Suddenly, Bower was aware of someone beside her, a ghost resolving in the dark. Startled, she turned, on the verge of screaming. White eyes pierced the darkness. Jameson crouched next to her. His face was painted in a disruptive pattern, in jagged shades of charcoal and black. His radio crackled with a soft hiss.
“You scared the hell out of me,” Kowalski said, expressing what Bower felt.
Jameson grinned, his teeth a stark contrast to the night. He handed them a couple of flak jackets.
“Here, put these on.”
Bower slipped the Kevlar vest over her head as Kowalski asked, “No helmets?”
“No spares. Keep your head down and you won’t need one.”
“Thanks,” Bower said, feeling clumsy as she strapped the heavy vest in place. She’d worn Kevlar before in training scenarios, but never under fire.
Jameson spoke into his radio, saying, “Recon Sit Rep.”
Over the static, Bower heard, “I’ve got three parties in the scrub, at 11, 3 and 7. Over.”
“Roger that.”
Kneeling down beside them, Jameson drew a large circle in the dust with his finger. “They know there’s been an outpost here. They’re feeling us out, looking to see if anyone’s home, probing our defenses.”
“Where are they?” Kowalski asked.
“Imagine a clock, with high noon facing due north.”
He drew three lines, pointing at where the hours 11, 3 and 7 would have been if his circle had been a clock face.
“We’ve got movement at these locations. They’re spoiling for a fight.”
“What do we do?” Bower asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” she replied, incredulous. “You scared me half-to-death and now you’re telling me you’re not going to do anything about a bunch of murderous thugs creeping up on us in the dark?”
Her words were low, almost as though she were uttering something blasphemous.
“Rules of engagement. They haven’t demonstrated hostile intent. We have to wait for them to initiate contact.”
“They have us surrounded and that doesn’t bother you?” she asked.
Jameson pointed at the bulky contraption strapped to the front of his helmet. “Night vision. They think they’re moving in under the cover of darkness, but we hold the tactical advantage.”
“Do you have a gun I could use?” Kowalski asked.
“Have you ever fired a gun before?” Jameson asked in reply.
Kowalski paused slightly before answering. “My father took me hunting as a teen.”
“Well, no offense to you and your father, but combat is rather different to shooting at furry little animals that can’t fight back. You’re more likely to shoot one of us than you are one of them.”
“But we need to protect ourselves,” Kowalski replied. “What if we’re overrun?”
“You’ve got to trust us on this. Let us do our job.”
Kowalski didn’t look too impressed by that response.
“Listen Doc, if I come through this with a bullet in my ass, I promise, I won’t tell you how to do your job, OK? Right now, you’ve got to let me do mine.”
“Sure,” Kowalski replied. From the subtle tone in his voice, Bower could tell his feathers had been ruffled.
“Have either of you been in a combat situation before?”
Neither Bower nor Kowalski answered verbally. They simply shook their heads.
“All right. You’ve got to prepare yourself for what could happen. You will hear gunfire. Don’t freak out. Keep your head down. Stay low. If you need to move around, crawl. We’re going to fire some illumination flares when contact commences, but that’s not to light them up, it’s to destroy their ability to see in the dark, make it harder for them to pick out silhouettes moving at night. It’s a bluff, to mislead them, to make them feel like it’s a fair fight. When it comes to warfare, there’s no such thing as a fair fight, there’s kill or be killed.”
Bower nodded her head understanding she was being given privy access to the battle plan the Rangers had formulated.
“Rifle fire is loud. It’s intimidating, overwhelming, but I want you to listen for something else. Try to ignore the gunfire and listen for the sound of any impacts near you.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant. Jameson must have picked up on that from the look on her face as he mimicked two distinctly different sounds.
“You’ll hear something like ppft BANG, ppft BANG.”
Bower screwed her face up.
“If you hear that, they’re shooting at you. Remember, these guys are firing supersonic rounds, so you’ll hear the round whiz pass and strike something near you before you hear the gunfire itself, ppft BANG.”
Bower nodded.
“There’s going to be a lot of noise, a lot of confusion. You’ll swear someone’s shooting at you, but don’t freak out, listen for where the rounds are landing, listen for the impact. That’s your best guide. There will be a lot of echoes, a lot of sound bouncing around off the mud huts, off the jungle, and that can be disorienting, confusing. Listen for impacts. If there’s none, you’re fine, they’re not firing at you.”
Kowalski nodded, which reminded Bower to nod as well. She felt like a school kid taking instruction from a Phys-Ed teacher.
“If you see poofs of dust or chips of mud and rock flying, the bullets are coming from the opposite direction, from roughly 180 degrees. Stay low.
“You’re going to want to run, but don’t. Don’t try to get away. As tempting as it is, you don’t want to run from gunfire as you’ll make yourself an obvious target. Move closer. I know it sounds strange, but it’s all about angles. If you move away from the shooter, in the direction the bullets are traveling, you’ll make yourself an easy target. You want to do the opposite. Move under cover toward the shooter as that destroys his angle. By moving closer you’re moving up against an obstacle that hides you from sight. From there, crawl laterally, left or right, but stay out of sight.
“Remember, if you can hear gunfire those bullets have already passed you by. You’ll flinch and duck but if they were on target they’d have hit you already.
“If you hear a whiz or a crack but no impact, they’re shooting high and the bullets are flying past. Just stay low and don’t panic.
“If there’s a lull in the fighting, stay put. You’ll just draw attention to yourself if you move around. We will come for you. We know where you are. We’ve aligned our fields of fire to cover this location, so don’t leave here, if you do you could be hit by friendly fire as much as by rebel fire.”
Bower swallowed the knot in her throat.
“Stay low. Don’t panic,” she repeated back to him, already feeling panicked. In her time in Africa, she’d had a few close calls with some of the tribesmen, but never anything that made her feel like she was in a war zone. With the UN presence, the civil war in Malawi had ground to a halt, but now she sensed some of the fear she’d seen in the villagers’ eyes when she had first arrived.
“I need you to communicate this to your staff. OK?”
Jameson was looking into her eyes, his eyes darting between each of her eyes, looking to see if she understood. Bower felt out of her depth.
“OK.”
“The rebels are undisciplined. They’ll fire at shadows. They’ll let off a long rat-a-tat-tat. If you listen, you’ll hear us firing back, but our rounds are smaller and we’re using muzzle suppression to avoid a flash that would give away our position. Our rounds will sound more high-pitched, like the crack of a whip. And you’ll only ever hear the Rangers firing controlled bursts. Just one or two shots at a time, but don’t worry about that. Firefights are about precision, not bluster. We’ll only fire when we’re on target, when we’re sure of a hit. If you hear lots and lots of machine gun fire, don’t be scared. Remind yourself, they’re wasting ammo and they’re giving away their position. If anything, they’re making our job easier.”