Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [79]
I pointed north, toward the gunfire. “Right up there. You told me the colonel didn’t need me in this attack. You told me there was not even going to be an attack today.” My voice was shaking with anger as he dumbly nodded his head.
“Aren’t you monitoring Tac-1?” I asked. “Colonel McCoy just personally ordered me up to the front, and he’s more than a little pissed that I’m not there already. I’ll let you explain it to him later … Sir.”
The Panda gunned the engine, almost dropping Bob into the road as he stammered something I didn’t bother trying to hear.
Our Humvees careered through the narrow streets, and I scrubbed my mind clear and loosened my muscles in preparation for combat. My fingers walked along the length of my sniper rifle, unconsciously checking it for imperfections with a sense of touch as accurate as a concert pianist playing Mozart on a familiar Steinway. The gun’s magazine carried four rounds, and I slid the bolt back slightly and stuck my finger inside the raceway to check for brass. There was already a round in the chamber. I sighed, content and ready.
Smoke floated into the sky above the flat rooftops of Az Zafaraniyah. Casey worked the radio as our Humvees sailed down a street of low-walled homes already pockmarked by bullet strikes, and he let India Company know we were coming up behind them. We were in a precarious position, because we were not directly affiliated with any of the platoons or companies, and we could easily become targets if we showed up unexpectedly on their dirt. “If anybody poses a threat to you, you kill them,” McCoy had ordered his combat teams right before the attack. Violent supremacy would rule this day, and there was a chance that we might get zapped by our pals.
We stopped at a gate, at which a couple of Amtracs were firing like crazy, jumped from the trucks, and grabbed our gear. I would carry only my rifle, the sniper logbook, a pistol, and four quarts of water. Casey toted a low-power handheld radio, maps, water, and his own weapons. Then we had to break up our team. We picked Tracy and Newbern to come with us. The other guys would provide support with the guns on the Humvees. Everyone picked up a twenty-round box of the precision-made ammo to feed my rifle. At a hundred yards, those special bullets would hold within a one-inch circle; at a thousand yards, within a circle ten inches in diameter. The average human head is about twelve inchs in diameter.
The guys in the Amtracs could tell us little about what was going on, other than that there was a lot of shooting, so we cautiously stepped around them and entered the city. Newbern took point. I came next, then Tracy, with Casey hustling along to provide rear security and radio communications. I could hear him telling India Company that we were heading for the rooftops. It was the start of an unofficial marathon that came to be known as the “Baghdad Two-Mile,” an event that will never make it to the Olympics.
As soon as we were in the clear, we broke into a gallop for the built-up north side of the road leading to the bridge and rushed inside a two-story building that the India Marines had just cleared. We pounded through the darkness and up the stairs into the hot sunshine that blazed down on the roof. No wind at all. Great shooting weather.
A two-foot wall encircled the top of the small building, and I pulled a cinder block over to a corner and sat on it, arranged some gear on the top of the barrier, and pushed the rifle into a sturdy position. Then I locked into a tight shooting posture and glassed the area, looking slowly north of our position and blinking away the sweat that stung my eyes. God, the MOPP suit was hot.
My scope was drawn to a small blue-tiled minaret that rose above the surrounding brown buildings, where I saw a flicker of movement. Somebody was hiding behind a wall high above the street, an enemy fighter in civilian clothes with an AK-47, and I saw him peer down into the maze of streets below. The bastard was doing the same thing I was doing—looking for targets. I had found an