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Page 25.
Scene 7. Chinese Sniper Rifle
 In the morning, Jack bounced for yet one more energetic hour around the bed with Minica Albrisi, his old friend. His hand hurt a lot less, and he wrapped it in an elastic bandage instead of the big white gauze.
He and Minica followed their morning romance with breakfast in a Compass News Corporation safe house. This was adjacent to a luxury hotel on Chapel Street, on a balcony overlooking the autumnal skyline with its university towers and spires. A bracing air, Jack called it. He and Minica were bundled in heavy white terry bathrobes.
There lingered between them—over breakfast of toast, orange juice, black coffee, and muffins with butter and orange marmalade—their age-old regret, that this was all there was. They had been friends since college, nearly half a lifetime ago, and they had shared passions and affections. Maybe it was a form of love, but it wasn't meant to bind them. They both knew this without ever discussing it much. They were special to each other, but Jack Gray was an affectionate man, and he could say the same—in unique ways—about several other women around the world. He liked them smart, preferably with Ph.D.s, and athletic, and beautiful. He was not intimidated by strong women, but relished them, as long as they were simpatico. As he sometimes said of the strong women in his life, and their bracing and refreshing effect on him:
"They leave me stirred, not shaken."
"Oh look here," Minica said with crumbs falling from her mouth, which she tried to catch with a handful of glossy red fingernails. "New Chinese sniper rifle. That sounds like something you would tell me about, Jack."
"This may be why we love each other, but will never tie the knot, darling."
"You cruel boy. But I do love you."
"And I treasure you, my love. Or Uncle Carmine would have me at the bottom of Long Island Sound, wearing large concrete overshoes and sleeping with the fishes."
She handed the news tablet across the white linen tablecloth to him. He read:
(API-Evening Mail)—Special—Unconfirmed reports state that the Number Two man in the Central Asian Emirates (CAE), Colonel Osman Rulik, was gunned down while giving a speech at an outdoor rally for war veterans and widows. Rulik, 48, was considered heir apparent to strongman Hei Ho De of the formerly Communist league of small republics. Hei's whereabouts are not known at press time, and the official Hei We San government public affairs agency has not returned calls or issued a formal statement.
Foreign journalists in the capital of Kargh-i-Shaal say that Mr. Rulik had been speaking for about an hour when he suddenly fell silent and dropped away behind the podium. There was no report of any sound—neither a gunshot or any sort of cry from either the victim or anyone in the audience. Experts said this implies either a silencer used at close range—not so likely—or a highly effective new high-powered rifle, used at a great distance, with remarkably accurate optical sighting characteristics, and quite likely computerized real-time analysis of wind velocities and other atmospheric factors.
Aides rushed to his assistance, including plainclothes police and other speakers on the platform with him, but Mr. Hei was declared deceased at the scene.
A Turkish doctor in the front rows told Shanghai Daily that he had seen a lot of blood, and that the wound appeared to be 'catastrophic.' The doctor was not allowed to get close.
UPDATE: Late word is that a sniper rifle of a new type was recovered from an apartment building about 1200 feet (366 meters) away in a housing project for fish processing plant workers. The rifle, said to be of Chinese manufacture with Austrian optics and Korean targeting sensor systems, is being analyzed by a government laboratory in the landlocked Central Asian nation's second largest city, Ban-e-Melor. Initial reports say it is a new make altogether, but without patent markings—only the legend in Chinese characters, spelling Made in China; and (presumably the manufacturer) Factory 13043 of Shanghai.
Neither a search of the Shanghai telephone directory, nor calls to the postal information service, nor any other public records, indicate the location or registration of such a service. Tax registry information is highly classified, since corporate vitals are state secrets, and our news bureau could obtain no further information.
We only have a vaguely worded reply from a military department, to the effect that Factory 13043 is a small specialty R&D firm in Shanghai. This company has done limited and very selective technical research for the army, including sniper scopes, in past years, but nothing in recent times. The company was recently acquired by Global Anaconda Consortium, which is moving its assets to Germany for further R&D. Its new marketing name is Project David, which appears to be a classic Scriptural metaphor for a boy with a slingshot killing the giant Goliath with a single stone to the forehead.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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