Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Three
28th November 1971
Moscow, Russia
“This song does not make sense Theologically” Patriarch Platon III said, looking more cross than usual. He had adopted the name of his predecessor Platon II when he had ascended to the Patriarchy. It was said that he hoped to play a similar role in Russian society as Platon Levshin had two centuries earlier when he had come to personify the Age of Enlightenment within the Church. Apparently, that included listening to a Rock & Roll song by a musician who had gone into farming in a rural part of California rather than playing the role of Rockstar.
Gia was a bit amazed that he had made this selection, normally it felt like if the higher ranks of the Russian Orthodox Church rivaled their counterparts in Rome when it came to ignoring Popular Culture. Instead, they normally spent their days in time honored fashion, plotting on how to one up the Archbishop of Constantinople. Gia had given up trying to figure out what drove these men to such bizarre extremes when they were supposed to be equals within the Church. There was also her own role within it. Normally, it would have been minimal considering her gender, but there were a lot of people who believed that she had a direct line to God and somewhere along the way she had become a confidant and observer within the offices of the Patriarch of Moscow. Basically, Gia was popular with the public, and they hoped that some of that rubbed off on them.
The song in question had come out almost two years earlier. It was fairly typical of what had been coming out of America over the last few years. A driving bassline played while a fuzzed-out guitar played a riff that sounded like an airhorn. The whole thing was clearly Gospel inspired, which explained Platon’s interest. Mostly it was intended to be sung and clapped along with.
“It is intended to convey the ecstatic feeling that comes from belief” Gia replied,
“Yes, I get that part” Platon said, “But this third verse is where it gets problematic. Do you know what I mean?”
Gia was afraid he would say something like that and wondered how to answer the question safely. The verse came around followed by a guitar solo before the song reverted back to the chorus and fading out.
“The man who wrote the song is Jewish” Gia replied, “That verse is meant to be a bit of a tongue in cheek take on the way that he sees Christians conducting themselves and the sort of things they say to him.”
“So, he is subverting the song with one line that most people will not even pick up on?” Platon asked, “And making fun of people who won’t look past the superficial.”
Gia wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Platon certainly found it amusing and Gia didn’t understand what was so funny.
Near Los Grutas, Rio Negro Province, Argentina
There was a distant “CLANG!” as the rifle bullet hit the steel plate that was hanging on its stand around twelve hundred meters away. Behind him, Manny could hear cheers as the men who had bet on him hitting the targets were delighted of course but by now even those who had bet against him were cheering him on. He worked the bolt, ejecting the spent cartridge and chambering a fresh one. It had grown more challenging as the targets had grown progressively distant. Past a thousand meters he had to have a feel for the wind which could push the bullet is several different directions before it hit the target.
It seemed a bit anticlimactic for Manny to be using his rifle for this after he had taken it across the Andes for a different purpose that could not have been more profound just a few weeks earlier. Still, it was a use that he was well suited to put it to.
Once Manny had the ten-power Zeiss scope dialed in, he could hit targets out to the theoretical limits of the rifle itself. With the standard loading of a Thorwald Magnum cartridge that was an extremely long way indeed.
Looking at the next target, Manny used the subtensions that were a part of the reticle of his scope to estimate the distance to the target. He knew that all the round steel plates were half a meter in width, and it made the mathematics simple. Adjusting the turret on his scope, Manny took aim before letting out a breath and holding it. Even with the rifle resting on a sandbag, recognized a slight movement it the reticle that was from his heartbeat. Squeezing the trigger, Manny felt the seer break, an instant later his shoulder absorbed the recoil.
And he missed.
“You had the distance” Christian, who was acting as his spotter and was watching through a telescope mounted on a tripod, said. “But were a few centimeters off the left side.”
Manny chambered a fresh cartridge, corrected his aim, and fired. This time there was a distant “CLANG!”
“I should have hit that last one with the first shot” Manny said aloud and Martzel heard him.
“Most men couldn’t see that far much less hit a target at that distance” Martzel said, and he was all smiles as he went back to the crowd of observers. If Manny had to guess, Martzel had just cleaned up on the side bets. The terms had been that Manny could hit twenty targets placed at random intervals out to fifteen hundred meters with no more than five shots per target. He’d exceeded that by a considerable margin.
Manny and his team had been sent to Martzel Iberia’s Casa on the Rio Negro for R&R after they had completed the mission debrief. The Coronel said that he was proud to have them as his guests after they had sent the devil Pinochet back to the Inferno. Manny had not thought that anyone outside of the High Command back in Wunsdorf and General Schultz’s Staff were aware of their involvement. Martzel had said that they would talk later, but first there was the shooting demonstration.
The men in the crowd were major property owners here in Patagonia and this was Manny’s introduction to them. Martzel had arranged this demonstration because they needed to be suitably impressed by Manny himself, not by his family connections.
