Sohlberg and the White Death (51 page)

Hold your breath for two or three heartbeats.

Then exhale.

Two heartbeats.

Inhale.

The heart of the Raufoss MK-211 bullet is an armor-piercing tungsten core. The bullet has an explosive component that first blasts through concrete or light armor. The bullet then explodes a second time thanks to a delayed fuse and it bursts into an incendiary funnelcloud that shoots hundreds of pieces of burning shrapnel into human flesh on the other side of the concrete or armor.

Hold your breath for two or three heartbeats.

Exhale.

The bullet sprints out of the barrel. A second and third bullet run after the first one. A delicate puff of pink concrete dust rises like smoke from the wall. A few minutes later the patrol reports that the insurgents were shredded to pieces above the waist and that blood spray from the enemy had swirled up as the pink in the cloud of concrete dust.

~ ~ ~

CHORA, AFGHANISTAN (2007)

He dreams.

Dust. Heat. Arid valleys and stark mountains. Isolated oases smudge the valley floor with green patches here and there. Another miserable town of Urozgan Province in south central Afghanistan.

Mud walls.

Children and veiled women scurry about.

Farmers work their fields.

He realizes that the Afghans are a proud and independent people who are just like his people in the Appalachian Mountains. He has no hostility against these people however backwards they or their religion might appear. Although Billy Buchanan has no personal fight with the people of Afghanistan, he has business there. He’s now an advisor consultant to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

The sharpshooter stands on a mountainside that overlooks the valley and a distant clot of adobe mud buildings at the edge of an oasis. The CIA is also there. Jake Van Rensselaer is standing next to him along with Pierre Touvier—a retired French colonel who’s a military advisor with the French forces in ISAF.

Jake Van Rensselaer points at Billy Buchanan and says:

“Colonel Touvier . . . this man is a prodigy. A prodigy! . . . I’m glad you’re here today to see him at work. He’s going to teach the good people of Chora a lesson on why they can’t help the Taliban or al-Qaeda. We’re not going to tolerate them attacking and killing our men.”

In a soft monotone and in perfect English the retired French colonel says:

“How many dead on our side?”

“One American . . . one Australian . . . and two Dutchmen. . . . Plus sixteen dead allied Afghan soldiers. . . .”

Dutch soldiers gather around the American sniper to learn how they can blanket a town with sniper fire while avoiding civilians.

In less than two hours Billy Buchanan takes down seven Taliban sympathizers at an average distance of 1.145 miles.

Later in the evening an exhausted Jake Van Rensselaer falls asleep after two shots of single malt scotch. Billy Buchanan and the Frenchman sit next to a fireside in a large courtyard. The stars sparkle like fat diamonds thanks to the pure mountain air.

Col. Touvier passes the flask to Billy Buchanan and says:

“I’m impressed with what you did out there today.”

“Sir. It was nothing special. A sniper’s work is simple. . . . Get the best ground possible. Set up a blind so that no one can see you inside. Load good ammo into a good gun with a great scope. Think smart. Be patient. Fire away. Kill as many of the enemy as you can.”

“Too bad that your idiot politicians and generals don’t think like you.”

Billy Buchanan passes back the flask. His tongue swishes the sweet sherry and smoky peat flavors in his mouth. “Sir. I’m just a soldier. I do my job and leave the big picture to others.”

Col. Touvier takes a final swig of the Laphroaig malt. “You are a good soldier and that’s no small thing. I’m sure you Americans also have the saying . . . ‘
A small rudder turns the big ship
’.”

The dream fades away.

~ ~ ~

SPRUCE PINE, NORTH CAROLINA:

OCTOBER 25 OR SIX MONTHS AND

13 DAYS AFTER THE DAY

A small rudder turns the big ship
.

Billy Buchanan had never thought much of the French. But with hindsight he now appreciated their subtle ways. He’s had enough time to think about the offer. The money will change everything. He has to take it because his family can’t live off the tiny pension that he was left with after he was forced out of the Pentagon by the Politically Correct lynch mob. His little furniture business won’t survive the lousy economy. He will answer Col. Touvier’s inquiry which arrived in a coded e-mail asking if Buchanan Rustic Appalachian Furniture Company could manufacture a
special order
dresser.

The retired soldier left his wife in bed and went to make coffee in the kitchen after checking in on his five sleeping children—ages one through ten.

~ ~ ~

While he waited for the coffee to percolate Billy Buchanan thought about how he got his first gun when he was seven years old and his first boxing gloves when he was eight. He marveled at how boys—and now girls—in his part of the world inherit firearms from their parents and grandparents and other relatives. Like precious heirlooms—no, like precious jewels—handguns and rifles and shotguns pass from one generation to the next in a rite of passage in this remote northwestern corner of North Carolina.

Hot water shot upwards into the glass knob of the cover lid. A soothing gurgle emanated from the percolator. He remembered what Jake Van Rensselaer had said after the CIA case officer heard about the family traditions of the Buchanans and others in the Appalachian mountain region:

“You’re given firearms when you’re little kids? . . . That’s the damn craziest thing I ever heard about. But I’m from Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I guess that getting your first gun is like some redneck bar mitzvah. . . . You hillbilly yokels are gun-crazy savages. . . . And that’s why America needs you hillbillies in the Army. We need you from Appalachia and Dixie and Utah and Idaho and other red-meat eating states. You think we want some prissy sissy boy from Harvard or Princeton out here in a war? . . . You think some weakling pothead could shoot anything other than his mouth off?”

~ ~ ~

Billy Buchanan poured his coffee and drank it in the family room. He sat on one of the beautiful chairs that he had made from hickory saplings which he had harvested from the tops of mountains and ridges in north Georgia, southeast Tennessee, and northwest Alabama. The expert marksman and carpenter stared at the enormous wood-and-glass gun case that he had built into a wall. He gazed with fondness at his first gun—a Winchester Model 94 from 1932 that still worked perfectly.

The Buchanan family men had owned Winchesters since 1894 when the first ones rolled off the manufacturing floor. Guns for hunting and protection were as common in the Buchanan household as chocolates at the Hershey home. On his tenth birthday his grandfather died and left him two Winchester Model 70s: one made in 1936; the other in 1940.

To kill or not to kill.

That is the question.

Although he never went to college Billy Buchanan liked reading Shakespeare in high school.
Romeo and Juliet
was his favorite along with
Hamlet
. Jake Van Rensselaer introduced him to Shakespeare’s sonnets and many other plays in Afghanistan of all places. The CIA agent had even given him an Arden Shakespeare book with all 154 sonnets. Buchanan enjoyed the books’ helpful notes that explained the poems.

A few days before they parted ways Van Rensselaer gave him a copy of
Hamlet
.

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

Billy Buchanan’s promising career as a military advisor abruptly ended when the
Washington Post
printed old Iraq pictures of him. He had posed for his colleagues after the Second Battle of Fallujah. The elites that sent him to kill belatedly discovered that they did
not
like pictures of him planting his triumphant boot on a pile of conquered enemy bodies. The PC crowd in Washington D.C. and New York and other big cities howled and conveniently forgot how men have behaved during wars over the past 5,000 years.

Jake Van Rensselaer proved to be the ultimate government version of a BFF. He was an FWF—Fair Weather Friend. “Look here Billy . . . I like you and believe in expanding and sharing your capabilities. But this type of thing doesn’t go down well in Langley or the White House. It’s unacceptable.”

A man can die but once; we owe God a death.

Billy Buchanan finished his coffee. He found it strange that he had again fallen in love with Shakespeare amid the boredom and the cultural wasteland that existed between intense warfare episodes in the high deserts of Afghanistan.

A man can die but once; we owe God a death.

The hunter of animals and men now liked to compose his own verse and prose to help him understand his trade and its consequences.

To kill or not to kill.

That is the ultimate moral question for every man and woman.

It’s the final question for every government.

Death indeed makes man and woman wonder whether it’s more noble to suffer or to take up arms.

Should we dread something after Death?

What is Death?

Death is the undiscovered country from which no traveler returns.

The ultimate puzzle.

The conscience-maker that makes soft cowards of most men but not me.

Chapter 31/Trettien

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND; FT. MEADE,

MARYLAND; and, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA:

NOVEMBER 15, OR SEVEN MONTHS

AND 2 DAYS AFTER THE DAY

Billy Buchanan appreciated the beauty of
Parc de La Perle du Lac
even in the darkness and the cold weather. The splendid park was well-named as “Pearl of the Lake” specially during the summer months when residents and tourists took in idyllic views of Lake Geneva and the massive blue wall of Mont Salève to the southeast.

A weak sun rose over the Swiss Alps and at 7:15 AM he boarded one of the charming yellow taxiboats that cross the southern end of Lake Geneva. He chuckled at the name of the taxiboats—
Mouettes Genevoises
or Geneva Gulls. The first boat on the M4 line was empty. The boat hummed to life and it left the Châteaubriand station for the 30 minute trip to the Plage station on the east side of the lake.

After the boat docked he hurried along the pier and looked for the man who had hired him. He carefully watched the commuters who sprinted towards the boat where they would find shelter from the biting wind. The commuters ignored him. They were too busy with the worries and problems of their own private worlds.

His client sat on a lonely bench. The silver-haired man had a distinguished air about him thanks to the elegant winter overcoat of Loro Piana wool twill. The military-styled epaulettes befitted his commanding presence.

“Everything is good to go,” said Pierre Féval who was also known as Col. Pierre Touvier from France (Nantes), Peter Blomkamp from South Africa (Cape Town), Yasser Idris from Egypt (Alexandria), Dr. Pedro Gomez from Honduras (Tegucigalpa), and retired John Deere tractor salesman Charlie Ott from Iowa USA (Sioux City). “Everything is in place.”

“Like the parts of a watch.”

“Exactly,” said the suave Frenchman. “No one will ever be able to put together all of the pieces after today.”

“I will be ready at one o’clock.”

“Good. Here are the keys to the boat.” Pierre nodded at the pier. “It’s the third boat to the left of the large sailboat with the tall mast. Do you feel confident handling the boat?”

“We practiced more than enough. I will go at a decent speed. Nothing too fast that will attract attention.”

“Remember . . . as soon as your business is done in Switzerland you must immediately pick up all of your gear and head northeast back into France . . . follow the G.P.S. settings that I programmed into the boat’s navigation system . . . that will be your shortest route to safety. I can help you in France if anything goes wrong . . . but you must get back to France.”

“Understood.”

“Let’s go over everything one more time. Thoroughness is the key to success. Right?”

“Thoroughness
and
practice. . . . Obsession leads to perfection.”

The colonel nodded in silent agreement. “You will dock in Yvoire on the French side of Lake Geneva no later than four in the afternoon . . . that gives you three hours . . . more than enough time to get to safety.”