mortars, putting the Colt to his brain was about as good an option as running away.
Fuck!
The biggest billy goat sniffed along the edge of the cover tarp only inches from his face. Jesus. Don’t fucking chew my cover. He tested his regular grip on the Barrett and tried to ignore the animal. No good. The finger was worse. He was forced to roll his left shoulder and cup with his thumb and middle finger to keep the painful index finger out and away, clear from touching anything. Breaking routine.
He could hear the mantras of a dozen trainers: “ Improvisation is overrated . Routine methods produce intended results. Routine brings you back alive.”
Two clicks might bring in the Strykers. Play the percentages. Abort!
Outside the main village walls, scrawny dogs yawned awake and moved carefully around the periphery of bearded men wearing pakols and lungees on their heads who squatted drinking tea by the morning fire with their baggy pants hiked up along their thighs. Spencer raised the bipod and drew in a deep breath of air before putting his eye to the scope. The billy goat straddled the Barrett’s long rifle barrel.
“Got you.”
His second target, a middle-aged Pashtun wearing a dirt-white lungee around his head, a long red-haired beard hanging down to his chest, strolled out to greet the others.
“Asalamo Alikom.”
“Walikom Wa Salam.”
The men shook hands. Red-beard thanked them but waved away the offer of tea.
Ten o’clock position. He looked left as a gaggle of women with their heads wrapped in chador passed deep red and rich blue rugs over a stiff clothesline then smacked at them, raising puffs of dust off their forked sticks with each strike.
Ahead of him lay open furrows of red soil tilled by donkey and by hand. He saw concrete culverts and steel water gates along the irrigation channels. Somebody had to have brought those in. Without reliable diesel supplies, the work was done by hand; tractors were of little use, even if the village might have afforded to buy one. Helmand Province, ground zero for the world’s opium supply .
Get out of here, Goat!
Spencer reached out to thwack at the back of the goat’s leg. Instead of retreating, the creature bleated and turned toward the hide, angrily trusting its horns beneath the tarp until Spencer finally punched its nose. That sent it running.
Provided that his Comsys worked and the Predator was where it was supposed to be and his extraction vehicles didn’t run into an ambush or an IED and intel was correct that there were no mortars in the village, provided that all of it was perfect, then he was home free. Cake . The Strykers should be waiting in the wadis and gullies four miles to the north and west to come in and extract him. Upon confirmation of target, he was to contact them by sat-phone. Three targets, and then hold off whatever firepower that the 200-person mud village could muster from behind the walls, wrap it up and hop into an air-conditioned rig. Piece of cake. Only, he and anyone else with half a brain knew that one man and a Barrett 50 weren’t going to hold off that whole village. These were people who had already lasted through two generations of continuous warfare. This ground had seen three thousand years of violence between families and villages and tribes. Piece of cake? Piece of shit, just as likely. But thinking you’re dead and living is only a short vacation makes the work easier.
Lifting his mini-scope to his right eyeball, he scanned the fields outside the walls in search for his primary target, the bomber. Miller had briefed him that Red beard and the mother, the whacko parents, were helping their son plan to blow himself apart. Something there should have tipped him off; no parents help their children commit suicide. But he wasn’t questioning, not on that level.
Despite the cover cloth, the Barrett’s tan muzzle was radiating heat up the barrel. His palms slowly baked; he had to lift his face away from the rifle to
Fuck!
The biggest billy goat sniffed along the edge of the cover tarp only inches from his face. Jesus. Don’t fucking chew my cover. He tested his regular grip on the Barrett and tried to ignore the animal. No good. The finger was worse. He was forced to roll his left shoulder and cup with his thumb and middle finger to keep the painful index finger out and away, clear from touching anything. Breaking routine.
He could hear the mantras of a dozen trainers: “ Improvisation is overrated . Routine methods produce intended results. Routine brings you back alive.”
Two clicks might bring in the Strykers. Play the percentages. Abort!
Outside the main village walls, scrawny dogs yawned awake and moved carefully around the periphery of bearded men wearing pakols and lungees on their heads who squatted drinking tea by the morning fire with their baggy pants hiked up along their thighs. Spencer raised the bipod and drew in a deep breath of air before putting his eye to the scope. The billy goat straddled the Barrett’s long rifle barrel.
“Got you.”
His second target, a middle-aged Pashtun wearing a dirt-white lungee around his head, a long red-haired beard hanging down to his chest, strolled out to greet the others.
“Asalamo Alikom.”
“Walikom Wa Salam.”
The men shook hands. Red-beard thanked them but waved away the offer of tea.
Ten o’clock position. He looked left as a gaggle of women with their heads wrapped in chador passed deep red and rich blue rugs over a stiff clothesline then smacked at them, raising puffs of dust off their forked sticks with each strike.
Ahead of him lay open furrows of red soil tilled by donkey and by hand. He saw concrete culverts and steel water gates along the irrigation channels. Somebody had to have brought those in. Without reliable diesel supplies, the work was done by hand; tractors were of little use, even if the village might have afforded to buy one. Helmand Province, ground zero for the world’s opium supply .
Get out of here, Goat!
Spencer reached out to thwack at the back of the goat’s leg. Instead of retreating, the creature bleated and turned toward the hide, angrily trusting its horns beneath the tarp until Spencer finally punched its nose. That sent it running.
Provided that his Comsys worked and the Predator was where it was supposed to be and his extraction vehicles didn’t run into an ambush or an IED and intel was correct that there were no mortars in the village, provided that all of it was perfect, then he was home free. Cake . The Strykers should be waiting in the wadis and gullies four miles to the north and west to come in and extract him. Upon confirmation of target, he was to contact them by sat-phone. Three targets, and then hold off whatever firepower that the 200-person mud village could muster from behind the walls, wrap it up and hop into an air-conditioned rig. Piece of cake. Only, he and anyone else with half a brain knew that one man and a Barrett 50 weren’t going to hold off that whole village. These were people who had already lasted through two generations of continuous warfare. This ground had seen three thousand years of violence between families and villages and tribes. Piece of cake? Piece of shit, just as likely. But thinking you’re dead and living is only a short vacation makes the work easier.
Lifting his mini-scope to his right eyeball, he scanned the fields outside the walls in search for his primary target, the bomber. Miller had briefed him that Red beard and the mother, the whacko parents, were helping their son plan to blow himself apart. Something there should have tipped him off; no parents help their children commit suicide. But he wasn’t questioning, not on that level.
Despite the cover cloth, the Barrett’s tan muzzle was radiating heat up the barrel. His palms slowly baked; he had to lift his face away from the rifle to
Similar Books
Eve of Man (The Harvest Book 2)
Anne Ferretti
A Christmas Promise
Anne Perry
The Orange Curtain
John Shannon
Learning Not to Drown
Anna Shinoda
A Wedding in Truhart
Cynthia Tennent
Dead Man's Footsteps
Peter James
The Ruby Dice
Catherine Asaro
Kissing Kate
Lauren Myracle
The Silk Merchant's Daughter
Dinah Jefferies