The Black Hand:Sniper: The Black Hand

By Joseph Francis Collins

Modern Day Assassins
The Black Hand - a shadowy organization that recruits, trains and supports assassins specializing in very specific murder techniques.

A Father's legacy
Max Jennings was trying to put his traumatic childhood behind him when he discovered that he had not only inherited his father’s shooting talent but by default, his father's job as a professional killer.  Both changed the path of his life.

The Final mission.
Max knows what he has to do to escape the trap set by his destiny ... but will he live long enough to carry out his dangerous plan? With the help of an unlikely ally he might just survive his time in…

The Black Hand: Sniper

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Francis Collins
• Release date: Oct 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502237699

Book preview

Copyright and Legalities

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and locations are either a product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious setting. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. No part from this book may be used or reproduced without written consent from the author.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to an online book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright © 2014 by Joseph Francis Collins. All rights reserved.

Cover by Joe Simmons: http://www.jsimmonsillustration.com

For my lovely wife, Louise – for continuing to believe in me, even when I don’t.

Acknowledgements

It's almost old hat to say that a novel can’t be written alone although writing is mostly a solitary pursuit. I am especially indebted to my wife Louise who read the really rough version of this book and helped a great deal in getting it into readable English. And, of course, my family also provided much-needed support. Other contributors to this work, some unknowing of why I was asking so many odd questions include Dave Anderson, Gene and Mary Boyd, Dan Collins, Rob Groene among others including the cast of characters who hang out on [e-mail]. Others who have helped me in this journey include Louise Collins for editing and Joe Simmons for the cover. And a hat tip to Joe Konrath for providing the inspiration to take this particular publishing path.

Contents

Copyright and Legalities

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

The End

About the Author

Also By

Prologue

The sniper waited behind his modified Remington 700 Varmint in .300 Winchester Magnum. The scope had already been set to compensate for the range, wind speed, humidity and ambient air temperature in order to hit exactly where he aimed at the 652-yard range.

His spotter, a man he only knew as Conner, was on the spotting scope watching for the target and reading any environmental conditions that would necessitate changing the scope settings.

I have the target, Conner said.

He slid the cool wood stock up against his cheek and said, Any changes in the settings?

No. You should be dialed in perfectly.

Through the ten-power scope he saw his target exactly as he had been photographed in the targeting package.

Blond hair, middle-aged belly spread, checkered shirt.

That’s him. Send it.

He caressed the trigger and was surprised when the recoil kicked him in the shoulder, as it always should.

Hit, Conner said.

The sniper knew it was a perfect shot. He had been a sniper since Vietnam and had hundreds of long-distance kills since then.

Still, he cycled the bolt, loading another cartridge, and settled against the rifle stock. The accuracy of his shot was verified by a splash of blood on the wall behind where the target had been walking. Dialing the scope magnification back, he saw the horrified people running from the scene, their open mouths screaming things he was too far away to hear.

Conner keyed his radio.

Two to extract.

Two teams waited. The first was to get them to safety. The second was to clean the scene of all possible forensic evidence.

The sniper got to his feet. Lying on the ground for hours was getting harder and harder to deal with as he got older. He was glad he was getting out of the assassination business.

Three steely eyed men dressed in business suits, with not very well concealed weapons, escorted them to the door of a waiting van.

When they were seated, Conner held out his hand and said, It’s good to end on a high note.

He shook it and said, Sure. I just want to get out of this shit hole of a country and get back to my life.

It seemed as though he spent most of his life in third and fourth world nations killing people. This place was no different than any of the others.

Are you sure that we can’t talk you into staying?

He’d worked for the shadowy organization known as The Black Hand since he’d gotten home from Vietnam. It was time to get away from this life of killing strangers at long distance.

The sniper had saved enough money that he wouldn’t have to work ever again. Not that it was a great deal of money, but he was happy with his middle-class lifestyle, and except for an occasional vacation, he wasn’t looking to upgrade his lifestyle.

No.

Not even for a once-in-a-great-while kind of job?

I’m making a clean break of it.

Conner searched his face.

If anything changes, you’ll let us know?

It won’t change.

The van pulled into his hotel parking lot. He’d already checked out of the hotel and loaded his car so all he had to do was drive to the airport and get on an airplane heading home.

From long experience he knew that he wouldn’t be home free until he was sitting on his favorite chair in his living room drinking a beer.

Conner held out his hand again and said, Take care and good luck.

The sniper shook it as he climbed out of the van, already searching the area for anything that could point to a problem with getting home.

Same to you, he said.

He took his rental car keys out of his pocket as he continued to look around. No one was acting out of place.

Unlocking his car door, he settled into the seat and let out a long sigh. For thirty years, first for the Marines and then for The Black Hand, he’d been killing people.

The cost had been enormous — he’d destroyed his family and driven away his few friends. Now, he would be able to do his best to try and fix some of the things he had done.

Number one was trying to make some amends to his only child — his son. He was in college and somehow had discovered a gift for shooting and was a member of the college shooting team. Maybe they could reconnect through shooting. Then there was his wife. She’d weathered his drunkenness and abuse, and had done her best to give the appearance that everything was normal.

If the last parts of his life had been difficult, it was nothing compared to what his future was going to hold. But now, he was going to be free of the killing and would carry through no matter what happened.

He put the key in the ignition and turned it. There was a click and then a flash of blinding heat and flame.

The sniper screamed in pain for a few moments until his lungs seared shut and then he fell into the burning darkness.

Chapter One

Max Jennings settled in behind the Anschutz 1913 Supermatch target rifle. He had one shot left of the forty-round final round course of fire. The three-hour match had left him limp and tired down to his soul.

His canvas and leather shooting jacket was soaked in itchy dried sweat and the collar dug into the back of his neck. The wooden stock of the rifle, while initially comforting, now felt like a brick and he could feel every ounce of its seventeen-pound-six-ounce weight.

A redeeming factor was that the other competitors were probably in the same shape with all of them firing one hundred twenty rounds during the match and any number of sighting rounds.

Target rifle shooting wasn’t exactly a spectator sport with the team coaches standing behind the shooters offering silent support. Max smiled at the idea that there were no cheerleaders.

He peered through the metal target sight and noted it wavering in the glaring overhead light of the gun range.

Max moved the rifle away from his body and shook his head trying to get the crick in his neck out.

Might as well get it over with.

He moved the rifle back in close to his body, set it on his shoulder, snugging the stock to his body. The rifle had been set up to exactly fit him and his shooting style and it almost felt like a part of his body.

Peering into the sight, he noted that it was just a bit clearer. Not by much, but he could almost see the 10 ring, which was only a millimeter in diameter, fifty feet away. The X ring was a fifth of that, making hitting the bull’s-eye that much more interesting.

He didn’t know what he would need to shoot to be able to win, but he knew it would be close.

Focus, damn it.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. The world seemed to close around him — nothing was there except for him, the sights and the target.

Opening up his eyes, he settled the sight on the target. As his other senses faded into the background, the rifle locked onto the target like it was being pulled there.

He slid his finger onto the trigger. All it would take was an ounce and a half of pressure to send the match 40 grain Eley .22 LR downrange.

He let out part of his breath and could feel his racing pulse slow.

Max carefully took up the slack on the trigger and the rifle went off, surprising him like it always should.

Without even looking at the target, he climbed to his feet.

As he moved back into reality, pulling out his ear plugs, he saw that everyone was cheering.

His coach, Dale Miller, a gruff and portly retired Marine gunny sergeant, stepped up and held out his hand.

Max shook it.

You won.

What was my score? He knew he should be happy, but couldn’t find the strength of any emotion.

One thousand fourteen, which is pretty damn good for your level of shooting experience.

Twelve hundred was perfect, but considering that it was only his fourth match, Max was sort of satisfied. He knew he could do better. He had gotten a bit flustered during the prone position shooting. Usually, prone was his favorite as you could use the sling to help stabilize the rifle. But, this time, something had bothered him and he just couldn’t get into his groove, throwing several shots before settling down.

When he got back to the college, he would check out his rifle, a case of ammo and do some more practicing. No. He had an English paper due and hadn’t even started on it.

He hated that class. The teacher was a pompous ass who favored only those who would toady up to him.

Unzipping his shooting jacket, he carefully put the rifle in its case after giving it an affectionate pat.

The rifle was merely a tool. A very precise tool, but it had done its job. Now, if he could only do his part.

Dale said, I can’t believe that you never shot anything before coming here. If you keep progressing, you might have a chance to shoot in the Olympics.

He forced a smile onto his face. I guess so.

Max stripped out of the rest of his shooting gear, carefully putting it back in its travel duffle. He’d paid a lot of money for it given his meager budget generated by selling coins from his collection to pay for school, food and a cheap apartment he shared with three others.

On the bus ride back to the school, fingering his first-place medal, he considered what his coach had said. Max had never fired a gun before until he had gone shooting one Saturday with friends who were on the school’s rifle team. He found himself being goaded into trying out for the same rifle team until he relented, although from the first time Max picked up a rifle it seemed like he couldn't miss. A walk-on to the team, he found he had the knack and mind-set required for precision shooting.

Max didn’t know why he was even in college, except that he was told to go by his father who was an international traveling salesman when he wasn’t home drinking himself to unconsciousness and beating his wife. Max had been the target for his father’s fists until age sixteen when he fought back with a rage that even surprised him. After that, his father had found other ways to make his life a living hell.

The direction of college in a different state was the best choice and helped all concerned.

One of the other members of the shooting team, Susie Dixon, sat down in the seat next to him. She was a compact blonde with a pixie face and an infectious smile.

Good job today.

Thanks.

Up until this point, he was almost an outcast to the rest of his teammates. They had been shooting from when they were old enough to pick up a rifle. No one could believe that he had no experience with shooting until he had tried out for the team.

How did you do? he asked.

Nine hundred sixty-two. It wasn’t a very good day for me.

Sorry about that.

Women shot the same course of fire. It was the only sport that he had ever heard of that was completely co-ed — women and men used pretty much the same equipment, fired the same course and directly competed against each other. Most women were better shooters than men and Max had found out that he was the only male who had placed in the top five in this competition.

Susie’s real passion was trap, where she pulverized the flying clay birds with amazing precision. Rifle shooting was just another way for her to spend more time behind the trigger.

Max had tried trap shooting and didn’t find it interesting; slapping a trigger while trying to judge the trajectory of a flying object just didn’t seem very appealing.

It wasn’t as though he wasn’t decent at it, but Max’s real love was precision rifle shooting. It was only him, the rifle and the target — everything else disappeared from his life; the college professors, lack of finances, his family and everything all had to be pushed aside.

A bunch of us are going out after we get back. Want to join us?

He almost said no right out. As much as he hated being with beer swilling nitwits, the rifle team was made up of decent people who liked to shoot and devoted much of their time to it.

No one could make a living doing this type of shooting. So his teammates did this for the love of shooting and sense of accomplishment.

Sure.

It was a fifteen-hour bus trip back to the college. He could compose that damn English paper on the way back, type it quickly and have it ready for class on Monday.

As far as paying for his night out, he could scrimp on the rest of the week’s meals. It sucked to be poor. He knew that he could sell some of the coins in his collection so he could live more comfortably, but those coins were his friends and he hated to part with them.

Max had been collecting coins since he was a child. It provided a refuge from a chaotic home and a physically abusive alcoholic father and mother whose behavior was only marginally better. Coins had allowed Max to escape to other worlds and ages and fueled his imagination about the people who once used them. They provided a glimpse into their dreams, aspirations and lives. Though these people were long dust, Max escaped each time he held the cold metal in his hands.

He used the money he earned from various odd jobs to fund his growing collection. Though he had made costly mistakes, he continued to learn, study and wonder.

Max thought about talking more with Susie, but when he looked over, she had gone to sleep.

Turning his overhead light on, he dug out a notebook pad and started to write his English paper.

*****

After they got back home, Max helped unload the shooting gear, making sure that his rifle was where he could get to it for practice tomorrow.

Picking up his duffle bag, he made sure that he had his handwritten paper in his pocket. His plan was to get a quick shower, type up his paper on his roommate’s battered Royal typewriter, and then join Susie and his fellow shooters at the bar she had suggested.

Max felt the weight of the match as he trudged back to his apartment just outside the campus. It would do good to go out, maybe get his mind off of the match, his slovenly roommates, his class load and how he would pay for his next semester.

His apartment building was a four-story brownstone building with a crumbling façade. The tattered patch of grass in front matched it perfect — a place where teenagers, seemingly freed from their parents, tried to put themselves together again and often didn’t succeed.

The front door to his apartment wasn’t locked, which didn’t surprise him at all. Luckily he kept his coin