by Carr, Jack
“I got to play around with one when I augmented you guys a few years back, but I didn’t spend enough time on it to get proficient. We don’t get that high-speed stuff on the West Coast.”
“Roger, pretty slick little gun. Compact and has a really high rate of fire. Great for close-in stuff that needs to be done quietly. When you use the subsonic ammo you can hardly hear it. Easy to shoot with this Aimpoint Micro red dot. Just be aware that its terminal performance isn’t what you’re used to due to the little 4.6 cartridge.”
“In English, Freddy, English.”
Strain exhaled and feigned an eye roll. “It uses a really little bullet, so if you shoot a guy with it, put half a mag into him.”
“That, I understand.”
“Next, for rifles we’ve got HK416s that we’ll use instead of the M4, both ten-inch and fourteen-inch models. It works just like an M4 but it’s a lot less ammo sensitive and more reliable due to the piston system, especially when it gets dirty. We can mount whatever optic you want.”
Reece could sense his new partner’s excitement as he described the various weapons and their features: “Now I see why you really went over to the dark side.”
Freddy smiled. “Dude, this is the coolest part of my job. I can pick any guns I want and trick them out to my heart’s content. Kid in a candy store, bro.”
“You’re like a whiskey-tango version of ‘Q’ from James Bond,” Reece joked.
Strain broke into his best English accent: “Double-oh-seven, here are your sniper options: a LaRue OBR in 5.56 and a gun that I built myself in .260,” dropping the accent and continuing the description like a proud father. “It’s got a carbon-fiber barrel from Proof, so it keeps cool and it’s light. You’ll notice that I put the same flash hiders on just about everything so we can mount the same suppressors across the board. The .30-cal cans work just fine on the 5.56 and the .260.”
“Is the .260 like a .308?”
“Fills the same role but it’s better in nearly every regard. It shoots faster, flatter, and with less recoil. Same mags as a 7.62, but has the dope of a .300. I’ve been trying to sell everyone on this round for years, but the military is slow to move on anything.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“How did you ever make it through Sniper School?” Freddy asked in feigned astonishment.
“I must have had a good spotter.” Reece smiled back.
“Must have,” Freddy agreed. “Anyway, I doubt we’ll do anything super long-range, but we have an Accuracy International in .300 Norma and even a Barrett M107 .50 if we need it. We’ve got some belt-feds as well as a bunch of anti-armor stuff. Plus we have demo.” He pointed to a row of tubes leaning against the back wall of the room. “LAW rockets, AT-4s, even a Javelin in that case back there. Those things are like a quarter mil a pop but certainly do the job.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to use those sparingly.”
Reece noticed a row of Ops-Core ballistic helmets fitted with L3 Technologies GPNVG-18 night observation devices hanging on the wall; the best NODs that money could buy. The devices were easily recognizable thanks to the four panoramic lenses that gave the user better peripheral vision than with other models.
“Four-bangers, huh? That’s rich-kid shit.”
“Taxpayer money spends easy, man. Those things are so much better than the stuff we used to use.”
“You’re kind of a gear snob, Freddy.”
“I like nice stuff, man, what can I say?”
CHAPTER 35
IT WAS A TWENTY-MINUTE ride in the Hilux to the range, the wide-open landscape reminding Reece of being back at sea. The mostly flat, sometimes rolling, but always barren terrain made for a perfect training area. A local construction firm had used a bulldozer to create impact berms at various distances. There was a U-shaped berm, 100 meters deep, for short-range work, and beyond it was a rifle range for shots as far as 1,800 meters. A faded red shipping container served as a supply closet, and its roof gave them line of sight to the sniper targets. There were steel-plate targets of various sizes and shapes scattered across the landscape, allowing for shots at just about every conceivable distance. What looked to be an inoperable Mercedes sedan from the 1970s sat inside the perimeter.
“Let me guess, that’s my ride?” Reece quipped.
“Yeah, man, sorry about the windshield. We’ll have to get you some goggles.”
As they parked, Freddy’s usually casual tone and body language shifted to all business.
“Okay, we’ll start with some handgun work, then get you going on the MP7 before moving to the 416s. We can mess with the long-range stuff another day.”
“Sounds good, buddy.”
Freddy unlocked the shipping container and swung open the heavy steel doors. Inside were cases of spray paint, assorted cardboard targets, additional steel plates, several cases of ammunition, and pieces of plywood cut into various shapes.
“Help me with this barricade.” Freddy motioned to a vertical plywood façade with steps down one side and filled with holes of varying shapes and sizes. They carried the mock barricade to the center of the range and set it up next to the Mercedes.
“Go ahead and get the kinks out with your nine-mil while I get some of this other stuff set up. There’s ammo in the back of the truck.”
Reece nodded and walked toward a row of three steel silhouette targets. It occurred to him that the last time he’d fired a handgun, it had been into the mouth of a federal agent responsible for killing his family. It was difficult for his mind to reconcile that act with the fact that he was back in the employ of the United States government. Crazy world.
Reece was wearing the SIG 320 in a holster on his belt rather than his usual BlackPoint Tactical Mini WING concealment rig; there was no reason to try to conceal a handgun while wearing full battle gear.
Skills such as shooting are highly perishable, and Reece hadn’t done any serious firearms training in close to a year. Being an “expert” in anything means doing the basics exceptionally well, so Reece started with the fundamentals. Putting on his ear protection, he took a deep breath to focus. Then, standing ten yards from a steel plate, Reece drew the handgun from his holster, his left hand meeting the gun at his pectoral muscle as the muzzle rotated toward the target. He pushed the SIG out with both hands gripping firmly until his elbows nearly locked, pressing the trigger as he drove the gun swiftly toward the target. His eyes met the front sight just as the trigger broke and his brain recognized the instant gratification of a center-mass hit on the steel target as the gun recoiled slightly upward. Keeping his trigger finger on the trigger, he scanned to the left and right of his target before moving his finger to the frame to look behind him for threats before replacing the handgun in his holster. Situational awareness.
He drew again, a bit faster this time, and put two rounds into the target in quick succession. He repeated the process until the magazine ran dry, performed a slide-lock reload, stepping to his left, and fired two more rounds. He moved farther from the targets and began engaging multiple plates in rapid succession, quickly transitioning from one to the next. Speed came back quickly, thanks to hundreds of thousands of rounds fired over the past eighteen years during similar training sessions. He had burned his way through ten magazines when he saw Freddy watching him over his left shoulder during one of his post-target scans.
“Just like riding a bike. Looking sharp, Reece.”
“Thanks. Feels good to be back at it.”
“I bet. Let me paint these targets and we’ll get dialed in on the fun gun.”
Freddy shook a rattle can of spray paint as he approached the targets that were covered with the gray splatters of Reece’s pistol rounds. He recoated them with glossy white paint and waved for Reece to follow him to a folding table with the suppressed MP7 and a row of loaded magazines. Freddy picked up the tan and brown camouflaged submachine gun and pointed the muzzle skyward.
“Okay, Reece, this will be a new toy for you. This thi
ng shoots really fast and has almost no recoil. It’s also exceptionally quiet with serious penetration, so if the bad guys are wearing armor it’s a better choice than a handgun. We started using them at Dam Neck and a lot of guys fell in love with them.”
Freddy retracted the small stock to its rear position and folded down a stubby grip below the barrel. “You can shoot it like a handgun in a pinch but you won’t hit much. The mags go in the grip like an UZI and hold forty rounds. You cock it here and the selector is here.” He demonstrated, handing the firearm to Reece. “It might look like it works like the old MP5 but that’s just because it’s an HK. It’ll operate like an M4 from your perspective. Have at it. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
“I’ve heard that somewhere before,” Reece said, remembering the old SEAL adage.
Reece loaded a magazine into the hollow grip and moved the safety/selector to semiauto. His eye quickly found the crisp red dot of the Aimpoint Micro sight and he pressed the trigger. The shot was totally underwhelming, with almost no discernible recoil and minimal report, reminding him of the pellet rifle his grandfather had given him as a kid. A single tiny speck of gray was visible at the center of the target thirty meters away. He flipped the selector to full auto and leaned a bit harder into the gun to control its rise. Reece tried for a short burst and five or six suppressed rounds spat from the muzzle, pinging against the steel target downrange. The gun barely moved. He fired a longer burst, ten or so rounds, and was amazed by how controllable the little gun was. He emptied the remainder of the magazine into the target in a longish string and all twenty-four rounds stayed in the eight-inch circle.
He turned to his friend, grinning ear to ear. “I like it.”
“I knew you would. It has its limitations but it’s definitely useful.”
Reece spent a few minutes familiarizing himself with his new toy before Freddy began running him through some basic drills with it. He held an electronic shot timer that would measure Reece’s reaction time from the buzzer to his first round on target. Freddy set up orange traffic cones on the range and had Reece navigate them in various ways as he engaged the targets: shooting while moving forward, backward, and laterally and ultimately shooting while weaving through the cones like a sports car on a slalom course. Gunfights aren’t static events and perfecting the skill of shooting while moving could mean the difference between life and death. They fired from various positions over, under, and through the plywood barricade and practiced using the junk Mercedes for cover.
After hours of work with the handgun, MP7, and HK416 carbines, it was time for a breather. They broke for lunch and talked as they ate gyro-like sandwiches on the tailgate of the Hilux. Reece opened the paper wrapper and looked at the contents as if the food was booby-trapped.
“They put mayo on these things?” he asked in disgust.
“You and your mayo. I’d forgotten about that phobia. Wonder if there’s a scientific name for it.”
“It’s so nasty.”
“Fear not, Reece. No mayo. It’s some kind of yogurt sauce.”
Visibly relieved, Reece took a tentative bite. His face lit up in approval.
“You always were a natural, Reece. It kills me that I eat and sleep this stuff and you just stroll out here and shoot like a champ.”
Reece shrugged as he chewed a bite full of lamb and pita. “Should I sandbag a little to make you feel better?”
“Ha! No, dude, keep it up. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get back to our families.” Freddy paused for a second, catching himself. “Sorry, bro, didn’t mean it like that, I forgot . . .”
“It’s okay. Seriously, stop apologizing. You’re a dear friend and a great dad. No need to apologize.”
“I’m just sorry, man. With all of the challenges we have with Sam, at least I can hug him when I get home.”
“I admire the hell out of you and Joanie. You guys never complain, never ask for anything. You just get it done.”
“You play the cards you’re dealt, Reece. That’s all you can do. When you look at the statistics of families dealing with special needs kids, the odds are that the added stress breaks you apart. For some reason, it made us a closer, more compassionate family. It made us a team.”
“Never look at the odds, buddy. My hat is off to you guys. Now, let’s go train so you can get home to see them.”
After lunch both men strapped on their heavy chest rigs, harnesses of nylon webbing laden with body armor, gear, and loaded magazines. They spent the afternoon working as a team, perfecting the choreography of shooting, moving, and communicating. They began at a walking pace and progressed rapidly to full speed. If one of them was moving or reloading, the other was putting rounds on the target. By day’s end, they were doing it seamlessly and without words.
When the sun went below the horizon, they attached NODs to their helmets and repeated the drills in darkness, their infrared lasers painting the targets, invisible to the naked eye. The only sounds came from the hard ground crunching beneath their boots and the suppressed gunshots from their muzzles. To the two professional commandos, who had spent more than half of their lives working at night both in training and on combat deployments, their actions were as natural as breathing.
CHAPTER 36
Iraq-Syria Border
August
LIEUTENANT COLONEL SAEED HAD received the encrypted message on his phone the previous evening and had spent the day planning and coordinating. He’d picked fifteen of his best men and called it in as a training mission. An Mi-8 from their airwing, flown by Iraqi pilots trained to fly with NODs over the pine forests of the Florida Panhandle courtesy of the CIA, took off under the cover of darkness and flew them to this rendezvous site. As the men waited in the darkness, they smoked and checked weapons and gear, joking with one another, just like every group of soldiers in history. Saeed loved his men and observed them with both pride and sadness.
To many, it would seem odd for an Iraqi special operations commander to be handing his troops over to work under a former general in the Syrian Army but, to Saeed, nothing was strange anymore. Times were simpler under Saddam, when ruthless loyalty to the Ba’ath Party and its leaders was all that it took to thrive.
Following the 2003 invasion, Saeed had worked for the Americans and then the inept and corrupt government they’d left behind in their hasty departure. He’d fought ISIS as they swept across much of the only country he’d ever called home and watched with even more confusion as they were beaten back by the Iranian-influenced Shia militias and the Kurds, who were still allied with the Americans. Would he work for the Turks next? The Iranians? Who knew? He would serve nearly any master, so long as they were in power. That’s how you lived in a place like Iraq. It had always been all about survival for him and his family. Side jobs such as this one that had brought him to the middle of the desert would help ensure that he had the resources to someday move his family to a safer place.
One of his men spotted the trucks, driving in complete darkness across the flat desert terrain. This was his cue to leave. He hugged each one and bid them farewell, hopeful that he would see them again.
“Captain Daraji,” Saeed said, motioning to the officer in charge.
“Yes, Colonel.”
“You will be picking up two local assets when you land. Their handler will be briefing them up. For them it is about the cause. For us, it is about payment.”
“Understood, Colonel,” Daraji said, snapping a smart salute. “Ma‘ al-salāmah.”
“FĪ amān Allāh,” Saaed responded, returning his subordinate’s salute.
As Saeed boarded the now-empty cargo bay of the helicopter, he asked his Creator to watch over them. He didn’t need to wait around to see what would happen next. His men would board the trucks and be driven into Syria to a military airfield under Assad’s control, where they and their gear would be transferred to an AN-26 cargo aircraft. This twin-engine workhorse was built in the former Soviet Union and could serve as everything
from a flying hospital to a bomber. It lacked the range to reach their destination on a single tank of fuel, so they would fly over the Mediterranean Sea until they refueled at a remote airstrip in the failed state of Libya. From then, God willing, it was on to the target.
CHAPTER 37
XXX Black Site
Near XXXXXXXXXXXXX
August
REECE KNEW HE WAS almost out of air. Despite his attempts to stay calm, his heart raced, eating up precious oxygen. His world had darkened at the edges of his vision due to the suffocation. He was in trouble, and he knew it.
He was suddenly with his father, hiking a steep muddy trail canopied by the thick vegetation of North Carolina’s Nantahala National Forest. His father’s career in what they thought was the foreign service meant long periods of separation, so Reece cherished the time they spent together. They’d walked down a twisting narrow path to a surging waterfall, hidden miles from the nearest highway. The steady rains in these mountains provided a constant source of creek water that had worn the rocky face so smooth that you could actually slide down part of the falls in the seated position and splash into the deep pool at the bottom. It was a place where people had gathered long before any Europeans had stepped ashore in the New World, and it was still special.
The heavens opened and within seconds they were drenched from an abrupt deluge of rain; their respite from the summer heat had become a shivering battle for warmth. His father took a look at his son, whose face was a mask of misery, and decided that they would hike back to the Wagoneer at the trailhead, which meant a steep and muddy climb in the torrential downpour. James’s little legs powered along as best they could, attempting to match his father’s long and powerful stride.
“C’mon, Jamesy, you can do it, buddy. Just put one foot in front of the other.”
James wasn’t about to let his father, or himself, down. He’d climb three steps forward and slide two steps back in the slick brown ooze that the trail had become but kept moving forward, his legs feeling like jelly.