Feldwebel Klaus Eberhart stood resting against a stone half-buried in the dunes of the Sahara, more ghost than man beneath the merciless sun.
His camouflage sleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing arms bronzed naturally by years of campaign and weather.
A keffiyeh, patterned in the same earthy tones as the sand around him, concealed his features.
Only the glint of his goggles betrayed humanity beneath the desert's mirage.
If not for the khaki chest rig and body armor strapped across his torso, as well as the rifle in his hands, one might have mistaken him for a trick of the light, an apparition conjured by heat and distance.
But a mirage he was not.
The rifle he held was not a bolt action relic of past wars.
It was a precision semi-automatic instrument. Sleek, balanced, and painted in the colors of the dunes around him.
More akin to the MSG 90 than the old Gewehr 98 or 43.
