Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [62]
A little later, things quieted down and we got back into the Humvee and moved out, with me complaining the whole time. “I had the crosshairs right on that sucker. I had him! How could he have kept going?” It was unsettling, and I knew that my fellow Marines would soon be riding me about it—“Coughlin missed!” McCoy would have a field day with this. It was a major fuckup.
We were taking a break back at the Main when a rogue RPG whooshed overhead, which was enough to convince Officer Bob that the headquarters was under attack. I yelled for him to calm down, but his frenzy startled one of the Amtrac machine gunners, who opened up with a full automatic burst and thoroughly killed a nearby donkey. I scrambled to get things back in order, and J-Matt Baker, the battalion XO, gave the donkey’s bewildered owner some rations as payment.
Casey and I went forward again, and I found two of my snipers, Corporal Mark Evnin and Sergeant Dino Moreno, standing alongside Master Sergeant Bob Johnson from Bravo Tanks, studying the wrecked hulk of a civilian bus about a half mile to the northwest. Smoke oozed from the blown-out windows.
“Somebody’s over there, boss,” Evnin told me. “Been getting some occasional fire. Maybe they’re in the bus.”
Top Johnson figured three Marine snipers were more than enough to handle whoever was in the bus, so he went back to his tanks, leaving us with a succinct instruction: “Kill ’em.”
I climbed on the nearest Humvee and glassed the smoking carcass of the bus. For the first time in the war, I was working with fellow snipers, and we lapsed into the arcane sniper-spotter dialogue. Moreno was glassing an adjoining area, and Evnin acted as the spotter for both of us.
After three minutes of searching specific sectors, being patient and waiting for a mistake, I saw a shadow shift in the bus, and then the outline of a rifle appeared, an enemy sniper rising up for a shot. We had lased the bus at exactly 817 yards, more than eight football fields away.
“Mark,” I said softly to Evnin, “I think I have movement in the bus, in the left third of the target zone.”
Evnin swung his powerful scope around and responded, “I see the bus.”
“Third of the way down, from back to front, left side, fifth seat, window side.”
“I see it.”
“Does he have a weapon?” I asked for confirmation that I wasn’t looking at a civilian.
“Sure does.”
“What’s the wind?”
“Three minutes left.”
“Elevation?”
“Eight plus one.” The conversation was brief, automatic, emotionless, professional. Moreno kept watch on the surrounding area, undistracted by our discovery.
I fine-tuned my scope to match Evnin’s numbers. “OK. I’ll hold an inch above center chest.”
“Roger. On scope,” Mark confirmed, holding his spotting scope steady on the bus. My spotter had the target.
“On target,” I said. The shooter had the target, and everything was in place. I exhaled some breath and tightened on the trigger. I had this sucker as sure as if we were on the practice range. He was as good as dead anyway, for he might somehow live through a meeting with one sniper, but not two, and never three.
“Fire when ready,” Mark said.
My rifle barked and my shoulder took the recoil.
“Hit, center chest, target down,” Evnin reported when the soldier was staggered by the big bullet and fell out of sight. Mark did not lower his scope. “Good shot, boss.”
“Good windage,” I told him. “Dead on.” That was as high a compliment as one pro would give another. There were no high-fives or end zone celebrations, for we were professionals. We had done what we had been trained to do, so we expected both the cooperation and outcome. We switched back to assisting Moreno scan the rest of the area.
Inwardly, I was proud of Evnin. Mark was a stocky kid with brownish hair, an eager, happy-go-lucky youngster from Vermont who was hardcore into becoming a sniper. His talent level wasn’t the best, because he had not yet finished sniper school when the war broke out, but he had worked so hard and had such an infectious