Twenty minutes later, Gil and Tony were in place with a perfect overview of the enemy sniper nest in a corner meat market. They watched from their well-concealed hide on the roof of a three-story apartment building as the Marines were falling back through the position. Within ten minutes, they were isolated and soon to be cut off by encroaching enemy troops now moving to retake the ground they had lost during the first half of the day.
“We could hit a bunch of these guys right now,” Gil said, watching the enemy moving toward them along empty streets through the scope of the M-21 sniper rifle he still carried in those days.
“Which is exactly what that haji sniper is waiting for,” Tony said bitterly, watching through the scope of his own M-21. “He’s waiting to see if one of our snipers takes advantage of this fucking duck shoot. Give him time. Keep your fucking eyes peeled for a haji carrying a Dragunov. That’ll be your guy.”
“My guy?” Gil said, taking his eye briefly away from the scope.
Tony grinned. “I can’t think of a better prick for you to bust your fucking cherry on, Gilligan.”
Feeling his palms suddenly begin to sweat, Gil put his eye to the scope and carefully scanned each new man who came into view, their weapons, their beards and faces, multicolored shemaghs blowing with the breeze as they marched boldly forward. Many of them were laughing and gesturing excitedly, believing they were succeeding in forcing the Marines from the town.
A man dressed in green and carrying a longer weapon than the standard AK-47 darted from a laundry service to disappear beneath an awning.
“Did you see that?” Gil said. “Looked like a guy carrying a Dragunov just ducked under that awning.”
The Dragunov was a semiautomatic, 7.62 mm rifle that had been in Soviet service since 1963. Though it had not been developed originally as a sniper rifle, the rugged weapon had since become the preferred choice of snipers in the Middle East, boasting a range of 1,300 meters when fixed with a scope.
“See a scope?”
“No, it didn’t have a scope, but the stock was wrapped in cloth.”
“Probably just an RPK,” Tony said. “Our guy isn’t making these shots over open sights.”
An RPK-74 was a light machine gun that looked like an overgrown AK-47.
A couple of minutes later, a blur of dark green darted from beneath the awning, and this time there was a scope attached to his rifle. “I got him!” Gil said. He was unable to draw a good enough bead as the sniper darted carefully from shop to shop coming down the alley.
“See what the fuck I told you!” Tony said. “He’s moving to reoccupy that fucking position. Just be patient and let him come right into your kill zone. He’ll give you his back when he turns to mount that fucking staircase — that’s when you take him.”
The enemy sniper checked one last time up and down the alley, desperately scanning the rooftops without a prayer of spotting Gil or Tony ensconced among the scattered rubble of the cityscape. With the speed of a lizard, he darted across the street toward the staircase leading up the side of the building he intended to reoccupy.
He mounted the stairs and gave Gil his back at 200 yards.
“Take him,” Tony said calmly, watching the sniper through his own crosshairs in case Gil should miss.
Gil centered on the sniper’s spine at the base of the neck and squeezed off the round. The enemy sniper was dead instantly, crashing to his knees and falling backward down the stairs.
“Reap the whirlwind, motherfucker.” Tony bashed Gil on the shoulder. “When the battle’s over we’ll find that fucker and get you your boar’s tooth.”
Now Gil lay in his position behind the saddle, watching the elk move gracefully through the grass. The animal paused to test the air. Gil drew a shallow breath and squeezed the trigger. The round severed the beast’s spinal cord at the base of the neck just forward of the shoulders, and the elk dropped dead to the ground, never knowing what hit it.
CHAPTER 2
Warrant Officer Sandra Brux sat beside her copilot Warrant Officer Billy Mitchell in the open doorway of their UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit. Sandra was twenty-nine years old with dark hair and blue eyes, an excellent helicopter pilot beginning her third tour in the Middle East. They watched as a six-man team of US Army Rangers ran through a training exercise, rehearsing a night raid “snatch ’n’ grab” presently set for the following week. Sandra and Mitchell were both Night Stalkers, pilots of the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), which routinely operated with both Army and Naval Special Forces. Known throughout the Spec-Ops community as the best of the best, they were the go-to badasses in the air for the go-to badasses on the ground, and Sandra was the first female pilot to be made a member.
The Rangers were maneuvering through a flimsy plywood village mock-up, working out the timing of their attack. The rehearsal site was considered “secure” as it was located fifty miles from the lines (to the extent that “lines” even existed in this godforsaken place). The snatch ’n’ grab was to be carried out against a Muslim cleric named Aasif Kohistani living in a small village in the north of Nangarhar Province. Kohistani was the leader of an Islamist political party called the Hezb-e Islami Khalis (the HIK). The HIK was gaining political influence in the Afghan parliament, and recent intelligence reports indicated that Kohistani was now working with the Taliban to consolidate his growing military power in and around Nangarhar Province in the face of the scheduled American drawdown.
Obviously, American forces would not be able to make their scheduled drawdown work if the HIK and Taliban forces began a resurgence, so it was necessary to remove Kohistani from the picture, lest he become as strong as the already troublesome Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who lead the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin faction (HIG) based out of the Shok Valley of the Hindu Kush. Both the HIK and the HIG had made significant gains in parliamentary influence over the past year, and both were violently opposed to Afghan-US relations.
Sandra flicked away the smoking butt of her cigarette and lay back on the deck of the helicopter to close her eyes, smiling pleasantly to herself. She and the Ranger team leader, Captain Sean Bordeaux, had secretly hooked up the night before back at the air base outside of Jalalabad. It had been a much-needed tryst for both of them, each of their military spouses being stationed on the other side of the world. Six months was a long time for anyone to go without, but the nature of their respective jobs was extremely stressful, and this stress had long been exacerbated by the uncommonly strong attraction between them — which was no one’s fault but that of Mother Nature. The sexual tension between them was now dispelled, however, and both of them were thinking much more clearly, able to focus their full attention on their respective missions.
“Hey, have you heard from Beth?” Sandra asked.
Mitchell sat squinting into the morning sun, watching as the Rangers retook their positions to begin another “infiltration” of the village. He and Sandra were the only security for the training op. He drew pensively from his cigarette, thinking of his wife who was due to give birth in less than a week.
“Last night,” he answered. “She said she could pop any minute. Could be happening right now, for all I know. How come you and John don’t have any kids?”
She lifted her head to look at him. “Do I look like I’m ready to have kids?”
He laughed. “Well, I guess it’s a little different with you guys.”