Sniper Elite (2 page)

By the time they reached the Marines' forward positions, Tony had marked the locations of all thirteen wounded and dead Marines
on his map. He grabbed Gil by the elbow and pulled him into a concrete garage with good cover.

“Okay, look,” Tony said, dropping to his knee and laying out the map. “See the kill pattern here? This isn't random. That means one guy, Gil. And he's falling back in a kind of zigzag. See—?” He ran his finger back and forth along the grid to clarify his point. “He's moving corner to corner to maintain a clear field of fire—and all our head-shot Marines are inside this same diminishing kill zone. The fucker's bleeding them out, and by the time these boys work their way to the far side of town, they'll lose ten more. And then this
haji
prick is just gonna fade the fuck away—only we ain't gonna let that
the fuck
happen!” He quickly folded the map away inside his body armor. “So now we gotta find that jarhead CO and get him to halt this fucking advance before the sun starts to set—or better yet—get these guys to fucking pull back a block or two. That'll lure this
haji
motherfucker right back to us. Then you'll step on his dick, and I'll hack it off at the balls!”

As they were stepping out of the garage, a Navy corpsman and pair of stretcher-bearers rounded the corner carrying a young Marine with his face shot completely off.

“Put 'im down!” the corpsman shouted. “I gotta restore his fucking airway!”

Gil stood over the dying Marine, gaping at the shapeless mass of flesh where the boy's face had once been, unable to believe that a man without a face could even still be alive.

The corpsman hurriedly performed a tracheotomy to restore the Marine's airway, then the bearers hefted the stretcher back up between them, and they took off down the street in the direction of the incoming medevac.

“Ruck up!” Tony said, busting Gil on the shoulder, and the two of them took off to find the Marine major in charge of taking the town.

It took some hard convincing on Tony's part before the major would agree to give up two blocks of hard-earned real estate. “Look,
major, with respect—
sir
. You called us. Now, I'm telling you how we can kill this
haji
bastard. If you'll withdraw just two blocks, sir, those motherfuckers will think they're winning this goddamn battle. And that fucking sniper of theirs won't be able to resist moving to retake this prime position.” Tony indicated the position on the aerial photograph posted on the wall of the command post. “Sir, I'm fucking
positive
that's where he was when he took out six of your Marines in under ten minutes.”

“Where do you intend to lay for him?” the major wanted to know.

Tony indicated a tall building in the center of the block south of the suspected sniper position. “We'll take up an elevated position here, sir, with an excellent view overlooking his nest.”

The major looked to his captain. “What do you think, Steve?”

The captain looked at Tony. “You do realize that building will go back over to the enemy after we withdraw. You'll be cut off and surrounded.”

Tony smiled. “Only for a little while, Captain.”

The captain nodded, turning to the major. “If I was in command, sir, I'd take his advice. He seems to know what he's talking about.”

“Okay,” the major said. “How much time do you need to get in position?”

“Shouldn't take us more than fifteen minutes to get set, sir,” Tony replied. “After that, you can begin your withdrawal. The enemy sniper
should
approach from one of these two alleys to reoccupy the position. And when he does, sir, we will bag his ass.”

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.

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.”

“You can say that,” she said, rising up onto her elbows. “I mean, we only see each other about four months of the year. Sometimes, I wonder why we even—”

Machine gun fire raked the front of the Black Hawk, and bullets went whining off into the air.

“What the fuck!” Mitchell said, grabbing up his M4. “Enemy front!”

“Incoming!” one of the Rangers screamed from the far side of the ersatz village.

The first couple of mortars struck the ground, their telltale
crumping
sounds ripping through the air. Two more rounds quickly fell, and the flimsy buildings blew apart like houses made from playing cards. The nearest pair of Rangers leapt back to their feet and came sprinting toward the Black Hawk. Another round dropped just in front of them and they vanished.

“Jesus Christ!” Sandra scrambled into the cockpit. “Where the fuck did they come from? We're in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“We gotta get this bitch off the ground.” Mitchell was climbing
into the gunner's compartment behind her. “We're a sitting fucking duck here!”

The four remaining Rangers were still a hundred yards off across the village, running hard for the chopper as Sandra flipped the switches in the cockpit and the rotors began to turn. “We'll be airborne in sixty seconds.”

“We don't have sixty—!”

A mortar struck the tail section of the helicopter, lifting the hind end of the bird into the air and causing it to slew wildly around. Mitchell was slammed against the bulkhead, splitting his head open, and Sandra was thrown from her seat to the other side of the cockpit. The sound of small arms fire filled the air. Bullets snapped through the fuselage as she tried to call for support over the radio.

“It's fucked!” Mitchell grabbed for her arm. “We gotta dismount!” A round struck him in the chest and he dropped dead to the deck.

Captain Bordeaux leapt into the bird, grabbing Sandra's collar and hauling her from the aircraft against a hail of gunfire. They were both hit and fell out the open door. The other three remaining Rangers took cover as best they could near the fuselage, but it seemed they were surrounded on all sides, and the cover among the rocks was sparse at best.

“Did you get off a call for help?” Bordeaux asked, firing a few rounds into a coppice of trees to keep the enemy's head down.

“They took out the radio first thing,” Sandra said, gasping against the pain in her thigh where she'd taken a round from an AK-47. “I think it's up against the bone, Sean. Fuck me! It hurts like a holy bastard.”