The Jackal's custom assassination rifle

The Jackal's custom assassination rifle is a purpose-built weapon whose importance lies as much in concealment as in its ability to fire accurately. M. Goossens makes it compact enough to break down into separate components, then provides padded tubes that disguise those components as harmless lengths of metal. The Jackal does not accept the work on appearance alone: he assembles, tests, adjusts, and finally transports the weapon in a way that completes the preparation of his assassination equipment.

Design and Construction

The rifle is ready when The Jackal returns to M. Goossens, but the armourer has made a separate case for it because the original would be too long. The flat case measures about two feet by eighteen inches by four inches deep. Inside, fitted compartments hold the components in a tightly arranged tray. The barrel and breech together are no longer than eighteen inches, and their lightness and shape initially make them resemble a submachine-gun barrel rather than a complete rifle.

The bolt is compact and operated from a small, knurled grip at the rear of the breech. A turn releases it, allowing it to slide back and expose the tray where a cartridge sits; pushing it forward and turning it locks it again. The modified metalwork also anticipates the rifle's detachable stock. Goossens has welded a small steel disc beneath the rear of the bolt, with a threaded central hole to take the stock frame. The original wooden stock is gone: its retaining-screw holes have been plugged and blued, and only slight flanges remain beneath the breech. The trigger has been sawn flush with the steel, so the weapon is not yet ready to shoulder and fire in its stripped-down form.

The stock is assembled from two steel rods and a curved, black-leather-padded shoulder piece. The rods fit into holes at either end of the butt; the arrangement outlines a stock when assembled without restoring the rifle's original wooden form. The Jackal seats the butt against his shoulder, grips the underside of the barrel, and tests the trigger. It produces only a soft click. This check marks the transition from a collection of parts to a functioning weapon, but the rifle still needs its silencer and sight.

Sight, Silencer, and Testing

Goossens supplies a silencer that screws onto the finely threaded end of the barrel, as well as a telescopic sight. Pairs of grooves along the barrel receive sprung clips beneath the sight, keeping the two aligned. Small adjustment screws on the sight correct the position of its crosshairs. Once attached, the silencer extends from the barrel, while the scope completes the rifle's long-range configuration. The assembled weapon is fully silenced and, in profile, appears more like a conventional rifle than the compact mechanism and detachable parts from which it was made.

The Jackal tests it in a forest clearing using a melon hung in a shopping bag from a hunting knife lodged about seven feet up a tree. He places the target at a distance intended to serve for practice at a hundred and fifty yards. Looking through the scope, he can see the string and even the marks of his fingers on the melon. His first shot scores across the fruit and buries itself in the tree; he fires again without moving the sight. The later shots establish a tighter grouping: by the ninth, one passes cleanly through the forehead where he aimed. He then works across the target's features and turns it to profile, aiming at the temple, ear, neck, cheek, jaw, and skull. Nearly all the shots strike where intended.

After the practice, The Jackal fixes the sight's adjustment screws with balsa-wood cement. When the cement hardens, the scope is set to his eyesight with this rifle at 130 metres. He then tests an explosive bullet. Unlike the melon, which had endured twenty lead slugs, the fruit disintegrates under this final shot, leaving fragments in the bag and scattered on the grass. The sequence distinguishes ordinary accuracy testing from the separate destructive effect of the special ammunition.

Concealment and Transport

The rifle's final form is designed to disappear when taken apart. On a later visit, Goossens lays out thin, polished steel tubes and fits the rifle's parts into them one by one. The interiors are lined with two layers of pale-grey baize, which absorb both noise and impact. The longest tube, twenty inches long, holds the barrel and breech; shorter tubes hold the stock's two struts, silencer, and telescope. The butt, with the trigger inside its padding, travels separately, as does the rubber knob containing the bullets. The Jackal rattles the tubes and hears nothing. Broken down and packed, the weapon no longer presents itself as a hunting rifle—or as a rifle at all.

The case and tubes turn the weapon's modular construction into a practical means of concealment. Its parts can be carried without the outline or noise of an assembled gun, while the separate padded butt and ammunition container complete the disguise. The Jackal approves the packing after examining each tube, and Goossens is pleased by the verdict. The armourer understands the quality of the object he has made, though he knows little about the identity or plans of his customer.

Role in the Preparation

The Jackal removes the component case from the hotel setting by placing it in a cheap fibre suitcase and depositing it in the station's left-luggage office. He leaves Brussels looking as he did on arrival, with his ordinary luggage carried by a porter, while the weapon remains out of sight. The completed rifle therefore represents more than a technical commission: its assembly, sight calibration, special ammunition, and discreet storage form a coordinated preparation for the coming operation. By the time The Jackal flies to London, the rifle is safely stowed and the preparation stage in France and Belgium has reached its close.