The Ranger Objective

by Jason Kasper

  He was right. Both the machinegun and its ammo were loud and exceedingly cumbersome to move. The two of us would give ourselves away long before we got close enough to make a difference.

  Then my mind’s eye replayed the scene of Gebhart falling in place, victim to the sniper’s bullet. But when the body hit the ground, splayed out in a pool of blood, it was no longer Gebhart in my imagination.

  It was Remy.

  Shaking the thought clear, I glanced sideways to see my gunner alive and well beside me, his slight jawline bulging with a wad of dip.

  I lifted my cheek from the stock of the assault rifle and gazed into the dark, distant forest. Looking sideways, then behind me, and then past Remy, I considered the terrain, assessing the low ground and blind spots around us. A breeze blew overhead, chilling the sweat-soaked fatigues clinging to my back. The acrid gun smoke grew stale before losing itself in the wind.

  Swallowing hard, I opened a pocket in my rucksack and withdrew a single smoke grenade, then slid the metal canister into a cargo pocket of my fatigue pants. “Remy, you need to keep shooting.”

  “Naw, Slick. We’d be wasting ammo now. I can’t kill the sniper—”

  “Not to kill the sniper,” I panted, feeling my chest constrict even as I spoke with dead certainty. “To cover the sound.”

  “Sound of what?”

  I drew a final breath, then grabbed my radio and spoke into it. “Cease fire on forest, David maneuvering on enemy sniper. Remy will provide covering fire.”

  Remy looked at me with an expression somewhere between shock and disbelief. “I told you that shit ain’t funny. I know you didn’t transmit. Didn’t even do your bull-sheeyit accent.”

  The squad leader replied, “Negative, negative—”

  Grabbing my assault rifle and rolling away from Remy, I pushed myself to my feet and began to run. Remy’s hand swiped my boot as he tried to grab me, but I wrenched away and sped down the hill behind him.

  As I circled around the hilltop in a flanking maneuver, staying in the low ground and out of view from the dark forest, I half expected Remy to tackle me from behind.

  Instead, I heard him open fire with the machinegun.

  I’d left Remy no choice—he either had to abandon his gun and try to catch me or continue shooting in begrudging support of my plan. He’d chosen the latter.

  Between his machinegun bursts, I caught him transmitting to the line squad.

  “David’s maneuvering, cease fire…”

  I was running as I never had before, rounding the low ground beside the forest. No machinegun ammo, no rucksack weighing me down; instead I was free to choose, free to react instinctively.

  Glancing down the hill to my right, I took in the surroundings as if looking to them for reassurance. Blotches of darkness pooled beneath scattered trees on the hills around me, rising out of the dead earth. The bottom of the mountain was swathed in a belt of shadow, its natural beauty concealed by the absence of light.

  The valley beneath me slid away into sharply mottled creases, while my immediate terrain deteriorated the farther I proceeded along my flanking maneuver. Crumbling rocks littered the hillside, and errant scrub brush was the only vegetation in sight. No cover, no concealment. And while I was well out of the sniper’s view from the hilltop forest, I was also far beyond sight of any Ranger forces. I’d have to keep moving, find the escape route before setting up a hasty ambush for the sniper that would soon flee.

  As I cut left around the far side of the hilltop, I grabbed at rock crevices packed with vines and gnarled tree roots. Emerging from the low ground and heading toward the hilltop, I glanced beyond a layer of stone outcroppings to make out glimpses of the darkened treetops.

  The sharp slope was now so steep that I had to rotate my rifle to my back and scramble up on all fours. Loose earth and stray rocks scattered downward beneath me, but Remy’s comforting machinegun bursts concealed my noise.

  I began to make out patches of light blue sky through the treetops, but as I reached the hilltop ledge, the view was soon obscured by the forest’s edges. My heart was hammering in my chest, my ears ringing from the earlier gunfire, my brow oozing sweat that ran in rivulets down the side of my face.

  I slid around a tangle of dry scrub brush too thick to push my way through and stopped beside a tree trunk to scan for the sniper’s escape route.

  To my relief, the route was there, just as Remy said it would be. The lone path out of the dark forest was a thin strip of woods that bridged the saddle leading to the next hilltop. Any other direction out of the forest led either toward Rangers or into a sheer rock face too steep to negotiate on foot.

  I tasted metal and smelled clouds of dust from the Ranger counterfire that had ended minutes ago. Now that I had a clear view of the escape route, I carefully slid into a kneeling firing position and readied my weapon in anticipation of the sniper’s appearance.

  My radio projected Remy’s garbled voice.

  “…need to check in, Slick…”

  A sharp crack from a sniper round split the tree trunk beside me. I flung myself downward as the gunshot echoed in my skull, the loudest noise I’d ever heard. Between panting breaths, I caught a whiff of burning pine from the bullet smoldering in the tree next to my head.

  I glanced up and saw the scrub brush around me, traces of sunlight glinting off delicate branches that trembled in the wind.

  Why wasn’t I scared?

  A second round split the air over my head, followed by a third that churned a divot of earth a few feet to my left.

  I slid backward down the rock face and out of sight from the woods, keying my radio.

  “I made it to the other side,” I exhaled. “I have his escape route covered.”

  Remy sounded furious. “You ain’t got shit covered! Apaches are a few minutes out and ground-to-air comms are down. They can’t reach the pilots to call off the strike. Get your ass back here!”

  I looked to both sides, considering my options. While the sniper knew my current location, I could still move even closer to the wooded saddle between hills, my only chance of repositioning myself while still cutting off his escape route.

  To move in any other direction, including back toward Remy, would be to save the sniper’s life. Two days left on our patrol, and zero chance he wouldn’t take another shot at us.

  Thumbing the transmit button on my radio, I said, “I’ll get the sniper first. Going off comms.”

  “No, goddamnit, those Apaches will—”

  I turned off the radio, then scrambled downhill and cut across the low ground to move even further from Remy, closing the distance between me and the sniper’s only way out.

  My pulse was racing, heart slamming as I reached the strip of vegetation dipping into a faraway hill. I took up a covered position behind a tree that gave me a vantage point both ways. The dark patch of woods loomed on the hilltop, dangerously close and impenetrably dense. Placing my assault rifle stock against my shoulder, I waited to see what the sniper’s next move would be with a single thought.

  Checkmate, motherfucker.

  But my elation came too soon, and when the sniper cast his vote on how the gunfight would proceed, it almost killed me outright.

  His next shot whizzed so close to my head that a loud ringing erupted in my left ear.

  I didn’t take cover and valorously return fire as my training dictated; instead, an animalistic instinct caused me to fling myself backward, landing hard before crawling behind another tree as more bullets snapped through the air around me.

  The sniper was trying to finish me off from afar, I realized, before he sprinted across the saddle to freedom. He knew he couldn’t move any nearer until I was dead. His sniper rifle was virtually useless at close range, whereas my assault rifle would dominate a battle of reflexive fire. His safety was in distance, mine in proximity.

  If I remained stationary, he’d locate a firing position in the dark woods from which to finish me off for good—we both knew the Apa
ches were on their way to annihilate us. Either one of us would emerge alive, or neither of us would. No other options were possible.

  I either had to turn the tables right now or end up being covered with my American flag.

  A replay of Remy’s voice echoed in my mind: This sniper’s no amateur, Slick...He knows our tactics as well as we do.

  My only chance of killing the sniper, I knew at once, was to violate all military tactics.

  I slid the smoke grenade from my cargo pocket, pulling the ring and flinging it to my right as hard as I could. A hollow pop preceded the zinging hiss of the grenade coming to life, and seconds later I could see a billowing fog of crimson rising up among the trees.

  The sniper opened fire, shooting rounds into the smoke. With his precision scope, he could only focus on one thing at a time—and if he was trying to hit someone using the smoke to conceal their movement, then he wasn’t watching the exposed ground in the opposite direction. I jumped to my feet and sprinted left, away from the smoke.

  And mere moments before the sniper realized his mistake, I plunged into the forest.

  My ploy had bought me only seconds, but they were seconds I desperately needed to close the gap. By the time the sniper caught my movement in his peripheral vision, I was inside the grove of trees concealing him. He reoriented his rifle toward me, betraying a shift of movement in the underbrush—and I sped toward it via a circuitous route to keep as many trees between us as I could.

  The next fifteen seconds were a zigzagging sprint of feverish intensity as I darted from cover to cover in the thickly wooded tangle of trees and brush. My vision registered green moss smeared across the stones below me and blurry images of pine boughs to my front. Then I caught sight of a spark of flame from his muzzle blast as rounds cracked through the air, bullets slicing into tree trunks and snapping through branches as I ran.

  But the closer I got, the less accurate his fire grew. His shots became a beating snare drum until they abruptly stopped altogether—he was reloading.

  Now within ten feet, it was my turn to send the sniper for cover. I fired half a dozen rounds toward him as he scrambled away. Then I broke into an all-out sprint, vaulting a fallen tree toward a head-on impasse with my enemy. Facing the greatest pressure I’d ever experienced, my focus was steeled to the single task in front of me. There would be no second chances.

  I took a sharp sidestep right as I approached the location of the muzzle flash. Seeing another blur of movement amid the brush, I fired three more rounds at it while still moving at a full run.

  Bang bang bang.

  The sound of my shots ended in a human cry.

  Skidding to a stop, I pivoted in place and took aim toward the noise. I fired twice more. A man rolled sideways on the ground, dropping the rifle magazine he’d been trying to reload. I centered my aim on his torso, finger tensing against the trigger. Then I froze in place, horrified.

  My mind couldn’t process what I was seeing—had I just shot an American?

  He was no Afghan fighter, but a man as white as I was, with short-cropped hair and a bushy red beard. He was wincing in pain and disbelief. Was he from some Special Forces recon team I didn’t know about?

  But the sniper rifle beside him was a Soviet Dragunov.

  One side of his mottled camouflage jacket was darkened with a slick of bright red, as if he’d fallen in a puddle of scarlet paint. His eyes met mine, unapologetic. With my weapon at the ready, I stared into icy blue irises that smoldered as life slipped from them.

  “Chyort voz'mi...” he gasped, in what sounded like Russian. “Ty zhe prosto pacan.”

  He wasn’t American or Afghan, I realized, but a foreign fighter from Chechnya.

  At first I couldn’t believe it—after circling the globe with my comrades in pursuit of Taliban or Al Qaeda, I’d instead come face-to-face with a Caucasian man who’d traveled from an Islamic Russian republic to wage jihad against the Americans.

  I didn’t consciously fire my next rounds. Instead, I simply felt the rifle tensing against my shoulder as if of its own accord, followed by the sound of blasting shots until those blue eyes went vacant.

  Then I reloaded, stuffing the partially spent rifle magazine in my cargo pocket, the action reflexive after hundreds of repetitions in training. Viewed from a distance, I would have appeared a consummate warrior: fearless, robotic in my lethality.

  But in my mind, the situation was far different—I was a nineteen-year-old kid standing on an unnamed hilltop on the far side of the world, my first encounter with an enemy combatant now a corpse who looked like any number of men in my Virginia hometown, which now seemed a lifetime away.

  My thoughts were foggy, dreamlike, but my actions were automated: crisp and precise and in stark contrast to the awkward fumbling of the Ranger private and assistant gunner I’d been before entering that forest.

  I completed my magazine change, scanned for any additional enemies, and turned on my radio.

  “Remy,” I transmitted, my voice steel, “The sniper is dead.”

  Instead of his response I heard a deep, undulating thunder from the sky to my front, rolling slow and distant but growing louder as the seconds ticked by.

  Remy’s voice was panicked, feverish, like I’d never heard. “They still can’t make comms with the pilots! Apaches are inbound to smoke that hilltop!”

  The throbbing hum I now heard was the churning rotor blades of approaching attack helicopters. And I stood at the pinnacle of that forest, ground zero of their imminent attack.

  But I didn’t feel fear, or urgency; instead, a detached numbness overtook me as I replied, “Copy.”

  “Copy?” Remy spat back. Then, outraged, “Copy?! Get the fuck out of there, Slick! Run, now!”

  I turned off my radio again.

  I could have fled before Hellfire missiles impacted on top of me, their explosions preceding long bursts of 30mm chain gun. But instead I cast a final glance at my fallen enemy before proceeding toward the approaching helicopters.

  The rotors grew louder as I stepped out of the forest, climbing atop a rocky crest to face the cobalt depths above me, feeling like I now stood at the top of the world. A rippling spine from a distant mountain range carved a line between sky and earth, the boundary spiky with pine trees.

  Two distant dark specks were silhouetted against the endless blue expanse, growing in size and sound as they raced toward me. My lungs screamed for air, my mouth was parched with a cottony thirst as my adrenaline receded.

  Yet I felt surreally calm as I reached back with one dirt-smeared hand, opened a pouch on my kit, and reached inside.

  I pulled out a tightly rolled cloth and shook it free. My American flag unfurled to its full length, the red, white, and blue clear and vivid against the primitive landscape. I lifted my arms, letting the flag catch the wind so the Apaches could see it.

  Now I could distinctly make out the angled profiles of the most advanced attack helicopters money could buy, their noses bulbous with advanced optics. Sunlight glinted against the panels of armored glass shielding the pilots, the insect-like extension of their chain guns rotating toward me.

  Then the helicopters spun sideways on either side of the hilltop, exposing their armored bellies. Their stubby wings bore neatly aligned missiles and rocket pods while precision rotors carved a circular swath above them. Twin engines emitted streaky hazes of exhaust that blurred the air as they roared past, their sculpted tails vanishing in my periphery as I stood alone, tightly grasping my flag.

  The distant horizon appeared bleak in the Afghan sun, obscured by desolate, barren trees silhouetted against the backdrop of endless mountains.

  It was the first anniversary of 9/11. I’d just achieved the pinnacle of all I’d ever aspired to do: avenging my countrymen, defending my friends, and succeeding on the Ranger objective. In my first gunfight I’d demonstrated a rush of extraordinary audacity, and acted boldly, almost suicidally. And I’d done so for no clearly appointed end. But as I would soon dis
cover, that spontaneous action would come to epitomize the subsequent years of my life.

  Because darkness was soon to fall.

  After that deployment to Afghanistan, and after the invasion of Iraq several months later, the fallout from war would take hold of me.

  Six years to the day after narrowly defeating that enemy sniper on a hilltop in Afghanistan, I would no longer be a Ranger.

  I would be a mercenary, an assassin in exile far from my homeland.

  And a new war would just be beginning.

  The story continues in Greatest Enemy (David Rivers #1).

  Visit Jason-Kasper.com to purchase now, or turn the page to read the opening chapters.

  GREATEST ENEMY: DAVID RIVERS #1

  David Rivers is an Army Ranger- a combat veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has almost completed his final year at West Point when his world is turned upside down by a sudden discharge from military service. Angry and confused, David soon hits rock bottom.

  And that's when they appear.

  Three mysterious men. Men who know David's dark secret- they know that he has murdered someone in cold blood.

  And they want him to do it again.

  David is soon plunged into the covert underworld of ex-special operators for hire, where victory is defined by profit, and the rules are set by the highest bidder. But as the stakes continue to rise, he learns that his new employer is more ruthless than anyone he's faced in combat- and he just might be David's greatest enemy.

  Click here to purchase Greatest Enemy now

  Turn the page to read a sample —>

  GREATEST ENEMY: CHAPTER 1

  June 1, 2008

  Park Ridge, Illinois

  The house was silent, and I passed through its shadows like a ghost.

  Moonlight filtered through the horizontal slats of the blinds, its dull glow mottled by the trees and casting hazy shadows over me. As I rounded the corner of the entryway, the only sound that could be heard above the rustle of my clothes and the whisper of my footsteps on the carpet was the low hum of a refrigerator, its surface reflecting the twin green clocks of a microwave and oven.