Shock Factor (13 page)

Sniper!

Adam dropped to the roof, heart pounding. He looked over at Mark and the two exchanged a few quick expletives.

Wasn't checking my flank. The fucking shot came from my right.

Adam stayed low and moved off the roof to report what had just happened. He found the OIC downstairs and let him know there was an enemy sharpshooter somewhere out to the southeast.

“Are you okay?” the OIC asked.

“Hell yeah!” Adam replied. “I'm still here talking to ya, aren't I?”

More than anything, the shot pissed Adam off. That son of a bitch who almost took his head off was still out there in some dingy hide, looking for Americans to kill. No way was Adam going to stay in the relative safety of the house while that threat loomed over the Army patrols now filtering through the streets around them.

Fuck it. Let's do this.

Adam went back to the roof and settled down beside Mark, ready to see if he could find the enemy sharpshooter. But only a minute or so had passed when Fizbo, the team's JTAC, called out trouble.

He'd been talking to a Marine F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot orbiting overhead. The aviator had his sensors trained on the neighborhood to the south, and his video feed detected a group of insurgents massing a few blocks over. At first, there were just a few. But within minutes, they had almost twenty armed fighters.

Was their sniper overwatching them? Just like we were doing for our guys? If that was the case, the enemy knew where the SEALs were and might soon try to maneuver on their building.

Adam peered over the parapet, but the street was still deserted. He ducked back down and told Mark. Fizbo was nearby, watching the F/A-18's video feed from an electronic device called a Rover, basically a small computer with a flat-screen monitor.

“They're moving,” Fizbo reported. There were around thirty of them now, almost a platoon-sized element.

The enemy force bounded toward the SEALs, then slipped into a building near the intersection. The Americans waited to see what their next move would be, but none of the insurgents emerged from the building.

What were they doing?

“Hey, Boss, let's use rockets on 'em,” one of the other operators said.

Getting permission to drop bombs in Ramadi was extremely difficult, but the Gold Team had sortied from COP Iron with two 84mm Swedish-made Carl Gustav rocket launchers and ten reloads for them. First produced in the 1940s, the Carl Gustav had been used by most NATO countries as an antiarmor weapon for half a century. Its accuracy and hitting power, combined with its portability, made it a favorite weapon inside Naval Special Warfare even though it had been phased out of service throughout the West.

The Carl Gustavs gave the Gold element some serious firepower slung across their backs. The insurgents outnumbered the SEALs and the squad of soldiers holding the three-story building. If ever there was a time to use that firepower, it was now.

Adam had one of the launchers. Fizbo coached him onto the structure the enemy had taken over. Adam loaded the Carl Gustav.

Dave, one of the other Gold element operators, had the other Carl Gustav. He loaded his, stole a quick look at the target building, and ducked back below the parapet. Then he turned to Adam and said, in a German accent, “I see them!” It was a line from the original
Die Hard
movie when the evil blonde terrorist was preparing to fire a rocket at a police armored vehicle.

Adam started cracking up. Even with all the tension, or perhaps because of it, he couldn't help it. Dave's performance was spot on, and juxtaposed against the backdrop of Ramadi, it was almost surreal.

Then the moment passed. Dave shouldered his launcher and stood up at the far end of the roof. With a fiery whoosh, he let fly with the rocket. A split second later, they heard a muffled blast as it exploded downrange.

Now it was Adam's turn.

Better bring my A game to this rocket business.

The insurgent sniper was still out there. Would he be waiting for Adam's head this time? His windage corrected after that first shot? Maybe he'd trained his reticle just a shade higher this time.

Adam paid little attention to that thought. If they didn't kill these guys, the team would have its hands full if the insurgents got much closer. This was the same neighborhood where Mike Monsoor had died; the enemy in this sector had a habit of exploiting blind spots and tossing grenades.

Keep these fuckers at arm's length or they'll get in around us.

The enemy sniper forgotten, Adam felt a sudden sense of relish. He'd deliver some payback for Mike, but this time instead of a single bullet, he'd send a seven-pound warhead their way at two hundred fifty yards a second. His rocket was set with a slight delay, which would allow it to penetrate the building's walls and explode inside.

In one fluid motion, Adam stood up, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Gauntlet

Half a mile from Adam's streaking rocket, a lone insurgent inched toward the SEAL sniper teams of Lieutenant “Jack Higgins's” element. Jack's men, wary of grenade attacks like the one that had killed Mike Monsoor, had set up their hides inside rooms on the top floor of the building they'd occupied. The eyes of al-Qaida noticed this, and came up with a counter to this new tactic. The lone insurgent was the messenger of that latest battlefield evolution.

This interplay between tactic and countertactic made the battlefield in Iraq an ever-changing environment. For both sides, the key to this dynamic was observation. Get eyes on the enemy, understand what he's doing, and figure out ways to stop him. For the Coalition, snipers, aircraft, and drones provided those eyes. For al-Qaida, it was their snipers, plus unarmed men and children wandering the streets to conduct preassault surveillance.

In Ramadi, everyone watched everyone else. Those few who evaded the technology and the many eyeballs would often do telling damage to their enemies.

Staying in the SEAL element's blind spots, the al-Qaida fighter worked his way into the house next door to the one the Americans had taken over. He went upstairs and out onto the roof, still unseen by the snipers. The two buildings were separated by only a few feet, but that did not deter this insurgent. Like something out of an action film, the man jumped across the space and ended up on the roof above the Americans.

Right then, the midday call to prayer began to blare through a local mosque's loudspeakers. The SEALs, long used to this Islamic ritual, noticed it sounded different. As they listened, one of the Iraqi NCOs with them rushed to Lieutenant Higgins and warned him the mosque was broadcasting a message to the insurgents.

Thanks to a group of kids who had spotted the SEALs earlier in the morning, the Jihadist on the roof knew exactly where the snipers had established their hide site. He crawled across the roof to a point directly above one of the firing ports they'd cut in the wall. Before the call to prayer had ended, he swung over the parapet and hurled a grenade into the room below. The Americans had little chance to react as the weapon rolled through the room. Petty Officer “Bill Barnum,” the element's corpsman, shouted a warning, but it was too late. The grenade exploded a few seconds later, spraying Bill with shrapnel.

As his brothers rushed to Bill's side, al-Qaida launched a simultaneous assault on all three of the Camp Corregidor SEAL hide sites. Moments before the streets had been empty. Now they swarmed with Jihadists, rushing and bounding and firing from the hips. The snipers opened up. So did the platoon's machine gunners. The enemy poured into nearby buildings and scrambled up the stairs into the higher floors to established support by fire positions. Soon they were hammering the SEALs with machine guns and rifles.

Lieutenant Higgins had been on the bottom floor when the grenade attack took place. As the firefight swelled, he ran upstairs to find Bill seriously wounded. One look at his leg, and the young officer knew they would have to get him out immediately.

This presented a problem. The neighborhood was alive with gunfire and running bad guys. Calling in a helo to extract Bill was out of the question—no way would anyone want to risk a bird to such intense ground fire. CASEVAC (casualty evacuation) by helicopter in such a dense urban environment was fraught with peril anyway, and it was unusual to get a wounded man out that way. In this case, it just couldn't happen, the threat level was too high.

The platoon had inserted into the hide sites on foot. Their vehicles were back at Camp Corregidor, which made evacuating Bill by themselves impossible—unless they carried him through the inferno outside, which didn't make any sense. Such a move would simply get more operators hurt. The only thing they could do was call for help.

Back at COP Eagle's Nest, a mechanized infantry platoon from the 1st Armored Division was standing by for just such an emergency. Before the SEALs had departed on their mission, the company commander had promised to come out should they need armor.

They needed armor. The SEALs radioed COP Eagle's Nest, and the Army launched four M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles their way. In the meantime, the operators hunkered down in the hide sites and waited for the Brads to come get their wounded brother. Bullets laced their buildings. The insurgents ducked and maneuvered, always supported by machine gunners and rifle fire. The SEALs didn't have the firepower to overwhelm this many insurgents. All they could do was hold on until the Brads arrived.

Minutes passed, the operators drained their mags and slapped home fresh ones. Then, in the distance, Lieutenant Higgins's men heard the low rumble of Bradley engines approaching. It was time to get out of Dodge.

The lieutenant prepped for the extract. Bill would be carried to the first track by another SEAL, “John Francis,” along with four Jundis. The rest of the element would jump into the other three tracks lined up in a column behind the lead Brad.

The snipers gathered their gear and dashed downstairs. Lieutenant Higgins and the others moved to the first floor, ready to dash for their assigned tracks. As they did, the firing died away. One minute, bullets filled the air, spattered the walls of their building, and cracked overhead. The next, the neighborhood fell so silent it seemed like one of those foreshadowing moments in a bad horror film.

Where had the enemy gone? Was this a hit-and-run attack? No doubt they'd heard the Bradleys coming to the rescue. Perhaps their commanders had ordered a withdrawal. Better that than stand up to the cannon carried by the American vehicles.

As the tracks got closer, the Jundis, Bill, and John Francis broke cover and went through the doorway into the midday sun. The other men followed and fanned out to set security.

That's when an explosion blew everyone off their feet. A mushroom cloud of smoke and dirt obscured the horrific scene as it boiled through the street and over the shattered neighborhood.

A Jundi near the point of the explosion was nearly ripped in half by shrapnel. Beyond help, he died a few minutes later. Bill Barnum and John Francis sprawled nearby, their clothes afire, bleeding from numerous shrapnel wounds. The blast broke both of their legs, and as their senses returned, neither man could walk. Two of the other Jundis with them were also down, bleeding and concussed. Almost everyone else had suffered slight shrapnel wounds.

Somehow, once the Muj had figured out where the SEALs had established their position, they had dispatched a couple of men to emplace an IED near the house's front door. Despite the fact that the operators had three-sixty security established, there were always going to be blind spots. It is the nature of an urban environment, a battlefield reality that the most cunning warriors can exploit.

The Muj in Ramadi knew every nook and cranny of this neighborhood. They were able to set the IED in place only a few yards from the front door, before backing off and waiting for the SEALs to pull out after the grenade attack. Whoever detonated the IED had been a veteran of such operations. Instead of blowing it at the first sign of the Jundis and Americans, he was patient. He triggered it only after most of the element had left the house and entered the bomb's kill zone.

Americans back home never really recognized the skill and tactical abilities of the enemy. Much of the U.S. military underestimated their capabilities as well, at least at first. The truth was, in Iraq we faced some of the best-trained and motivated guerrilla fighters ever encountered by a Western army. Some of the ones encountered in Ramadi had been fighting in the city for three years. They were veterans, and they blended their experience with a phenomenal ability to adapt and evolve in the face of American technology, grit, and firepower.

Now, with their bomb detonated, they ambushed the SEALs and Jundis from concealed positions up and down the street. Bullets scythed through the smoke and dirt, impacting on the road all around the dazed and disoriented men.

Lieutenant Higgins opened his eyes. The explosion had flattened him, knocked him senseless, but somehow its shrapnel had missed him. He lay on the ground, confused and concussed. As his brain reset and got a handle on the situation, he realized what had happened. Looking over, he could see his men down a few yards away. That was enough to kick-start him into action. Higgins got to his feet, staggered to John Francis and dragged him back inside the house.

As he did, the element's communicator (radioman) spotted Bill Barnum and ran across open ground through the enemy crossfire to his aid. The smoke and dust was thinning by now, and the Muj could make out the wraithlike images of the Americans and Iraqi troops as they reacted to the attack. They poured lead into the scene with everything they had.

The communicator pulled Bill back through the doorway and into the house. Bullets laced across the walls and windows, shattering things inside and prompting the SEALs to rush to the aid of the civilians inside with them. The family who lived there was frozen in terror, but several of the SEALs wrapped them up and shielded their bodies with their own. Keeping civilians safe at all costs was the new paradigm in Ramadi, and in this desperate moment, these courageous, but shocked and battered, Americans exemplified the selflessness it required.