C.: Well, I’ve cheered the Astros, Texans, Longhorns and Aggies to victory, and I’m still
tired. I’ll just sit and read some of d.c. scot’s A FULL PARDON: A GRAYING OF THE
LAW; THE MAGRUDER MYSTERIES PENULTIMATE CHAPTER before I work the night shift at The Kennel as the head cage cleaner. This chapter is called “The Best Trained Sniper the World Has to Offer.” It looks interesting.
***
THE BEST TRAINED SNIPER THE WORLD HAS TO OFFER
The title “The Best Sniper the World Has to Offer” is a subjective one. In fact, the
answer one gets when inquiring as to whom this person may be will vary with the person being
asked. Someone affiliated with the Navy may say that it’s the SEALS best sniper, and an Army
person may think that a Ranger or Green Beret sniper is the best. A Marine may answer that the
MARSOC’s best marksman bears the title, and a CIA or FBI agent may have a different opinion
than anyone presently enlisted in the military. These people, though, are usually not known by
the names on their birth certificates. One excellent marksman, one of the three best in the twenty-
first century, had the advantage of being declared dead.
Nikolai Bolshov found a place in the hold of the same ship that Johann Willhelm had
when it returned to the island of Pishon to harvest a crop of poppy plants. He carefully observed
the habits of the crewmen until he knew their every move. This wasn’t a difficult task, because
the crewmen were usually incapacitated from drinking and partaking of their cargo. Not the
cargo that was listed on the manifest, but the cargo that they kept in the hold.
None of the crewmen were rich. In fact, most just wanted to survive. However, without
adequate job skills, this is often a difficult task for some. These men saw a way to make a lot of
money easily, and in a short amount of time.
It was the captain of the crew who first spotted the poppy fields on the island of Pishon.
He had stopped to relieve himself while he got reoriented after programming the ship’s GPS
incorrectly. When he sobered up, the captain found himself lying in a field of profit. He quickly
told his crew what he had found, and the crew harvested as much as they possibly could without
making the ship go over the weight limit that was allowed by law.
The first load of poppy seeds yielded such an impressive profit after one of the crewmen
involved his cousin, the brilliant doctor/chemist some knew as Juan Sucedo. Juan was on a trip
to South America to attend to business, he told his cousin, and he wouldn’t be able to help him
but this once. However, the crewman observed what his cousin did carefully, typing all of the
necessary steps into his phone for future reference.
A tramp steamer is a “for hire” enterprise, and the captain didn’t make much more
money than his crew. He saw an opportunity, though, when he made a wrong turn. Fortunately
for him, the ship’s GPS kept track of the voyage, so the captain was able to go back to the place
where he had gathered the poppy seeds. However, the owner of the ship was growing tired of his
crew always being two days late when they took a trip to Asia to bring back clothes and athletic
shoes. He decided to board the ship himself and see why the ship was always delayed.
The captain had no choice but to tell the owner about the side hustle he and his crew
were using to make a lot of money with the owner’s ship. The owner was furious, at first.
However, he was a good businessman who saw an opportunity to make a large profit. He told
the captain that he and the crew must split the profits fifty-fifty with the owner. The captain,
though, had a better idea.
The captain and his crew took the owner to the poppy fields and forced enough poppy
seeds into his stomach to kill him. They took his wallet and other belongings and gambled with
them in a high stakes poker game. The winner, though, was so high by the time the game was
over that he dropped the wallet on the floor of the ship. He was too hungover the next day to
remember winning the wallet, and there was no sign of it within sight.
Nikolai had waited until the winner passed out and dropped the wallet on the floor. He
then commandeered the wallet unnoticed and squirreled it away in a hole in one of the ship’s
hold’s walls. When the boat landed, he waited until the crew went into town to drink and eat. He
then unloaded as much of the poppy seeds as he could carry and found a dealer for them.
With the boat owner’s credit cards and the money he made from selling the poppy seeds,
Nikolai Borshov started a new life. The owner of the boat was named Juan Jose Alverez, but
Nikolai told a touching story to anyone who questioned him. He said that Juan Jose was his
lover, and Juan was incapacitated with a terminal illness. He couldn’t leave his house, Nikolai
said, without exposing himself and his weakened immune system to the dreaded Covid virus,
which would probably kill him if it entered his body. Nikolai found someone to make him a new
identity as Nelson Bernard, American entrepreneur.
Nikolai told this story so many times that it was beginning to be believed. When he said
that Juan had died and he just wanted to leave the country to relieve his grief, the person at the
airline counter let him use the credit card to buy a ticket to the United States.
Nikolia saw no reason to hide, because he didn’t exist. He didn’t need to go to Shelter
Island to hide, because he was already dead, according to the official records. Nikolai decided it
would be nice to see snow at Christmas time, so he bought a ticket for Seattle. He could stay
there for a few weeks, he reasoned, because he had nothing else to do but practice shooting with
the brand new .223 AR 15 rifle he had bought with his supposed lover’s credit card. He said that
Juan had promised him one as a Christmas gift before he died.
Nikolai then found a shooting range and practiced with the rifle every day. His goal was
to eliminate the competition and be known as the best sniper the world has to offer. Nikolai
didn’t know that he had missed an opportunity to rid himself of one of the competitors for the
title he coveted when he let the small, well-built octogenarian cut in front of him in line to the
plane. The old man was afraid he would catch a virus, he said, so he wore a mask over his face.
He also disguised his voice well, because his former employee had no idea who he was.
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