A Bullet in the Night | Teen Ink

A Bullet in the Night

April 10, 2012
By tcatledge23 BRONZE, Eugene, Oregon
tcatledge23 BRONZE, Eugene, Oregon
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

“Sir” Jackson whispered in his partner’s ear. First name Jacob a 23 year old who had hair black as midnight. His skin looked that of his father’s Hispanic heritage. Though usually he showed his mother’s European descent, he had been sitting in the sniper “hide” for almost two days straight in the baking sun in the dead of summer in a ghillie suit as well. The tan suited him though due to the exceptional muscle tone that he had gained from years of training in the marines and scout snipers.
“I see them too.” Caughlin acknowledged. First name John. Standing a massive 6 feet 7 inches tall Caughlin dwarfed even Jackson who stood 6 feet 4 inches and usually towered over the average person. Although he usually had pale white skin due to his purely Irish heritage along with his fiery red hair. He had been sitting in the same hole as Jackson for two days and though his tan was slightly lesser than that of Jackson he still looked browner than normal, and you couldn’t tell that he was Irish probably more Hispanic. Normally his bright skin color covers his dense and large muscles tone. He was 285 lbs with only 6% body fat.
The two snipers were lined up on the top of a ravine in eastern Cuba and were looking down at roughly 40 Cuban militants. “It’s been several months since president Kennedy’s assassination and Castro can’t know we know that he had him assassinated.” It was still bright outside and they needed the cover of night when they finally took the shots.
There seemed to be three main men down below that were calling the shots and telling their men what to do. Two however stuck out in particular and were having people set up the camp for the night and collect wood for fire, food to eat etc... The sun set over the edge of the mountains and all the men below started to gather and a fire was lit.
The temperature started to drop and Caughlin and Jackson watched as the men were preparing their food and waited for at least the two head officers to get close enough to each other to take the shots. After about an hour of watching them take orders they all three went to about the same general area close enough to get three shots off at least.
They had all sat down to get something to eat. Jackson set up the laser precision range finder and he he relayed the information that came up on the laser finder “950 yards out, 4 mile per hour wind to the west” Caughlin started to rotate some knobs on the top of his Savage 10FP Sniper Rifle. “Ready” Caughlin’s heart started to race and his adrenaline started to rush everything seemed to slow down.
Jackson slowly repeated the words that the enemy will never know as the last words that will ever spoken in their life. “Fire. Fire. Fire.” Caughlin slowly but surely set the rifles reticle on the first man’s chest and breathed in steadily, and as he started to exhale his partner said the fourth and final word “fire”.Caughlin put a full 3.5 pounds of slow steady pressure on the trigger and a thunderous clap echoed throughout the entire ravine. The Cuban militants looked like Thor himself had come to smite them all.
The first of the three officers hit the ground with a thud and Caughlin quickly set his reticle to the second officers chest and inhaled and slowly exhaled and then a second thunderous crack ensued the ravine. At this point two of the officers were down there were two bullets left in the magazine so they could go and try for the last shot or use the last couple seconds to get home. Caughlin made the choice, he started to set up the third shot and the third man started to move and run for cover and was yelling commands at the same time. He again one final time inhaled and exhaled and the man who was less than five feet from the cover of a large boulder was hit directly in the head and was kicked back five feet and left the last of the militants leaderless.
Jackson reached for the E Tool (entrenching tool) which they had used to dig their sniper hide and pushed the thorny bushes (which they had placed over the hole for camouflage) out of the way. First it was John and then it was Jackson they had to do it slowly as possible so they would not draw attention to the cliff over top the ravine. They slid out silently. Jackson whispered with a compass in one hand and a map in the other. “We’ve got 75 miles southeast till we meet up with the ¾ battalion”
Caughlin cackled with his extremely dry throat from being stuck in a hole for two days “well let’s go then” and they started off in the distance.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.