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PART ONE
War does not determine who is right—only who is left.
—BERTRAND RUSSELL, PHILOSOPHER
1
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OCTOBER 25, 2006
Navy SEAL Alexander Brandenburg rode north in an old Toyota truck, speeding toward Kahar, Iraq. He checked his watch again, reflexively shielding the dial as he pressed the light button—02h14. He looked up from his watch to his tobacco-chewing sniper mentor, Chief Petty Officer Jack “Jabberwocky” Lee. “You’re gonna slay ’em, kid,” Jabberwocky whispered in Alex’s ear, referring to the Shiite terrorists in Kahar. “You know why?”
Alex shook his head and smiled, then realized Jabberwocky couldn’t see him in the dark. “No. Why?”
Jabberwocky spit a stream of tobacco juice out the window of the truck before answering. “Because you were taught by the best.”
Silence ruled as they entered Kahar. The Toyota rolled quietly through the deserted streets. Inside of a minute they reached the upper-class neighborhood. Alex slung his sniper rifle over his left shoulder before pulling his sound-suppressed SIG Sauer P-226 Navy 9mm pistol out of its holster and clicking the safety off. Nodding at Jabberwocky in the dark, he opened his door. The interior cabin light did not come on, since Jabberwocky had made sure it was switched off before they left. “Details, young Jedi, details.”
The truck slowed to five miles per hour. Alex took a breath and slipped out into the night as the truck picked up speed and continued on. He quickly jogged to the edge of the nearest wall, where he slid into the shadows. Had anyone seen him? He waited fifteen minutes, prepared to shoot anything that moved, but Kahar showed no signs of being aware of his arrival. Alex flipped down the night-vision goggles on his helmet and the world took on a greenish hue. He scanned the area. Spotting nothing untoward, he stepped into an alley off the road and followed it as it ran behind the houses. Most of the lights were out and he couldn’t make out any talking over the sound of his own breathing. He crouched down in a pile of rubbish, his camouflage clothing and painted skin helping him blend in. He adjusted the sling on his sniper rifle, realizing it was like carrying a death sentence on his back. The enemy hated snipers. If he were captured he would likely face torture, and then execution—the only good sniper is the one on your side.
Alex flipped up his night-vision goggles and surveyed the area, staring straight ahead and focusing on his peripheral vision to catch any movement. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the goggles, but he knew there could be a time when he wouldn’t have them, and even when he did they might not work. A sniper had to be effective with just his eyes and rifle.
He caught the sound of the truck’s engine growing fainter as it navigated the deserted streets. Any moment now it would be dropping off Jabberwocky at the north end of town before heading west and out of the village.
Alex remained motionless in the alley for fifteen minutes. Patience wasn’t just a virtue for a sniper; it was everything. With no signs of activity, Alex eased himself into a standing position and began stalking through a series of crooked and winding alleys. Thirty minutes later he reached his destination: a wall with a line painted on it—the perimeter wall to a safe house. He was told that the top of the wall was cemented with broken glass to discourage people from climbing over it. He followed the wall around to the front and stopped at the front gate. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a set of keys that were tightly connected like the blades of a pocketknife so the keys wouldn’t jingle. He unlocked the gate. After closing it behind him, he pulled on the gate and made sure it was locked. He quickly moved across the small courtyard to the front door of the house and waited. He remembered how impatient he had been in training when instructors had drilled caution and patience. He was finally understanding why. Hearing nothing, he unlocked the front door, walked in, and then locked the door behind him—details.
He moved away from the door and crouched down, his pistol held ready in the firing position. It was darker inside the house than it was in the alley, but he could see the outline of some furniture and make out walls and doorways. He looked, he listened, and he waited. He was a big cat on an African plain. He would stalk, and he would kill.
Once he was satisfied he was alone, Alex holstered his pistol and laid a claymore mine with an infrared triggering mechanism facing the door he’d just entered. If intruders came through the door, the movement would trigger the mine and welcome them with a hearty bang.
Alex drew his SIG back out of the holster and scanned through its contrast sights. He moved through the first floor, closets and all, making sure the house was clear. He inspected a narrow stairway as he climbed up. Then he checked the second floor. Clear. He placed another infrared-triggered claymore facing the top step of the stairs on the second floor.
Here another narrow stairway led to the roof. Alex climbed up and onto the roof, which featured a parapet on all four sides. Clearing the roof, he holstered his pistol and devoted all of his attention to his main weapon.
He crawled toward the front parapet and took up a prone position facing the target house across the street. He stayed back from the edge to make it more difficult to be seen from the outside. Movies too often showed snipers leaning out of windows or bell towers, which was a dead giveaway. You stayed as far back from the edge as you could—at least, you did if you wanted to live.
Alex steadied his customized Remington 700 sniper rifle. Known as the Win Mag, the rifle fired a specially made .300 Winchester Magnum bullet. Alex called his personal rifle Betty, after the Betty Boop cartoon character.
He ran his hands over Betty, checking by feel that everything was tight and in place. Above the Leupold scope he’d mounted a Medium Thermal Weapon Sight (MTWS). Alex pressed his eye against the rubber cup around the MTWS eyepiece, activating the sight’s cool-down. He held his eye there for two minutes as the sight’s temperature lowered enough for him to see everything cold in black and everything hot in white. There were no colors. His field of vision was 15 degrees, and everything appeared five times larger.
The target for tonight’s mission was Raad Nalo, an Iraqi citizen who recruited for Iran, financed and trained terrorists, and targeted Iraqi police, military, and government personnel in order to destabilize the country. Intel was that he didn’t talk much and walked with a limp. The SEALs had nicknamed him Verbal, after Roger “Verbal” Kint (aka Keyser Söze) in the movie The Usual Suspects.
Alex’s SEAL Team Two platoon had recently lost a SEAL sniper pair to an enemy countersniper team. It was a bitter loss, all the more so because the enemy sniper had gotten away. Without time to bring in a new team, Alex and Jabberwocky volunteered to split up and operate solo for this mission. It was breaking rules, but Alex had quickly found out that in a war zone you learned to do what you could within the rules and then what you had to without them.
“Magic Dragon, this is Ambassador. I am in the haystack, over,” Alex whispered, radioing the tactical operation center that he was in position.
“Ambassador, this is Magic Dragon. Copy you in the haystack, over.”
One minute later, Jabberwocky radioed in on the same frequency that he was in position. Intel was certain, well, as certain as they could ever be, that more of the Shiite fighters were located to the north. If Verbal escaped the kill zone, he’d probably run in that direction
to find friends. If he did, Jabberwocky would be the fortunate one to take him out. Alex could see Jabberwocky through his scope, but only because he knew where he would be, and Jabberwocky, like Alex, hadn’t created an elaborate hide. This was a quick mission—in and out. Alex went back to scanning the target area, comforted that Jabberwocky was there, even if he was on the other side of the village.
Between the condominium and the street on its west side sat two burned metal drums. Two more metal drums were positioned between the building and the street running along its south side. The burned metal drums clashed with their affluent surroundings, but the drums weren’t there for decoration. In the past, the terrorists had learned to set trash in the drums and tires on fire to conceal them in smoke, but Alex had a surprise for them: not only did the thermal sight allow him to see through the night under low light levels, but it also allowed him to see through smoke.
Shortly before dawn, the rest of the SEAL platoon would take down the target building—a two-story condominium that housed Shiites loyal to Iran. Alex heard two Black Hawk helicopters in the distance. He checked his watch—right on schedule. As the helos neared, men armed with AK-47 assault rifles emerged from the target building and moved toward the drums. Alex’s personal rules of engagement were simple: kill them all.
Alex trained his scope on one of the metal drums to the south. A man-shaped image in white moved quickly through the black space in his scope toward the drums. Alex centered his sights on the man’s head. At seventy-five yards it was an easy shot, but Alex didn’t take it for granted. He controlled his breathing, resat the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, gave himself a silent “send” command, and squeezed the trigger. Flecks of white erupted from the figure as it tumbled to the ground five yards short of the drums.
A second man tried to light the same metal drum, actually stepping over the body of the first Shiite fighter to do so. Alex shot him center of mass, just left of the sternum. The man fell directly in front of the first one, creating a long white blob that reminded Alex of a fat night crawler.
A flare of white in his scope meant other terrorists had succeeded in lighting fires in the other drums. Smoke blanketed the area. While it didn’t affect Alex’s vision through the scope, it did irritate his nose and throat. He kept his sights on the unlit drums and sure enough, a third terrorist moved toward them. The man paused when he came to the two bodies of his comrades. Alex fired, his bullet ripping through the man’s rib cage from right to left. The blood spray looked like a burst fire hydrant through his scope.
With no more terrorists moving toward the drums, Alex moved his sight to a window on the first floor of the three-story target building. The shape of a terrorist, hot white head and cold black AK, hung out the window aiming at the sky toward the incoming choppers. Alex aimed for the nasal cavity and fired. The head disappeared back inside the house while the AK-47 tumbled down to the ground below.
The sound of the helos became louder. Alex’s left eye wasn’t looking through the scope, but it remained half open. He marveled as the Black Hawk blades whipped the smoke into a frenzy.
One Black Hawk hovered above the target building with its skids almost touching the roof. White shapes jumped out onto the roof—SEALs. They quickly blew a hole through the roof and entered the top floor of the building from above. If intel was correct, they’d land in the hallway. If intel was wrong, they could take a flight down the stairwell.
A second Black Hawk landed in the street, kicking up dust and trash, which did obscure Alex’s vision. More SEALs hopped off. Four SEALs ran to the four corners outside the building to seal it off while the rest stacked up at the main door. A loud bang and brilliant burst of light marked the detonation of a flash-bang grenade. The SEALs burst through the front door a moment later.
Alex scanned the middle smoky area through his thermal sight—no threats. He panned to the right and up to the top of a building, where he spotted a white silhouette, but instead of holding an AK-47, the terrorist held a much larger, black object.
Damn! It was a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). Alex’s heart jumped. He placed his crosshairs on the terrorist’s neck to compensate for the distance and squeezed the trigger. The shot hit the terrorist in the gut, folding him in half like a lawn chair.
In Alex’s earphone, he heard the SEALs continue their assault. He scanned back to the target building and saw a figure drop out of a second-story window. The figure stood up and limped away from the building, heading through the smoke toward Alex. Is he limping from the fall, or is he Verbal? Is he a SEAL?
“Rover Team, Rover Team, this is Ambassador,” Alex said. “One unidentified just jumped from a second-story window, south side. He’s moving south across the street and limping, over.”
“This is Rover Five, south corner. I don’t see him. Is he in the smoke?”
“Affirmative,” Alex said. “He’s limping through the smoke toward my position.”
For several agonizing seconds the radio remained silent.
“He’s not one of ours, Ambassador. I repeat, he is not one of ours. You are free to engage, over,” the SEAL said.
Alex was tempted to take the shot then and there, but there was no way the other SEAL could be 100 percent sure, could he?
When the limping figure exited the smoke, Alex still couldn’t recognize his face through the thermal sight. Alex took his eye off the thermal scope and looked through the Leupold scope. The world and all its color came into view, but he lost the man with the limp.
Alex laid Betty down on the deck, so it wouldn’t slow him down. He leaned over on his left side and drew his pistol just as a bullet cracked the sound barrier where his head had been. Countersniper! He crawled to the steps and down them. On the second floor, he rushed to the next set of stairs. Without thinking, he almost ran down them, but the sight of the claymore reminded him he needed to disarm the mine. He did.
Boom!
Did the claymore blow up in my face? No, it’s still in one piece. Was I shot? I don’t feel any pain.
Alex remembered the front door. He walked down the steps and looked at the front door. The claymore there had detonated and the door was shredded. The person who had picked the lock was shredded, too. Blood had splashed all over the ground and into the street. When Alex stepped outside, he slipped on the blood and almost fell. He examined the face and upper row of teeth, but they weren’t gold: this wasn’t Verbal. Who was it?
Alex went back in the house and set up his claymore on the first stair landing before returning to the roof. He carefully retrieved his rifle without exposing himself. Then he descended to the second floor. Staying far back from the window, he scanned the area through his sniper scope, but he couldn’t spot the countersniper. He checked Jabberwocky’s position—he was gone, too. He’d probably returned to the helo. I better move my ass, or I’ll miss my ride, and I do not want to walk through booger-eater territory in broad daylight.
Alex disarmed his claymore, grabbed what was left of the mysterious lock picker on the first floor, and dragged him to the helo. Alex looked inside the helo for his sniper mentor, but he wasn’t there. “Where’s Jabberwocky?” Alex asked.
“You didn’t hear?” a SEAL with a bushy beard asked.
“Hear what?” Alex asked.
The SEAL shook his head. Minutes later, two SEALs loaded Jabberwocky’s body onto the helo. Blood covered his face, which was swollen from a bullet wound. His trousers were torn and wet like he’d been shot in the crotch several times. The helo lifted up, but Alex felt a part of him had been left on the ground.
MAJOR GHOLAM KHAN STOOD at the doorway of the American safe house, looking down at the blood-splattered ground. The infidels had taken Abubakar Sawalah’s body. Khan knew Abubakar was dead. There was no way he could have survived the blast. The amount of blood and bits of brain matter on the ground made that clear. Khan crouched down, placing himself where he imagined Abubakar had been the moment he was killed.
It was his faul
t Abubakar was dead. Khan had told him to work his way toward the house across the street where the second American sniper was hiding. The boy, just twenty-one years old, was always eager to please. With a quick mind and sharp eye he was easily Khan’s best student. He had all the potential to be a shooter as good as Khan himself, maybe even better. But his youthfulness made him reckless. Khan knew that, but in the middle of the fight there had been no time to caution the young man. Khan stood up. He would have gone through a window, maybe even climbing the wall to the second story. It would have taken time, but it would have been unexpected.
A Shiite fighter ran up to him out of breath. “Sir, I am sorry, but we must leave. American patrols are coming.”
Khan waved the man away, but he did turn and follow after him. There was nothing more to see here. He had the satisfaction of killing one of the snipers, of that he was sure, but the other had lived. It was, what was the saying . . . a draw. He spit on the ground.
He didn’t play for draws.
2
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JANUARY 6, 2012
Major Gholam Khan didn’t give much thought to who he was ordered to kill. He’d done the deed many times before, and he thought tonight’s assignment would be one of his easier tasks. Now he was in a highly secret and secure Iranian biological weapons lab. As a member of the elite Quds Force within Iran’s Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution—the Revolutionary Guard—Major Khan moved about the country with ease. It was widely known, if not spoken about in public, that the Quds’ mission was to export Iran’s vision of Islam abroad by financing, training, equipping, and organizing foreign revolutionary units. Moreover, the Quds reported directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah himself. That made Major Khan all but untouchable, at least in his country. After almost being captured in Iraq several years ago, however, Major Khan had been ordered home. Greeted as a hero, he nonetheless felt cheated. He’d groomed several Shiite countersniper teams in Iraq, many of whom were killed after he left.
Easy Day for the Dead Page 1
