Thomas focused on his diaphragm and empty lungs, and fought panic. He kept his body flat on the ground so as not to get shot again, and felt his stomach where the round had hit him. He expected hot, wet blood, and the ropy intestines that were surely opened to the air by the shot, but he found no blood. His hands searched around for pain or wetness as Glen hollered out to him, but he found nothing. Then his fingers found the impact site; two of his magazine pouches had been torn free by the round. He’d avoided being disemboweled by no more than inches. He laughed as Glen continued to scream to get his attention. Finally Thomas heard Glen in his ear, over their comms.
“Are you okay, I saw you get hit,” Glen asked, panic in his tone.
Thomas smiled and thumbed the transmitter, “Magazine pouches caught the round for me. I’m fine. Give me a second to get my breath back and we’ll smoke this prick out. Careful though, he’s a good shot.”
“Roger that. Scared me on that man. I can’t afford this shit.”
“Tell me about it,” Thomas said as he rolled onto his stomach and angled his body to get into a shooting position. He immediately didn’t like the spot he was in. If the shooter was aiming at him, the moment he put his barrel around the stone he’d be shot in the face. “Glen you’re gonna have to draw him out for me to get shots off. I’m in a less than ideal place.”
“Yeah you got it. Ten seconds and I go.”
“Sounds good.”
“Thomas!” Glen yelled, “To your right!”
Thomas rolled and looked up to his right. Looming above him was the falling figure of a long dead Afghan local, rage in his undead face. Tommy lifted his hands up and caught the falling weight of the zombie as it plummeted. Dirty, blood soaked hands scratched at his chest, digging furrows in his chest straight through the fabric of his BDU with dirty blood tinged nails. He felt pain as scarlet stains began to spread. The zombie’s broken teeth snapped together as the weight of his dead flesh pressed down on Thomas. The SEAL was desperate, and Glen couldn’t move to come help him.
Tommy’s body was at a ninety degree angle to the zombie attempting to devour his flesh. He used his good leg to spin his body in line with the zombie in the gravel, scratching his back nearly as bad as chest, but allowing him to bring a bent leg underneath, preventing the zombie from being able to fall completely on him. He got his right hand free and unsheathed his combat knife from the sheath on his calf. As he fought the scratching and clawing arms of the dead Afghan, he spun the blade in his palm so it was down facing, and slammed it with every ounce of strength he could muster into the ear of the dead man. It sunk in the depth of his index finger, and with a few twitches the zombie’s assault came to an end. Dark black blood oozed out of the puncture hole and dripped onto Thomas, and he heaved the body to the side.
“Are you good?” Glen asked over the comms.
Thomas yanked the blade out with a grunt and gingerly touched the scratches in his chest that were sure to catch infection and scar, “Yeah I’m good. Gimme a minute to set up.” Tommy looked around to ensure no more undead could sneak up on him, and he readied his M110 to fire on the man who’d been trying to kill him just a minute before. When he was prepared, he squelched for Glen.
Glen moved like an Olympic triathlete he was. Thomas knew that back home in Coronado for fun Glen participated in Triathlons. He was perennially a high finisher in competitions in Hawaii, Florida and Utah. He was in peak physical condition at all times, and his body showed it. Glen immediately came under fire and Thomas edged sideways behind the stone to look for the shooter.
He used his naked eye to scan the world as he waited for another shot. His position had given him space from the tire smoke, and the low hanging wall of purple smoke from their grenade, and he searched as he waited for another shot.
His ears heard the crack, and his eyes saw the minute flash. A small puff of dust rose from the ground and he leaned down to the scope of his rifle as his hand flicked the safety to fire. His body was a concert of coordinated action. As he readied his weapon to fire his hands and shoulder guided it to point at the spot where he’d seen the shot. By the time his eye and cheek met the rifle it was already within a meter of where the enemy shooter was hidden. He had but a second, perhaps two to guess the range, windage, and then put the crosshairs where a bullet would hurt.
He couldn’t fail Glen.
His keen vision worked in his favor for this race. Thomas and his brothers were blessed with their father’s eagle like vision, and he saw something that was out of color. A strip of fabric perhaps, a sleeve of a brown that didn’t belong. He knew the shot wouldn’t kill, but it would certainly make return fire impossible. He stroked the trigger gently, hoping his gut was right on the shot placement. The rifle kicked back into his shoulder and loudly sent a metal jacketed round across the valley floor, sailing high above the heads of the undead. Thomas could see them hesitate as they heard the dueling sniper fire, unsure of where to go to kill. He watched as his round hit low, kicking up a storm of stone and sand into the space where he had wanted the bullet go.
The target, the shooter, reacted to the sudden face full of dirt and rock. They lifted their head from their concealed rifle, and gave Thomas a profile to fire at. His brain worked the mathematics of the shot as his finger did the heavy lifting. He adjusted his firing location up and sent the second round, and before the sniper could lower his head, Thomas’ round exploded it. The vibrant red of the dead sniper’s blood stood out starkly against the stone he’d been taking cover near. The SEAL took tremendous satisfaction as the body of the Afghan shooter fell down behind the now harmless rifle. He sat very still waiting for an unseen partner to take up the weapon, but none did. Their shooter was dead.
Glen skidded into cover in a ditch in the earth about five meters from where Thomas had just taken his shots. He grinned from his back at his warrior brother, “Get him?”
“Copy that. One severe case of lead poisoning.”
Glen nodded, “I wish I could shoot like you.”
“I wish I could shoot like my brother Adrian. If he had gone to sniper school brother they would be telling stories about him.”
“He sounds cool man. Maybe someday we’ll make it back and find him and my wife,” Glen mused.
“If anyone is still alive back home, it’d be my brothers. I’d bet my life on it,” Thomas said, looking over at his SEAL brother. He was thankful to still have Glen, even if his family was lost in this limbo of a shattered world.
“You bet your life on enough Tommy. Let’s go find the towel heads with the mortar before that suicide bomber makes his way over here. I want to go back to Kandahar.”
Thomas nodded, and the two men got to their feet. It had already been a hard day, and it was nowhere near being over. They began to jog towards where they felt the mortars had come from.
Warfare is both art, and science. There is an ebb and flow to battle that only those that have learned to feel it, can describe it, and even fewer can find ways to control it. Knowing when to retreat, when to advance, and how to judge the abilities of your enemy is something that is hard to define. It is much like learning how to compose a painting, or a concerto.
The science of warfare is chemistry, engineering, geology, geography, and mathematics. Making proper bomb, or an advanced bullet, requires scientists, and engineers. Proper maps require satellites and scouts with lasers. Firing a mortar accurately requires mathematics. Distance, elevation, propulsion, and more all factor into the equation that the mortar firers solve. An excellent mortar crew can drop their base plate, set the mortar up, and be firing accurate rounds hundreds and hundreds of meters away in seconds, then pick up and be gone just as fast, having never laid eyes on where they were launching their ordnance to.
Tommy and Glen were hoping the crew of this mortar didn’t attend much school, and were simply set up in a pre-sighted location. As they ran from cover location to cover location, they agreed an elevated position was likely. They headed up the slope of
the valley to where they hoped they’d hear the mortars fire.
Thomas radioed Ellem, “Sergeant we’re moving on the mortar, it seems they only had a single shooter to suppress you. I’m wondering if that shooter was their spotter as well. Can you get a guy to a firing position and shoot some of the undead at your doorstep? See if we can’t get them to drop another round on you so we can find their location?”
“Yeah you bet,” Ellem responded quickly. Within moments they could hear the distant and distinctive cracks of the Marine’s M4 carbines. The firing was controlled and deliberate. In his mind’s eye Tommy envisioned head shot after head shot bringing down the reanimated villagers, ending their rotten unlives at long last. The two SEALS kept their eyes and ears peeled for the thumping noise of a dropped mortar.
It didn’t take long. About three hundred meters uphill and north from their position in a cleft on the valley side they’d heard the mortar’s POOM! It would be an easy approach for them as the incision in the valley would provide them cover from above and below. The two men nodded, and Glen took point with his more agile M4A1. Moving slowly but smoothly, they’d be at the mortar in less than two minutes.
Five members of the Taliban were there waiting for them in the fading daylight.
The mortar lay at the end of the crooked cut in the stone the two men approached in. Perched in the stone above the mortar was a strange tree that clung to the rocks. It had been split open a long time ago by a strike of lightning, and it gave the SEALs pause. A long dead tree overlooking a dying world, and men who sought to murder. It was eerie. A bad omen. The end of the ravine fish hooked to the right into an open slot that looked out high over the valley, and gave the mortar crew an ample view of the valley floor, yet also shielded them from any fire that might come from below. The SEALs appreciated the location of the mortar, it was defensible, and aside from the dried out death tree above it, well placed.
The SEALs stopped short of rounding the corner to the open area where the mortar was. Once they moved beyond a certain point it would be all trigger pulling, and they were walking into an area that could very well be booby trapped. Glen reached into a pocket on the side of his trousers and pulled out a rare child’s toy; a small can of pink silly string. He shook the can and prayed that the spray would come out quietly. His finger depressed, and out came a silent jet of thin pink foam. The sticky material flew out ten feet and fell slowly to the ground of the ravine, but in one spot, it hung suspended in midair, almost as if levitating.
A tripwire.
Glen slid forward on one knee, his right hand holding his M4A1 at the corner in the ravine as Tommy covered him. If anyone came round the stones there he’d depress that finger again, but instead of a face full of pink string, the walker would get a face full of 5.56mm. He reached the spot where the pink foam lay on the wire, and examined it. The wire led to a grenade that was wedged in between two stones. The explosion would be tightly confined in the narrow stone path, causing tremendous damage to whoever tripped the wire. Glen slung his weapon and gripped the grenade tightly, removing it from the trap.
He turned to Tommy with unrestrained glee on his face, pointing to the grenade and mouthing, “Free grenade!”
Tommy had to stifle a laugh. He pointed to the hook in the stone path and slung his own long weapon on his back. To move as fast as he really wanted to, he’d need a smaller weapon. His own M4A1 was back at Firebase Walker, so he drew his Mark 23 handgun and threaded the suppressor on with practiced haste. Tommy loved the heavy beast, and the way it sat in his hand. Glen preferred the Sig P226 and its lighter 9mm, but Tommy wanted to know that every single round was going to knock the teeth out of a man he shot only in the asshole. The .45 was his caliber of choice for a handgun. He readied his two thousand dollar hand cannon, and nodded to his brother.
Glen pulled the pin on his brand new grenade and tossed it over the stones that separated them from the men they were about to assault.
The grenade went off with an ear splitting BOOM! The dust hadn’t even settled to the ground and the two SEALs were moving. Assaults like this were about violence of action, and leaving your enemy no time to recover. Glen kept the point position and round the stones keeping his eyes alert, and his finger prepped. His finger slid down to the trigger as they entered the hot area.
Two dying men were propped up against the left stone wall of the ravine, clutching at wounds in their abdomen, weapons at least a foot or two away from their busy hands. Glen held his fire, knowing they weren’t the biggest threats, and that Thomas would handle them in a second. His barrel sighted across the room, looking for moving targets with weapons. He saw the mortar, tipped over on its side impotently, no more than a pipe with murder in its past. A scorch mark near the base plate told him where his grenade had landed. Immediately to the right of that, nearest the opening in the stone that looked out over the valley, there was a man crouching, stunned and trying to pick up an AK-47. Glen’s finger pulled the trigger, and on full auto his M4A1 spat out five rounds into the man’s head and upper body. He fell on the rifle he was trying to pick up.
Across the gap in the stone was a man lying dead, or so close to it as to not matter. As Glen moved his weapon to meet that area of the space he registered the movement of someone on the ground. Another man had been on his back, and lifted his own AK-47 to fire. The heavy Russian weapon tore open the evening air and sent a stream of lethal lead through the space between the two SEALS.
At nearly the same time behind him Tommy snapped off two rounds into the chest and face of the first wounded man on the ground just as Glen knew he would. Glen’s weapon went cyclic and let the muzzle lift carry the rounds across the area of the room the man was. He watched as a few of the lethal rounds skipped off the ground and stones before finding the warm, living flesh of the terrorist. The man screamed out as his thigh, waist, and stomach each caught a high velocity round. Immediately he began the slide into shock as his perforated bowels fell apart inside him. Glen tapped the trigger once more, ripping the man’s head apart and ending his agony. If anything, Glen was merciful, and generous.
Tommy squeezed off two more rounds into the other wounded man as he rolled over towards his discarded AK, ending that threat. The two men searched the space for any other threats, and found none. Tommy put one more suppressed round into the head of the dead man in the center of the room to be sure he’d never sit up again. He removed his suppressor and holstered the pistol, taking up a firing position in the gap in the stone with his M110. Glen provided security while Tommy looked down on the valley floor below. Far away, hundreds and hundreds of meters away Tommy saw the trucks that had unloaded the undead earlier in the day. In the day’s dying light he couldn’t quite make out good shots, but he could see a smaller vehicle mixed in near the forefront of the trucks. It stood out and made him wonder.
“One Corolla mixed in with the Mercedes trucks. Single occupant, clean as day.”
Glen stopped his search of the dead bodies, “There’s your VBIED.”
Tommy nodded slightly, “Do they have any more mortar rounds?”
Glen looked around and saw a few leaning up against the stones, “Yeah they have six rounds left. Got an idea?”
“Let’s set this mortar back up. Send them some of their own airmail.”
“Navy couriers never miss a delivery you know. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor insurgent attacks prevent us from delivering our packages,” Glen quipped.
“Amen to that.”
The two men worked together setting the mortar upright and ensuring that it wasn’t damaged by the grenade blast. All of its parts were in working order, and through the scope of his rifle, they dialed in the dope on the mortar. Both men had trained on the Russian mortar before, and it came quickly to them. They found these relics often, and it was a key skill to be able to use your enemy’s weapons if needed.
“Dialed. Good to go,” Glen said.
Tommy shouldered his rifle and took a knee. He’d judged
the range to be four hundred and fifty meters, give or take. “Once I take the driver of the suicide machine out, send the first round.”
“Gotcha.”
Tommy slowed his heartbeat and steadied his breathing. The scope was already adjusted for windage and to be truthful, the shot would be easier than most. The wind was dead, and it was a clear shot through the windshield. He watched the driver nervously knuckle up on the steering wheel of the beat up Toyota, clearly waiting for the word to go. He was scared to die. Tommy thought he’d remove that concern for him. His rifle punched a round through the glass and opened up a hole in the man even a miracle couldn’t close. He hoped the man had a good time with all his virgins in the afterlife.
“Sending,” Glen said calmly over the echo of Thomas’ shot before dropping a mortar round down the tube. The small mortar round thumped loudly and sailed high towards the trucks. Tommy watched passively as the Taliban men went over to investigate the strange noise that had just occurred at the Toyota. Just as they realized the man inside had been eviscerated by a shooter, Glen’s mortar round impacted on a truck far to the rear of the group.
“Twenty meters long,” Tommy said.
Glen made a hasty adjustment to the mortar and dropped the second round. It erupted out of the tube and missiled through the air, this time impacting on the cab of one of the Mercedes trucks, blowing it to smithereens. The men nearby dove to the ground to avoid the lethal shrapnel, but Tommy watched as a few still ate hot steel. One man’s arm was sheared clean off by a red hot piece of spinning engine.
Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 10): The Last Resort [Adrian's March, Part 2] Page 6