention back to Dwan.
“It’s really nice to see you back,” Blondie said to her. He’d tried to make conversation with her before. With the other snipers too, but mostly with Dwan; often enough that they all called him Blondie, and none bothered to find out or remember his name or rank, though if pressed they’d allow he was probably a corporal. “We missed you.” He waved vaguely at the other patrons. “And you too, Sergeant,” to Gossner. Gossner turned away from Blondie, Dwan hadn’t yet looked at him. “That must have been some mission you were on. I mean, just the two of you. You were gone for weeks. Nobody”—again he waved at the room—“has heard anything about it. Where’d you go? What did you do?” He paused to let her answer, or for Gossner to say something. When neither did, he continued.
“You know, usually when a sniper team goes out, we all know all about it by the time you get back. This time, nobody knows squat, and we’re dying to find out what you did. So where’d you go?”
Gossner looked at him briefly, muttered, “You just said something more true than you realize,” and looked away again.
Conversation among the other snipers ebbed, then died, as Blondie talked, and they all started listening. Many of them hoped that Gossner or Dwan would say something about the assignment. All any of them knew was that the mission was so tightly held that the pair weren’t allowed to say anything about it. None of them had ever heard of a Force Recon mission so secret that those who went on it didn’t ever tell anybody else in the company. And all of them were watching and waiting to see how Dwan would deal with Blondie’s pestering.
“Come on, Bella, you can tell me, sweetheart.” Blondie put his hand on Dwan’s wrist. The hush in that corner of the room seemed to suddenly suck in its breath. Blondie didn’t notice. “Come on, we’re just a bunch of pogues, you know that. We have to live vicarously through you. Tell me.”
Dwan looked at the hand gently holding her wrist and murmured, “Move it.”
Blondie jerked his hand back as though it had just been jolted by a thousand volts of electricity. “Uh, oh, sure, Bella. I didn’t mean anything by that. Just being friendly, you know that.”
She finally looked at him and her lips curled into what would have been a sweet smile, had it extended beyond her mouth.
Blondie looked relieved but Gossner tensed; he had a good idea what was coming.
“It’s so good to have you back, Bella,” Blondie said. “I like you, I like you a lot. You know that, don’t you?” So did a lot of other men—at first meeting; one look into her eyes backed most of them off. But Blondie wasn’t looking into her eyes, he was focusing on her lips. “So where did you go? What did you and the sergeant do?” He grinned what he thought was the grin of a harmless, trustworthy man.
“I can’t tell you,” Dwan said softly.
“Ah, you can tell me, Bella. Please?”
Dwan lowered her eyelids as though she were thinking it over. Then she looked into his eyes and said just as softly as before, “Yes, I could tell you. But then I’d have to kill you. And everyone else who overheard.”
“Oh, you don’t mean that, Bella, do y—” He lifted his gaze a few inches from her mouth to her eyes. Death was looking back at him. His throat suddenly thickened and his voice harshened. “Ah, listen, ah, Bella, ah, Lance Corporal Dwan. I-I’m sorry I bothered you. No harm meant.” His chair scraped and fell over as he pushed back and to his feet. He hastened away.
“Damn,” one of the other snipers whispered. “I was hoping she’d say something.”
“Be glad she didn’t do something,” one of the others whispered back.
CHAPTER
* * *
FOUR
Headquarters, Fourth Force Recon Company,
Camp Hathcock, MCB Camp Basilone, Halfway
Sergeant Major Maurice Periz had a problem with two of his Marines. The problem wasn’t something they had done. The problem was that he didn’t know what they had done. Periz was the senior enlisted man of Fourth Force Recon Company, and as such he believed it was his mission to take care of his Marines; to look out for their interests when they got into trouble; to be intermediary between them and higher command; to take care of their welfare in general. He also firmly believed that, to accomplish his mission, he had to know everything his Marines did—at least everything they did in the course of their duties, if not everything they did even when off duty. As sergeant major, he was involved, at least peripherally, in the planning of every mission his Marines were sent on.
With one exception.
Two of his Marines had recently returned from a mission on which he’d been closed out of the planning. Totally. Completely. He hadn’t even been told where the two Marines were going or the nature of the mission.
Well, he could guess at the nature of the mission—the two Marines were a sniper team, so obviously they had been sent somewhere to ply their trade. But where and against whom?
Commander Obannion, the company commander, had told him he was better off not knowing where they went and what they were doing. He even forbade Periz to question the snipers about the mission.
This mission was so wrapped in secrecy that Periz just knew there would be serious repercussions if word of it was ever made public. If that happened, he wouldn’t be able to take care of his people because he didn’t know what they had done.
So he had to know.
Sniper Range, Camp Hathcock, Halfway
Lance Corporal Bella Dwan was doing what she most often did when she didn’t have other required duties: she was on the range at Camp Hathcock, honing her already considerable skills with her M14A5 maser. As was normal when Dwan was on the range, Sergeant Ivo Gossner was spotting for her and overseeing the bank of automated sniper targets. As both her superior and her team leader, he should also have been coaching her, but Dwan’s skill with the maser far exceeded Gossner’s, so he did little coaching. Indeed, he agreed with her assessment that she was the best shot with the maser in all of Human Space; he even acknowledged that she was the best overall sniper he’d ever seen. He didn’t agree, though, that she was the best with all the sniper weapons. He himself was her equal with the midrange M2Z sabot rifle and somewhat better with the long-range M111 fin-stabilized rifle. Not that he’d say that in front of her, of course. Like other Marines, he was wary of her—particularly in the aftermath of their last mission.
The range was where Sergeant Major Periz found them.
Targets briefly appeared here and there, at distances ranging from two hundred to four hundred meters. Some poked around the sides of obstacles, others appeared in the windows of mock-up buildings, a few were completely out in the open. They were in sunlight and in shadow, or half and half. None stayed up for more than four seconds. In the brief time Gossner and Dwan had to spot them, she had to draw a sight-picture on the target and fire, holding her aim for the three-quarters of a second required to kill at four hundred meters. Some targets dropped out of sight before Dwan could shoot them, and others before she locked on for the required time. Still, she “killed” about 75 percent of her targets. Periz watched for a while. As often as he had seen Dwan shoot, he was still impressed by her ability with the maser.
But Periz wasn’t on the range to observe, he was there to get some answers. He waited until Gossner was finished recording one of Dwan’s shots and the two were seeking another target, then called out their names.
“Good morning, Sergeant Major,” Gossner said, standing and coming to an easy attention at Periz’s approach.
“Sergeant Major,” Dwan said as she rose into an approximation of attention.
“That’s some good shooting, Lance Corporal,” Periz said, looking downrange and shaking his head in semidisbelief.
“It’s why I get the big bucks, sir,” Dwan said. Gossner nudged her with his elbow. She elbowed him back, harder.
“Is the maser what you used on your last mission?” Periz asked.
Dwan looked away, almost turned her back on him. Gossner looked uncomfortable.
“Come on, tell me about it. I’m your top sergeant.”
“Sir, we’re under strict orders not to say anything about that mission,” Gossner said.
“That’s all right. I’m your sergeant major, you can tell me.”
Now Dwan did turn her back and folded her arms under her breasts.
“I know that, sir,” Gossner said, “but our orders were very clear, we aren’t to speak to anybody about that mission.”
“Buddha’s blue balls, Sergeant! I’m not just anybody, I’m your sergeant major! You have to tell me!”
Dwan spat.
“Nosir.” Gossner stood at a rigid attention, eyes straight ahead, face expressionless.
“Sergeant, you will tell me about your last mission. That’s an order!”
“Nosir, I will not.”
Periz stepped close to Gossner and leaned in so his face was inches from the other man’s. “Refusing an order is insubordination, Sergeant. You will tell me or I’ll have your ass up on charges for insubordination!”
“Sir!” Gossner’s voice thickened. “There are many things the sergeant major can do to a sergeant, but the sergeant major cannot bring a sergeant up on insubordination charges for refusing to tell the sergeant major something the sergeant was expressly ordered by much higher authority not to tell the sergeant major.”
Periz drew back, still glowering. Gossner was right, and Periz knew it. If he wanted to, he could make life miserable for the junior man, but that went against his grain; making Gossner’s life miserable wouldn’t be taking care of his people. But he still had to know what Gossner and Dwan had done. So he’d find another way to do it.
But a sergeant major doesn’t simply back off from a sergeant and a lance corporal; just backing off after making a threat could cost him respect. He continued glowering.
“We’ll see what I can and cannot do, Sergeant,” Periz growled. “You just watch your ass, both of you. I am going to find out what you did.” He spun about and stalked away.
When his footsteps faded, Dwan turned around and looked after him.
“He can’t do anything to us for not telling, can he?” she asked.
Gossner shook his head. “There are a lot of things he can do, but he won’t do them. I think he knows we’d be in deep shit if we broke security on that mission, so he won’t punish us. Remember, his top priority is taking care of his people; punishing us for obeying orders isn’t taking care of us. But he’s going to keep trying to find out until somebody very much higher steps on him.” Gossner paused, then softly added, “I only hope he gets stopped before he lands in Darkside.”
Camp Howard, Halfway
The relationship between Fourth Force Recon Company’s commanding officer, Commander Walt Obannion, and Sergeant Major Maurice Periz had cooled sharply as soon as Periz had been frozen out of planning for, and even knowledge of, the mission Gossner and Dwan had been sent on. But enough time had gone by that the freeze was thawing. It was only a couple of weeks after Gossner and Dwan had returned from the mission when one morning Periz joined Obannion for the commander’s morning run, one they’d made together for as long as both men had been with the company.
But Periz wasn’t about to stop trying to find out about that mission.
Daybreak the morning after Periz had confronted Gossner and Dwan on the sniper range found him and Obannion moving effortlessly along Camp Howard’s track. That morning they were on the medium course of three, fifteen kilometers of winding trail that led over undulating terrain, through woods and marsh, over alkaline flats. The trail was marked, but not cleared where it went over a rubble-covered stretch of broken rock. The last kilometer and a half was along a sandy beach. Some days Captain Qindall or Captain Wainwright, respectively the company’s executive officer and its operations officer, or other members of the headquarters element joined them. But that morning, they ran alone.
They were more than ten kilometers into the run, breathing easily, flowing sweat keeping their bodies from overheating, legs pumping smoothly. In another fifteen minutes they’d begin walking to cool down, then shower, replenish lost fluids, change into garrison utilities, and eat breakfast before heading for the company office.
“I gotta know, Walt,” Periz said, breaking the companionable silence in which they’d run until then.
“What do you gotta know, Morrie?” Obannion replied.
“What did Gossner and Dwan do?”
Obannion closed his eyes for a few paces—that was the last question he wanted to hear from Periz. He opened his eyes and said, “You’ve known from the beginning I can’t tell you that.”
“Dammit, Skipper.” Periz shifted into more formal mode. “I’m top dog in this company. I have to know what my Marines are doing. I have to know what their missions are.”
Obannion didn’t say anything for another fifty meters. When he did, he also adopted a more formal mode. “Sergeant Major, I know you have to know what your Marines are doing. I also know that I’m under strictest orders not to divulge what their last mission was to anyone. Unfortunately, ‘anyone’ includes you.”
“Dammit!” Periz snorted, but didn’t say anything else for a couple of hundred meters.
“Come on, Walt.” Periz relaxed back to informality. “We’ve been together for a long time. Hell, we were squadmates way back when we first joined First Force Recon Company. You know I have the need to know, and you know you can trust me.”
“I know that, Morrie. But, dammit, the security lock on that mission came from very much higher-higher. I can’t tell you!”
Periz snorted. “Sure, higher-higher. I’ll request mast with General Indrus—I can do that you know—he’ll tell me.” Request mast, the right to go to any commander up the chain of command, with a problem or question.
Obannion shook his head, certain that Periz would see it in his peripheral vision. “The orders came from higher then CG, Fourth Fleet Marines. He’s under the same nondisclosure orders I am.”
Periz blinked, then shook his head. “I know the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. He was my first sergeant when I was a gunny in Eleventh FIST. Hell, it’s his fault I’m a sergeant major today instead of a captain or even a commander. He’s the one who taught me that taking care of my Marines is more valuable than leading them. I’ll go to him. I can’t take care of my people if I don’t know about their missions.”
“Drop it, Morrie,” Obannion snapped. “This came from higher than the Commandant.”
Periz clamped a hand on Obannion’s arm and slowed to a walk, dragging his commanding officer with him. He stopped and turned to face Obannion.
“What in the nine levels of Hades is going on here?” He was almost shouting.
Obannion stared into Periz’s eyes, his jaw working as he decided what to say. Then he said slowly, “Morrie, that mission is so secret that I doubt there are twenty people in all of Human Space who know about it.” He stared into the sergeant major’s eyes for a long moment, then worked his jaw again and said, “Morrie, it carries a Darkside penalty. If word about that mission gets out, everybody who knows about it goes to Darkside.”
That stunned Periz. He let go of Obannion’s arm, heaved a deep breath, and asked, “How high up does the penalty go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe as high as General Indrus. Maybe higher. I do know that it includes everyone in Fourth Force Recon Company who knows about the mission. I won’t put you in that kind of jeopardy, which is what would happen if I told you what that mission was.” Abruptly, he turned from Periz and broke off the running course, heading straight for his quarters.
Periz stood staring after him for a moment, then shook his head and muttered, “This isn’t right.” Darkside was a prison world. Some of its inmates were sentenced to Darkside after a formal trial, others were condemned to Darkside via extrajudicial actions. Darkside was a life sentence, nobody ever left it. The worst criminals were consigned to Darkside, people too dangerous ever to be returned to society. So were people who knew secrets the government couldn’t risk being released to the public. “This isn’t right at all,” Periz muttered. Slowly, he began trotting at a tangent to his company commander’s path, toward his own quarters.
