Hunting in the Shadows (American Praetorians)

by Peter Nealen

  I didn’t wait for their acknowledgement past a nod. The offices on the ground floor were empty. I took the stairs two at a time, looking for Maggen.

  The building was only two stories, with offices on the ground floor and living quarters on the top floor. Maggen was in the middle of the common area, arguing with Wilson and Corey.

  I didn’t bother to wait to find out what the argument was about. “Get all the non-shooters downstairs and on the floor,” I barked. Apparently my tone was a bit harsh; everybody looked at me like a deer in the headlights. “Are you fuckers deaf?” I demanded. “Get the fuck downstairs!” I grabbed the nearest Liberty employee by the shoulder and shoved him toward the steps.

  Maggen came out of his shock first; probably realizing that if we were there, kitted up and armed, it probably didn’t bode well. “Come on, you heard the man!” he yelled. He started chivvying the rest of the civilians downstairs toward the offices.

  I scanned the rooms as quickly as I could, checking lines of sight from the windows. It wasn’t the most defensible position, but we had open ground in front of us, and I hoped the concrete walls would be enough to stop small arms fire. I grabbed Maggen.

  “Cover all the entrances downstairs,” I told him. “We’ll stay up here; there are better fields of fire from here. Don’t let anybody in unless they verify, but don’t just shoot at anything that moves. I’ve still got an element to the south. Understand?” He nodded jerkily, and I shoved him toward the stairs. “Make sure those civilians stay on the floor!” I yelled after him.

  Juan, Bryan, Larry, and Nick had taken up positions in the windows, keeping back from the glass to avoid being easily spotted. I hastily killed the lights, and then found another one and peered out.

  The Iraqi commandos were advancing on the installation in a tactical column, their weapons up at the low ready. They were moving steadily, and were obviously alert. These guys hadn’t let their training go slack, that was for sure.

  A crackle of small arms fire, punctuated by the heavy thud of an explosion, sounded from the south. The ISOF soldiers faltered slightly at the noise; they must have been expecting the motorized column to meet them on the objective. The patrol leader made himself known, gesturing as he pushed his element on toward the objective. I imagine he was saying something along the lines of, maintain the plan, drive on.

  I was faced with a choice at this point. The Iraqis were in the open; I didn’t doubt they were wearing body armor, probably body armor bought from the US, if not donated, but they were easy targets for a prepared defender, which we were. If I decided to open fire without warning, we could probably kill them all in very short order.

  But the fact was, as corrupt as the Iraqi government might be, we weren’t necessarily in a position at the moment to go head-to-head with them. Our targets were Qods Force and the terrorist groups they were supporting. This was threatening to turn into mission creep that we couldn’t afford.

  On the other hand, we hadn’t started this. They’d attacked our people, and killed several Rimrock guards in the process. They’d drawn first blood.

  I shook my head slightly at my own woolgathering. Fuck this, we were past the point of no return with these assholes, and we hadn’t started it. “I’ll initiate,” I said quietly. There were murmurs of understanding from the rest.

  I flipped up my NVGs and settled in behind the scope on my rifle. I’d attached another PVS-14 in front of the scope for night shooting; the tritium dots on my iron sights were all well and good, but I’d decided I might want to be able to use the optic at night, so I’d scrounged up the second NVG. I didn’t have the thermal attachment on the rifle-mounted tube; we didn’t have enough of those. The straight NVG would be enough tonight.

  I laid the crosshairs high on the first jundi’s chest, about where his plate should stop, and squeezed the trigger.

  The suppressor emitted a loud pop, and the jundi dropped in his tracks. It had been a good shot; I’d had the reticle right where his spine should be as the trigger broke. He didn’t make a sound as he hit the dirt.

  More muffled gunfire rocked to my left and right, and more of the ISOF jundis fell before they even knew they were under fire. The rest reacted admirably, spreading out, dropping to the prone, and returning fire. They didn’t know for sure where we were, but they guessed we were in the building. Bullets smacked into the concrete around the windows, and a few snapped through the open windows to smash into the far wall and the ceiling, showering us with dust.

  We weren’t skimping on the fire, ourselves. I tracked across their position, putting controlled pairs of shots into any lump that looked like it might be a jundi. They had spread out in the low scrub brush that covered the rocky ground, and the light was such that they didn’t stand out all that well. Muzzle flashes helped, of course. The fact that we were running suppressed helped keep our visible signature to a minimum. We were also staying back from the windows, hoping to lose ourselves in the shadows.

  As heavy as we were keeping the fire on them, however, they weren’t going down easily. It can be pretty hard to hit a figure in the prone at night, especially when they are shooting back. And these guys were US trained; they could shoot. No holding the AK out and spraying randomly for these guys.

  After a few minutes, the incoming fire reduced. I came off my rifle and flipped my NVGs down while I reloaded, dropping the spent mag in my dump pouch before rocking in a fresh one. The thermals showed several outlines slowly cooling on the ground, but several more were creeping out of the kill zone, heading for the irrigation ditches around the fallow fields that surrounded the installation to the north.

  “Watch the sides,” I warned. “They’re going to try to flank us from the canals. They might even try to get up on the high ground to the south.”

  Nick moved over to the west window and peered out. He’d actually scraped up an older ThOR 320 thermal sight, and swapped it out with his shortdot scope on his REPR. “No shot,” he reported. “I’m getting a little bit of movement, but they’re getting mighty small out there.”

  “I would too, out in the open like that,” Juan said.

  I keyed my radio. “Kemosabe, Hillbilly. Sitrep?”

  “Lead vehicle is down,” Jim reported. “Convoy is pinned down in the kill zone, but we won’t be able to keep them that way for too long.”

  That was the friction point—time. The longer we stayed in place, no matter how hardened our position, the longer they had to regroup, call in support, and crack us out. We had to hit them hard enough to keep them on the back foot and keep them from calling in reinforcements. That, or get the fuck out while they were reeling.

  “Give ‘em a good dose, then get the hell back here,” I told Jim. “We’ve got to break out soon, before they get their shit together.”

  “Affirm,” he sent. “Tell whoever’s on security not to shoot the four guys running like hell toward the buildings.”

  “They already know, but I’ll reinforce the concept,” I told him. “See you in a few.”

  Nick’s rifle cracked twice. “Fucker,” he muttered. About the same time, we started taking some more fire from the north.

  I made a decision. “Larry, you’re with me. The rest of you, keep up fire on these bastards as best you can. Larry and I are going to loop around to the southwest and see if we can flank the flankers. Be ready to shift fire when I call.” Nick nodded, keeping his eye to his scope, and Larry and I headed downstairs.

  Maggen looked over as the two of us thumped down the steps. At about the same time, the volume of fire to the south intensified, as Jim and the rest dumped fire into the convoy. “Jim and the boys are going to be coming in hot in a couple minutes,” I told Maggen. “Don’t shoot ‘em.”

  “We’re keeping an eye out for them,” Maggen said stiffly. He still didn’t like my attitude, and in retrospect I can’t say I really blame him, but I didn’t have time to worry about it just then. “What’s going on?”

  “Larry and I are going to ta
ke the fight to our friends out there,” I explained. “Try to keep most of your fire to the north if it comes to that. We’ll be moving to the southwest.”

  “Just the two of you?” he asked, nonplused.

  “You see a platoon around here anywhere?” I asked. “We work with what we’ve got. Don’t worry. It ain’t the first time we’ve been a little on the short end numbers-wise.”

  I hoped like hell I wasn’t talking out of my ass on that one. From the look on Maggen’s face, he did too.

  I led the way out the door, as the Rimrock guy on security pointed his muzzle at the floor. I headed pretty much straight south, and uphill. A quick glance back showed me that we had most of the finger between us and the jundis. Good start. I leaned into the hillside and pushed.

  I was sweating hard under my plate carrier, and my legs were quickly starting to burn. We headed about a hundred yards south, up the draw, then I pushed up the even steeper side of the finger, aiming to come down to the south and west of the canal the Iraqi commandos were trying to work their way along. I was panting as I got to the crest, bent almost double to keep my silhouette low as I went over. That’s not an easy way to move, and my whole body was starting to protest. My PT schedule hadn’t been much to speak of since things had started to get out of control, but what else was new?

  The other side was just about as steep, and covered in loose rock and scrub. It took some doing not to just skid down the hillside, which would have made an unholy racket, along with the fact that right now, uncontrolled movement was the last thing I wanted to be doing. Behind me, as I picked my way downward, often with one hand on my rifle and one hand held out toward the hillside for balance, I could hear Larry breathing hard as the rocks crunched under his boots.

  I reached the base of the hill, which opened onto a wide gravel field, left over from leveling the ground for the installation. I paused for a second to catch my breath, and let some of the burn out of my muscles, as Larry caught up. I motioned toward the next hill, on the other side of the gravel. That would put us in a better flanking position.

  We were halfway across the gravel when the first shots snapped by overhead. Somebody had seen us, or at least seen our movement. I threw myself flat, almost knocking the wind out of myself, and scrabbled around to where I could pump off several shots at the jundis. A veritable storm of fire came from the building, and the incoming shredding the air around us slacked off. Larry was first on his feet; he’d just dropped to a knee, though he was cursing the gravel that had dug into his knee. I picked myself up off my face and kept moving toward the hill as fast as I could. It wasn’t quite a sprint, but I wanted off that gravel plot.

  I beat Larry to the rocks and scrub by about twenty yards. He’s never been as fast as me; of course he outweighs me by over fifty pounds. I scrambled up to an elevated position and dropped to the prone, flipping up my NVGs and putting my eye to the M1A’s scope.

  There were five jundis huddled in the canal, temporarily pinned down by the fire from the second floor. They were trying to return fire, but the angles were against them. It got worse as I opened up, the M1A thumping back into my shoulder as I tracked rounds across them. One staggered; I was pretty sure he’d taken a round in the plate, but I followed it up with what should have been a head shot. He dropped into the canal and I lost track of him.

  The jundis were now taking fire from two different angles, and dropped to their bellies trying to get something between themselves and the incoming metal. At the moment, that meant pretty much getting down in the mud and muck until they were almost all the way under the surface, and crawling backward out of our little killing zone.

  I got up. If the situation had been different, I might have been content with holding our ground and driving them off. But I was still all too aware of their friends in the Humvees to the south, and the two helos to the north. I didn’t know if the Iraqis had fitted their Ansats with machineguns, but I didn’t want to chance it. I wanted to hammer these fuckers so hard they couldn’t regroup and hit us back. As Larry kept up the fire, I ran forward.

  I kept low, stripping the nearly empty magazine out and rocking in a fresh one. I only ran about three seconds. On average, that’s about how long it takes for someone to get on target with a rifle. At three, I dropped to the ground and started shooting. I wasn’t laying down a carpet of suppressive fire, but only firing when I had a target. It was enough to keep them down in the ditch, especially when I’m pretty sure I hit one in the head when he popped up to try to shoot.

  Larry pounded past me and dropped to a low knee, continuing to fire as I picked myself up off the ground and sprinted forward. My joints fucking hurt; the ground wasn’t exactly soft or even, and I didn’t have knee or elbow pads on. Not that I’d ever worn elbow pads.

  I hit the dirt again, just as a jundi tried to come up on a knee to engage the crazy American mercenaries who were actually charging them. He had me, until he suddenly jerked sideways and dropped in the mud. One of the guys on the second floor must have gotten him.

  By now, the jundis in the ditch weren’t showing themselves much, but they weren’t moving out of the kill zone, either. We had pretty effectively pinned them, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to walk right up to them to finish them off, either. These guys were US SOF-trained, I didn’t expect them to fold like the jundis of 2003, or even the regulars nowadays. They might not be willing to risk putting their heads up, but I didn’t figure they’d be willing to go out without a fight if that was what it came down to.

  Good thing we weren’t just limited to rifles.

  I twisted around in my prone position so I could see Larry, who was about to get up and move forward. I signaled to him to stay put, and continue firing on the jundis in the ditch. I was going to move up.

  I got to my feet and dashed forward at an angle, keeping to the three second rule and trying to avoid moving in a straight line. When I hit the ground again, I slung my rifle across my back and kept moving, crawling through the scrub toward the canal.

  When I figured I was close enough, I propped myself up just enough to double-check my guess, just as Larry put two rounds into the dirt right in a jundi’s face. The Iraqi ducked back down, as I rolled to my side to get at one of the pouches on my belt.

  It didn’t take much of a heave to get the DM51 grenade into the ditch. The concussion thumped through the ground and threw mud, water, and bits of jundi into the air.

  I was up and moving before the cloud had settled. I advanced more slowly, my weapon at the low ready, prepared to put a double-tap into anybody still moving.

  I needn’t have bothered. The jundis had put a little too much faith in the cover afforded by the ditch, and had clumped up. I think the grenade had actually landed on top of two of them. They weren’t moving. I made sure anyway.

  The guys upstairs had been watching closely, and had shifted fire without my having to call for it. They were now hammering the jundis to the north, who didn’t even have the kind of cover that these poor bastards had had.

  Crouched down, I started moving along the canal. It wasn’t deep, but shallow cover is better than no cover. I didn’t have much hope that the rest of the squad somehow hadn’t noticed the grenade explosion in this direction, but maybe, being hopefully preoccupied with the fire coming from the rest of my team, they might think we were survivors trying to regroup. The best I could really hope for was enough confusion for us to get the drop on them and put them out of the fight before the rest of their buddies got the road cleared and showed up in our rear.

  No such luck. “Hillbilly, Kemosabe,” Jim called. “The Iraqis are pulling back toward the helos.”

  Fuck. If they got in the air, and decided to continue to try to prosecute this, we were in trouble. I wished for a couple of Stingers, or even a couple of the Igla-S missiles that had been floating around the black market since Gaddafi fell. But you can wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first. We didn’t have SAMs, so better to try to deal w
ith these fuckers on the ground.

  Unfortunately, they were breaking contact like pros. Their suppressive fire was heavy and pretty accurate. Larry and I had to hug the bank of the shallow canal, as the air overhead was filled with a snapping storm of bullets, and more smacked into the dust, mud, and rocks in front of and around us, kicking up puffs of dust and frag with each hit.

  “Fuck this,” Larry announced. He brought himself to a high prone, laid his FAL on the lip of the bank, and started shooting. A heartbeat later I followed suit, gritting my teeth against the withering hail of incoming 5.56. We were low, we weren’t much of a target in the darkness, but with that much fire coming your way, it’s easy to get unlucky.

  The Iraqis kept bounding back, their return fire about balancing our own suppression. The necessity of keeping our own heads down kept us from putting out that much of a volume of fire, while our own fire kept them from gaining enough fire superiority to move with any sort of impunity.

  I pumped a trio of shots at a fleeting silhouette, then ducked back down as a flurry crackled past my helmet, so close that I felt the rounds go by more than heard them. The fire slackened as the Iraqi got up to move, and I popped right back up, hoping to catch him on the fly.

  Instead, I spotted their first mistake. These guys were US-trained, and had been therefore trained in the way that a lot of US troops fought. For a long time, that had meant dash, go to a knee, and lay down suppressive fire. It’s quicker, and especially if you’re wearing a pack, much easier to get up and move.

  In the open like this, though, it also makes you a target to a trained shooter in the prone.

  Barely above the level of the ground, my plates and magazines digging into my midsection, mud soaking my legs, I placed the reticle on the fuzzy green silhouette of an Iraqi commando who was shooting at the buildings in a textbook kneeling position, and shot him three times. He dropped like a sack of rocks. I moved to follow his buddy, who faltered in his rush as he saw his fellow commando fall. Two more shots, high in the torso. He staggered and fell to a knee, where I shot him four more times, until he went down.