by Isaac Hooke
The silent, dark minutes passed.
The sporadic shelling and machine gun fire started up again, though the detonations and muzzle flashes were obscured by the mosque and surrounding walls so that no light reached the courtyard. Sound however did penetrate, of course, and the ground shook as a mortar detonated nearby.
Ethan told himself he was overthinking everything. Suleman had gone.
But he waited another ten minutes anyway.
Just when he was about to begin extricating himself, he heard a subtle shifting noise, like the sound a brick might make when disturbed on a rubble pile. It came from the eastern side of the courtyard.
It was possible the loose brick was displaced naturally by reverberations from the shelling.
Somehow Ethan doubted it.
Suleman was out there, stalking him.
The game was afoot.
Ethan waited for a mortar to strike nearby, then lifted his free arm and removed a brick from his face, letting the shudder of the explosion mask the sound of his movements. He continued to wait for impacts and machine gun bursts, and in that way he slowly extricated himself from the pile.
He positioned himself on the dirt beside the rubble, and winced—his right knee was still tender from the brick he'd dropped on it earlier.
The drifting smoke had cleared somewhat overhead, allowing the starlight to filter down. The moon however remained shrouded. Because of the starlight, he was able to discern the outline of the rubble beside him, which blocked half the courtyard from view.
Lying flat, he slid Beast from his shoulder and tentatively peered through the 10x scope. The magnification was workable for the football field dimensions of the courtyard. In those sections of the grounds not obscured by the rubble pile beside him, he saw a green-black world of collapsed outbuildings, broken cobblestone and twisted shrubs, hemmed in by impenetrable regions of black wall.
Suleman could be lying in wait anywhere among that mess, indiscernible from any other mound of debris. And in the starlight, Ethan would appear the same to Suleman.
He discerned the slight illumination marking the northern gate, but couldn't see the rent in the eastern wall from his current position. If Ethan wanted to trap someone in the courtyard, he would have chosen a hide with both exits in sight. Given the separation between the two, he probably would've picked a spot near one of the exits themselves, in case someone tried to sneak past him.
Where are you?
Ethan considered retreating toward the mosque and reverting to his original plan of using the debris to scale the western wall, but it would take him forever to crawl that way without making a sound, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't slip up somewhere along the line.
He decided to move slightly away from the debris beside him for a better view of the courtyard. He very carefully low-crawled forward, literally at a snail's pace, taking three minutes to cover the five feet. When he was in place, he folded down the Harris bipod, set the legs on the ground, and then brought his eye to Beast's scope.
He swept the field of view along the battered landscape; the sniper rifle swiveled on its bipod courtesy of the rotapod adapter. He was able to discern the entire eastern half of the courtyard, though that only meant more caved buildings and broken shrubs. He did, however, pick out the rent in the eastern wall, but he couldn't discern a thing on either side of it. He continued scanning the area, but there were simply too many areas the starlight didn't reach. A base level of brightness was required for night vision to work, and those shadows just weren't cutting it.
Where's a damn PEQ-2 when you need one? Then again, an infrared illuminator would've only given him away in the current predicament.
He listened to the nearby rumble of DShKs and mortars, and his mind wandered. Perhaps the sliding brick had indeed been a natural displacement. Surely Suleman would have made another noise by then?
Ethan shook his head. He refused to underestimate the man a second time. Suleman was there.
He steeled himself for the long wait. Patience. That was the key to any sniper duel: the hunter with the most patience won.
Ethan moved his field of view between the two exits, knowing that Suleman could be anywhere in that darkness, even right beside him. He tried to memorize the location of every shrub, rubble pile, and outbuilding. His hope was to spot an anomaly: some bush that shifted ever so slightly between glances; some cobblestone pile that moved a foot a minute.
Unfortunately, Suleman would very likely stay put. That was what Ethan was doing, after all.
Time was running out. Ethan had to find a way to draw the man out. He couldn't afford to remain there all night. When news spread of the bloody escape of the kaffir spies from the forward camp, more militants would be willing to listen to Suleman. The man could be texting for reinforcements on FireChat at that very moment, with the light from his cellphone shielded by very careful arrangement of his clothing.
His cellphone...
Ethan had an idea.
forty
A mortar shell struck unnervingly close, scarcely beyond the walls of the mosque so that the ground shuddered violently. Ethan's lungs rattled in his ribcage.
He crept behind the debris beside him, letting the piled bricks shield his body from most of the courtyard. He removed his Android from his pocket. The screen was black, and would remain so until he attempted to unlock it. He unwound the scarf from his neck, then carefully removed the jacket portion of his fatigues, exposing the Kevlar vest underneath. He placed the smartphone beside his face and layered the scarf and jacket over his head, tucking in the edges of the fabrics.
He hesitated, then unlocked the cellphone. The brightness was set to the dimmest value from his earlier usage. He would know if any of the light seeped from his cover soon enough, however—when the bullet came.
He loaded up a timer app and started a countdown. Soundlessly, he adjusted the volume and brightness levels to maximum, and then quickly locked the Android. The screen blackened.
He doffed the jacket and scarf to retrieve the duct tape from his pocket; very slowly, he quietly unraveled a small piece. When it was of suitable size, he carefully tore it away. Then he turned on his radio, leaving the volume too low to produce anything audible, and depressed the send button; he wrapped the tape around it so that the radio remained in "transmit" mode. Probing in the dark, he secured the two-way radio to the smartphone with another piece of tape, being careful not to obscure the Android's screen, nor to press some button that would light it.
Satisfied, he snaked forward until he was slightly past the edge of the rubble pile again. He placed the rifle on the ground via the bipod, and with his 10x scope, located a clearing near the center of the courtyard; in the middle grew a particular arrangement of shrubs that could easily be confused with a prostrate human body under the night vision. He panned to the left and right to ensure a relatively clear corridor, and then, keeping his body aligned to the chosen spot, he extricated himself from Beast and threw the phone-radio combination.
The jury-rigged contraption clattered loudly on the broken cobblestone of the clearing, landing roughly twenty meters away. He could almost imagine Suleman swinging the barrel of his M16A4 toward the noise.
Ethan scanned the eastern portion of the grounds through Beast. His heart was beating rapidly in anticipation. He wondered how close to the foliage the phone had landed. Would it be near enough?
Come on. Come on.
His Android seared to life in the center of the courtyard. The screen cast a bright green bloom about the smartphone, which the night vision quickly auto-gated. The cell had landed right beside the humanlike shrubs: the foliage looked even more convincing under the illumination, at least from Ethan's position, appearing as a man lying face down with a backpack beside him.
The triple-report of an A4 sounded from the far side of the foyer as his opponent fired on extinct. The muzzle flash of the unsuppressed rifle had been situated beyond the field of view of Ethan's scope, but he'd
caught it with his other eye and immediately swiveled his aim in the general direction.
Your first mistake, bro.
Suleman had missed the phone, and the bright screen continued to provide ambiance, enough for Ethan to pick out additional minute details from the surrounding ruins. Suleman would be able to do the same, of course, except that without knowing Ethan's general location, he had a far greater zone to cover.
Focusing on the area that had given rise to the muzzle flash, Ethan spotted the partial outline of a newly visible black-green form that may or may not have belonged to a sniper, located close to the eastern gap in the wall. Suleman? Or another humanlike shrub?
In the background, an annoying chime sounded from the Android, repeating incessantly into the radio. If Suleman tried to call for help over the main channel, his transmission would be drowned out by the noise, that or blocked entirely, thanks to the "busy channel lockout" feature of the radios, which prevented outgoing transmissions while the line was active. He'd have to use one of the less-trafficked squad channels, if he dared.
Ethan waited for the sniper to fire at the phone again and confirm his position, or for the target in his sights to move, but his opponent did neither. Suleman obviously realized the trap he had fallen into.
Ethan kept his aim on the indistinct figure. He could shoot anyway and hope he was right. But if he was wrong, then his own unsuppressed muzzle would betray him.
And then Ethan noticed the black-green form beneath his reticule seemed to shift slightly. He stared at it very carefully. No, it wasn't moving after all. He must have imagined it.
Wait a moment...
There was motion there. Very slow, very gradual, almost undetectable motion—what appeared to be a limb was sliding backward.
Suleman was attempting to relocate deeper into the shadows.
"Gotcha," Ethan whispered.
He aimed for the center of the object and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flash momentarily flooded his scope with green. Ethan worked the bolt, chambering a fresh cartridge, and repositioned his reticule over the indistinct outline. It no longer moved.
After several moments he folded closed Beast's bipod and stood. He approached warily, keeping his rifle aimed at the tango, pausing every ten steps or so to recenter the scope, but his quarry never moved.
Ethan kept the muzzle pointed at the lifeless silhouette as he closed. He couldn't discern the features in the dim light, but he had little doubt as to the identity of the dead man: only Suleman had wanted to kill him badly enough to stalk him in the dark for the past hour.
He placed his index and middle fingers over the radial vein. The man's wrist felt clammy. No pulse. Ethan experienced a moment of pity.
You wanted me to kill you, Suleman. You got your wish.
Sliding Beast over his shoulder, Ethan snatched the M16A4 from the corpse and searched the vest for a spare magazine. He found one and pocketed it. In the man's backpack he also discovered a laptop, Stingray-capable no doubt. He tried to turn it on, but the battery seemed dead so he unleashed a burst from the A4 into the machine's aluminum shell. The man carried no other weapons.
Ethan raced back to the phone-radio contraption he'd juryrigged. Right when he reached it the Android's power failed—the screen darkened and the alarm ended. He scooped up the bound devices and ripped away the tape that locked the radio in transmit mode. He accidentally brushed the volume switch in the process and an angry militant barked over the channel in Arabic:
"Thank you for turning that pig shit off!"
Ethan turned the volume low so that he could listen to any relevant updates, then he slunk to the northern gate and carefully scanned the outlying street with the A4. The 4x magnification of the RCO scope was much better suited to an urban environment than the 10x on Beast.
When he was convinced the way was clear, he dashed to the safety of the alleyway across the road. He emerged and headed west, keeping close to the buildings, wondering if William and Aaron had taken the same route.
The sky between the buildings ignited as a mortar ominously struck nearby.
He reached an intersection. The second-story window of a house to the south lit up with the muzzle flashes of DShK fire. On a rooftop a block away to the west, the shimmer of another heavy machine gun answered it. He aimed the scope of his A4 toward that rooftop, and in the green-black environment illuminated by the starlight he saw what appeared to be eastern-facing sandbags. If he was right, that was a Kurdish defensive position.
Almost there.
Ethan darted across the street; as he closed with the defensive position, machine gun fire abruptly whipped past just beside him. He dropped, low-crawling behind a broken fence.
He rose to a crouch, keeping his flank pressed to the cinder block fence. He thought it was the Kurds who were firing at him, so he shouted in English, "I'm American! I surrender! I want to cross to the Kurdish lines! I am friends with Black Mamba!"
The two-way radio squawked to life with the Arabic voice of an Islamic State militant. "I've found another deserter trying to defect to the yellow-faces!"
Whoops.
Stone chips flew into his face as mujahadeen fired from somewhere to the east. Those bullets traced a path along the wall toward his head...
He spun away, diving into an open door; inside, he got up and hurried through the foyer at a crouch, worried that he might trigger a booby trap—the moment that thought entered his mind, he banged his hip against an unseen counter in the dark. Not a booby trap, but certainly painful.
He heard shouts outside. "He's in there! Use the rockets!"
Ethan sprinted to the far side of the home and leaped out the shattered rear window, landing in the small courtyard beyond. He felt a shockwave rip past as the room he'd vacated only moments before exploded.
He sprinted through the yard, pulling himself over a chest-high cinder block fence.
Gunfire whizzed past from his right.
Ethan dove behind some rubble situated in the middle of the road. No, not rubble. It was an upturned Jersey barrier, barely high enough to shield him. The Dragunov dug into his arm below him. He turned onto his back, flattening himself, and slid the rifle down. He let off a few random shots at his opponents without looking over the barricade, then discarded the Dragunov when the magazine emptied.
More shots came in. Bullets ricocheted from the barrier above him, sprinkling his temple with slivers of concrete. He was pinned worse than ever. The tiny barricade might protect him from gunfire—at least until the militants outflanked him—but it certainly wouldn't save him from a rocket or grenade attack.
He was done.
forty-one
"I'm with you, my brothers," Ethan shouted in Arabic. "I fight the yellow-faces!"
But the militants kept firing.
As he lay there on his back beside the barricade, he found his gaze drawn inexplicably to the stars. The quarter moon had broken free by then. So beautiful.
More cement broke away as bullets pounded the Jersey barrier. It would be so easy to give up. To let them outflank him and fire their rockets while he just lay there, doing nothing, staring at the moon one last time before he died.
A voice growled at the back of his mind in protest. It spoke a quote from Winston Churchill that had helped Ethan endure SEAL training, a quote he'd always kept close to heart.
Never give in—never, never, never, never. If you're going through hell, keep going.
Well, if ever he was in hell, it was then.
Keep going.
Staying low, he surveyed his surroundings in the quarter moonlight. There was a single-story shop to his left. Five meters away. The front door was invitingly open.
He could make it.
He would.
The incoming gunfire momentarily ceased. He heard the militants calling out instructions to one another from opposite sides of the street. It sounded like they were preparing to outflank him.
He switched the A4 fire selector to burst mode, t
hen pivoted so that he lay face down behind the Jersey barrier. He brought his knees forward as far as he could without exposing the rest of his body, took two deep breaths, then lifted the muzzle of the A4 over the barricade and unleashed two separate bursts without aiming.
He pressed the assault rifle into the barrier and, using it as leverage, clambered to his feet. He sprinted toward the shop, firing off two more bursts, spray-and-pray style, to his left.
Return gunfire echoed in the night and bullets whipped past. He felt a rude poke in his left bicep and knew he'd been shot. He dove into the ruined shop, landing prostrate on the floor.
By then his left bicep was pulsing with an excruciating, burning pain. He had hoped the distraction of battle would lessen the agony, but no such luck: it felt like a steaming hot carving knife had been driven into the muscle, and some cruel torturer was twisting it, cutting into the tendons, fascia, and bone. It was an illusion, of course. The pain was the aftereffect of the round passing clean through the head of the muscle, and his subsequent attempts to move the arm. It was fortunate the bullet hadn't deflected into his torso, as the protection from the Kevlar vest was dubious at best.
Hot blood drizzled down his forearm from the entry and exit wounds. The lesions were located conveniently below the Quick Cuff. Ducking behind a table, he dropped the A4 and opened the cuff's velcro attachment, quickly retightening it to stanch the bleeding.
He scooped up the A4, stumbled to his feet, and made for the rear of the building. He spotted the silhouettes of several men beyond the windows there. Surrounded. He steered toward the open trapdoor in the ceiling instead, where the moon beckoned invitingly. The roof would prove a more defensible position.
Left arm dangling uselessly, Ethan started up the stairs but tripped halfway. Instinctively he tried to extend his injured limb to cushion the fall, sending a jolt of pain through the muscle; he smashed into the stairs, only worsening the excruciation. Beast, hanging from his left shoulder, dug into the tissue.