Target Deck - 02

by Jack Murphy

  “Yes, sir,” Aghassi said sarcastically.

  As Nikita ascended the tower, he eventually found the ladder that had been retracted off the ground and locked in place. At least he could use it the rest of the way up. Aghassi went to work on the lock on the generator room. The massive fuel cell was outside sitting on a concrete foundation but the generator itself was under lock and key. It only took a few minutes with his lock picks before the cylinder turned and he was able to open the door. He picked a second padlock on the door to the console and opened it. Inside were a series of switches and one lever that controlled the master power distribution. Pushing it down resulted in the interior lights blinking out as well as shutting down the entire communications tower.

  Back at the car, he dug into his assault pack where his tactical radio was located. A wire ran from the radio to a cable that ran up into the frame of the car through the glove compartment. Hidden in the roof of the vehicle was the satellite antenna itself. The low-visibility antenna was another piece of kit that Deckard had thoughtfully purchased with company funds and had flown in with the last shipment of supplies.

  He turned the knob until he came to the channel for Fedorchenko's platoon assault net.

  “This is Spooky-One,” he said into the handmic.

  Someone answered in Russian, causing Aghassi to frown.

  “Spooky, this is Six,” Deckard cut in. He could hear the rattle of gunfire across the net.

  “We are in overwatch. Enemy comms are disabled. Break. Shooter-One is moving into position and requests that you turn on IR strobes prior to him going hot, over.”

  “Roger that,” Deckard's voice sounded like sandpaper. “Glad to have you along for the ride.”

  28

  “Turn on your shoot-me lights!” Deckard ordered.

  Outfitted for urban combat, each Samruk mercenary wore a plate carrier and a low-profile ballistic helmet that their PVS-14 night vision goggles were attached to. They also had infrared light strips made by S&S Precision attached to their helmets. The V-lite was made out of a flexible strip that increased the visible area of the light that was Velcro'ed to the side of each team member's helmet. Squad leaders wore Manta strobe lights which flashed on and off and were even brighter. The infrared light was only visible under night vision goggles, a piece of kit that the enemy may have as well which was why they were usually turned off.

  “Shooter-One, you see us?”

  “Roger Six, let me get in position,” Nikita reported from somewhere off in the night.

  PKM gunners were now up on the roof of the aluminum shop with the assaulters. They extended the bipod legs from the bottom of the Russian machine guns and one was posted at each corner of the building for maximum fields of fire.

  The Samruk men were taking some heavy fire, the machine gunners flinching and ducking down behind the lip of the wall every so often as the enemy walked in some tracer fire. Every time they saw a head and shoulders pop up on the rooftops the mercenaries would take aim and fire but it was like the cartel shooters were playing a deadly game of hide and seek.

  The rooftops were haphazard and showed little sense of organization, mostly low one story affairs with additional structures built onto the side of the building or on the roof, much of it cobbled together with whatever materials were readily available. Deckard knew that his men had enough fire power up on the roof at this point that the enemy could no longer dominate the high ground uncontested. Now, the gunmen were pushing at their defenses here and there, looking for gaps. They would be finding their way closer and closer as they found ways to navigate around and through the buildings at ground level.

  Walking alongside Zhenis, Deckard looked for a way for them to skirt over the roofs all the way down the block to the tractor trailer that was blocking them in.

  “I see a way,” the Kazakh said in Russian.

  “Nikita is almost in place. Once he is set, we can take two squads forward.”

  Splitting the platoon in half would be a tactical disaster but both elements would be close enough that they would be able to support each other. At this point they had to make something happen or the enemy would nickel and dime them until they ran out of ammunition. Machine gunners had already been instructed to conserve ammo and two mercenaries had already climbed back down inside the building to pull additional belts of 7.62 off the trucks.

  Another RPG rocket soared through the air, screaming over their heads before shooting out over the city and airbursting.

  Zhenis looked at his commander.

  “I'm going to have them bring up the Carl Gustav.”

  Nikita struggled to get into a stable firing position. One hundred and fifty feet up in the air on a giant communications tower was not exactly the best sniper hide. His Samruk sniper instructor had been a South African named Piet who taught him never to climb up into trees, water towers, or other such nonsense. When someone pulled the pin on a chaos frag you would be stuck up there. Nikita was obliged to agree but these were extenuating circumstances.

  Digging around inside his assault pack he retrieved the climbing rope and carabiners that he had used at the Jimenez compound. Slinging the rifle, it was more than awkward to maneuver with one hand on the ladder. Running the rope back on itself and around the metal cross members of the tower, he used the carabiners to create a kind of improvised hammock that he could sit on. Carefully, he lowered himself onto the ropes and let himself sit down with his feet braced on the side of the tower. Finally, he got his HK 417 resting against the cross beam in front of him and popped open the scope caps.

  Lowering his night vision goggles he could see the IR strobe lights flashing that marked the friendly platoon's position. Deckard was calling him over the radio so he responded, acknowledging that he spotted them. The tower provided Nikita with an amazing vantage point but it would be long distance, high angle shots that he would have to make to help thin out the opposition for his Samruk comrades.

  Muzzle flashes lit up the night, a form of visible strobe lights that marked friendly and enemy positions alike.

  The sniper took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. Leaning forward, he powered up the Universal Night Sight, the night vision optics that complimented his long range scope for low visibility work.

  Using a pocket sized laser range finder he ranged the distance to the warehouse his men were on at nine hundred and thirty two meters, a difficult shot to make on a good day and in a solid firing position. The external ballistics got more complicated however when Nikita began factoring in the high angle aspect of the shots he would have to make.

  When judging range at a high angle up or down from the target, the distance to the target that the shooter would arrive at would be much longer than the actual flat range distance from his position to the enemy position. If the high angle distance to target, in this case nine hundred and thirty meters was dialed into his rifle scope, his bullets would impact much higher than the point of aim.

  High angle, low angle, or no angle, bullet drop would be the same because the earth's gravity is constant, however the discrepancy between flat line distance and angled distance had to be compensated for.

  A small level mounted to the side of his scope told him that with his rifle oriented down to the target building, gave him a reading that his gun was pointed down at 55 degrees. The cosine of a 55 degree angle was .57 according to a cheat sheet taped inside the scope cap. Next he applied the high angle formula to get his flat line distance. 930 meters multiplied by .57 equaled a flat line distance of 530 meters.

  Nikita used his thumb and index finger to slowly rotate the top dial on his Schmidt and Bender scope, counting off the clicks on the Bullet Drop Compensator until he arrived at the right offset, raising his cross hairs so that his bullets would strike center mass by compensating for the bullet drop caused by gravity at a range of five hundred and thirty meters.

  Bringing his breathing under control, he exhaled in short evenly spaced breaths. A few rooftops over from the alumi
num warehouse he saw a human form creeping along looking for a firing position of his own, a place where he could shoot at the mercenaries from a concealed position. Shifting in his improvised rope seat, Nikita let his sights land square on the gunman's back and keyed up his radio.

  “Six,” he whispered. “This is Shooter-One. I'm set, over.”

  A fresh round of gunfire exploded down below in the city.

  “Send it!”

  Nikita squeezed the trigger. He watched the gunman jerk, his muscles going tense. Through the green glow of the night vision enhanced scope, the would-be killer fell and died.

  Deckard couldn't discern Nikita's individual shots above all the automatic gunfire and sporadic rifle, pistol, and occasional RPG shots but one by one, he noticed enemy muzzle flashes blinking out. Suddenly, the amount of effective fire they were receiving seemed to drop by half. It gave them some much need breathing room. Cordite from the PKM and AK fire their men were laying down hung in the air with the humidity, the sickly sweet smell invading his nostrils.

  “We are prepared to move,” Zhenis said as they crouched behind cover. “Two squads have been outfitted with extra ammunition and two PKM's will cover our movement for immediate fire support.”

  “How about our street sweeper?”

  “Bringing up the rear.”

  “Let's do it.”

  The mercenaries slipped over the edge of the roof one by one and down to the adjacent rooftop. Machine gunners suppressed known and suspected enemy positions while Nikita was somewhere in the night providing precision fire. Once both squads and two PKM gunners were down they moved across the roof, staying low to avoid the continued onslaught of bullets that whizzed through the air. With the amount of lead kicking back and forth it was only a matter of time before someone caught a round in the face.

  There was a small gap between the house they were on top of and the next building over. Hearing someone arguing in Spanish, Deckard looked down to see several shadows scurrying through the alleyway as they attempted to find a concealed route to the aluminum shop where the remaining two squads and their trucks were holed up. Yanking a pin on a fragmentation grenade, Deckard dropped it through the gap and stepped away.

  “Fire in the hole!”

  In the confined space of the alley, the effects of the grenade were absolutely devastating. Both the shrapnel produced by the grenade and the overpressure created by a blast had nowhere to go but straight out at the cartel gunmen who were using the alley as an avenue of approach. The building buckled under the mercenaries' feet as the blast shook the neighborhood.

  Adjusting his night vision goggles by turning the focus knob, Deckard looked back down into the alley and saw body parts spread around with debris and the various other trash and refuse to be found in third world cities.

  “We're clear.”

  Hopping the gap, the Samruk men continued across the rooftops. Gunfire from other rooftops came sporadically and was inaccurate until a single shot cracked out above the others. Orders and cries for help sounded in Russian, the Kazakhs throwing themselves down flat. Deckard followed suit, scrambling to a prone position. Another gunshot rang out as cement dust blew into Deckard's face.

  Several Kazakh's pulled a downed team member behind a water basin, hoping for some cover from the gunfire but they had no idea where it was coming from.

  “He is alive,” one of the mercenaries told Zhenis as he asked what the status was. They had patted down the casualty and found no traces of blood.

  “The bullet hit his ballistic plate. It knocked the wind out of him but he is okay.”

  Another shot punched through the water basin, a single stream of water spurting out and splashing next to Deckard.

  “Shooter-One?” he called over the radio.

  “I'm looking!”

  Nikita used his night sights to peer into the shadows and crevices of the city, but a single enemy sniper could be hiding nearly anywhere, including inside a building and obscured from view.

  Sweeping across the city, he finally found what he was looking for on top of the Hotel Fortin. The Hotel was down the street from Deckard's position but in the opposite direction from which they were heading. On the roof he could see a cartel gunman with a scoped rifle taking carefully aimed shots.

  Nikita had to act fast before they suffered more casualties. He estimated the range to be about 700 meters, looked at his angle indicator and noted 70 degrees for a cosine of .34. 700 x .34 = 238 meters. The sniper adjusted his scope and settled behind the gun, his cheek pressed up against the stock in the exact same place every time he took a shot.

  The enemy sniper fired from the top of the eight story hotel and racked the bolt on his rifle to load a fresh round.

  Nikita had a difficult oblique shot, but it was the shot he had, not the one he wanted. Squeezing the trigger, he had no idea where his bullet went but he clearly missed. The target spun around as he heard something impact nearby. When he turned, he exposed his entire front side and chest to Nikita.

  Even through the grainy green night vision, Nikita could make out some of his facial features. He could see he broad face, deep set eyes, and thick lips. As a sniper, you got to know your targets better than most other soldiers. That was what Nikita liked about his job.

  He sent a second shot. The HK 417 bucked into his shoulder.

  The enemy sniper dropped his rifle before pitching forward onto his face.

  “Got him,” Deckard heard over the net.

  “Pick it up! We're moving!”

  The PKMs back on the roof of the aluminum shop were still roaring on advancing enemy but at least the enemy sniper had been put down. Moving one squad at a time, the mercenaries bounded forward from one roof to another with one squad in a static security position to cover the one that was advancing. The mercenaries were moving across the rooftops at a fast pace down to the end of the block where a large mechanics shop sat on the corner.

  Looking through a window, Deckard saw that the shop was packed full of broken down cars in various states of repair. The front of the shop was locked up with barbwire fences. He could see gunmen running across the street, not to mention the front end of the tractor trailer that they needed to move.

  Sergeant Zhenis brought up the rear as the second squad bounded up.

  “It's going to get nasty once we get down onto the streets,” Deckard said. “I want to get our two PKM gunners and the Goose gunner up on the roof of this shop for an added overwatch.”

  Zhenis looked up at the roof, it was about two man lengths higher than the roof they stood on. Giving some orders to his men, two of them formed stirrups with their hands with their backs braced against the wall. A third, with a long green metal tube slung over his back came forward and put his foot into their hands. The two soldiers boosted him up so that he could grab the edge of the roof and swing up.

  Once on the roof, he removed the sling from the metal tube and connected the ends to create a big loop. The rest of the squad tossed up to him two packs containing four recoilless rifle rounds and several gunner's bags filled with linked PKM ammunition. Next, the mercenaries boosted the two PKM gunners up to the roof. The recoilless rifle gunner tossed them his sling so they could grab on to it and he pulled them the rest of the way to the top.

  The recoilless rifle that the first mercenary carried was the 84mm Carl Gustav, a shoulder fired Anti-Tank weapon that fired a variety of shells ranging from High Explosive Anti-Tank, High Explosive Dual Purpose, flare, and smoke rounds. Popping open a locking lever, he swung the venturi at the end of the “Goose” out of the way and loaded a black round that looked like it had the top of it cut off with its flat nose. This specific round was an anti-personnel Flechette round.

  Moving to the edge of the roof, the Goose gunner looked down to see the cartel shooters who had surrounded the tractor trailer and were building improvised fighting positions at the end of the road. They were laying in wait for the Samruk mercenaries to attempt a breakout. If they did, they wo
uld be shot to ribbons. First they needed to clear the way of excess enemy.

  Shouldering the Gustav, the gunner used his thumb to prime the spring loaded cocking mechanism, aimed the weapon down into the street at the mass of enemy, and flipped the selector from safe to fire.

  The entire street corner was turned from night into day for a fraction of a second as the flechette round fired. The Area Defense Munition blasted over a thousand metal flechettes at the enemy, causing nearly all of them to drop the ground immediately. Screams of agony ripped through the night as those still living howled in pain. The two PKM gunners raked the dead and dying with automatic fire to finish off the job.

  By now the two squads of mercenaries had scrambled down to the street and ran to the tractor trailer. One of them jumped up in the cab and found the key missing from the ignition so he put the truck into neutral. The squads surrounded the cab, each man finding a hand hold wherever they could. With each of them throwing their weight into it and grunting in exertion, the semi-truck finally budged and began rolling.

  Sergeant Zhen saw the truck lurch forward, unblocking access to the road.

  “Get off the roof,” he ordered the remaining two squads and two machine gunners still on top of the aluminum shop by calling over his radio. “Grab up the security element inside, mount the vehicles, and roll out. You are making a hard left on the way out and coming straight down the road towards us.”

  With the truck rolling down a slight incline, it smashed into several parked cars and came to a stop. Deckard wiped sweat from his face, turning around just in time to catch a vehicle screaming around the corner. It was a technical, a pickup truck with a .50 caliber M2 machine gun mounted on a pivot in the back. The gunner standing in the bed of the truck racked the charging handle.

  “Technical!” he yelled.

  The machine gunner let loose a fusillade of auto fire that cut through the night, red tracers pointing the way. The mercenaries ducked out of the street and took refuge behind parked cars as the hot metal screamed towards them.