Cross Hairs
The sun was shining brightly and the wind was blowing slightly to the Northwest at about 12.5 mph that day. The day was April 13th, a Friday, it was also the day for the Governor Davidson’s election speech in Times Square. John “Ice” Batiz was the best sniper and private mercenary around and most likely the best sniper ever. April 13th depicted the rest of his life as a soldier, a mercenary, an American, and as a man of honor. What exactly happened that day was a mystery until John Batiz told everyone what exactly happened that day with his autobiography “A man’s duty” which he wrote while in exile in Mexico. This is the story of what happened that day…
Ice glanced at the old Grandfather clock in his favorite barbershop. Ice was a tall, military cut dark haired man. A man with a dark tan and dark blue eyes like glacier ice. He was about five feet eleven inches tall and one hundred and sixty pounds of pure military muscle and power. Ice now realized that it was 11:00 AM and paid the barber three hundred dollars tip for the commendable haircut. Money meant nothing to him because the upcoming job was worth seventy-five million dollars. He headed for the firing position on top of the UPS Skyscraper. (Being thirty stories high) Ice climbed the service stairs with ease and agility, when he got to the top of the old service stairwell he picked up the Remington 35 KZ with silencer and a Scorpion scope. This was his weapon of choice, the reasons were simple: The Remington 35 KZ was a light five pounds. Making it easy to carry, and it held twenty-five specialty rounds. The rounds were armor piercing hollow points.
Ice always worked alone and today wasn’t any different, he never wanted to rely on others and he never had a touch of hesitation or humanity when it came down to firing, even on women and children. This was one thing that earned him his nickname Ice. All other mercenaries around had a line they couldn’t cross, an invisible boundary where it became cruel and unjust to perform the task at hand.
Ice feeling the tension mount when he opened the black service door to the roof. He put the high-powered sniper rifle on a Relican turret so if something was to go wrong, he could take out security and his main target without any hesitation or delay.
The job was to be carried out at 12:30 PM and this mission was different from others because the target was a national and political official, he had four objectives. Objective one: kill the governor and his wife before the speech was made. Objective two: kill all security and police officers within the target area. Objective three: disable fire alarm on the FedEx building across the street allowing chaos to prevail. Objective four: escape building without being seen and drive to the safe house.
What he didn’t know was that this was all a ploy against him; a sting operation to arrest him in the act of attempted murder, trespassing, and murder. Hoping that he would take the operation the agencies involved made the objectives easy enough for a seasoned mercenary like Ice. The FBI and the CIA were working with the local cops to catch Ice for over a year now. The hopes for this were so that they could apprehend Ice and put him away for the rest of his life. The governor and his wife agreed only in hopes that the attempted assassination would boost election polls putting them ahead of their arrogant and feared opponent Damon Frills.
John “Ice” Batiz was ready at exactly 12:15 PM and he swiftly moved to the right corner of the roof to check if any surprises were ahead of him such as extra security. Ice noticed that everything was as expected, so Ice removed his civilian clothes and put on his tactical boots with combat knife sheath first. Than put on his bullet prove vest and an army issued navy seal vest, also he put on his black sniper hat and getting ready to put on equipment.
The equipment consisted of nine extra Remington clips, eight standard frags and four smoke grenades, his favorite a Glock 2.3 Z series with ten extra clips for this. His emergency weapon was also propped up against the adjacent corner, this being an AK-47. The last two items were special to him, a combat knife that saved his life more than once. The last items were forty throwing knives from his old Judo school in Hiedo, Japan.
As he got ready the SWAT team was moving in on the service stairwell, putting ten of their finest in the stairwell with M-16s, they were in two by two coverage formation at this time. They expected to capture Ice as he was opening fire, trying to make a surprise attack.
The only problem with the SWAT team was that their head commander was a rookie at tactical advancement and a very impatient person; this would eventually cost him his life. His name was Kevin Block and he carried a Berretta 34-5 assault rifle. He had a problem with authority also, being reprimanded for insubordination several times. The other men didn’t trust or like him but he didn’t mind much, because his love was with rifles and espionage so he looked up to Ice, as a role model. Over three thousand feet down the FBI were checking radios and setting the trap. The head in charge was a man who knew Ice personally and knew what to do against him, Mike “No Mercy” Lane once a mercenary but after his betrayal to Ice he became Head Chief in charge of the FBI. He had fourteen FBI agents walking about, and he had four snipers placed in several locations. Two were on the H&R Block building to the left of the UPS building (Henri Styles and Fredrick Jeffui) and two on the FedEx building across the street from the UPS building.(Hank Monecki and Lance Jims) They were all fresh out of boot camp. This was their first and most likely their last mission as they were no match to John in marksmanship, aiming and intuition.
The governor was now on the move and the security followed right behind and on both flanks of Governor Davidson. Ice now tuned his scope and took aim on the first target, that being the right flank guard, Ice with droplets of sweat on his left brow took aim and he said “God, be your savior” and squeezed the trigger and suddenly the right flank guard fell to the ground with a bullet in his tender throat. This caused an artery to burst and blood sprayed up over ten feet high, which gave Governor Davidson a thick coat of red liquid on his Armani suit. The chaos down below begun as guards tried to figure out where the shots where coming from. Most didn’t get the chance, for example the aft and left flank guards went down with bullets right through the upper cranium, which killed them on contact.
The SWAT team hearing shots started to cock and ready their rifles, and even without a go sign from the head chief, they moved in. Bursting through the door in two by two cover formation walked right into a burst of machine gun fire! Ice already knew of the ambush, and opened AK-47 rounds at the unsuspecting SWAT team taking them out in a two by two line. The bodies falling over each other and the screams so deafening as the last breath of air was exhaled from the corpses. The first two men in the door were ultimately cut in half and the liver and pancreas were exposed roasting in the now death stained air. It was almost symphony like action as one after another walked into their death.
Kevin Block ordered the ground units, which carried M-26s and smoke grenades with them to move in and secure the exits to try and flush John out with his unit’s fire. Kevin in all his haste and excitement didn’t realize that he was the only one left alive and that his whole unit were now only bloodied and mutilated corpses drying out in the sun and rigor mortis is setting in. As the stench of the newly dead circulates, Kevin realizes that with all of his zeal and his vigorness he is still going to end up like all the rest, but not now! He pulls his handgun out of its leather holster and aiming carefully by leaning against the downwardly descending handrail. Right when Kevin was about to fire at Ice, Ice tumbled and rolled to the left behind an rusty old steel shed, and right at that moment a hollow tip bullet was fired. Its origin of the bullet was the FedEx building, where a rookie sniper fired a single bullet from behind a lion statue. His bullet burrowed itself in Kevin’s lower torso making him fall to the ground and bleed uncontrollably.
Ice now without any weapons except his Glock and some close combat weapons realized that his Czech Ithaca 34-5 was located in a hidden floor panel in the shed. This weapon had special filed down bullets able to cut extremities right off the body. Useful when dealing with other snipers because when this bullet enters their body, no matter where it does, it will put them into shock and disable their firing capabilities.
Ice cocked the thirty-five pound weapon and aimed with precision at the culprit who fired upon him, the culprit was Hank Monecki, firing a single round that entered the Hank’s body at the hip. The bullet tore through the flesh and bone and the leg popped out of the socket and fell off his body. The Hank was in shock and now having no balance fell of the FedEx building and fell fifty stories to his death making a dark red pool of blood on the sidewalk.
The second and third snipers fired several rounds but their angle wasn’t good and obstructions blocked their sights. Sniper four, Lance Jims, seeing his friend fall started to fire rounds which missed Ice by inches but hit the shed several times making a loud ping with each shot. Than his rifle jammed and while he desperately struggled with the long black gun, Ice fired one round taking his head clear off his body.
Ice knowing that more than eleven security and police officers were still left alive down below tried to think of a way to get to his Remington without giving Henri and Jaxs a wide-open target. He realized that if he used some smoke grenades he would have just enough time to get to the rifle and get back. So he pulled the pins and threw the grenades about five to ten yards, a few seconds later a thick cloud of white smoke made visibility zero for the snipers. When the smoke cleared the AK-47 and the Remington were gone, along with Ice.
Ice was heading down the service stairs two or three stairs at a time. His plan was to use bursts of AK-47 fire to take out the security and the frags to kill off the FBI agents still left. The Remington was going to be used to rip holes through Governor Davidson and his spouse.
A sudden change in plans resulted though, because of Block’s radio transmission the FBI ground units were heading up the stairs with an almost impermeable formation. Using the triangle formation, which keeps a machine gunner with sites on the following stairs out of harms way, while two soldiers in front of him will carry 30 Oatcix, which was a high powered shotgun. So the firepower was intense too intense to fight through it.
Ice had an idea though; if he stayed in a doorway and threw knives at them the chances of a broken formation were great. The units moved in with precision, feeling the tremble under their feet, Ice knew they were coming. He proceeded with his plans but the angle of the descending stairwell made his plans ineffective and the units proved to have too much firepower. Ice decided that retreating was best and started back up the stairs when a Flathead bullet pierced through Ice’s upper thigh going right out the other side. Ice fell to the ground in agony, the troops were moving in and they were all over him in a couple seconds.
Than a silver emergency exit door opened to Ice’s right and out came Mike “No Mercy” Lane, the head of the FBI unit! The ground units halted as their superior entered and he walked towards them, all he did was smile than with a quick flash and a quick burst of Uzi fire, the ground units, now just bodies fell down the stairs with organs hanging out. Mike says, “ Don’t ask why lets just say I miss being a Mercenary! I miss the honor and the kinship between men, and I miss having my nickname that I deserve! I want to taste blood once again and lets take out the Governor!”
“ No problem, I appreciate the help but you betrayed me, I am not going to turn my back on you. I don’t trust anyone especially an ex-mercenary turned FBI agent. Don’t you dare get in my way, lets kick some ass!” Ice replies.
Armed with two black automatic Uzis, No Mercy was ready to take out the men he commanded that very morning. Ice armed with his AK-47 had two clips of thirty rounds left, accompanied No Mercy out of the bloodied UPS building.
No Mercy walked out first, heading across the street towards the five FBI and CIA men left who were obviously scared. No Mercy without saying a word, he simply ran his hand through his long black hair and showed the men a sinister smile. After doing this he pulled out the automatic handguns from the back of his dress pants. Upon seeing this, the agents reached for their holstered firearms as fast as they could! They pulled out their black German PPKs but they were too slow, and No Mercy fired forty rounds from each gun at the agents. The bullets killed them in a bloody heap in which body parts and body fluids were mixed like a giant human soup. Ice than came out strafing from side to side firing on the local police officers located near the podium in Times Square, he fired bursts of rounds at them hitting two in the chest several times and hitting the other two with neck shots which disabled these officers to a bloody heap of human skin. These shots made the men shoot blood out of their arteries like a geyser and than some blood gurgling came from their mouth as they attempted to say something and than a cold silent death.
No Mercy looked around for the money that the FBI and the CIA wanted to lure Ice close enough to them to arrest him before. He found it in the trunk of the Governor’s black BMW. The Governor and his spouse, Martha, were hiding behind a squad car when the firing occurred and they didn’t know that the cops had lost the battle or that No Mercy betrayed him and the FBI. The Governor seeing No Mercy walked out and told him to secure the outside perimeter. Ice aimed through his cross hairs and fired a burst blowing the Governor’s head right off his body and the head landed on the dirty New York street. The Governor’s body fell sideways onto the sidewalk next to the sniper who fell from the roof mixing liquids and body parts.
No Mercy walked over to Ice shaking hands and than handing Ice the money that he had earned, after that No Mercy walked over to Martha Davidson who was in shock of seeing her husband murdered right before her eyes. So No Mercy decided to empty one hundred and forty bullets into her. But as she fell to the ground with a hole in her chest the size of a grapefruit, five hollow point bullets went into No Mercy forcing him to fall to the ground and spasms before dying on the cold hard pavement.
Ice looked for the shooters but couldn’t find them, than he heard several rounds come from above. He felt that it was clear to come out into the open again. So he walked down the street heading for his Hummer that was parked in a dark alleyway near his favorite barbershop, Slick Cuts. Ice simply drove away with the money on the passenger seat and he realized that no matter what happens he is going to retire and move out of the country!
Those gunshots Ice had were from what happened above, Henri and Jaxs were the culprits who shot No Mercy, what they didn’t realize was that they would be visiting him in Hell very soon! Henri and Jaxs had been long-time enemies of Kevin Block because of the harassment they had imposed on him. Kevin crawled to the Czech Ithaca 34-5 rifle that had laid about three feet from his position and took aim from his location on the bloodied floor of the UPS building’s roof. Kevin Block shot them each thirteen times with the Czech Ithaca 34–5. Which cut the young snipers into little pieces. He only could do this was because of the only things people admired about him was that he had his father’s abilities of revenge and persistence, and Kevin had a revelation about how Ice had been so revengeful on the sniper who had fired at Kevin. But then again, what else could a father due for his own son.
Kevin Block was born Kevin Batiz, and he was just like his father with marksmanship abilities and an almost ice cold conscience. Kevin had always known that one day they would meet, and today they did. One day they will relish in the fact that they both lived to tell the tale of April 13th, which the media dubbed Cross Hairs!
By: Tony Cesolini
