by Young, Tom
It felt strange to be so completely on his own. Like any other U.S. serviceman, Parson was used to having huge technical advantages over the enemy. Even though a helicopter couldn’t get to him, he might normally have had other resources at his disposal. He thought about what an unmanned drone might do for him. Maybe he could get a radio patch for some kind of Conference Skyhook, and a Predator driver sitting in Nevada could tell him exactly where the bad guys were. Better yet, if it were an armed drone like a Reaper, the aircraft could make the bad guys go away. Just a black puff on a video screen. But this damnable blizzard negated all that. Except for his GPS, about the only difference between him and the Brits who got routed here in the 1840s was that his rifle loaded at the breech and not the muzzle.
He plodded on under a slate sky. The mantle of snow lay unbroken around him except for the fading line of little white sinkholes. The first wash of dusk caused him a hint of panic. If I don’t find them today and the snow doesn’t stop, he thought, I’ll never find her. If they don’t kill her outright, they’ll take her across the border. And then we won’t recover so much as a dog tag. Gold’s name on MIA bracelets forever. To hell with that.
As the light started to die, the tracks became nearly impossible to see. Parson dropped his pack, hunted for his night-vision goggles. He turned them on, looked through them, and got nothing but blank green. Still too much skyglow. He’d have to wait for black night to get any use out of them, and he realized, My God, that won’t be long.
He glanced down at the trail again and saw nothing. Too dark now for the naked eye. And the goggles might not have enough resolution to pick out tracks. He took a mental bearing of the direction the bootprints had led. No help from a compass or a satellite now, navigator, he said to himself. Just a vector based on instinct. Maybe even a prayer, if there’s anybody listening. Guide me tonight unless You want her dead.
Maybe this is another test, he thought, like the one he’d botched when he almost torched the mullah. He wanted to do better this time. He had to, for Gold’s sake. It seemed this blizzard, this whole damned predicament, was probing him down to the core of his soul.
Parson trudged straight ahead, blindly. He felt the terrain rise, and he saw the dim outlines of trees. Other than that, he could make out nothing. He struggled uphill, and he stopped when he sensed that he had reached the crest. Beyond it pure, undistilled blackness. As if his oldest predecessors had been right and he’d sailed to the edge of the earth and looked out into the void.
Damned NVGs ought to work now, he thought. He switched them on again and saw that he overlooked a valley. It appeared empty, just another fold of snow and rocks in the Hindu Kush. Parson had flown over many like it, as rugged and unpopulated as the day they were formed. He scanned with the goggles, and he made out only the slope below him. The NVGs could penetrate mist for a short distance, but when Parson tried to focus on things farther out, he got little but sparkle and backscatter. The goggles worked by extreme amplification of any light source, but there was just nothing out there. Until he moved his head to the left. A bright green dot glowed like a smudge of phosphorus on the black surface of a night ocean.
Gotcha, thought Parson. There you are. There you are. That has to be an oil lamp or a flashlight. And it has to be them. There’s no one else here.
Parson judged the light at better than a mile away, but he knew that was just a rough guess. Night-vision goggles gave poor depth perception even in clear weather, let alone with fog and snow in the way.
He fought the urge to plunge ahead toward the light. He couldn’t use the M-40 at long range in the dark, anyway. The optic was not any kind of thermal nightscope. And they’ve obviously stopped for now, he thought. They aren’t going anywhere, and you better think of some plan other than just shooting until one of them shoots you. And her.
In a deep drift windward of a boulder, he dug a snow cave, taking care with his sleeves so powder didn’t get inside his gloves again. He stretched out inside and raised the NVGs to look at the light again. Still there.
Parson took the bottle of snow water from his pocket and drank it all. He filled the bottle with snow and, when it melted inside his coat, drank it all again. He didn’t feel that thirsty, but he wanted the water for an alarm clock. He’d wake up to piss before dawn. An old trapper’s trick.
He leaned the rifle on the end of his pack to keep the barrel out of the snow. Then he unrolled the sleeping bag, slid into it, and zipped it up. Held the Colt in his left hand, outside the sleeping bag, his thumb on the hammer.
We’ll settle this thing tomorrow, he thought, to the satisfaction of one party or the other. He remembered Cantrell’s admonition to take his time, and Najib’s line about being shrewd like the mongoose. Parson liked that comparison. Because, he thought, a mongoose has one thing in mind: I’m gonna fuck up that snake.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Parson’s bladder woke him as planned. He checked his watch and saw he’d slept about four hours. When he switched on his night-vision goggles, the light was still there. He crawled out of the snow cave, unzipped, and urinated. Then he rolled up the sleeping bag, put on the snowshoes, and gathered up his gear. Kicked in the snow cave. Slung the rifle over his shoulder, Colt in one hand, NVGs in the other. Hell of a way to start your last day, he thought.
The snow fell steady and even, skittering against Parson’s coat like blown grit. He trekked along the ridgetop toward the light, stopping every few steps to look through the goggles. The ground fog had cleared somewhat. Parson saw that the light came from inside a little collection of mud-brick hovels, much like the bombed-out compound he’d seen yesterday. He couldn’t tell much else from this distance.
Parson stalked through sparse alders and what looked like ash trees. The valley below was treeless, so Parson knew he’d have no cover if he tried to approach all the way to the compound. But he didn’t intend to, at least not at first. As Cantrell had told him, a distant ambush was about the only way to take on a larger force. Inflict harm from afar.
He picked his way through knee-deep snow until the mud huts lay down the hill directly beneath him. The ridgeline provided an elevated position above his target, as close to ideal as he was likely to find. He placed his pack on the ground and brushed away snow around it. Then he lowered himself into prone and looked over the pack through his NVGs.
In the emerald glow, he saw that the insurgents had chosen the only intact dwelling from what had been a group of four. The roofs on the others had been blown away, along with part of the walls. No livestock pens. Probably another long-dead village. He saw no light from this angle, but he knew no one had left the house since he’d awakened.
Parson leaned his rifle across the pack. Checked the chamber for a round. Pressed the pack down in the snow until the weapon aimed naturally toward the village. Now he could use the pack as a bench rest, steadying the rifle and sparing fatigue on his arms.
For once, he felt he had all the tools he needed for the task at hand. He took the laser range-finder from his coat pocket and placed it on the pack beside the NVGs. Then he watched for movement. Waited for light.
When the first hint of dawn allowed him to make out the shape of the huts without the NVGs, he looked at the village through the range-finder and pressed the range button. The LCD readout told him 532 yards. The note from the armorer had said the rifle was sighted in to 500 yards. Close enough for government work. No need to adjust the bullet drop compensator.
Parson knew the limits of his own marksmanship. A real sniper would have put thousands of rounds through this weapon, would know its nuances well enough to place a bullet squarely through the head of any target. Though Parson was a good shot, he couldn’t pull off a feat like that with a rifle he’d never fired before. He’d just have to aim for center mass and leave the rest to a jacketed slug moving at better than two thousand feet per second.
It was still too dark to use the scope. Parson could barely distinguish the crosshairs. He turned an adjustm
ent turret to switch on the illuminated reticle. Now he saw the crosshairs but little else. The German scope was one of the best daylight optics money could buy, but it needed at least a little ambient light. That’s okay, thought Parson. I got all day.
A gossamer strand of gray smoke began to rise from the hut. It climbed straight up until it melded with the low cloud ceiling. “Thoughtful of you,” Parson whispered to himself. They’d given him a wind drift indicator. Now he knew he didn’t have to move the windage dial.
He began to shiver. He hated to move around any more, but better now than later. Parson sat up, untied his sleeping bag. Unrolled it and slid his legs inside. He turned over onto his belly and lay prone again. Felt himself warming some. At least now he could hold the weapon steady.
Parson tried to tally the odds. He considered the four sets of bootprints. So there was Gold and three insurgents, best case. That’s assuming they didn’t meet anybody down there. Unlikely but not impossible. So were they just stopping for a night’s rest or stopping for good? That might depend on whether they had heard Cantrell’s little trick over the radio. No way to know that.
It doesn’t matter, dumbass, he told himself. You know where they are now, and this is the only chance you’re going to get. Damned lucky you got this one.
He looked through the scope again. Better now. He discerned the village structures behind the mil-dot reticle. The magnification confirmed what he’d thought: The place was abandoned except for the one hut. Even that dwelling had suffered damage. One wall had a hole big enough for a man to walk through.
Somebody come out and say hello, thought Parson. At least they won’t be expecting me. Full daylight, dimmed by thick clouds, came before he saw any movement. Finally a door swung open. Parson was looking over the rifle when he saw it. He placed his cheek to the stock and looked through the scope. Bigger door now, bisected by crosshairs. Still nothing else. Safety off. Finger pad on the trigger. Wrist throbbing. Calm down now, he thought. No time for buck fever.
A man stepped from behind the door and tromped out into the snow. Parson followed him through the optic. The man wore an olive-green anorak, and his head and face were covered by a gray shemagh. Parson had seen that kind of headgear in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. You got no more business on the ground here than I do, he thought. Should have kept your ass at home. Parson closed his left eye.
The insurgent shuffled around in the snow, perhaps looking for something to burn. He bent over to examine an object on the ground. When he stood up, Parson centered the cruciform reticle on the man’s torso. Adjusted his aim point slightly. Released air from his lungs. Pressed the trigger.
The silenced weapon made little noise, just a pffft like a soda can opening, then a crack as the bullet broke the sound barrier. The guerrilla dropped as if a trapdoor had opened beneath him, felled behind a drift.
Parson ejected the spent cartridge. The finely machined bolt moved as if lubricated with butter, and the empty brass tumbled into the snow. He closed the chamber on a live round. Watched through the scope. Blinked once.
No movement but smoke rising. No sound from the man he’d shot. Parson waited, waited. Cold now, but not shivering. The tick of his watch.
He heard faint voices inside the dwelling. Voices not alarmed, but annoyed. Bitching, Parson guessed. What the hell is taking him so long? Where did he go? Well, come on out and see.
The door opened again, and another man came out. Black overcoat, flat-topped hat. The insurgent stopped, apparently saw his comrade on the ground. Called a name. Walked upright toward the body.
That’s right, thought Parson. You didn’t hear shit, did you?
The man stopped again, perhaps when he saw the blood. He whirled, looked around, maybe realized his mistake. His last one. Parson fired.
Not as good a shot this time. The man fell, writhed. Parson judged from the exit wound’s spray that he’d caught him in the abdomen.
The man let out a sound between a growl and a scream: “Ashhaduuuuuuuu!” Garbled syllables. Parson wondered if he was trying to recite the Shahadah. The wounded man couldn’t quite seem to get through it.
Now some other kind of words. “Mamannnnnnn . . .” Is he calling for his buddy? Parson thought. His mother? Wet coughs.
Parson almost felt pity. I should have nailed him a little higher, he thought. Die, for God’s sake. He chambered a fresh round, listened to the moans. Damn, I wish I hadn’t done that to him. Better a clean kill.
Focus, Parson told himself. He settled his cheek back onto the stock, scanned through the scope. Get ready in case the third one is totally fucking stupid.
The wounded man lay on his back now, raised one quivering hand to the sky. His fingers and arm were covered in dark blood. Through the scope, Parson noticed red droplets fall from the man’s fingertips. Parson thought about finishing him off, but he couldn’t see the head. Didn’t make tactical sense, either. Maybe the screams would eventually draw out another target.
The insurgent made a gurgling noise, tried to speak again: “Il-allahhhhh . . .” The words trailed off, stopped with a spasm of coughs.
Parson felt nauseated. Shut the fuck up and die already. No, don’t. Call for help. Call for your buddy.
No buddy came out. So he’s not a complete idiot, thought Parson. Too bad.
The barrel of an AK-47 appeared through the hole in the wall. The man holding the weapon shouted in accented English. All Parson understood was “Infidels!”
The man fired a long burst. The line of bullets whipped into the snow like a lash, nowhere near Parson.
What the hell do you think you’re shooting at? Parson thought. He tried to settle his crosshairs on the gunman. So you’re going to make this easy after all. The man disappeared inside. Shit. Okay, so you’re not.
The wounded guerrilla cried out again, a guttural howl that rose to a high keen before trailing off. Shut the hell up, thought Parson. I’m trying to concentrate. Parson turned the rifle to look at the man again through the scope. He saw the legs, part of the torso. Everything bloody. He still could not see the head.
Parson considered firing again anyway. Not even a terrorist deserves to die like that, he thought. Maybe another round into him anywhere would hasten his exit. And possibly give away your position. And yes, he does deserve to die like that.
You better pay attention to business, Parson told himself. Put that scope on the one who can still hurt you. He centered the crosshairs over the hole in the wall. Nobody there.
Parson worried that the man inside would shoot Gold. If he’s ever going to do it, he’ll do it now. Please God, don’t let me hear a shot from in there. Maybe they had instructions to keep her alive until they could make another video. If so, I hope he’s more afraid of his boss than he is of me.
Snow still steady. Flakes that touched the rifle barrel melted instantly and beaded up, the steel warm from two shots. Parson watched. Nothing.
So this is turning into a contest to see who’s more patient, Parson thought. I got all the time in the world, motherfucker. I have no role in life but to lie here and wait to put a round through you. I am a weapons system.
Another moan from down the hill. Weaker now. So you’re still with us, Parson thought. That’s a long time to suffer that kind of pain. He put the scope on the wounded man. One of the insurgent’s feet dug at the snow, the heel scraping back and forth.
Parson placed his finger on the trigger. No, no, no. The bastard inside doesn’t know where you are, he told himself. Don’t give away your only advantage. Mercy has its place, but not here. What kind of mercy did they show Nunez? And I didn’t want this. I should be in Masirah by now, sipping a beer. But everybody I would have been drinking with is dead.
I’ll soon join them if I don’t pay attention, Parson thought. Crosshairs on the hut again. No change. What is that son of a bitch up to?
All right, so he has orders to keep her alive, Parson guessed. Otherwise he’d have shot her by now. But the more freaked out he
gets, the less discipline he’ll have. What if he decides his boss didn’t anticipate this situation, so the instructions no longer apply? Do these people think like that, anyway? Maybe time’s not on my side.
The wounded man cried out again. A full-throated scream this time. Parson shuddered, panned with the crosshairs until they stopped on the heaving chest. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Will you please stop breathing? Parson pressed the trigger, felt the recoil. The torso jerked, lay still and silent.
Parson cursed himself for the impulse. Fucking idiot. Just another chance for the guy inside to figure out where you are. He ejected the spent brass and chambered another round.
No sign whether the terrorist in the hut had heard the rifle’s faint report. But it’s quiet out here, Parson thought. Quiet as outdoors ever gets.
Hell, this isn’t working anymore, he decided. That guy in there is warm, and he won’t come out now unless he completely loses his mind. And he’ll likely shoot her if he goes that crazy.
Parson studied the hut through the scope. He wanted mainly to know if the insurgent was looking at him. No one at the hole in the wall. No one visible anywhere.
He slid the sleeping bag off his legs and rose up on his hands and knees. Then he eased backward, rifle over his arm. Kept his eyes on the hut until it disappeared behind the ridge. Snow powder covered him now.
Parson left the sleeping bag and pack. He could move better and present a smaller profile without them. If he succeeded, he could come back for them. If he failed, he wouldn’t need them.
He stumbled downhill to keep the ridgetop between him and the little village, and he worked his way along the shoulder of the mountain to get past the village. He wanted to get far enough away from the dwellings to move into the valley unobserved.
The snow fell straight down as if sifted. The cloud layer hung low, so dark it seemed night had not gone completely but hovered just overhead. Parson snowshoed along for about half an hour, then hiked uphill to look over the ridge again.
