Chapter 2 - The Hidden Monitor
The wailing emergency klaxon echoed off the surrounding Nevada mountains as armed range marshals stepped onto the concrete firing line with red flags raised.
In the bleachers, five thousand spectators murmured in confusion as the television cameras zoomed in on Chief Referee Arthur Miller standing pale and rigid behind the master console.
"What the hell are you stopping the clock for, Arthur," Garrett Locke demanded, marching over from Lane Eleven with his hands on his hips.
"The girl in the hoodie just put five rounds into the dirt bank and embarrassed the whole tournament, so wave her off the line and hand me the trophy," Garrett scoffed.
Arthur Miller did not answer the reigning champion; instead, his shaking fingers flipped a heavy brass toggle switch that routed his private subterranean calibration feed straight onto the main stadium broadcast screen.
"Look at the high-speed acoustic and thermal replay from the thousand-yard target pit before you open your mouth again, Mister Locke," Arthur said into his lapel microphone, his voice trembling over the stadium speakers.
Across the massive center screen above the range, a slow-motion thermal recording from the reinforced concrete trench one thousand yards away blinked to life.
The video did not show five bullets missing the four-foot target frame.
Instead, the first supersonic projectile streaked across the desert heat mirage and struck the exact two-millimeter titanium pinhole lens of the optical scoring camera mounted in the dead center of the target bullseye.
That single impossible impact had shattered the internal fiber-optic prism inside the center ring, blinding all five overhead LED scoreboards at the exact same millisecond.
Then the slow-motion replay continued as the crowd went dead silent.
One-point-eight seconds after the first round destroyed the camera lens, Nora's second bullet arrived and passed directly through the exact same ragged hole in the titanium housing without touching the torn metal edges.
Her third bullet, fourth bullet, and fifth bullet followed right behind it, all five lead cores tunneling into the steel backstop inside a single quarter-inch circle from nearly a mile away.
In forty years of international precision shooting, no human being on earth had ever stacked five consecutive rapid-fire rounds through a single bullet hole at one thousand yards without a computerized wind scope.
Five thousand people in the bleachers rose slowly to their feet in stunned, breathless awe as Garrett Locke stared up at the screen with his jaw hanging open.
Before anyone could clap, the heavy steel security gates at the rear of the VIP paddock swung open, and two black government sedans screeched to a halt on the gravel apron.
A tall man in a dark charcoal suit with a Department of Defense Inspector General badge clipped to his lapel stepped out of the lead vehicle, clutching a thick manila folder sealed with three red wax stamps.
He walked briskly past the stunned television crews, climbed the steps to the Chief Referee's podium, and placed the sealed folder directly on the glass table in front of Arthur Miller.
"By order of the Pentagon Inspector General, this range is under immediate federal jurisdiction, and nobody leaves the firing line," the official announced, his eyes locking onto Nora's calm face beneath her gray hood.
Arthur Miller broke the red wax seal on the folder, flipped open the top page containing a high-resolution military service photograph of Nora in desert camouflage, and gasped aloud.
Stamped in bold red ink across her face was the classification code GHOST ZERO—KILLED IN ACTION, SYRIA, EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, alongside a direct federal subpoena for the arrest of billionaire sponsor Victor Blackthorne.
May you like
"Miss Vance, you are supposed to be dead, and according to this file, you did not shoot out that target camera to show off," the Pentagon official said, stepping toward Lane Twelve with his hand raised.
At that exact fraction of a second, a silent flash glinted from the high broadcast tower eight hundred yards behind the bleachers, and a heavy sniper round punched straight through the official's right shoulder, spraying crimson blood across the sealed folder before the sound of the shot even reached the range.
