The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 29

"Why not just adjust the windage knob?" Callahan asked...yet the instructor simply ignored him.

"First we need to know the temperature and barometric pressure and get these values entered. Next, the apparent wind angle and speed need to be entered. Any height difference between you and the target must also be accounted for. And all these values must be entered on the scope with absolutely no error."

"Shit...why?"

"Because the reticle is computerized, Inspector Callahan. Once these values are entered the reticle compensates for all those variables. So, you can reliably drive tacks at a thousand meters."

"Show me," Callahan said, and only then did the team retire to a tent to begin the real learning process. By afternoon the team returned to the range and began again, this time in earnest.

"All your weapons have been bore-sighted by the armorer, but a few minor adjustments may still need to be made. Everyone deploy your bipod and assume the position..."

And at the end of two weeks, the team was ready for their final briefing.

The next day they boarded the little JetStar for what the team hoped would be the final act of this play, yet at this point, not even Colonel Goodman felt confident in the outcome.

The JetStar landed at Frankfurt and the team transferred to a U.S. Air Force C-141 for the flight to Travis Air Force Base in California, and no-one managed to sleep on this leg, not even Harry Callahan.

At Travis, the team broke-up into two-man units, with each SFPD officer assigned an Israeli liaison officer to handle communications and target acquisition. Jim Parish and Lloyd Callahan went with the Colonel to a new safe-house off Skyline Drive in the hills above Palo Alto. The house, deep in an ancient redwood forest, was equipped for a minor siege and even had a small pad to handle a Huey-sized helo. Medical supplies were airlifted in when Chief Warrant Officer "Mickey" Rooney landed a new, civilian painted and registered 212 on the pad; 'lent' to the team by the Army, Rooney was on hand to provide air support once the operation began - supposedly in three days time.

Harry Callahan and his spotter slipped into the East Bay and set up a watch zone around the municipal airport in Hayward; the word was that Escobar, or one of his lieutenants, would be bringing in a very large shipment of 'product' later in the week. Callahan would take out the aircraft once it was on the ground by hitting the engine, or engines, with armor-piercing rounds; anyone foolish enough to leave the aircraft would regret the decision. The operational plan included letting the DEA claim credit for the bust - after the dust settled.

Frank Bullitt was given the unenviable task of tracking down Captain Jerry McKay after new communications intercepts confirmed McKay's participation in Escobar's operation. These phone taps also revealed a more extensive group of police officers involved in operations centered around Oakland, Berkeley, and San Jose, and Sam Bennett went to the South Bay to tackle a small group of vigilante operatives working out of the San Jose PD. Callahan and Bullitt would 'mop-up' the remainder of known targets in San Francisco and Oakland after their primary targets were dispatched.

After the team moved into place it all came down to watching and waiting, everyone ready to make the opening moves in what would surely become a very long counter-offensive.

No one anticipated that other teams were working the very same targets, or that these other teams had set out the very same targets like tethered goats used to draw-in a predator.

The hunters, in other words, had just become the hunted.

/////

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse...[and a last word or two on sources: I typically don't post all a story's acknowledgments until I've finished, if only because I'm not sure how many I'll need until work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (a little virus, not to mention a certain situation in Washington, D.C. springing first to mind...) so waiting to mention sources might not be the best way to proceed. To begin, the primary source material in this case - so far, at least - derives from two seminal Hollywood 'cop' films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman's brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen's grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the 'Briggs'/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson. The Samantha Walker character derives from the Patricia Clarkson portrayal of the television reporter found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician's tour of duty in Vietnam - and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I've ever read (think Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as a few new characters I've managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new - perhaps a running commentary on the times we've shared? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: no one mentioned in this tale should be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred, though I'd be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen's Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime...]