Sniper One Page 8

  The sleeping guard was just sitting up, looking confused and fumbling for his weapon. Bell used only a single shot on him. He saw the figure slumping as he turned away.

  When he got to the tent edge, Maynard was still clawing his way through, and Clicker's mighty shove propelled him into the open. Bell grabbed his arm in passing and moved them both straight away from the rockets.

  Greg Maynard needed no urging. His legs pumped as if he were again an athlete, and he begrudged every instant wasted by stumbling feet and tortured balance.

  How long had it been? Maynard could not judge, but Clicker was not slowing down to look back. Bell had routed them out of the wind shadow of the huge tent, and the blast of the storm helped push them along.

  Maynard regularly jogged his miles and believed himself in decent shape, but he did not sprint with the wild abandon now demanded. His lungs gave out first, but his legs were close behind. He began to slow, but Bell's steady example kept him struggling.

  Finally, Clicker pulled them into the protection of a ground swell and hollered into his ear. The Colonel was peripherally pleased that the Staff Sergeant was also panting.

  "Did you get them planted?"

  Maynard managed a nod. He began wheezing an answer when the world around them convulsed.

  The blast was horrendous. It lifted both men and dropped them. The sky lit beyond daylight, and a shock wave roared over them so loud that their hearing shut off. Maynard swore it was like a nuclear explosion with the vacuum created by the blast refilled in a mighty rush of returning air that destroyed as much as the original explosion.

  Through deafened ears, the Colonel heard Bell say, "Man-o-man!"

  The world had turned black. No fires rose, and no lights burned anywhere. They sat up and examined themselves and the darkness of the night.

  Bell asked, "Are you all right, Colonel?"

  "Just pooped, Clicker."

  "My God, what a blast." Bell's chuckle was grim. "Do you think we damaged those rockets, Colonel?"

  "I doubt they'll launch tomorrow, Staff Sergeant." Maynard's voice was equally strained.

  Clicker struggled to his feet. "We've got a good chance of clearing this place without being detected, and unless someone heard my shooting, there will be no evidence of anything other than a huge accident."

  He offered a hand, and Maynard used it to haul himself erect.

  "I'm beat, Clicker. This time, take it slow or I'll have to fall out."

  "It'll be slow, Colonel." Bell fished out his length of cord. "Hook onto this, and I'll get the other end. This storm isn't all done, and we don't want to screw up this late in the game."

  Maynard secured the line to his wrist. "Head on home, Jeeves."

  Bell took a moment to readjust the pistols stuffed into his belt.

  "I landed on top of one of these guns and it jammed into me like a spear."

  Maynard could feel euphoria coming on. Release from tension, he supposed.

  "I shoved three of those charges up the rocket's butt. It must have been just the right thing to do."

  They started off, walking steadily, but not pushing the pace.

  Clicker said, "I guess we wasted some valuable explosive that we could have saved for our next Scud, Colonel. I expect one charge would have done the job."

  Almost lightheaded with satisfaction and relief, Greg Maynard had his answer ready.

  "I intend to speak to you about the unnecessary expenditure of our limited pistol ammunition, Staff Sergeant Bell. Looking at the situation more clearly, I can see that it was not necessary for you to have shot those three men."

  Clicker laughed. "You'd not be saying that, Colonel if one of those guys had trampled our heels coming out and was about now shooting at us with his AK47.

  Greg Maynard agreed wholeheartedly and sucked up his strength to keep up with Shooter Bell.

  Nice nickname. He guessed he would use it when he told the story of how he and Staff Sergeant "Shooter" Bell, USMC, had taken out two Scud missiles during the Gulf War.

  Chapter 6

  Bell left the view port cracked, and the first morning light roused them. Maynard stood, cursing the stiffness of legs and body.

  Bell attempted to move his wounded shoulder and swore at the jolt of pain. He stayed sitting, and let the Colonel do the looking.

  Maynard was quick with his report. "Good God, Clicker! There isn't anything left out there! The whole place is flat. Nothing standing." He swiveled the spotting scope. "There's a hell of a hole where the rockets were, and ... Oh oh."

  Favoring his wound Bell struggled erect, but Maynard was not surrendering the spotting scope.

  "We've got company down there. I see three trucks and some kind of a command car. They have a skirmish line working across the site. Looking for anything useful it looks like."

  He swiveled the scope. "They're burning the plane, by God. Now why would they do that?

  You'd think they'd salvage the wreck, wouldn't you?"

  Clicker was waiting, his impatience showing. "Maybe our people are pushing them back, and they figure we will fly a team in here to recover the aircraft."

  "We wouldn't have salvaged that wreck, Bell. Just as we left, the pilot set off a charge inside he cockpit. What was left wasn't worth repairing." Maynard stepped away from the scope.

  Clicker saw that the radar site was gone. Buildings were flat and scattered, and much had blown away. Not everyone had been killed or injured, though. Bell saw the major who had commanded pacing agitatedly within the debris. More importantly, he saw no attempt to send out scouts or even secure a perimeter.

  Bell said, "I see the site's Commanding Officer down there. I guess he was away when the blast went off."

  Clicker grinned as he left the scope. "I wonder how he will stand with the boys back in Baghdad."

  "Not too high on their totem pole, I expect." Maynard was again looking. He traversed the scope. "I think we are home free. I don't see any interest in anything beyond the site."

  They sat down to talk about it, and Maynard said, "What we did was astounding, Clicker. The two of us took out a pair of Scuds. Whew, who will believe it?"

  "Makes a man have faith in the power of one, Colonel? Snipers often discuss how much damage enough sniper teams could do to an enemy—assuming they were properly trained and equipped."

  Bell went on. "Suppose the Japanese had had one hundred dead-eyed snipers dug in at the beach at Tarawa? Could the Marines even have made it ashore? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

  "It does. After I saw you down at Lejeune I had the same thought and wrote a paper advocating supplying various resistance forces with sniper training, scoped weapons, and LAWS-type rockets rather than the expensive stuff we like to send in.

  "Imagine how quickly all of those tanks that get parked around village squares would back out if the freedom fighters kept popping up with handheld rockets, and imagine how rare it would become for an enemy to show himself if there were snipers behind every house or dirt pile."

  "Yep, mix in a few Stinger missiles to scare off helicopters, and it could become awfully difficult to beat down a determined resistance."

  "Our war fighting people ought to be thinking like that, Clicker. The world is urbanizing at a ferocious rate, and a lot of our future combats will be in cities. We'll be battling terrorists and urban guerrillas instead of fighting tank battles out on these kinds of plains."

  Later in the day they spoke of their march out of Iraq.

  Bell said, "I'd like to lay over another day. My shoulder could use a little more time."

  "How is your wound, Clicker? Want me to look at it?"

  "I don't think so, Colonel. If it is turning bad, we won't be able to do anything about it, and if it is healing cleanly there is no sense in disturbing things."

  Bell moved his shoulder tentatively before gently raising and lowering his arm.

  "It's too sore to tell much, but I haven't any fever, and my guess is that knitting has started."

&
nbsp; Clicker paused before going on. "I'll add that all that running and pistol pointing yesterday didn't do it any good, and that I will attempt to avoid similar exercises in the immediate future."

  Maynard said, "So, tomorrow night we'll move out carrying exactly what? I should be able to pack a water can and the rations we will need for a single week. You...."

  "I'll take canteens, and I can roll two blankets behind my belt."

  "Who carries the Barrett?"

  "We leave the rifles, Colonel. We'll have all we can handle. If we run onto bad guys, we will have to lure them in close and use our handguns."

  Maynard snorted. "If you found two Iraqis wandering out here, would you get within pistol range before you had them naked and on their faces?"

  Bell did not answer, so Maynard went on. "I wish they had developed a Raufoss round for a .45. Now that would be useful."

  +++

  Bell thoroughly disguised the back exit to their hide. In encroaching dusk, Clicker said, "No sense letting the Iraqis get either the M40 or the Barrett "

  Maynard pretended to sneer. "I know your plan, Bell. Once the war has gone by you will figure out a way to get in here and claim those rifles for your own. You probably have a whole arsenal of weapons stashed away for after you retire."

  "Colonel, if I ever get off this desert it will take a ten-camel team to drag me back."

  He paused only for an instant. "As for collecting an arsenal—I'm damned well working on one. Walking around with nothing but your smile holding off mean people is not my idea of sensible living."

  Satisfied with his work, Bell rose and tried to stretch his bad shoulder. "Damn!" The Marine's lips thinned in pain.

  Maynard was unsympathetic.

  "Quit whining, Staff Sergeant. This campaign is going like every combined arms operation does. You Marines always go in light, and we Army grunts carry the loads. In the end, you will get medals. Hell, you've already rescued some dumb-assed rear echelon Colonel. That's the way it'll be reported, you know.

  "You've earned a purple heart. You'll get decorated for blowing up Scuds while I'll probably be drummed out of the service for carelessly risking classified knowledge."

  Maynard led the way to the west. He leaned forward under his pack and let the load move him. Clicker Bell fell in behind, looking back with some regularity to be certain their back trail remained empty.

  Still settling into the march, the Colonel again expounded on forthcoming unfairness.

  "I can see the headlines, Bell. They'll be in every left wing eastern newspaper—particularly the Washington Post. 'Heroic Marine warrior rescues hapless downed flier. Shooter Bell, Marine Scout Sniper and Recon Specialist skillfully evades entire Iraqi army while dragging to safety an incompetent US Army Colonel.'"

  Maynard grumbled, "I'm retiring to the mountains, Staff Sergeant, way out in Wyoming."

  He added, "No one west of the Mississippi would ever read the Post. I suppose you know that."

  Clicker said, "Sounds like a good place to go. Get a place with a view, and I'll join you in about five years."

  "Bell, you are married to the Corps. All of you Marines are. 'Once a Marine, Always a Marine.' Isn't that the way it goes?"

  "That saying is right, Colonel, but that doesn't mean that I won't get out when I get my twenty. In '96 I'm moving on."

  "To where, Clicker?"

  "Not sure, Colonel, but it will be hunting and fishing country."

  "You're a hunter?"

  "I was practically born with a rifle in my pudgy little grip. It's what I do, I guess. Yep, I'm a hunter."

  The darkness was closing fast. Bell said, "Better let me up front with the compass, Colonel, or we're likely to make a big circle during the night and spend the day where we started from."

  "Is that really true, Bell? I've always heard that a man will walk in a circle, but it has never happened to me."

  "Nor to me, but I've never been stuck in featureless country like this, and walking at night I am not sure I can use the stars as well as I could the sun."

  A short hour into their march they halted to adjust their loads and rest for the approved ten minutes.

  Despite their exercise, the cold was beginning to bite, and Clicker unrolled the blankets.

  He draped one over the Colonel's head and shoulders and used a short tie to secure it at the neck.

  Examining his work, Bell said, "With that pack and blanket you look like a humpbacked monk, Colonel."

  "I'm glad its dark, Shooter, so none of the gathering crowd will see, but don't think that you are fooling me with your solicitousness. Getting me to wear a blanket is just part of your scheme to get me to carry the load. When dawn breaks you get the blanket back"

  He shrugged resignedly, "No matter, we soldiers are used to it. We are the Queen of Battle, you know."

  To kill the hours they talked.

  "What I did, Shooter, was to invest my hard earned soldier's wages in the stock market. I've been doing that since I was commissioned.

  "I've been lucky more than skillful, but the result is the same. Money will not be my worry once I am out."

  Maynard enjoyed telling the story, and his captive audience seemed interested. "Five other guys who have made some bucks and I have gone together on a land parcel out in the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. There is a big ranch house where I intend to live, but the others will mostly come and go. They will use the place for hunting and family vacationing. My job will be to live there—sort of overseeing its upkeep.

  "Assuming we kick the Iraqis' butts in reasonable time, I'll be out of the Army and up there for this fall's hunting. The fact is, Shooter, if you've got any leave time coming, I'd welcome your visit. Once we get to civilization, our ways will part too swiftly for reflection on what we've done out here. If you care to come, we could sit on the big porch and lie about how heroic we were in all of this."

  Clicker was both surprised and pleased by the offer. He elected to respond lightly. He stopped to examine the land ahead by the light of a moon so frosty it belonged in Alaska.

  "Thank you for the invitation, Colonel, and I will plan on accepting. Oh, and I'll bring along all of the pertinent Washington Posts, in case you haven't read them."

  "How's your shoulder?"

  "Hurts. How's your back?"

  "Aches and is rubbing raw. Looks like we're ready for more."

  "You want to lead for a while, Colonel?"

  "No, I'll just follow along."

  "Just the way it ought to be—Marines out in front."

  "Yeah. Marines looking good with the Army doing the real work.

  "Is it true that the Marine Corps has a photographer assigned to every squad, Bell?"

  "Not anymore, Colonel. This is the new Marine Corps. Now they just issue a camcorder to each fire team—saves manpower."

  +++

  Without thinking, Bill Patton leaned against the Mercedes' fender and the hot metal singed his hide.

  Damn, what a hellhole. To kill time he had been watching a pair of peasants wandering in from the desert. Once only specks, the two figures were now clear and would soon pass him to enter the village. Patton did not see reaching the village to be that much of an improvement, but the two probably lived here.

  He heard his father's booming laughter and judged the Old Man would not be much longer. Thank Allah or his own Christian God. He had been ready to turn back since they had crossed the Jordan River.

  Patton turned his attention to the few villagers who moved about. It was hard to imagine that, but for a roaming grandfather, he would be one of the rag-wrapped small people he saw all over Jordan. Most were Palestinians he had been told, but some were Hashemite's, although he could not tell the difference. When he got back to the states he would place flowers on grandpa's grave as thanks for having gotten the family out such a place.

  Patton did not use the old name even in his thoughts, but grandpa, the Jordanian, had gotten onto a ship and made it to America. His first move had been
to change his name to that of the newly famous American general, George Patton. The second had been to marry the tallest blond American woman he could find.

  Grandpa had learned English as fast as he could manage and had gone to work in a restaurant. By the time his sons and daughters were old enough to wonder, grandpa owned his own restaurant (strictly American food) and was buying two more. He allowed only English in his home and did not encourage stories about his early life in Palestine.

  George Patton's children were light colored, and his oldest, George Junior, was blond. Young George was, therefore, old George's favorite.

  Young George married a tall, blond American woman, and his first son, Bill Patton appeared to be one hundred and ten percent Nordic American. Bill Patton had been grandpa's favorite grandchild.

  The businesses now numbered six, and the Pattons were comparatively well-to-do. George Junior was able to consider the mysteries of his international roots, and with grandpa's demise he chose to visit the land of his heritage to meet relatives and see just how it was—over there.

  Bill went along, although his interests tended toward the athletic sabras of Israel, and he drove their rental across the river to the capital of Amman where they switched to the Mercedes with Jordanian plates. Patton judged that right now Israelis were not too popular in Jordan. Probably they never were. He drove east out of the capital and onto the ancient spice road that led from the Mediterranean to Baghdad.

  George, now without the Junior, followed directions received from the American consulate, and they eventually turned off the busy high road and followed what seemed little more than cart tracks to the south until everything ended in this squalor of stone and mud huts with animals and fowl running loose both in and outside the dwellings. Bill Patton understood his grandpa's need to get far away and to never look back.

  Patton found himself looking often to the east because not too far in that direction lay Iraq, and allied forces had just finished kicking the snot out of old Saddam Hussein. Bill wasn't sure how completely the borders were respected, and he hadn't liked the glitter of Jordanian eyes since they had left Israel.