Shock Factor (11 page)

He scanned the street again, looking for any Muj trying to sneak up on the building. Then he worked his way forward, his crosshairs passing through the first intersection. Nothing so far. He began to work on the rooftops. And that's when he saw him.

The pigeon flipper was back on the roof.

 

CHAPTER SIX

The Bull's Horns

“Boss, can I engage this guy?” Adam asked as he watched the pigeon flipper. The man had sent his birds into the air over his building again, and they busily executed somersaults at his command.

If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't take the shot.

Adam thought of the paperwork required after every trigger pull. Some JAG guy second-guessing his every move, passing judgment on whether he should have fired his weapon in the middle of a war zone. His maternal grandfather had served in Europe during World War II. What would have happened if they had these ROEs then?

The team's officer in charge told Adam that if it becomes obvious the pigeon flipper was signaling enemy forces, he could take him out.

Who plays with birds when running gunfights have broken out all over your neighborhood?

The sun was to the man's back as it rose over the buildings to Adam's left. The classroom grew increasingly bright, making the Illinois native worry again that his hide could be seen from the street.

The pigeon flipper disappeared again, and the birds all landed somewhere out of sight. This gave Adam a chance to take stock. He pulled his eye from his Win Mag's Nightforce and glanced around the room. Sunlight streamed through the glassless windows and soon there would be no shadows concealing their position. Behind him, somebody had covered the wall with camouflaged paper. It was the same woodland pattern he wore when hunting in Illinois. Against it, his hide stood out. Maybe Brown Sweater had already made his location. If not, whatever eyes were out there watching him would surely have him and Dave when the sun rose a little higher.

At least if anyone started shooting at him, he could return fire without having to worry about a prison sentence. Plus, he knew he was a better shot than al-Qaida's warriors were.

Fine. Bring it.

He settled back into his stance and brought his eyeball to the scope. At the closest intersection, the gaggle of military-aged men returned. They were laughing and joking again, but this time, several broke into spontaneous dances. A few pointed at the school and made mocking gestures.

They were celebrating. Right there in the street, right under the eyes of the enemy they'd just hammered. Smack in the middle was Brown Sweater, slapping backs and high-fiving like some immature athlete.

Dave was watching them, too. Adam heard him say, “They're rubbing our faces in it.”

“Yep.”

There were eight to ten in the middle of the intersection now. The celebrating died down, and they went into a tight huddle. Every few seconds, one of them would stick their head up out of the huddle and stare over at a particular part of the school. He'd nod, then drop back down into the huddle. It seemed as if they were calling their next play against the new COP.

Street football, Ramadi style. You fire the RPG at the gate, we'll sweep left and emplace an IED.

“Can we pull on these motherfuckers?” Adam asked. But as soon as he did, he knew the answer.

“Can't man. Can't do it. We're not inside the ROEs.”

ROEs the enemy clearly understood.

Adam scanned for weapons, though he knew they'd be unarmed. He checked Brown Sweater thoroughly, looking for a pistol in his waistband, or perhaps in his pocket. Nothing.

Brown Sweater's head rose above the huddle. He looked straight up at the school's fourth floor. From his scope, Adam could see his dark eyes seemingly boring into his.

He sees me. I know he sees me.

Snipers spend so much time watching other people who don't know they're being watched that they can tell who is up to no good, and who's just a passerby pretty easily after a while. Little details—facial expressions, body movement, the way somebody walks or stands—they telegraph tension, or fear, or anticipation.

Brown Sweater's eyes were full of hate. Adam had no doubt of that.

But he knew he could not take the shot. Even if he didn't get prosecuted, there could be a media circus. Those vultures were always circling, looking for another Haditha story, or Abu Ghraib. Even if it escaped the notice of the press, there were other drastic measures that could be taken against a sniper who'd strayed from the ROEs. A Trident Board could be convened by Naval Special Warfare, and the sniper could be kicked out of the teams. For Adam, after ten plus years, to get booted back to the fleet as a medic was a fate worse than death.

The huddle broke as the men dispersed again. Some ran across the intersection and disappeared to the east. Some exited to the west. A silence fell across the neighborhood, broken only by a few stray AK reports in the distance. A few more minutes passed. The snipers scanned and searched to no avail.

A third explosion shattered the calm. Another IED, but this time nobody was hurt and the targeted Humvee was not damaged.

A few minutes later, the pigeon flipper reappeared on the roof. His feathered pals began their aerial acrobatics. Adam reported it, and observed him long enough to make a decision.

Okay, that's it. This guy is definitely signaling somebody. He needs to die.

Before Adam could take aim, though, he ducked out of sight again. Adam vowed to dump the son of a bitch the next time he showed his face.

Sure enough, the birds had just landed back at their roosts when the gagglefuck returned to the intersection. The same ten, scruffy-looking males. This time, they stood close together, as if hiding from view something going on in the middle of the huddle. Adam couldn't get a fix on what they were doing. Neither could Dave.

Once again, Brown Sweater was right there in the mix. Greasy hair combed forward over his forehead. Long enough that his bangs almost touched his eyebrows. Cold eyes.

Adam reported what was going on again. This time, the officer in charge, the OIC, had had enough. “Hey fellas, you see anything suspicious, drop the hammer. I've had enough of this shit.”

So had everyone else. Everything going on since sunup had been hanky. Now it was game on, bad guys.

As if they sensed it, the gagglefuck broke up again. Brown Sweater trotted off, exit stage right. The street grew quiet again. The pattern had been established, and it was getting old. Time to throw something new at these sons of bitches.

A car rolled up one of the side alleys and pulled to a stop. Brown Sweater got out and walked into the street Adam was overwatching perhaps forty yards farther down from the first intersection.

He walked along the right side of the street to a doorway. It was set back a ways from the street, and the corner of a building partially obscured Adam's view of it. Nonetheless, he had a good enough view. He watched Brown Sweater through his Nightforce as Danny called out the range.

“Hundred ninety-three yards.”

Adam stole a quick look at the intersection to make sure the wind hadn't picked up there. In these moments, he looked for any indicators of a breeze—a fluttering towel, a passerby's shirt riffling, paper or trash cartwheeling as it rode the wind. Anything to get an idea of the dope to dial into the scope.

The morning was still. Nothing moved in the intersection. If Brown Sweater did anything to merit dropping the hammer on him, this would be a straightforward shot. Except the Win Mag had been zeroed at more than twice the engagement distance. Adam made a mental note to adjust for that by aiming a little lower.

But what if the fall knocked the scope out of alignment? What if the dope had been messed up when the dial got scuffed?

Brown Sweater knocked on the door. It opened, but neither Dave nor Adam could see who was inside. A hand reached out toward Brown Sweater to pass him something. For an instant, Adam had a clear view of the tailpipe of an RPG. Brown Sweater gripped it.

A bolt of adrenaline struck Adam, the same way he'd get juiced when a buck appeared in front of his blind back home when he and Justin and Dale would bow hunt. All morning, these bastards had been mocking the Americans, but not anymore. Brown Sweater finally made a mistake.

And signed his death warrant.

Adam reached up with his left hand and set his dope to a hundred yards without ever taking his eye out of the scope. The Win Mag fired a one-hundred-ninety-grain cartridge at a flat trajectory with a velocity of twenty-five hundred yards per second. At this range, if he hit him, it would be like using a sledgehammer to drive a finishing nail.

Adam forced himself to relax. Brown Sweater secured the RPG and stuffed it under his clothes.

Adam centered his crosshairs just below the man's heart. He was standing with his right side angled toward the school, with just enough of his chest visible for Adam to get a good target picture.

He slid his index finger into the trigger guard. Brown Sweater hadn't moved, but he wasn't going to stay there all day. This was the moment. Adam pulled through and felt the trigger break. A split second later, the Win Mag kicked against his shoulder.

Shit! I didn't breathe through the shot!

The 7.62mm round streaked downrange, leaving a faint vapor trail in its wake that some snipers can detect. The bullet struck Brown Sweater just above his heart, probably right in the breast bone.

Damn. Too high. Was going for his pump house.

Seemingly, in slow motion, Brown Sweater turned and looked up at the school's fourth floor. It felt to Adam as if the two made eye contact again. This time, the anger and malice and cold hate radiating in those dark eyes were gone, replaced by a mix of surprise and utter despair. His eyebrows drooped, and his mouth opened.

Then he toppled over a few feet from the door.

Adam racked his Win Mag's bolt. The spent casing spun out of the rifle and tinged off the desk before rolling off the edge and coming to rest on the floor below his hide. He slid the bolt back in place, jacking a fresh round into the chamber. The smell of gunpowder filled the room.

Adam watched Brown Sweater as he lay in front of the door. Whoever had been inside was nowhere in sight now, leaving his insurgent buddy to bleed out on his front porch. He was down, but had he killed him? Adam wasn't sure. He thought about taking a second shot to finish Brown Sweater, but realized that was a revenge impulse born from all the rage and frustration the morning had brought.

Be professional. Keep it to that one shot.

A flurry of moment caught his eye. From across the street to Adam's left, another insurgent sprinted from the cover of an alleyway. He was going straight for Brown Sweater, AK-47 in hand. He wasn't fast—in fact the man was pudgy and overweight. But he had courage to run after his downed comrade across an open street, something his pal in the doorway most certainly did not. As he ran, Adam recognized him as another one from the intersection gaggle.

After shooting high with his first shot, Adam adjusted his aim slightly and put the crosshairs a little lower on the running man's body. He tracked the insurgent as he reached the other side of the street and stopped beside Brown Sweater's bloody, twitching body.

The minute the pudgy Muj halted, Adam had him cold. He pulled the trigger, felt the Win Mag's kick. An instant later the bullet punched through the Muj's right side. It broke the man's ribs and probably clipped a lung. Adam had hit him just below the mid-axillary line. Was it enough to kill him? The sniper wasn't sure.

Damn. Too low. Just a little too low this time.

The second Muj dropped his AK and tumbled to the ground. Part of the building that jutted out toward the street blocked Adam's view of where he fell so he couldn't tell if his target was still alive or not.

Movement in the doorway wrested Adam's attention away from Brown Sweater and where his pal might have fallen. He shifted the scope slightly just in time to see a woman step outside. She saw Brown Sweater and began wailing. Even from his position almost two hundred yards away, Adam could hear her cries of anguish.

She bent down and grabbed Brown Sweater's now-still body, her own form wracked by her sobs. She pulled him toward the doorway, leaving a bloody streak on the ground in his wake. With a furious tug, she dragged him through the door. The last thing Adam saw were the man's shoes vanish into the darkness beyond the doorway.

A few minutes later, she stepped outside again to dump a bucket of soapy water onto what amounted to her front porch. The soap bubbles turned crimson as the water mingled with the blood drying there. She stood alone, staring down at the mess, still sobbing. Then she turned and went back inside, closing the door on all the violence that had gripped her neighborhood for months now.

Who was Brown Sweater to her? Husband? Son? Brother? No way to tell. The Marines had their hands full all over the sector that morning and a squad could not be spared to investigate. Whoever he was, he'd been trying to kill the Americans in the streets around the new COP. No doubts there, and Adam would spare no sympathy for him. By dropping Brown Sweater, he knew he'd saved American lives.

His life for saving some of ours.

The sniper's cold equation.

Shouldn't have been doing that, buddy.

Adam and the rest of his platoon never saw what happened to the second Muj he'd shot. After he fell out of his field of view, the man was probably dragged off as well. Did he survive? Not likely. If he had, he would have had a long recovery ahead of him.

After Adam took those two shots, the gaggle never returned. Neither did the pigeon flipper. Message received. You mess with the bulls of Team Five, you get the horns.

There were four attacks against the COP that day, though. Several Marines were wounded; fortunately nobody was killed. All day long, the insurgents harassed the Americans with hit-and-run small-arms-fire attacks. They shot at the Humvee patrols with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Other attacks were designed to draw attention away from teams of dedicated IED emplacers. Team Five learned that day how al-Qaida would do anything, use anyone to get those bombs in position.