Chapter 7 - The Unmasking
Stage Two was the tactical shoot-house—a labyrinth of plywood walls, simulated doors, and pop-up targets designed to mimic a real-world hostage rescue scenario. Cardboard targets painted as terrorists were interspersed with white ‘innocent bystander’ targets. Hitting an innocent target meant an automatic thirty-second penalty—an instant loss.
Vanessa went first.
Determined to erase Maya’s lead, she tore through the shoot-house like a whirlwind. Her Apex Sovereign spat fire, putting two rounds into every hostile target. She navigated the corners cleanly, her high-dollar optic acquiring targets in milliseconds.
She crossed the finish line with a time of 14.8 seconds. Clean hits. Zero penalties.
It was an incredible run. Several professional shooters in the gallery nodded in genuine respect. Vanessa puffed out her chest, catching her breath, convinced that no one with an obsolete service pistol could match that pace through an enclosed maze.
“Lane Two!” the announcer called. “Maya Ortiz to the start gate!”
Maya walked to the doorway.
She racked the Beretta’s slide, chambering a round, and lowered her stance slightly. Her brown eyes swept the doorframe. To an ordinary spectator, she was looking at wood and hinges.
To Maya, she was calculating angles of entry, blind corners, and shadow vectors. She had cleared real houses in Fallujah, Ramadi, and the Helmand province, where the targets weren't cardboard—they were men with Kalashnikovs who fired through the walls.
*BEEP!*
Maya breached the door.
She didn't run; she glided. She moved through the shoot-house like smoke through a screen door.
*Crack-crack.*
A hostile target dropped.
*Crack-crack.*
Another.
As Maya reached the final corridor, something went wrong.
A technician sitting behind the master control console—a man on Richard Cole’s payroll—tripped a hidden toggle switch under his desk.
Suddenly, two targets popped up simultaneously in the same narrow doorway—one hostile target hidden *directly behind* a white hostage silhouette, with only two inches of the hostile target’s forehead visible above the hostage’s cardboard shoulder.
The crowd shrieked. It was an impossible shot at a full sprint. If Maya hit the hostage, she lost. If she hesitated to aim, her time would collapse.
Maya didn't stop. She didn't even slow down.
She canted the Beretta forty-five degrees to the left, altering the mechanical axis of the bore to eliminate height-over-bore offset, and squeezed the trigger once.
*Crack.*
The bullet whispered past the cardboard ear of the hostage target—literally grazing the paper fibers without breaking the border—and struck the hostile target’s cardboard forehead dead between the printed eyes.
Maya crossed the exit threshold.
The electronic clock stopped: *10.42 seconds.*
Four point four seconds faster than Vanessa Cole. Zero penalties.
The arena descended into complete pandemonium. People were standing on chairs, throwing programs into the air, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Vanessa dropped her twelve-thousand-dollar gun onto the turf. “She’s cheating! She had to have seen the layout! She works here! She has the master keys to the range! Dad, do something!”
Richard Cole didn't wait. He stormed down the concrete stairs from the VIP box, flanked by four burly private security guards.
“Stop this match!” Cole bellowed, shoving his way past the tournament officials. “This competition is null and void! This woman is an employee of this facility who used unauthorized access to pre-run the course! Security, confiscate that weapon and arrest her!”
His four guards moved forward, reaching into their jackets for their sidearms.
“Nobody moves an inch!” a commanding roar echoed across the concrete arena.
Through the main competitor tunnel walked General Donald Campbell, flanked by six armed Military Police officers in full combat gear, along with Special Agent Ramos holding a federal search warrant high above her head.
The crowd went dead silent.
Richard Cole froze, his guards hesitating as they saw the crossed-rifles insignia on Campbell’s collar.
“General Campbell?” Cole stammered, his face draining of color. “What... what is the meaning of this? This is a private sporting event!”
“It was a private event, Cole,” General Campbell said, his boots clicking with terrifying authority as he marched down the lane. “Until twenty minutes ago, when the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division and the Department of Justice unsealed a twenty-four-count federal indictment against Apex Armament.”
The crowd gasped. Vanessa stepped back, clutching her father’s arm. “Dad? What is he talking about?”
“Fraudulent military contracting, wire fraud, witness intimidation, and corporate sabotage resulting in the deaths of American servicemen,” Special Agent Ramos announced, her voice echoing clearly over the live television microphones.
Campbell stopped two feet from Richard Cole.
“We found the paper trail, Richard,” Campbell said softly. “The metallurgical test reports your engineers falsified for the bolt-carrier groups on the Task Force Nine contract. The bolts that sheared off during a firefight in Afghanistan eighteen months ago.”
Cole began to shake. “You have no proof... you don't have a single eyewitness who can testify to the bolt failures on that mountain!”
“Yes, I do,” General Campbell said.
He turned slowly toward Lane Two.
General Campbell removed his service cap, tucked it under his arm, snapped his heels together, and brought his right hand up in a crisp, razor-sharp military salute.
May you like
“Good afternoon, Captain Torres,” Campbell said, his voice ringing with absolute, unyielding reverence. “The Commander-in-Chief sends his regards. And your country thanks you for coming home.”
***
