One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,47

that it would be enough to ensure he finished behind Luc. But if Luc had scored one or less, then all his misses had done was gift second place to Paul.

As he’d already beaten Luc, Sam saw no reason not to try his best. He didn’t need binoculars to identify the target, but was surprised when he looked through his telescopic sight and saw nothing but golden blurs. It was the first time he’d encountered problems with reflected light, but he remembered something that Goldberg had said on the second day of the course.

After a quick rummage in his kit bag, Sam pulled out a leather pouch filled with optical filters and screwed a polarising lens to the end of his scope. The polariser was designed to cut out light coming from a specific direction, and by looking through the scope and rotating the filter, Sam was able to eliminate all the reflections.

The filter also cut out a lot of regular light, so the image through Sam’s scope was gloomy, but still better than anything you’d see when shooting at night. As Marc kicked himself for not remembering the filter pack, Sam aimed his rifle at the target and made four clean hits.

‘That’s more like it,’ Henderson said, as he gave Sam a slap on the back.

‘Seven out of sixteen’s not great,’ Sam said, as he wondered if it would be enough to beat Paul.

While Sam had been shooting, Goldberg had rolled a piece of canvas out on the ground and begun disassembling Luc’s rifle.

‘A bullet seems to have partially disintegrated inside the chamber,’ Goldberg said stiffly. ‘You’ve ruined the barrel. You’re lucky you’re not in the army, because this weapon is useless and you’d have been docked at least three month’s wages.’

‘There was no dirt in there, sir,’ Luc said, sounding uncharacteristically shrill. ‘I spent half an hour cleaning that weapon last night. It was spotless.’

‘Then how could this have happened?’ Goldberg shouted, but his expression changed as he raised the barrel up to his eye and looked down towards the disc of sunlight at the far end. ‘Did you try dislodging a bullet with something sharp?’

‘No, sir,’ Luc said.

‘Explain this to me then,’ Goldberg said, as he passed the weapon across. ‘Bullets move fast, they leave long straight trails. How did those great wiggly gouges get there?’

Marc gulped as Luc looked down the barrel.

‘Sabotage, sir!’ Luc shouted indignantly. ‘I cleaned that gun last night, running through with a soft clean cloth just like you showed me. Those scratches weren’t there, I swear on my dead mother’s grave, sir.’

‘That’s a serious allegation, Luc,’ Goldberg said. ‘Are you certain you want to stick with it?’

Luc glowered furiously at Marc. ‘I know this was you,’ he roared, before charging towards Marc.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Marc dived out of the way, but still caught a glancing punch across the upper arm and stumbled into low branches. Henderson charged in and pulled the boys apart.

‘Pack it in,’ he shouted. ‘What’s going on?’

‘There’s unusual damage to the barrel,’ Goldberg said. ‘Luc isn’t the best at keeping his weapon clean, but I’ve never seen markings like that inside a barrel before. It certainly looks like sabotage.’

Henderson snapped his head around and stared at Marc. ‘Well, was it you?’

‘No, sir,’ Marc said. ‘Those guns aren’t locked up. Anyone with access to the armoury could have done it.’

‘I suppose,’ Henderson agreed. ‘But I find it a hefty coincidence that Luc’s gun should be sabotaged the night before your final exercise.’

Goldberg spoke. ‘To be fair, Captain, Marc was the best shooter by far. It was the other two who had most to gain by ruining Luc’s chances of finishing second.’

‘Marc hates me,’ Luc blurted. ‘He doesn’t want me on the mission with him. Sam and Paul are both too gutless to try something like this.’

‘I’m not gutless,’ Sam shouted angrily.

Henderson turned towards him. ‘So did you sabotage Luc’s gun?’

‘No, sir,’ Sam said. ‘But we’ve been partners all week. I don’t like him having a go at me.’

‘Well, it has to be one of you,’ Henderson said. ‘If I don’t get a confession, I’ll wait until Paul finishes shooting and then get Kindhe up here. He’ll make the three of you do PT for two hours, and then I’ll ask again. If nobody confesses, you’ll do another two hours. And this will keep going until one of you does the decent thing and owns up.’

Paul came up a path looking exhausted and confused. ‘What’s all the shouting about?’

Luc pointed at Marc. ‘Ask