Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [61]
I was again atop my truck, and after five minutes of scoping out the mud huts on the outskirts of the city, I spotted an enemy rifleman fighting from a foxhole exactly 286 meters to the south. Easy shot, so I smoke-checked him, bam, and he was dead, his body twitching for a few more moments while his internal systems shut down. I noted the time, 7:47 A.M., on a green page of my sniper’s log and got back to work. The place was as noisy as a steel factory; rocket-propelled grenades whooshed through the morning air and detonated on impact, and our tanks answered with volleys from their big main guns, heavy rounds that moved at a mile per second and seemed to lift the earth where they struck.
My second kill of the day was nothing less than a quick-draw showdown. We were taking Ad Diwaniyah block by block against bitter opposition, and the Panda drove us deeper into the urban area, bringing our Humvee to a halt near a group of Marines who were advancing through a cluster of huts. An Iraqi soldier suddenly appeared from between two buildings right beside the road, his weapon at the ready with the butt stock to his shoulder and the barrel pointed slightly down. I had just gotten out of the truck and was in the same basic position. This was no faraway target but a man standing only about seventy-five yards away, point-blank range for my sniper rifle. He hesitated for a moment, perhaps startled by all of the Marines in the area, and then, too late, his eyes locked on mine. That brief flicker of uncertainty cost him his life. I killed him before he could get off a shot. In such situations, only an amateur would dawdle. Professionals shoot.
As the front line advanced, the Panda moved us cautiously forward another few hundred yards to a bridge that curved to the right, arcing over another road that led into the dark heart of the besieged town. Our guys were already fighting at the other end of the span, and I was to help control this end and block any flanking movement.
I went back onto our Humvee and anchored myself into the now-familiar solid prone shooting position to get a better look at a group of scruffy mud and cinder-block buildings that lined an area studded with palm trees. I slowly glassed the rooftops, doorways, windows, and alleys, the four places where death likes to hide in towns and cities.
The temperature was a mild seventy-eight degrees, but the rising sun had taken on its normal fierce brightness and bounced off the light-colored walls with such intensity that it was like staring into high-beam headlights.
Suddenly, three targets wearing green uniforms and carrying AK-47 rifles broke from cover and ran full speed from right to left. These were straight-up soldiers, not civilians, and I kept my scope on them as palm trees danced through my field of vision, blocking my view. The Bear did a laser range-check on the buildings where the men were heading: about 470 yards. A mirage shimmered from right to left, telling me that a slight wind was moving across the battlefield, and I fine-tuned an adjustment to compensate.
I had kept the crosshairs on them while dialing the scope, and when one paused at the corner of a building, at two minutes before ten o’clock in the morning, I put my crosshairs on his chest and squeezed the trigger. Targets rarely remain still in combat, however, and he moved at the last moment, spoiling a perfect shot. Instead of a center-mass hit, my bullet went through his throat, and the impact catapulted him back into the street.
Then came Achmed. I had just jacked another round into the chamber and was continuing to scan the area when he dashed from cover, running away but still carrying his rifle. Since I have no compunction about shooting a man in the back, I instantly fired and put a bullet in him. Somehow, perhaps just with forward momentum, he kept running, so I shot him again, and this time he went down and rolled out of view.
“I can’t believe I missed,” I told Panda.
“You didn’t miss the second time, boss. I saw him go down,” the Bear confirmed.