Two
months before Garvey stepped onto Hawaiian soil, events were set into place
that would later mean big trouble for Team Mongoose.
In a rural area, just north and west of
Angus
grabbed a long sniper rifle, equipped with a scope, from the passenger seat of
his truck.
The driver of the second truck was Conley Van Osgood, a
short, stocky man who gave Angus a slightly fearful look before he walked up to
meet him. Conley had a flat, wide face
and small dark brown eyes that moved quickly about as if he were looking for
trouble at every turn. He was also carrying
a sniper rifle and was holding a scope in his other hand.
Both men were dressed in blue t-shirts that bore the logo
of the carwash where they had been employed since being released from prison
only a few weeks earlier. They were both
on parole and the guns were a big violation of that parole. But Angus had shown up at the car wash this
morning and had said they were doing some target practice at lunch. Conley didn’t object, because he knew only
too well that he couldn’t.
“Is this where you wanted us to set up Angus?” Conley
asked.
“Why else would we be here, stupid!” Angus replied.
“Okay…. Angus,” Conley said as he quickly walked back to
the second truck. He reached inside the
cab and removed several cardboard marksman targets from the passenger side.
“Put them on that middle tree over there Conley,” Angus
ordered.
Conley hesitated for a moment. He didn’t much like the idea of walking into
a field when Angus Simms was standing there holding a rifle. He knew that Angus was
mean, really frickin’ mean. Angus had just gotten out of Statesville
Prison in
Conley
was Angus’ cellmate for the last six months.
They had been some of the worst months of his life. He was a petty thief and had never hurt a
soul. He was afraid of Angus and his
angry spells. But Angus came up with
money every week and there was always plenty of beer; so Conley hadn’t let the
fear tell his feet to get out of town.
Conley also knew that Angus had taken the death of his
brother, Larry, pretty damn hard. Angus
was ten years older than Larry and had practically raised him in a rusted out
old trailer only about a mile from where they were holding their impromptu
shooting practice.
Angus had gotten really pissed off when Larry had joined
the Marines. And right before he had
gotten locked up, Angus had received a letter from Larry who had become a
Military Policeman, which sent Angus into a monster rage.
While Angus was in lockup, he kept getting letters from
Larry. As time went on, the letters
stayed negative and Angus shared some of them with Conley. Larry had been arrested for trying to hunt
down a bitch that had screwed him over.
In the process, he had shot at a couple of Marines who ended up beating
him down. Larry’s last letter was
basically a suicide note. He said that
all of his problems started when he started working for someone named Mitch
Garvey, a sergeant or something, who treated Larry like shit. This guy Garvey had apparently hurt Larry
badly during the shootout and Larry wanted Angus to get him back, revenge for the
wrongs Garvey had done.
When Angus received news of Larry’s suicide, he went out
of control. Conley had to cower under a
mattress to keep from getting hurt from all of the things Angus threw around
the cell. Angus heeded Larry’s request
and swore revenge.
Now,
they were out in the woods target shooting.
But Conley knew they were really out there for Angus to practice taking
that one shot that would take down the object of his revenge, Mitch Garvey.
“What’s the matter with you?” Angus yelled at Conley. “Stop taking all friggin’
day and get those targets set up!”
Conley jumped out of his reverie and started off into the
high grass. The trees were at least
three hundred yards away and he was breathing heavy by the time he reached
them. He found a small branch on the
tree that Angus had indicated and impaled the top portion of the target onto
it.
Conley turned to hang a target on a second tree when the
loud crack of the rifle and the whine of a bullet made him flinch hard enough
to drop the remaining targets, which fluttered to the ground.
“Holy shit!” Conley said, almost
crying. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Conley looked up to see that Angus was laughing while
loading another round into the chamber of his rifle.
“Don’t worry, if I was trying to hit you, I would have,”
Angus said with a chuckle. “Look at the target.”
Conley saw that the round had hit dead center in the
small round circle inside the square white target.
“Perfect shot!” he yelled to Angus.
Conley continued with his target duties and placed five
targets at varying levels on the trees at the end of the clearing. He walked back to his truck and took a pair
of binoculars from the glove compartment.
“I’m going to put three bullets into each target; one
standing, one sitting, and one lying down.
You see what I’m saying?” he asked Conley.
“Uh…. sure,” Conley replied.
Angus readied the rifle and fired the first shot. Without waiting for Conley to tell him the
result of the shot, Angus dropped to a knee and fired a second shot. He quickly went prone and fired a third.
“What’s the verdict?” Angus asked, looking up at Conley.
“All three are in the black on that first target,” Conley
said from behind the binoculars.
“How’s my grouping?” Angus asked.
“All three are in about a four inch circle,” Conley told
him.
“Alright, let’s do it again,” Angus said.
He repeated the same technique for the remaining four
targets and scored nearly the same on them all.
However, on the last target, his foot slipped on the kneeling shot and
the bullet went into the dirt. This
prompted Angus to re-shoot the kneeling position several times before he was
satisfied.
“Go clear them targets,” he ordered while placing his
rifle back into the truck.
Conley didn’t argue the point that he had not fired a
single round with his gun. Instead, he
did as instructed and pulled the targets off the trees. As Conley walked back to the trucks, he saw
that Angus was loading rounds into a magazine which he then placed into the
butt of a chrome semi-automatic pistol.
To his horror, Angus raised the pistol and pointed it directly at
Conley’s face.
Conley froze. He
breathed in sharply and felt a warmth spread down the back of his thighs as his
bowels gave way.
“Why do you think we are here?” Angus asked in a slow,
calm voice.
The tone of Angus’ voice caused Conley’s fear to
intensify exponentially. It was the
voice he had often heard just before Angus hurt another person; now that person
was him.
“T..t..target practice,” he replied in a barely audible
voice. His chest was tightened to the
point that only a little air could escape.