Ron's Worst Nightmares
Alone
By Pat Squared
Global Justice Liaison Agent Jan-Erik Hjalmar, formerly Sergent-chef of the 2e Régiment Étranger de Parachutistes, carefully build his sniper's hide over the past three weeks. Despite being born in Vantaa, Finland and having a Finnish name, Hjalmar considered himself French. France is all he knew since his father, Erik Hjalmar, became a professor of civil engineering at a small university outside Marseilles, when Jan-Erik was four years old.
Ten years of service in the legion before being seconded to the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE, taught him all the skills that he would use tonight. Seven years working in the La Piscine the swimming pool or more correctly DGSE Headquarters at 141 Boulevard Mortier in Paris did not slow Hjalmar at the very least.
Jan-Erik Hjalmar did not plan on surviving the shot. He had nothing left to live for. Marie, his wife of seventeen years, was killed in one of the first food riots. Henri, his six year-old son, died from being trampled by the crowd during the ensuing panic. Jan-Erik lost his family because some scheming American whore named Shego decide to dabble in international politics turning the once proud nation of France into a cesspool of anarchy and disorder. Americans were worst than les goddamns the English and the Fritz's combined.
Jan-Erik Hjalmar was more of a Francophile than Charles de Gaulle. He was spiritual descendant of Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte. He would with a single act of defiance end the oppression of le grand dame France.
All the windows facing the target were carefully lined with reflective foil and heavy, mover's blanket to defeat any chance that the opposition could spot the glint of a rifle scope. The rooms facing the target were heated by a heat lamp to body temperature so that thermal imagining was useless. Using plywood, cinder block, and sand bags, Jan-Erik build a shooting platform high enough to allow him to shoot from a steady prone position down unto his target. He carefully prepare his sand bag shooting rest, for only idiots trusted such a critical shot to a flimsy bipod.
For his tool, Jan-Erik turned to the land of his birth. Sako was one of the premier rifle makers in the world and the TRG-42 .338 8.6x70mm Lapua Magnum was one of the world's best 1,000 – 1,500 meter sniping rifles. The round filled the ballistic vacuum between a 7.62x51mm NATO round used for sniping and the classical 12.7x99mm Browning round used by the M2HB .50-cal machine gun. This particular rifle was worked over by one of the best gunsmiths in Europe.
A German unfortunately, but went it came to precision rifles, the best custom gunsmiths were found in either Germany or the United States. The rifle was rebuilt into a 1/4 minute of angle accurate nail driver. It was so accurate the Jan-Erik once place five shoots into a one and a half centimeter circle at nine hundred meters. Jan-Erik used it twice to send a 250-grain message of doom to the enemies of France in the former French colony of Algiers. Tonight, it would remove the most terrible of enemies to ever set foot on the sacred soil of France since Adolf Hitler enjoyed his one day tour of Paris.
Tonight, la chienne the bitch and le tas de loups her pack of wolves would meet in the conference room. For a moment, Jan-Erik would have a clear line of sight as they entered the building. He would have the chance to pay Shego back for the death of his family and his nation. He would place a 250-grain match grade bullet into her skull and more into any other skulls he could. He would not be able to get them all. No one could. He would not survive this night. However, with la chienne dead, France will have a chance to throw off the yolk of her bondage and he would be able to see his wife and son again.
Everything was calculated. It was exactly one hundred sixteen meters from his muzzle to the main entry way of the building – well within range for making the head shot. He would fire two rounds in quick secession. Both would be placed in her brain stem. Only in Hollywood does on aim at the upper skull. Professionals place their shots just below the nose in a frontal shot or in the ear lobe on a side shot. The first round might or might not be placed in her brain stem depending if the windows of her vehicle were bullet resistant. The second would ensure that Shego would be sent on an express train to hell.
Jan-Erik loaded five 250-grain match-grade .338 Lapua Magnum rounds that he carefully hand-loaded himself into each one of the four box magazines. Then he loaded his rifle, chambered a round, removed the magazine and topped it off before reloading it back into the rifle. Now he had five in the magazine and one in the chamber – Six shoots, four more then he expected to need.
Jan-Erik set everything up, before taking his final piss. He had been around the block to know that one always felt the need to wet one's pants in the moment of truth. However, he would head off la chienne Fortune, the bitch lady luck, by taking the appropriate preventative measures. He ate the last of the canned luncheon meat with the remnants of a potato he dig up out of someone's backyard.
Tonight la chienne will have an 8.6 millimeter entry hole in her skull. Tonight he will save the only thing he had left in this life – France.
Five hours passed as darkness descended unto the city of light. Lights appeared in the conference room. Although Paris was almost empty as the masses fleed the city looking for food, there were enough refuges to ensure the continuation of the riots. Jan-Erik wanted to shoot them for making Shego's plans possible, however to do so would ensure that Shego would be alive when the sun rose tomorrow mornings. He waited as he inhaled the smokeless cigarettes. He hated the damned things, missing his favorite Turkish non-filtered cigarettes. He remembered his wife and the doctor chiding him about the hazards of smoking. However, now he need not worry about emphysema or lung cancer.
After the shoot, he would light up and celebrate with the big fat cigar he saved from the contradictory box that was given to him on the birth of his son. It would have been given to Henri when he graduated.
Jan-Erik shook away the memories. Later he could lose himself.
The headlights of the approaching convoy told the ex-legionnaire that his target was in the vicinity. Jan-Erik shouldered his rifle and prepared to take the shoot. Everything was in place. He controlled his breathing and his heart so that an errent beat would not throw off his shot. He lined up the cross-hairs with her earlobe. He squeezed the trigger and it broke exactly at one kilogram of pressure.
Shego got out of the passenger seat of the Mercedes SUV. She never feel so big and awkward in her life. The former gymnast slash superhero was waddling forward when she tripped over her own two feet. One of the henchmen grabbed her and started dragging her. Half a second later, she heard the muzzle blast. Looking back as she was dragged into the relative safety of the building, she saw Drew Lipsky's body bleeding on the sidewalk.
Drew was her only friend.
Drew was the only one who stuck by her when she needed a home.
Drew was the only one who did not treat her as a freak, but accepted her unconditionally.
Drew loved her in his immature way.
She loved him as an older sister would love a geeky, younger brother.
Now, there was nothing to hold her to the plan. Nothing save the small matter of having a homicidal sniper gunning for her, the small matter of being the most wanted criminal on the planet, and the small matter of being seven months pregnant with nowhere left to go.
Shego was as lonely as the moment the comet killed her parents and grandmother. She was a freak, saved and totured by a freak's luck.
Twice more shots rang out.
Now there was gunplay between the sniper, the individual coconspirators, and assorted thugs. One of the henchmen Shego recalled to deal with Drakken, Max Standard, an Australian rogue, quickly lead her to the sub-basement. He sat her down on a stool, handed her his Heckler and Koch HK-53 assault rifle and three spare magazines.
"It's loaded, safety off, three round burst. Just point and click. Release the trigger and then click again. Shoot at anything that comes in the door. I will knock first. Three, pause, two. Remember if you hear three knocks, a pause, then two more, it's me. If you don't, light them up. The rest of the blokes decided to quit."
Shego needed someone right now.
"Boss, we got a bloody maniac playing sniper. If I don't take him out, he will take us out. He's gunning for you and if we don't..."
Shego wanted to go with Max. However, Max was right. Yet Shego was loath to let him go.
"Come back, I will ..."
"Don't even offer me a bonus, boss. If I ditch you, where can I go? I am too short to work in Shorty's, I mean Professor De Menz's crew. The Seniors are cheapskates when it comes to hiring help. And Hench Co has lousy medical benefits. I have been with you and Dr. D for the past two years. You're not just another birdie giving me a paycheck, but family."
Shego could not control her weeping. She was not alone; she still had a pal.
"I'm coming back. If you don't see me in two hours, there is a sewer access in the bottom sub-basement. The whole damn city has an extensive network of sewers big even to hide an entire army. Just make your way south until you can go south underground no more. Hide among the refuges and make your way south to Marseilles. Hire a boat and go to Greece. From Greece, you can disappear anywhere."
Max left Shego in the darkness.
Jan-Erik was excited. He got her. Even though he did not see the bullet strike because of the recoil, there was enough brain and skull fragments on the SUV to be sure that he took le chienne out.
He started gunning for the others. Twice he changed magazines. He fired making each and every round a kill.
"I am the avenging angel that will remove you stinking Americans from my country. I spit at your power. I will piss on your graves. I will ..."
Jan-Erik did not finish the taunt. A cold muzzle was pressed against his temple.
"I am a Monty Python fan and you do a lousy French taunter. Let us start with the line, 'You don't frighten us you English pig dogs!'"
"Kill me you filthy American. You might kill me, but one day, one of us will kill you and yours."
"One, I'm an Aussie, not a soding yank. Two, I take a shower every day, unlike you stinking Europeans. Three, you just killed someone I considered family. Four, you sunk to an all time low when tried to whack a pregnant women. And last, I am going to sort your sorry, sod-ded ass all the way to hell"
"Fuck you!"
"No, your next line was suppose to be, 'Go and boil your bottoms, you son of a silly person. I'll blow my nose at you, so called Arthur king! You and all your silly English cunnnnnnnnnigits!'"
Max then did something that was outside all the established rules of super villainy. He used a firearm to actually kill a person.
"I don't want to talk to you no more you empty headed animal foot trough water! I'll fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and you father smelt of eldiberry! Now go away or I will taunt you a second time."
Max then kicked the weakened body of the former legionnaire off the shooting platform and collected the rifle and all the gear including Jan-Erik's medical supplies. Max went through the pockets of the shooter's gear and retrieved Jan-Erik's Global Justice credentials and identification documents.
Jan-Erik Hjalmar failed. He failed to save his family. He failed to stop the destruction of his homeland. He failed to make a simple shot. He failed to die cleanly from the gunshot wound to his head. Until he lost consciousness an eternity later, all he had was his inadequacies for company.
The rats soon had another corpse on which to feast.