by David Nees
She could see two men from the chest up. Sitting just behind the parapet. They were frantically looking around, trying to pin down exactly where the sudden din was coming from. Catherine slowed her breathing and let her aim steady. One of them stood up with a pair of binoculars. Catherine squeezed off a round. The rifle barked and kicked back at her. The man fell sideways, hit in the left temple.
She quickly looked for the other spotter. He had disappeared. She kept the rifle scope trained on that spot for a few seconds, and suddenly she caught a double glare, right at the top of the parapet. Two lenses were reflecting the afternoon sun back at her. She sighted on the glare and squeezed off a second round. The light disappeared. Catherine watched for a few seconds more. She saw nothing.
Could still be keeping low. No. He’s dead. Move—
She turned to the second rooftop to the south. Through her scope she saw a head appear, she thought with binoculars, but only for a moment before it disappeared. She could see no sign of anyone else. Bad luck. The noise should have covered her shots, but a spotter must have been looking the right way to see one of the men in the north building go down. Now one or more men were searching for her.
Then a round hit the parapet four inches to the left of her gun, chipping the decorative cement cap, spraying her with fragments of concrete. She dropped below the edge and quickly moved to her right, scrambling on her hands and knees, keeping below the cover of the parapet.
Someone over there can shoot!
The corner was close. When she got to it she caught her breath and then brought her rifle up and over the wall in one quick move. As she swept the opposing roof with her scope a shot rang out and she heard the sharp, short whistle of a bullet going over her head. She ducked down. She was on the defensive. The other sniper had control of the field of fire, scanning and waiting for her to stick her head up. Only one shot at a time. Maybe it’s just one guy… She scrambled back to her left, clutching the rifle in her right hand, moving half on her elbow. The other corner was a long way off. She kept crawling. Near the middle she stopped. She was panting, her body began to shake from the flush of adrenaline. Can’t shoot like this. But she needed to get the advantage back; not be on the defensive. Taking a deep breath, she swept the rifle smoothly up over the parapet and had just put her eye to the scope when the brick a foot below her exploded. Fragments of brick showered her face and forehead as the shot rang out. She dropped down just as another bullet whistled over, right where her head had been.
Catherine rolled over on her back, clutching her rifle, her body shaking. He can find me before I can settle my gun down and zero in on him. That last shot would have killed me.
After a moment she took a deep breath and began to talk to herself. Need to pop up where he’s not watching. Got to have a chance to aim. He can see this whole wall. He can shift his aim to me faster than I can find him. The open space above the parapet was death.
Rolling on her side, she looked around to see what other possibilities presented themselves. Nothing at all along the side of the roof that faced the enemy. But to her right, after the corner, midway back along the edge facing the main street, the parapet wall jutted outward suddenly. She thought it might be to accommodate the entrance down at the street level.
The step-out gave her the possibility of coming up from behind the parapet there and having the same shot as she had along the current wall. But the other shooter would not be looking at that section.
At least not for a few seconds…
Catherine slipped her arm through the rifle strap and nudged the M110 onto her back. She crawled to her right. It seemed to take forever to get to the corner. And then she began to crawl back towards the stepped-out section. She found herself wanting to drag her belly on the gritty roof surface. The further back she got from the parapet, the greater the possibility the enemy could see over it and spot her. She dragged herself over the gravel. Could he see her now? The skin of her back seemed to itch and tremble, waiting for the shock of a bullet slamming into her.
And then she got to the stepped-out section and twisted around the corner.
When she was in place, she leaned back and settled herself down. You’ve got one chance, don’t blow it. If she could get the other shooter on the defensive, she might win the duel. She forced herself to say aloud, in a low voice that didn’t quite shake, “He’s not that good of a shot.” He’s pretty good. “But not that good. Or you’d be dead.” It was true. “He missed you three whole times.” Her voice had firmed. Only his second shot at the same place had been right on. He was only okay. She felt a grim smile grow on her face.
She rehearsed the motion in her mind.
She swung her rifle over the parapet and swept her scope across the wall on the other building. There was the shooter’s head, watching for her along the wall she had just left. She fired. She saw a puff of dust burst from the concrete a foot below him. He vanished. Nothing now showed above the wall.
He probably didn’t know where that shot had come from. She had turned the tables and now had the dominant position in this deadly back-and-forth game. Catherine swept the wall with her rifle, peering through the scope. She would have to be quick and accurate. If the head presented itself, a rifle would be coming up. She would have to take enough time to make a good shot, but not too much time. The other shooter would be aiming too. If they both aimed well, whoever shot first was going to win. She pushed those thoughts from her mind and forced her breathing to slow. Panic now would only cripple her. She shut off her fear and forced herself into a calm state. Just shooting at targets. Forget about the fact that the target could shoot back; just don’t take too long to get off your shot.
A rifle appeared with a head partially visible behind it. From this angle the sun didn’t give her a reflection from the other shooter’s scope. Catherine centered in on the target, giving herself a split second extra to aim. This one has to count. When she was sure she squeezed the trigger. The head exploded and the rifle flew into the air and bounced over the edge.
Not letting her guard down, she began to scan the edge of the parapet again. One more time. Suddenly, back from the edge, she saw a figure duck around the corner of the stairway access. It was too quick for her to get off a shot. Catherine sagged back against the wall of the parapet. She had won the first round of her battle. She had shot before the other shooter could get off a shot. Her body shook as the realization flooded her. She had been less than a second away from being killed…twice. Instead of her head exploding, the other shooter’s had.
Get a grip. The battle’s not over. There was more to do, but her first threat had been eliminated.
She got to her feet and ran in a crouch back to the east parapet, the spot where she had started. As a sniper, Catherine was literally and figuratively above the fray. In the intensity of the duel she had blanked out the battle going on below her. Now she knelt at the parapet and scanned the fight for the first time.
To her right, far across a stretch of single-story buildings within the compound, she could see the south-facing barricades. She could not see any attackers, but she could see the militia firing down the street. On her left the shooting was louder and much closer. The northwest corner of the compound was there, and Catherine could see militia moving behind the barricade. Some were standing and firing; some were shifting their positions. They looked disorganized to her. The gunfire was going on sometimes in a flurry, sometimes intermittently. There were a lot of long bursts of automatic weapon fire, wasteful and disorganized, but among them she could hear shorter bursts and single shots. She guessed the more controlled shooting was coming from the attackers. The militia seemed to be just blazing away on full automatic without aiming or perhaps even seeing the enemy, hoping just to hit something through sheer volume. From the military, the gunfire was more controlled and organized.
It sounded as if the northern attack had almost reached the fortifications themselves. Catherine snatched up the sniper rifle and ran left to the
northeast corner of the building. The fight came into view.
Here and there she could see the Army soldiers moving toward the compound. The glimpses startled her eye, because they were more widely scattered than she had expected. From her vantage point she could see that they were making their way along three different streets that, unlike the grid in other blocks, ran diagonally toward the corner of the barricade. Even now there were still many abandoned cars parked along the curbs, and the soldiers used them as cover, alternating between them and door alcoves. Sometimes getting pinned down, sometimes advancing.
She knew Kevin was among the men, but she couldn’t pick him out.
Something bright crossed the scene, and one of the abandoned cars spouted flame and rocked sideways, fragments flying. The sound of the blast reached her almost simultaneously.
She jerked her gaze back to the barricade. There was a man with a rocket launcher standing just inside the corner of the barrier. As she watched, he raised the tube and sent another streak of fire down the street. The explosion this time burst open the front of a building along the street, and she saw five of the attackers abandon their positions and scramble back in retreat amidst a new barrage of militia fire.
Catherine brought her rifle up and located the man in her scope. The horizontal distance and the windage were the same, but now she was shooting down eleven stories. From her distance, the bullet drop would be negligible and she could aim as if the round would travel a flat path to the target. Not wanting to shoot high, she moved the crosshairs downward slightly, and squeezed off a shot. The man was turning to yell something to another fighter when the bullet caught him in his hip, shattering it and twisting him to the ground. The rocket launcher clattered to the pavement.
Other militia looked up in Catherine’s direction and began to fire wildly. She ducked behind the parapet and moved to her right along the wall towards another position. She heard a few rounds smacking into the side of the building, mostly far down, and a few whining high overhead.
Did they see me right away? Shouldn’t the sun be in their eyes?
They might have just been shooting blindly, but she knew she presented a tiny dark lump in the line of the roof. She had to remember that.
Catherine felt a wry smile tug at her face. If they were shooting at her, at least they weren’t shooting at the attackers. She hoped Kevin’s team would realize what was going on and take advantage of the distraction she had provided. The enemy shooting at her was almost as big a victory as her killing them. It meant the attack could move forward.
Again, she took a deep breath. She knew she had only a moment to acquire a target and get off a shot. Those guys couldn’t all be bad shots. The more time she spent exposed, the more chance she had of getting hit. She moved. Her rifle swung into position and she found a target—any would do—fired and dropped behind the parapet. She thought she had seen the man go down. There was a pause in the shooting and Catherine again swept her rifle over the parapet and got off another shot. She missed, but she stayed up and took another, aiming at a man just picking up the rocket launcher. He dropped, shot in the chest, and lay on top of the weapon.
Then she scrambled back towards the corner of the roof to repeat her actions. The intensity of the street attack had now increased. The attackers had realized that Catherine was distracting the defenders. The soldiers on the street the rockets had targeted resumed their advance. The militia fire being directed toward Catherine’s building dropped off to nothing; the defenders could see the main threat coming toward them at street level. She could see the smart ones huddling down close to the packed obstructions, trying to keep out of Catherine’s line of fire, even though it reduced their view of the approaching soldiers. The foolish ones exposed themselves to better shoot back at the attackers. Catherine went after those targets.
Both sides had machine guns in action. The approach streets were deadly. The attackers’ progress slowed. Distantly Catherine was aware that the southern attackers seemed to be taking their time reaching the compound as well. Perhaps the attack was stalling on both ends.
Catherine ground her teeth. She had to focus on this end. With the militia’s attention turned towards the street, she concentrated on finding the machine guns and targeting their crews. After she had taken out two of them, the attackers were able to move forward again.
Suddenly she heard the percussive whoomp of a mortar firing.
She’d forgotten the mortars.
The round exploded in the street two blocks from the defense line. Seconds later another mortar bomb landed near the first one. It looked like they were going to work their way up and down the streets, scattering the attackers and making them take cover in the buildings.
Catherine quickly looked back at the center of the compound for the origin. Men were moving around the mortar up by the bank tower. The three mortars nearer to her on the street looked to be screened from the northern attack by the tall building to her left.
She aimed carefully. The nearness of the mortar to the intersection at the center of the compound gave her a better read on the distance. She had to hit one of the mortar crew and then try to hit the weapon itself. She didn’t know if her 7.62mm round would disable it, but if she didn’t knock it out they could just move it up the side street to the south, out of her line of sight, and probably still be in position to bombard the northwest corner.
She exhaled and stroked the trigger. It was her longest shot yet, and she expected to have to correct her aim, but the man she was aiming at dropped. The rest of the mortar crew scattered. Catherine’s next shot hit the mortar tube, knocking it to the ground. She hoped she had dented the tube and rendered the weapon inoperable.
A flare of light across the diagonal to her right caught her eye, and the booming sound reached her a moment later. Half of a building façade had collapsed on one of the approach streets to the southern barricade. A great cloud of dust rose. They were using mortars over there too.
No one was up and moving around any of the three other mortars on the main street. She scanned the compound. In the empty lot in the middle of the block to her right, the two mortar emplacements she could see were surrounded by busy figures. As she watched, one of the mortars fired again.
She growled under her breath and took aim at the one slightly nearer to her. Her distance estimate was rougher now. The first shot struck the pavement short. Luckily the men didn’t notice. The second shot was high. Her third shot hit home and one of the militia spun away from the mortar to the ground. The other two stayed at their positions, one adjusting the angle of the tube, the other reaching for a rocket. She took out the man who was loading and the other one dove for cover. The other team on the lot had now taken notice and was trying to hide among the heaps of rubble.
She was causing enough disruption that the return fire had significantly increased.
Suddenly she saw a rocket headed her way.
She threw herself flat to the roof as the rocket hit the parapet thirty feet to her left, shattering a section of it. Shards stung her face and arms. She felt blood on her left cheek. Before she could respond the building shook from another blast below the parapet.
There would be more. And possibly mortar bombs. Catherine shuddered at the thought. It was time to leave the rooftop.
She got up and dashed back to the roof-access penthouse. Another rocket round smashed into the parapet behind her. She yanked the door open, stooped to grab her carbine where it lay, and ran down the steps to the door out to the main landing. After the brilliance of the roof she was totally blind, but she dragged her fingertips along the wall until she found the knob of the hallway door. She opened it and ran down the hall until she came to the room where the rocket had hit. It had blown in a short section of the exterior wall and shattered the tall window on the right side. With half its wall blown away, the office was open to the outside.
The smashed office held four desks, two of which were destroyed by the rocket blast. Another had been
turned over and one still sat upright. It was heavy, a government-issued metal piece, built like a tank. She dragged it over towards the opening, its front facing the street. She was about to push it all the way up to the verge, when she caught herself.
Muzzle flash.
She needed to be ten feet back to hide her firing.
She grabbed an overturned chair and pushed it up to the desk. She put the M110 on the desk. Opening one of the desk drawers, she pulled out a handful of fat file folders and stacked them on the desk. She adjusted the folders until she had a good shooting rest for her rifle.
She took a long pull of water from her canteen and sat down in the chair. How odd it was to be sitting at a desk. But instead of doing paperwork, she was using the paperwork to shoot people.
Stay in the moment.
Stray thoughts pushed aside, she went to work, dealing death from the tenth-story office.
Chapter 31
Leo was not coming.
It was hard for Joe to absorb. Leo had always been his most capable and trusted lieutenant. He could be trusted to get things done, to make problems disappear, to take care of challenges to his organization. Even when Leo had returned alone to report the surprising defeat in the valley, Joe had never seriously doubted him.
From the report he had gotten, there could be no doubt Leo was dead. How it could have happened, Joe couldn’t imagine. Leo was physically strong, but, more importantly, he was ruthless. Who had done it…and how?
Joe snorted. Leo was gone. He would have to direct the fight himself.
He smiled a grim smile, one without humor. So be it. He had always understood a fight.
The militia officer who had left his office returned, looking white around the lips. Joe didn’t know his name, or the other one’s either. Leo would have known. “They’re attacking on two sides,” the man said. “The north and south. I don’t know how many there are—”
“You know who’s in charge of those sections?”
