Objective achieved. He held the high ground, and the far side of the ridge opened out below him. More brush tangles, more storm-stripped logs, and another line of evergreens, deep sun shadows puddling beneath their low-set branches. Hugging the earth, Smith eased the SR-25 out ahead of him. Flipping the protecting lens caps off the telescopic sights, he wormed forward a final foot, clearing his firing arc.
His weapon was something new since the last time he had served with the Teams. A creation of master gunsmith Eugene Stoner, the SR-25 was referred to as a tactical sniper’s rifle. Scope sighted and firing the 7.65mm NATO cartridge through a semiautomatic action, it fed from a twenty-round box magazine. Possessing considerably more range, accuracy, and stopping power than the conventional assault rifle, the SR was also light and handy enough to be carried as a primary weapon, at least for a man of Jon Smith’s size.
Over the past couple of weeks Smith had become fond of the potent brute and had been willing to put up with the extra carrying weight and barrel length in the field, amiably arguing the SR’s finer points with his fellow trainees. Now he intended to put its qualities to use.
Slowly Smith tracked the sighting reticle across the tree line at the bottom of the ridge. Any potential target would presumably be as concerned with concealment as he was.
Once upon a time, in a more chivalrous day, stretcher bearers, medics, and military doctors had been classified as noncombatants. They were barred from carrying weapons and participating in active combat, yet they were also shielded by the theoretical Rules of Warfare, rendering them invalid targets on the battlefield.
But with the coming of asymmetrical warfare there had also come a new breed of enemy, one who obeyed only the laws of savagery and who viewed a Red Cross brassard only as an excellent target. In such an environment the Marine motto of “Every man a rifleman” became a matter of necessity and common sense.
Smith completed the first scope sweep without result. Swearing silently, he tracked back. Those bastards had to be down there somewhere.
There! A minute movement at the base of that cedar. A head had tossed, maybe shaking off one of the endemic yellow jackets. Now Smith could just make out the outline of half a camoed face, peering around the tree trunk.
A couple of meters away, the outline of a second well-camouflaged form snapped clear in Smith’s mind, stretched out beneath a brush tangle. There’d be more members of the fire team, but these two would have to do. He’d already stayed fixed for too long. They’d be hunting for him as he’d been hunting them. Time to hit and git!
The man behind the cedar was the harder shot. Smith would drop him first. The sighting crosshairs jumped back to the doomed soldier’s forehead, and Smith’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The Stoner crashed out a single shot, but the only thing that lanced downrange was an invisible pulse of light. Keyed by the noise and recoil of the blank cartridge, the beam from the laser tube clipped beneath the rifle’s slender barrel licked out, tagging the sensors on the targeted man’s MILES harness.
MILES, the Multiple Integrated Laser Exercise System, was the U.S. Army’s means of keeping score in its grimly realistic war games. A dazzling blue strobe light began to flicker beneath the cedar tree, declaring to the world that someone had just “died.”
There was a convulsive movement beneath the adjacent brush pile, and Smith shifted targets, firing a three-round raking burst. A second strobe light announced a second termination.
Smith rolled back from the ridgeline. Good enough for government work. Now to get out…
The forest line below him exploded in automatic weapons fire, and blue MILES strobes behind to blink in the tree shade.
He had taken too long! Someone had circled in behind the rest of his patrol! Smith crouched up, trying to regain situational awareness. The firefight seemed to be raging in the forest directly below him. He could go laterally along the ridge and disengage…No, damn it! That was his team down there!
Breaking cover with his rifle lifted, Smith ran downslope toward the tree line, trying to dodge and weave. A squad automatic weapon rattled out a long burst, and the light on Smith’s MILES harness blazed on; the audial warning proclaimed him a dead man.
Smith drew up, thoroughly disgusted with himself.
The blank fire ended, and a man emerged from the trees: the same noncom who had worked with Smith on the long rappel. He’d been one of the instructor/observers monitoring this phase of the day’s exercises. “You’re all dead, Colonel,” he yelled. “Let’s break for lunch.”
It would be a ranger’s lunch: a Hooyah energy bar and a long swig of tepid water from a hydration pack, the slayers and the slain collapsing to rest side by side beneath the trees.
Nor was it “rest” in a pure form. Such a concept was alien to the program. Weapons and equipment had to be cleaned, ammunition pouches reloaded with more blank cartridges, maps studied, and critiques received on the morning’s drills. But it was a chance to unhelmet and unharness and sit in the shade, an opportunity to ease burning lungs and aching muscles for a few precious minutes. A luxury, but one Smith refused to enjoy.
Grimly he spread a poncho out on the forest floor, not for himself but for the SR-25. Breaking out his gun-cleaning kit, he began to knock down the rifle, removing the powder residue from its components. He’d fired only the two shots, but it gave him something to do while he raged at himself.
The ranger instructor crossed to where Smith sat cross-legged on the poncho, and took his own seat on a nearby log.
“Would the colonel care to tell me how he fucked up, sir?”
Smith stabbed a loaded cleaning rod down the SR’s barrel. “I failed to watch my back, Top. While I was fixated on the target on the far side of that ridge, I let the Red Force elements come in behind me. It was stupidity, just plain stupidity.”
The noncom scowled and shook his head. “No, sir. You’re missing it. It was something more stupid than that. You didn’t let your troops cover your back, or cover their own.”
Smith looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you didn’t use your team, sir. You didn’t deploy them into overwatch positions; you just told them to stay put. You might have been able to get away with that with an experienced noncom as your assistant team leader. He’d have set up a defense perimeter automatically, without having to be ordered. But you had a green kid with you who assumed his superior officer was supposed to be doing all the thinking. You didn’t take your troop quality into consideration. That was your second mistake.”
Smith nodded his agreement. “What else?”
“You could have used another set of eyes up with you on the ridge. You might have acquired your targets faster and been out of there faster.”
Smith didn’t consider arguing the points. You didn’t argue when you knew you were in the wrong. “Points all taken, Top. I blew it.”
“Yes, sir. You did. But it was the way you blew it…” The sergeant hesitated. “Begging the colonel’s pardon, but may I speak off the record?”
There was a formality in the ranger’s voice, the kind often used by a noncom when bringing a potentially sensitive subject up with a superior.
“I’m here to learn, Top.”
The instructor studied Smith out of thoughtful, narrowed eyes. “You are an operator, aren’t you, Colonel? The real shit, not just a pill roller getting his ticket punched.”
Smith stalled, lightly oiling the dismounted bolt of his rifle, considering his answer.
Covert One did not exist. Smith was a member of no such organization. Those were absolutes. Yet this grizzled Special Ops trooper would no doubt be a master at seeing through bullshit. Likewise, Smith had come here to learn, especially about himself.