The Reaper: Autobiography of One of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers

by Nicholas Irving

  The lead was skirting around it, including Bruno and Sergeant Val, but the K9 hadn’t shown any signs of a detection. The guys in front had their weapons pointed at that pile as they made their tactical evasion. I halted my guys and we backed off a bit before spreading out. As the point guys approached, a bright white light passed by the head of one of the guys out front. They all immediately dropped to the ground, and then I heard a loud crack and its echoing report move through the streets.

  With a few of the streetlights on, our night vision PVS-14 and 15 goggles were flaring out as the artificial light polluted the area, and for me, that lessened the feeling of a possible threat. We hadn’t received any intel about the possibility of a sniper attack. Until we’d gotten to that object in the street, everything had been proceeding so smoothly. I was now in a here-we-go-again mind-set. The lead group began taking fire and returning it, killing a couple of hostiles. Brent and I dropped down in the prone position, right in the middle of the street, in order to get a good visual on the enemy. Some of the guys in the element went to the sides of the narrow street. None of us wanted to get into those ditches if we could help it. Brent and I lay there scanning, getting a fix on the enemy, focusing in on their faces and heads.

  I could see bullets passing over the heads of the guys in front of us, and then felt them going over our heads, dropping short of the rest of the guys, who were about twenty meters to our rear directly at our six. Finally, I could see where the shots were coming from—directly ahead of us and down our intended path of travel. That sucked. No one behind Brent and me could get off a shot. They had to be concerned about our position, whether or not we were going to stay at our level, stand up, or whatever. That meant they couldn’t safely fire over our heads. It would be too dangerous to just open up with an M4 or MK-48 machine gun over our heads as well as that of the lead element in front of us. Wade Rice had been able to lay down a few rounds of suppressive fire, but it was now down to him and the rest of us to get some precise rounds on target.

  The fire got really intense as I zoomed in on my scope.

  “Brent. We got targets right behind that pile. I see heads popping up around it.”

  “Roger. Got it.”

  I could hear the excitement in his voice. I watched him for a second getting situated. As excited as we were and that being Brent’s first time firing on a live target, we all kept in mind that smooth is fast in any situation. I couldn’t fault him though, he’d been itching for some trigger time, and now it was happening. I turned my attention back to the pile. At first, all I saw was heads peeking around it briefly. Then I saw one of the enemy lean out, at nearly a ninety-degree angle from the pile. He had his AK out away from his body and he was just spraying and praying. Watching the tip of his muzzle spark, I focused on the center of his head. I didn’t have time to dial the elevation down, so I simply held low using the mil dot reticle. His head exploded, spraying brain matter on the structure in front of him and his AK became a baton as it pinwheeled briefly.

  A second later, and for no good reason that I can think of, a second target stood up and started yelling. Whether he was scared by the sight of his buddy going down or if he just had that suicide mentality, it didn’t really matter. I heard a shot ring out of a Knight’s Armament suppressor and watched the guy fall. I could hear the faint excitement in Brent’s voice as he yelled, “I got him.” I guess after that many years of training to precisely kill another man, your brain is already used to the sensation. I knew that getting him wasn’t the end to our night. The guys in front were still basically pinned down. They could fire, but it was ineffective because they were in a prone position and so close to the enemy position.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of something approaching from the left. A white pickup truck came into view, and I immediately flashed on the reports we’d been hearing about suicide bombers and vehicles. An instant later that thought was gone. Mounted to the back of the pickup—I could see now that it was a Toyota Hilux—was a DShK machine gun. I heard a series of loud thudding sounds and watched as the guys in front of my position rolled to the side of the road and down into the sewage trench. The guy operating the weapon turned to pivot the gun, but the driver was going so fast (I’d say about thirty-five to fifty miles an hour), he could only direct his fire down the right side of the road. In a second or two, the vehicle had passed through the intersection.

  We were all on comms telling everybody to take cover. We knew that weapon was designed to take out tanks and that none of us—no matter if we were hard-plate, soft-plate, or whatever combination of plate—would survive getting struck by one of those giant rounds. We were fortunate the driver had flown through that shooting lane, but that gave the guys behind the pile of rubble an opportunity to key in on us. Brent and I rose from our position and I jumped into the trench, feeling its liquid and chunky ooze all along my lower legs up to my thighs. I had to fight off thoughts of what the hell I’d just jumped into and focus on taking out those guys. I would have jumped into just about anything, including a raging inferno, to escape the devastation that DShK could hand out.

  At this point, the six of us were in a pretty tight little cluster. Brent was crouching up against the side wall. I don’t know if he was braver than the rest of us or just didn’t want to get into the shit-ooze, since just the bottoms of his Merrells contacted the slop. Wade had joined me in the trench and we sloshed around, and I kept thinking of the pit toilets at some of the state parks I’d been to. A cloud of mosquitoes and other flying insects rose up, clogging my nose and marring my vision. I thought of swatting at them, but I’d gotten some of the slop on one hand.

  “Hey, Irv,” I heard Wade scream out, “I hope you took your dox pills.”

  Everybody knew that I didn’t like taking the antimalarials and other drugs. I hated the idea of taking all the stuff we were handed out, especially since one of them had made me sick as a dog. I knew that I was supposed to take it with food, so I swallowed it and followed that up with a can of ravioli that my folks had sent me. About ten minutes later, I didn’t even make it to the Porta-Johns before I puked up that ravioli. The guys got a big laugh of that, telling me that I needed to chew my food, since that pile looked exactly the same as it had coming out of the can.

  I don’t know why Rice chose that moment to remind me of that. I was trying to get eyes on the guys behind the rubble pile. Since Rice had the most effective weapon for this kind of job, I motioned for him to advance in front of Brent and me. Brent was at my six, and just as we were sighting on a couple of targets, we heard the truck’s engine revving and its tires squealing as it came back from our right this time. Fortunately, for some reason, he was focused on the right side of the street, and we were all on the left in the trench.

  The intersection was fairly well lit, which was bad for us, but it did allow me to see the gunner’s eyes. He spotted us, but he’d advanced too far to get the weapon trained on us. I knew that they’d come around again, and hoped that they wouldn’t do something smart like circle to our rear and come up the road parallel to our position. The guys on point were still taking heavy fire; bullets skipped off the pavement, like deadly stones skipped across a pond, rising to head height. Still, they kept returning fire, while I kept thinking about the longest day when Pemberton and I and the rest of our recon element had been pinned down for so long. I felt bad for those guys, but because of what I’d just been through, and how close we all came to getting wiped out, I wasn’t about to put on my Superman cape and do anything foolishly heroic. I knew what the result would be and I wouldn’t benefit anybody’s chances of getting out of this thing if I went all gung ho and charged.

  I don’t know if it was because Brent hadn’t been through what Pemberton and I had, but he didn’t hesitate much at all. He was still standing and firing away. Because of the enemy’s concealment, there wasn’t much chance of a precise shot, and that was what I was trained and expected to provide. Shooting from low to high wasn’t th
e optimal choice, but it was the only one I had. I’d catch a glimpse of a guy poking out and I’d fire. I was growing frustrated, thinking that the only way to get those guys was with some weapon that could pierce that pile of rubble. I realized that I was wrong about them not establishing a perimeter. It was clear that that rubble was placed very strategically. I wondered for an instant if there were others scattered around that area to protect the suicide squad’s commander.

  All this time, I’d been counting and I came up with six shooters. I asked Brent what he had and he came with eight. We split the difference and reported in seven. I got on the comms and said that we had the seven enemy shooters and the rubble pile at that location. I wanted a 203 launched on them, but we were danger close and shrapnel could tear us up.

  We had to advance, outflank them, and then take them out one at a time. I told Rice and Brent to stay there and keep up the suppressive fire. I was going to rejoin the rest of the third squad to flank off those shooters and be done with it. The one wild card was the damn pickup and machine gun. I could hear its engine again and it sounded as if it was moving at high speed. I looked over at Brent and he was bug-eyed, as I probably was, and we both knew what was about to go down. One round fired into that trench could easily take out him, Rice, and me. The thought, briefly, passed through my mind that we could submerge ourselves completely, but that was one I easily dismissed. If we could compress ourselves and press up against the side of the trench and get as low as possible, we’d be the smallest target we could be.

  A moment later, I looked up and Rice was standing up. I could see a tracer round coming in from the DShK, and I swore it was as big as gallon jug of milk flaming toward our heads. Rice reached out and put his M4 on fully automatic, something I’d never seen anyone do and that we were trained not to do, and he opened up with that thing, firing at the pile, emptying out the magazine. Spent casings came cascading out his weapon, looking like they were rolling off some reversed assembly line.

  He slid home another magazine, and this time flipped the weapon to semi and started to fire more accurate and better spaced rounds, squeezing one off every second or so. Bullets were still flying over us, but Rice just stood there, shouting, as if this was some Hollywood version of the scene “You mother f---ers are shooting at me!”

  We could hear the truck, and the guys behind the pile were firing at him and then the DHsK let loose on us. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. I thought that Rice had lost it. Maybe he had gotten hit and now he was just jolted with adrenaline and this was one final giant spurt of it coursing through his body. The truck was getting closer, and this time it was coming in head-on. That must have gotten Rice’s attention. He did a 360 into the muck with us, his eyes as big as coasters.

  We ducked down as low as we could, and the truck screamed past us, maybe ten feet from our position, and I could see a white spot on the sidewall of one of the tires, spinning crazily off center. Their gunner was blazing the trench just above us, the pressure of the bullets firing overhead a kind of fanning hiss and sizzle. I kept thinking that Rice should get up and take out that driver. I figured that now that they knew where we were, all they had to do was swing that truck toward us and either enter the ditch and run us over, or rain down more .50 cal rounds on top of us. Once the truck went by, it started to swerve, and I figured that was it. The driver was trying to slow down and make that U-turn that would end things for us. Rice climbed out of the trench and started firing again, putting rounds into the back of the truck until the sound of the vehicle running into something could be heard over the gunfire.

  I was so relieved and I couldn’t believe that Rice had taken that truck out all by himself.

  Rice stood there shouting, “I got you! I got you!” while pointing and stomping his feet.

  I turned my focus to the rubble pile. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the barrel of a gun next to my right eye. I knew that Brent was behind me, and I was also on target. The Taliban dude stood up and I squeezed the trigger. I heard just a millisecond later the report of Brent’s gun going off and felt the heat of it. I jumped to my left, thinking that I’d been hit in the face.

  Brent looked over to me where I’d sprawled away and said, “Stop being a bitch and get back up here!”

  I stared at him and said, “Back up some.”

  “I didn’t shoot you. It’s just the hot gas.”

  “I don’t care—”

  “Shut up and shoot.”

  I moved away from him. I knew that he was right, but still, trying to fire with another weapon going off inches from your eyes doesn’t make things easier. He was getting in some good shots, though, taking out a couple of guys.

  Third squad had taken advantage of all this and they were on their way, sprinting toward that pile. I was concerned about cutting off my fire with those guys running toward the target. I used a quick guide to make sure I didn’t take any of them out. If I put my hand out in front of my face, the knuckle of my thumb is on the target and the knuckle of my pinkie finger is the limitation of fire. I figure guys can cover that much ground. We’d taken out enough of the shooters that third squad was able to overrun their position.

  A few moments later, we got the all clear over the comms. We walked up to assess the damage and count the kills. I saw that most of the guys got taken out by head shots. If they’d gone down due to chest shots, we wouldn’t have seen much at all: a little hole in the front then a golf-ball-size exit wound. With the rounds we were shooting, though, the exits were bigger than our fists. Most of the head shots were completely clean, with the face hanging over an emptied skull. We finished that count, took the necessary photos, and then stood there for a minute.

  “Why’d they even do that?” I asked.

  Brent stood next to me, toeing the ground, his breathing now returned to normal. “We’re Americans. We’re the enemy.”

  “Stupid. What good did it do them?”

  The question was left hanging. A few guys broke off from our group and started walking toward the disabled truck.

  Over the comms I heard them commenting and counting. They were surprised to find four dead in the truck—the driver, a passenger in the front seat, the gunner, and his loader assistant in the back.

  Rice’s voice came to me, admiring and proud, “We got them. Goddamn if we didn’t get them.”

  I hustled over there, wanting to congratulate Rice on his actions. He’d really stepped up. He was surprisingly calm, especially compared to how he’d been acting just minutes earlier. He reached into a pocket and took out a tin of long-cut Copenhagen. He looked for a minute like he was going to sneeze, but he seemed to wrestle that thing down and then spit. He nodded me over toward him.

  “Dude. I’m not going to say this to anybody but you.” He looked around to see who else might be within earshot.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t mean to shoot who I shot.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “No, dude, it does. C’mere.”

  I followed him around to the front of the truck.

  “See?” he said.

  I looked and then I realized what he was talking about. A round had pierced the left side of the front windshield. Drivers in Afghanistan sit on the right-hand side and drive on the left, just like they do in England. Rice was saying that he’d gone after the driver, but instead he was actually aiming at the passenger.

  “Luck, man. Pure luck. Must have been one of those magic bullets bouncing around in there, and took the driver out.”

  “Who cares, man?” I said, gripping his biceps and shaking him slightly. “You took out a freakin’ rolling machine gun nest for us. That’s what counts.”

  Rice nodded. “Roger that.”

  * * *

  We formed up again and advanced on our target. Intel came in that he was still at the same objective. Then Bruno and Sergeant Val did a quick search around the perimeter of the building, paying particular attention to the doorway we were going t
o breach. The Taliban had learned that we would stack up on doorways, so they’d begun placing explosive charges waist high that could be remotely detonated. The dog didn’t hit on anything so we were good to go. If he had, then we had multiple options—another entrance or even get a C-130 crew to drop a bomb on the building.

  While the assault team was checking things out, Brent, Rice, and I made our way to our hide. We had to climb a building to gain access to the roof, approximately forty feet above us. Rice was going to assist with the ladder.

  “Whatever you do, don’t move this thing.” I had visions of Brent and I trying to exit through the building’s interior, navigating multiple stairways—that was not something we wanted to take on.

  Brent was an excellent climber. He enjoyed rock climbing and worked out on indoor walls whenever possible. I let him take the lead up the ladder. He ascended quickly, and try as I might, I lagged behind a little. Before I got to the top, I heard Brent’s voice, a whisper. I figured he was telling me to pick up the pace. When I got to the top, I could see that he wasn’t alone and I could hear that he wasn’t talking to me. A figure stood twenty or so feet ahead of him, and in Pashto, Brent had told the figure to stop.

  Without turning around, Brent said, “Cover me. Cover me.”

  I hadn’t gotten on the roof yet; I was still looking over the ledge. I slung my rifle around and scoped the guy, right in the middle of his forehead. Brent had his pistol drawn and it appeared that the man he was confronting was unarmed. At that point, another man came out onto the roof and he was speaking. Given how quiet the night was, it sounded like he was shouting, whether at Brent or to his buddy I couldn’t say. I wanted him to just shut the hell up. Who knew what he was saying; he could have been giving our position away to a sniper.