The probable mosque and its ungracefully squat minaret lay clear in his sight. The minaret, if the low tower was used as such, showed no sign of occupation. If a Muezzin appeared to begin his ear-painful howling, Jack would shift his attention to the mosque entrance.
Jack chambered a round and relaxed. It could be hours or even days before the Sheik showed himself.
However, if he were in residence, the Sheik would surely attend the morning call to prayer. If he did, Jack vowed it would be the body pisser’s last service.
22
Light from far down the valley caught Jack’s eye. Headlights, way out, and there was a line of them. Through his rifle’s scope and aided by the UNS, Jack estimated six or so trucks. Maybe a smaller vehicle out front? The convoy’s even distribution smacked of military. Now what?
It was still too dark to see great distances; Jack would have to wait until the vehicles got a lot closer. They were moving swiftly. It would not take too long.
Bright electric lighting sprang into action. Blinded for a long instant, Jack switched off the UNS night sight and used only his telescopic sight.
The Sheik’s building was lit up like the Los Vegas strip. Somewhere down there, really large generators were hidden. At this range, Jack could not hear them running, but electricity in this volume and power was special.
Aha, that suggested that the Sheik was someone exceptional, a personage who might be involved with something more earthshaking than dope dealing. Jack savored the concept. He could be more satisfied by putting down an important thug rather than an insignificant besmircher of dead bodies.
The handsome lighting announced the Sheik’s or his accomplices’ awareness of the convoy’s approach. Surely the white robe wearer would now step into view, but the broad balcony that overlooked the only road remained empty.
Well, the convoy was still well out, and eventually someone would appear to greet the arrivers. Jack got himself ready. Daylight was coming on strongly. That was good. If he shot in daylight, there would be no observable muzzle flash.
Jack removed the night sight and placed it safely inside his jacket. Some rifles shot to a different spot when only the telescopic sight was used, but it was rare with an XM3. Jack had included that test when determining his zero. His rifle shot the same with or without the night sight.
At this moment the detail was proving its significance. The darker the night, the lower telescopic power a shooter was forced to use. The brighter the light, the higher his magnification could go. Jack turned his elevation knob to 10X, the scope’s top power.
Hmm, a bit too much magnification, but the light was gaining strength by the moment. He decided to stick with ten-power, which would be best within minutes.
The convoy was arriving, and it was slowing to a stop on flat ground below the Sheik’s home. There was movement on the broad porch that overlooked the road and almost directly down upon the convoy.
Blackwater Jack focused his sight and his mind on figures that were exiting the building—two of them. The first, was a powerfully built man in a military uniform. He carried a rifle at an alert high Port Arms—an AK47, Jack’s close inspection decided. He was probably a guard for the other personage that had appeared.
The other figure was smaller in stature and obviously older, an unarmed male who was dressed in white.
Jack did his best to judge; was this the same man he had watched more than two years past? Was this the Sheik who had ridden a burro up the steep road to the bombing site, the Sheik who had searched almost frantically for the wooden box now in Jack’s possession?
Jack’s rifle lay like a log. He held his cross hairs exactly the right distance above the white figure. Still, he held his fire for more than a long instant. The military man had walked ahead and now looked over the low rampart of the porch to study the group gathering below.
Satisfied, he turned to the white robed man and motioned him forward. That was enough. Seniority had been determined. As the rifle-carrying guard again turned to watch the convoy’s gathering, Blackwater Jack began his trigger squeeze.
More than seven hundred yards away the Sheik gathered his robes and began his first step forward.
Jack’s trigger broke perfectly, as if it were the desirable and often-described glass rod. The rifle fired, and he held solidly, attempting to maintain his sight picture throughout the weapon’s recoil. The bullet’s travel seemed almost instantaneous, and Blackwater Jack saw its strike.
Jack’s bullet was a .30-caliber, 175-grain Match Grade projectile. He had aimed to hit the Sheik dead center at breastbone height. He knew his holdover for that distance, and the downhill pitch was so small that it did not need figuring. There was no apparent wind, and the temperature was moderate. The bullet left the muzzle at about 2,650 feet per second. It struck about a half of a second after firing. The Sheik was still in the middle of his first step forward.
Through the ten power telescopic sight, Jack’s target appeared almost within touching. When the bullet hit he saw the Sheik’s momentum stall, and there was some small disintegration of the wall behind the collapsing figure. The Sheik’s hands rose as if to touch his chest, but his legs failed. He sagged backward, almost sitting on his heels before falling into a sitting position backed against the wall of his building. His head fell forward, and his body slumped bonelessly.
Jack discovered that he had automatically operated his bolt, ejecting the spent cartridge case and chambering a live round.
He became aware of the military guard turning as if to discover something unidentified, a bullet punching through his employer and smashing into a stuccoed wall would be examples.
For a short instant, the guard appeared frozen. Then he rushed to his fallen leader and bent above him to determine what had happened.
The guard would have heard little to make him suspect a shooting, and he had certainly seen nothing. Until he saw blood, he would suspect a heart attack or stroke. Jack did not grant him that necessary examination.
Jack steadied his aim, as if he were on a Known Distance Range, and squeezed carefully. The finely tuned Remington trigger again broke at three pounds of pressure with virtually no movement or follow through. The rifle fired, and Jack again held through the recoil.
This time he had a profile shot. The guard had reached forward, exposing his entire side. Jack held just below the armpit, and his bullet again seemed to go where he intended.
The guard bucked as if his reaching hand had entered a beehive, and his body twisted as he fell. His, too, was a terminal collapse, and he sprawled, apparently lifeless, across the still sitting Sheik.
Blackwater Jack again chambered a fresh round, but the scene below seemed a still life photograph. No one else had appeared on the overlooking deck, and the convoy personnel were below that line of sight. No one was scurrying about, and no one, as far as Jack could determine, had seen either man go down.
No one had seen his targets’ demise, and that gave Jack an unexpected opportunity. He believed he had shot the Sheik dead square in the fork bone, and that kind of hit would have killed almost instantly. But, strange things could happen. Bullets swerved off course, which was conceivable with a bullet striking the sternum and its major bones.
The single hit might not have killed. Could he make sure? All sniping doctrine said, No third shot! But, his situation was different. No one knew the first two rounds had been fired, and he had not come thousands of miles, after plotting for years, to fail because of a bad bullet or a remarkable surgery.
Blackwater chose to make sure. He again examined the scene. Nothing had changed. There was no action or reaction. He aimed as carefully as he had for the first shot.
A sudden tremor struck, and his rifle wobbled. Jack ignored the unexpected emotion, and again steadied his aim. He reminded himself that he was Blackwater Jack, an experienced and skilled shooter, trained by the best until he was one of the best.
His nerves calmed and the rifle again lay solid. Jack squeezed as if
he were on a firing line at the Camp Perry Nationals.
This time, Jack could see only the upper half of the sheik’s slumped body, so he held a few inches higher. He paid special attention to centering his shot because if his bullet went a few inches high, he would have only the neck or head to hit. Either would be instant death, but a miss to either side would be wasted.
The rifle recoiled, and its soft and muffled thud was barely notable. Again Jack watched his bullet strike. And he had held too high. The back of the Sheik’s head exploded spraying the wall with a curtain of blood and probably shattered bone.
Jack stopped looking. He had never seen such a sight, and he did not relish even its memory.
He experienced a sudden and profound hunger to put all of this behind, to scramble from his hole, to suck in fresh mountain air in huge quantities, and to rush, free and uncatchable across the desolation of the Afghan mountain.
Of course he could not. Exasperated at himself, Jack squelched the primitive and undisciplined agitation. Instead, of twitching and thrashing he would wait calmly. Within moments, the deaths would be discovered, and soon after a mighty search would begin. There were small things to do.
Jack made himself move. He drew his rifle in past his shoulders so that he would not be crowded by its presence. He chose already selected small stones and fit a few into his tunnel opening reducing its size by half. He could still use his binoculars to judge developments, but no matter what happened, good or bad, he was stuck, safely he hoped, within his rock slit.
Soothing a strangely dry throat, Blackwater Jack sipped water and found his hands again shaking.
Embarrassing! He was not experiencing some identifiable release of tension, or anything else he could name, other than an appreciation of having finished a difficult task.
He worked at compartmentalizing his shooting. He was done for now, and he had shot successfully. He could allow satisfaction to creep in.
He would evaluate later, but he resolved to look at the Sheik’s death as if it were of no more significance than a shooting match at Camp Perry or at Blackwater.
He forced his thinking to consider more pleasant moments and to drift across far more comfortable memories.
Within minutes the shaking departed, and Jack raised his binoculars to discover what was happening at the leaderless village where the mysterious Sheik had once lived.
23
The military men who had led the convoy grew impatient. More than one hundred uniformed soldiers had arrived and no one had come forth to greet them? Deliberate insult? Unlikely in this war-tortured land.
An officer, insignia glittering in the first light and wearing a pistol, disappeared beneath the overhang. A moment later someone in civilian attire burst onto the deck, arms waving and, Jack suspected, his voice rising in excitement.
The man’s eyes fell on the bodies, one lying atop the other with blood and brains spattering the building’s white wall. Jack saw him stagger in shock. Then he froze in place for an appalled instant before flying back through the door he had exited.
Then it began. Jack wished he could hear the commands. Important men left the military formation to reappear on the deck bearing the bodies. Other individuals shuffled about, probably non-commissioned officers relaying commands. Troops abandoned their drill field formation and dispersed into smaller units placing themselves in tactically useful positions in and around the town.
A small piazza facing the mosque became crowded with men, women, and children; surely they were people of the village straining to discover what had happened.
Without warning, a raucous Klaxon so powerful that Blackwater Jack clearly heard each blast began sounding an alarm. Or perhaps it was a summons because even more people poured from buildings and scurried toward the mosque.
Chaos had arrived!
Eventually the electric horn was silenced and a number of soldiers, probably junior officers demonstrating their daring or their certainty that the assassins had departed, posed arrogantly on the death-porch facing outward amid much arm waving, undoubtedly challenging the despicable and cowardly murderers to stand forth.
A headquarters formed as a thick-bodied officer wearing a Sam Brown belt took charge and others placed seating and a large table before him.
Activities began centering on the new commander even as the recently expired were carefully wrapped and removed from sight.
Order thumped into place. Non-coms moved men about, and from his hiding, Jack noted where each team went and how large it was. Search for the killers was overdue, and based on the commander’s efficiency in moving things along, the hunt would be carefully and intelligently planned and executed.
Jack was particularly concerned by a trio of soldiers who marched out of town and up the mountain that provided his base camp. He could imagine the three in ambush just about where he used the rock fall to regain his first and best hideout, where all of his reserve water and rations waited. Nuts!
A curiosity was the alignment of a dozen young boys and girls on the front edge of the death-porch. They were seated facing the mountain on which he was hidden. They were harangued by one of the military men, provided with some sort of snack and with water gourds, then they were left alone.
The children remained in place. Occasionally one or another would point and others would look. Once a soldier came to use his binoculars on something a child had seen. Nothing came of it, but Blackwater Jack knew what he was seeing.
The sharp-eyed children were probably familiar with the mountainside from their climbing and playing among the rocks, not to mention their explorations of the same rocky slope for all of their lives. If something moved that shouldn’t, they would see it.
Well, they would not discover Blackwater Jack, who gently added a rock or two to further reduce the size of his viewing port.
When the formal search for the assassins began, it was organized and disturbingly thorough.
Shoulder to shoulder, lines of soldiers advanced through the fields farthest from the village. They moved in echelon, each line overlapping the preceding, examining everything and ignoring nothing.
Periodically, a soldier was left behind to keep the examined land in view. No one would be able to slip into already searched areas. Jack was impressed, but if they searched no further from the village, he would have no difficulty.
More important in Blackwater Jack’s mind was the evidence that the recently departed Sheik was no country lout unknown beyond his village.
The newly arrived military was top line. They were disciplined and trained. Were they government troops? Jack could not tell.
That the Sheik rated their attention was important. That they intended to devote the day and perhaps more to locating the killer or killers demonstrated the interest of a concerned higher authority. The inclusion of even the children of the community further showed the intensity of their hunt.
Jack observed, and he dozed. No one searched the mountainside and as a spectator, his interest sagged. By mid-day the village and its surrounding fields had been thoroughly searched. The military reassembled near its vehicles and fell out for a noon feeding at a building within the town. Blackwater Jack ate an MRE and decided to nap.
Why not? He might find this nightfall the time to escape and retreat to his first and best hide at the Humvee bombing site. From there, when all was clear, he would signal for the helicopter’s return.
That would mean a stressful and physically demanding night march. He could store energy now while nothing was happening. He might need everything he had, although if he did his part, there would be no encounters.
Before snoozing like a bear in its den, Jack undertook another thorough glassing of all of the details within his view.
A crowd had gathered at the mosque, and Jack supposed there were some kind of services being conducted before burying the Sheik’s remains. He recalled hearing that Moslems tried to bury their dead within a day of their demise, or at least he thought he had heard that.
He sought to remember Moslem cemeteries seen during his service year, but none popped into his mind. He had spent virtually all of his time on the military shooting ranges, and his contact with the civilian populace had been next to none.
A number of military men gathered on the death-porch behind the still seated children, but even as he watched, the children were dismissed and rose to quickly depart. Good, the fewer the eyes the better.
Then, Jack’s upbeat outlook sagged. Two men joined the military leaders still examining the mountainside, and they each carried a long barreled, scoped rifle. Dragunov sniper rifles, Jack expected.
Hell and damnation! As sure as he watched, the military commander was about to dispatch his snipers onto the mountain slope. Their mission would be to observe and to seek until they located the shooters or maybe only a single murderer? The assassins, that logic insisted, could not have escaped the vicinity before the killings were discovered.
If the killer was not in the village, he had to be somewhere close on the mountain slope, and in the time available, he could not have escaped too far up that battered rock face.
Deadly shooters with the patience of angels were required—men who would sit unmoving through storm of night, always looking, always sniffing, always weighing options. Snipers, the last type of warriors Blackwater Jack wished to encounter.
So, he would abandon his hope of escaping during this first night. There was no rush, and the logic or experience or training that allowed him to recognize and judge enemy snipers, also gave him awareness that the military he was observing could not wait in hope of rousting a single enemy who might not even be there.
The Commander would allow searching the rest of the day and probably the night. Then, his investigative requirements would have been met. If he were going through the pass, and probably across the miles to the former American base where Jack had once served, he would simply pick up his snipers while en route, probably almost at the site of the bombing that had started it all.
The Making of Blackwater Jack Page 20
