Chapter 2: Next Move
...
"So show me how this works again..." Mark requested of Ryuku, referring to the SRS sniper rifle sitting on the table.
"It's really simple... This little lever right here is the trigger, you just aim at your target and pull this lever back until you hear a bang, then your target goes away."
Mark looked at the Asian man with narrowed eyes, hiding his amusement at the comment. "I mean how you convert the damn thing, smartass."
Ryuku was having a difficult time not laughing, "oh! Well why didn't you say so? Okay, first you need your torque wrench..." He picked up the T shaped tool and showed it to Mark, "and you loosen these four bolts, don't remove them, just loosen..." He unscrewed four bolts lined next to each other on the right side of the rifle, only backing them out, not removing them completely. Once all four were out, he grabbed hold of the barrel forward of the handguard and gently, but firmly pulled the barrel straight out of the receiver. "Then you pick what caliber you want and do what I just did in reverse, don't forget to change the bolt too if necessary."
"What about optics?"
"You don't need to change them, you can use the same optic for all calibers, but if you want to use a different scope you just pull the levers on the mount like so..." He pushed two levers on the scope mount nearly one-hundred eighty degrees and rolled the scope, mount and all, off the rifle. "All the mounts are return to zero, so long as you put the scope back on in the correct spot along the top rail you'll be good."
Mark nodded. "Great, so the MDR works the same way?"
Richard walked into the armory, "yes and no" he said, the two men turning to look at him. "The MDR does barrel swaps the same way, just with less screws, but if you're going from .308 to an intermediate caliber or vise versa, you need to either install or remove the magwell sleeve." He walked over to the table and picked up the aforementioned magwell sleeve, the part was rectangular and hollow. "Have to put this in to narrow down the magwell to fit either five-five-six or three-hundred black magazines."
"And everything maintains zero?" Mark asked.
Richard nodded, "yup, these rifles are amazing, really cutting edge."
...
Rachael, Richard, Toni, Mark, Ryuku, Mal and Garth walked into the room they had been directed to, seeing several firearms on the table at the front. Walter West was standing behind the table reviewing papers he had on a clipboard, he looked as if he was a high school teacher about to begin his class. The group sat down on the chairs in font of the table in a single-file side-by-side row as Walter put the clipboard down. "ladies and gentlemen..." He began, looking at the group with a smile. ""For those of you who don't know me, which means pretty much everybody other than Richard, I'm Special Agent Walter West from the CIA, it's a pleasure to meet you all..." The group responded with various mumbled greetings. "We can get to know each other in the coming days and weeks but for right now you're about to enter the final phase of training, which is weapons familiarization..." He picked up one of the rifles, "the rifles we'll be using are all made by Desert Tech, this one is their Micro Dynamic Rifle, one of the newest designs on the market and it will be your main battle rifle." He put it down and picked up another, larger rifle, "This is the Stealth Recon Scout, bolt action medium-caliber sniper rifle..." He put that one down and picked up another, even larger rifle, "This is the Hard Target Interdictor, large-bore sniper rifle... All three of these rifles are of a bullpup design which means the trigger is in front of the chamber, that significantly reduces overall length and increases maneuverability, any questions so far?"
"What ammo do these fire?" Mal asked.
Walter smiled ear to ear "I'm glad you asked... The MDR, SRS and HTI rifles are multi-caliber designs, adaptable to your mission parameters, the MDR can be converted on the fly to fire five-five-six, three-hundred blackout and three-oh-eight..."
Mark interrupted, "how can you adapt a three-oh-eight into an intermediate platform?"
Walter pointed at him "we will get to that... The SRS can be converted into three-oh-eight, three-hundred Winchester Magnum and three-three-eight Lapua Magnum, others too but those are the three that will be available to us. The HTI is available in four calibers but we will only have the fifty cal... The sniper rifles will be equipped with Nightforce A.T.A.C.R. scopes with five to twenty-five times magnification, the MDR's will have your choice of Nightforce NXS one to fours or two and a half to tens, or a Trijicon red dot... All of which can be changed on the fly."
The group looked over the weapons with a mixture of intrigue and skepticism, Rachael was seated to the far left, nearest the only pistol on table. "I take it this is our sidearm?" She asked.
"Oh right" Walter laughed, "I totally forgot... Sorry, I get wrapped up in my guns sometimes... FN Five-seven, shoots the five point seven by twenty-eight millimeter cartridge, which looks like a mini five-five six round, twenty rounds to the magazine, single-action, striker-fired."
"Why is the safety above the trigger?" Rachael asked flatly.
"Because FN said to themselves 'screw conventional, let's see how badly we can screw people up.'"
Rachael was not amused "that's going to take some training to get used to."
Walter nodded "and training you will get, we have the weapons setup out back for you to familiarize yourself with... Oh, and don't forget about the suppressors, we have suppressors for every caliber."
Mark quirked an eyebrow, "EVERY caliber? Even the fifty?"
Walter smiled, "even the fifty".
...
Toni was sitting in the surveillance room, observing the many monitors. Between the drones and perimeter cameras there was a lot of nothing to watch.
Richard walked in "anything interesting on?"
Toni turned around, then turned back to the monitors. "If only... You'd think these guys were just farmers by all the video data we have."
"Well, cocaine starts as a plant... Chop it up, dry it out, mix with diesel fuel, stir, add some lime, stir some more..." Toni cut him off.
"Throw in some caustic soda, pyrolusite... God I wonder how many users actually know how toxic that shit is..."
"Probably not many and the ones that do don't care" Richard said as he sat down.
Toni nodded. "I'm equally surprised that coca plants are being grown in Mexico, it's a little too far north, at least as far as my education is concerned."
"Where there's a will there's a way" Richard said.
"I guess..." She turned to look at her leader. "Was there... Something you needed?"
Richard looked back at her, pausing before speaking. "No... I just... Wanted to check up and see if you found anything."
Toni nodded and turned back to the screens. "Well, if I do you'll be the first to know about it." Richard took a long pause before getting up and walking to the door, Toni turned just as he was stepping out. "Rich?" He stopped and looked back at her, staying halfway out the door. "Do you think we're going to be able to stop these cartels? I mean... There's thousands of members and many more sitting in the wings waiting for a chance to join... I don't think this is a war we can win, not with a clandestine approach like this at least..."
Richard walked back into the room, approaching Toni as she turned her chair to fully face him. He squatted down, keeping his eyes on the floor. "We have to..." He said after a short while. "... Maybe we took a bigger bite than we thought but we have to... Even if it weren't for the drugs these animals torture people to death just for the fun of it, you've seen the pictures."
"I have."
"Then you know we have to." He stood up. "Now, on a lighter note, our resident weapons expert Mark apparently isn't as much of an expert as we've been lead to believe."
"I wasn't aware Mark was an expert in anything..." Toni said with a smile.
"Oh he is, just ask him" Richard replied, causing the two to laugh.
Rachael walked by the surveillance room, catching Richard and Toni interacting out of the corner of her eye, she stopped and saw the two laughing with each other. She narrowed her eyes, jealousy sending a shiver down her spine. She continued down the hall, giving herself a firm palm hit to the head "stop it" she mumbled to herself.
...
"Is there ever a time when you're not tinkering?" Mal asked Garth.
"Sure there is, when I'm driving" Garth replied, shoulder-deep in the engine compartment of the Humvee.
Mal rolled his eyes, "that doesn't count" he said as he took a sip of his drink.
Garth looked up at him briefly before returning his attention to the engine of the Humvee. "Why doesn't it count?"
"I meant doing something non car related."
"Oh..." Garth replied, "well you should have just said that... Well, I do sleep sometimes."
Mal face palmed. "So, what exactly are you trying to do to the truck?"
"Trying to..." He strained, as if he was trying to pull something that wouldn't give, "pull a few more horses out of this thing."
"You do know this isn't yours right?" Mal asked as he leaned his left side against the Humvee, crossing his arms. "It's military issue... You get caught messing with it..." Garth cut him off.
"Black op... We're not bound by the normal rules of engagement down here Mal, we have a lot more freedom."
Mal shook his head "I guess" he said as he turned and walked away, passing Rachael, who was walking in.
"You getting along with everybody?" She asked of Garth.
"Eh, hard to tell at this point."
Rachael made a playful frustrated face. "Hmm... Well, it's not like we've been working with these people for years like we have with some others..."
"Nope" Garth said as he closed the hood. "Really wish I had my buddies garage to work in, I have no way to tell if my work did what I wanted it to..."
"Well, I'm sure you're going to get a chance to drive again soon, you'll be able to tell then."
...
"Alright team, observation isn't working so we're going to poke the nest and see what happens" Richard said to the room full of his teammates. "This farm is one of the larger ones producing coca plants, we're going to destroy it... We have some data indicating how many hostiles we'll be dealing with but nothing beats taking a look in person... We clear the perimeter, then pick off as many bad guys as we can before they become aware of what's going on. If we're lucky we'll get them all without raising an alarm.
"And if we're not lucky?" Toni asked.
"Then check your fire once it gets loud, we have a lot of innocents working the fields, a lot of them children."
"Sick bastards" Mark said, shaking his head.
"Nothing is off limits to these drug lords, child labor is just another day in the office" Richard added. "We hit tonight, Rachael, you're going to drop us here" he pointed to a spot on the map. "That's a click and a half east of our target, you'll hold there because that's also our primary extraction point. Once we're in, Mark, you're going to setup here." He pointed at another part of the map. "that should give you a great view of the target... Ryuku, you will setup here." Richard pointed to a spot north of Mark's assigned spot. That should give you an equally great view. Your targets will be between four hundred and nine hundred or so yards so equip accordingly.
"Copy that" Ryuku said.
"As for the rest of us, we enter right through the middle, get the civvies out of the way and torch the fields."
"With what?" Garth queried.
"That's actually where you come in, once we have the area secured you'll pull in a tanker full of gasoline, we douse everything and light it... Wally will meet up with you one click due north of the LZ." Everybody in the room seemed to get it. "Alright then, we're wheels up in three hours."
