Afghan Storm (Nick Woods Book 3) Read online

  After forcing their way through the village, they’d hit a side road that circumvented the closest border checkpoint. This was mostly an extra cautionary measure, as the checkpoint was vacant more than 320 days of the past year, according to satellite intelligence.

  But the cover of darkness was definitely no longer an option. A gray haze announced dawn and with full daylight just a few minutes away, the clock was ticking and their problems rapidly multiplying.

  Truck stopped the Toyota more than twelve hundred yards away. He turned the lights off since they were no longer helping in any case. It was a small town, made up of several dozen huts and probably eight or ten walled compounds. And their only way out of Pakistan, was a single road that ran straight through the center of it.

  Up to this point, the road they had been driving down had wound through narrow passes created by steep hills on each side. But the road had opened up as the hills retreated and grew less sharp and steep. Before them, the valley widened. It was mostly free of rocks and obstacles, and the villagers ahead of them had taken advantage of the mostly flat ground and planted crops. Probably heroin, but thus was life in this barren part of the world.

  The road had even been good enough for them to easily hit speeds up to forty miles per hour. Presumably, such quality roads allowed for these villagers to distribute goods and buy supplies, but Nick guessed the road had been maintained so that Taliban fighters and arms could quickly be pushed across the border into Afghanistan.

  But this town was their final hurdle. Further out, beyond it, the hills came alive again. Vertical. Wrathful. Alive. A tight road cutting through a tighter passage.

  Nick stepped out of the truck and glassed the town with a pair of binoculars.

  “We’re almost home, guys,” Nick said. “Across those hills is Afghanistan.”

  “No,” Truck answered. “Across those hills is a clean shower and all the beer I can drink.”

  “And with luck,” Red said, grinning like a ten-year-old boy about to eat ice cream, “maybe a few hot chicks.”

  “I just want to hit the damn weights, once I’m cleaned up and rested,” Marcus said. “My arms feel like they’ve lost two inches with all this humping and shitty food.”

  “I don’t see anyone out and moving,” Nick said, lowering the binoculars. “We might make it through this town before they wake up.”

  “Be the first break we’ve caught yet,” Truck said.

  Chapter 39

  They headed off for the village, Nick instructing Truck to approach at a moderate pace. Partly, this would prevent alarm. Nothing like a roaring truck in the early morning hours to bring everyone running out with their weapons.

  But the other reason was Nick didn’t want them driving into a well-constructed ambush, on the off-chance the residents had heard about the raid. So at eight hundred yards, he asked Truck to stop while the four men scanned the town with scopes and binoculars. It still looked clear.

  But as they loaded up to drive further forward, moving several hundred yards closer, two boys stepped into the road from behind a compound wall. The boys were laughing and smiling but stopped when they glanced down the road and saw the stopped Toyota truck.

  “Gun it or hold up?” Truck asked.

  Before Nick could answer, the boys turned and raced back into the compound.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Nick said. “We couldn’t make it up there and through the town before their fighters came shooting at us. Personally, I’d rather take our chances at long range than a close firefight.”

  “That’s what they make scopes for,” Marcus said, leaning across the top of the cab with his scoped AK-47.

  Truck backed the Toyota down the road until they had re-established some safe distance. Ahead, men stepped into the road and looked toward them. They were roughly eight hundred yards away, barely visible at such a distance.

  Marcus said, “Some of them are coming out with weapons.”

  Nick saw the same thing through his binoculars. He stepped from the truck and checked their six o’clock. No other vehicles were approaching them from the rear. Nick returned his attention to their direct front. Ten or twelve men had moved into the road, blocking their path. Weapons could just be made out among them. One struggled to hold a medium machine gun against his hip.

  “Before things get any crazier,” Truck said, “can I interject that this has just been the damned mission from hell?”

  “Yeah. Nick sure knows how to plan them,” Red said with a laugh. “You should really start your own travel agency, boss.”

  Nick stepped from the truck and spit in the dirt. “Red,” he said.

  The little man seized mid laugh. “Uhh. Yes, sir?”

  “Get me my sniper rifle.”

  Red left the RPK sitting on its bipod legs on the cab and moved back by Ahmud al-Habshi, who was still out cold. He picked up the Dragunov and handed it to Nick, who set aside the binoculars and accepted it.

  “Red,” Nick said, “let’s give them a warning. Fire a burst well over their heads. We’ll let them know it doesn’t have to go down like this, but they’re going to have to let us through.”

  Red climbed back behind the RPK, clicked the weapon off safe, and aimed more than twenty feet over their heads. Bada, bada, bada. The sound ripped apart the peace of the quiet morning.

  The villagers dove to the ground, spreading out into a skirmish line. A few flashes could be seen across the way, and Nick heard a round snap by. The rest fell short.

  “Fair enough,” Nick said. “They want to play. We’ll play.”

  Nick jogged over with his Dragunov to a piece of soft ground that would make a good prone position. Nick worked the Russian-issued PSL scope along the line of men. They had stopped firing, having realized the distance was too great. Nick figured it to be seven hundred and seventy yards if he had to bet.

  The 7.62 mm bullet would drop 129 inches over that distance, or nearly eleven feet. At this kind of distance, he would have preferred his American rifle and scope. Both were better. But he had practiced at this range with this rifle prior to the mission, and now it was time to see if he could make it work under real field conditions. Not to mention after days of intense exhaustion and fatigue.

  Nick used the bottom left part of the PSL scope to confirm the range. The scope had a line that allowed you to measure the height of a standing man and better determine the range. The scope confirmed eight hundred yards. Nick raised the scope to aim with the lower “v” crosshair, which should strike relatively on target at eight hundred yards.

  Nick checked the wind, noting only the smallest crosswind moving from left to right. He fixed the necessary adjustment in his mind and aimed in on a bearded, turban-wearing fighter who was kneeling and staring their direction.

  “Watch for an impact,” Nick said. “I have no damn idea how I’m going to do using this.”

  Nick didn't have to explain that “this” referred to his weapon. His men knew. All of them missed their American-made weapons. And while the Russian-made weapons were more durable and reliable, their ruggedness sacrificed the accuracy possible from American-designed rifles.

  Nick could shoot at minute of angle, even with the Dragunov. This meant at one hundred yards he could keep each of his bullets within one inch of the bullseye. But at each additional hundred yards, the circle gets an inch wider. Thus, at eight hundred yards, his bullets would strike within eight inches off the mark. And that didn’t take into account the crosswind he was estimating (perhaps wrongly).

  Nick focused hard on the scope and the target. He had to push out the thoughts of discomfort and weariness, as well as the feeling of a sharp rock cutting into his quad. He stifled the pain and focused, focused, focused on the job at hand. And as he did, and as he took control of his breathing, he felt himself slip into the zone.

  There was no mission. There was no Ahmud al-Habshi or Rasool Deraz. There was just Nick, the rifle, and a target that felt like it was about a mile away. But as Nick further
controlled his breathing, the scope moved less and Nick regained that extra confidence he needed before making such a long shot.

  Finally, Nick knew the target was a dead man. That he lay in the sights of one of the world’s greatest snipers. And with that thought, Nick eased the trigger on back, as softly as one might run his finger down a particularly delicate feather.

  Chapter 40

  KRAK. The rifle seemed to go off by itself, the kind of surprise Nick loved to achieve. Anticipating the shot was a mistake far too many shooters made, which usually caused them to miss. Despite the kickback of the rifle, Nick managed to see that the man went down.

  “Bullet hit him in his left shoulder,” Red said, his eyes straining through a pair of binoculars

  As Nick moved the rifle toward the next target, he tried to remember exactly where the scope had been aimed before the rifle fired. The scope had been properly on target and not drifted, so Nick would adjust his next shot so that it’d strike five inches to the right. And while on a range you’d shoot multiple rounds to confirm your grouping before making such an adjustment, Nick didn’t have that luxury. He also felt confident he had made a quality shot on the previous round, so he’d adjust a bit to improve the next attempt.

  The Pakistani villagers had heard the whack of the bullet hitting their neighbor before hearing what sounded like a crash of thunder echoing across the valley. The man howled in pain as he dropped to the ground. Then the tribesman began to react. Some ran for cover, others ducked lower, some just screamed in righteous anger.

  One ran to aid the fallen man, and others fired back in force. After a few rounds, they realized the distance was too great and corrected their aim, firing higher and bringing their rounds into range by watching the dust-ups of their impacts.

  As the villager’s rounds snapped past or kicked up dust mere yards short, Red popped his weapon off safe and leaned into the light machine gun. Bada. Bada. Bada. Shell casings bounced and clattered into the truck bed as he caught sight of a burning tracer bullet -- they’d loaded a tracer every fifth round -- hit about five yards short of the man he was engaging.

  Red aimed higher and fired again. These rounds smacked the dirt in front of the villager, several of them skipping up from the ground and driving into the man who had been firing an AK at them from the kneeling position. Three bullets twisted and tumbled through the fighter, giving him a sucking chest wound, a shattered knee, and a ripped bicep (which was the least of his problems).

  While Red was putting his man down, Nick dispatched a man who had been working the bolt on a scoped weapon that looked like it dated back to World War II. Or earlier.

  Nick traversed the scope to find the next target when the air split like a dozen firecrackers over his head.

  “Machine gun!” he heard Marcus yell.

  “Ahh, hell no!” Truck said as he kicked open his door and rolled away from the Toyota.

  Machine guns, even handled by poorly trained villagers, were no joke. They had a high rate of fire and a stability and accuracy not found in AKs. Between the bipod and weight of the weapon, they were easy to fire with noticeable impacts, allowing the shooter to walk the rounds into a target. Throw in the standard tracer every fifth round to assist in aiming, and you were dealing with a weapon that a twelve year old could wield with deadly precision. Given just a little practice.

  The first burst from the machine gun had been high -- a classic mistake. Much better to aim low and let the rounds and debris fly up into the faces of your targets. Unfortunately for him, the inexperienced machine gunner was about to learn an ugly second lesson, too.

  Machine gunners draw a lot of attention in a firefight and are usually quickly silenced. Marcus and Truck were firing well-aimed, single shots at the machine gunner, arcing bullets to fall into the man. They guessed on how high to hold their weapons and watched for impacts, trying to walk their own effective fire onto the threat. They both knew the chance of a hit was nil, but the goal was to suppress the machine gunner before he hit the truck or one of them. Force whoever was behind the gun to duck and cover, unable to effectively wield it.

  Red, as well, was firing at the rocks from which the machine gun bursts had come. At the same time, Nick scanned the outcropping to locate the gunner with his scope. Their target had indeed flinched under all the fire, and he naturally fired a return burst to gain a short reprieve. Sadly for him, the rounds soared far less accurately than his first deluge. Sadder still, it gave away his position with its sound, bright muzzle flash, and dust it kicked up.

  Nick saw through the scope rounds landing or passing all about the machine gunner. The man lay in the prone behind the machine gun, and it was indeed being fired from its bipod. Nick worked the scope’s crosshairs from the weapon up to the man’s face. His turban had apparently fallen off in all the close calls and ducking he had done, and Nick aimed in on his nose with the lower aiming mark in the scope set for eight hundred yards.

  Nick knew from his prior shot -- it had only been his second -- that his adjustment five inches to the right had improved his shot placement. He pulled the trigger back, and the rifle fired again. He lost the man’s face in the scope from the recoil. If only he had a spotter working with him. As he searched for the man in the scope again, he noticed the machine gun had stopped firing.

  Marcus, Red, and Truck didn’t know if the machine gunner had been hit or merely suppressed, and for the moment, they didn’t care. They continued to fire at the man’s position.

  But it was an unnecessary effort. Nick and his Dragunov had struck the man in the lower jaw and practically ripped it off.

  Chapter 41

  There’s a common slip-up in war known as tunnel vision. It occurs most often in the heat of a firefight when a unit’s focus gets locked exclusively on the direct threat they see. Nick had used this earlier to take out the men outside the compound.

  And it’s the natural thing to do, of course. Who wouldn’t, when under fire, completely focus on the men firing at them? The direct, known threat.

  Despite all their experience, Nick and his team fell prey to tunnel vision. Perhaps it was fatigue -- so many never-ending days behind enemy lines with interrupted sleep and bone-tiring nights of transporting crushing loads. Perhaps it was because this small village was the final obstacle to their return home and was thus their entire focus. It hadn’t exactly been planned either.

  Whatever it was, they were off their “A” game. Nick normally avoided shooting too much in any encounter, since a leader needs to maintain situational awareness during a firefight. But at this distance, his sniper rifle was the most effective weapon the team had, and they were counting on him.

  Furthermore, the machine gun had drawn his full attention on taking it out immediately, versus methodically settling in to pick off targets one at a time. Nick didn’t want to get this close to the border only to have some untrained dimwit with a potent weapon put an easy bullet through the engine block or one of his men. Self-preservation had overridden the trained discipline of battlefield awareness.

  Thus, between the fatigue and checking for anyone to pick up the machine gun, the four men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter never heard or saw the convoy of trucks flying toward them from behind.

  Mushahid Zubaida couldn’t believe his eyes, as he lowered a pair of powerful binoculars. There, just a couple of miles in front of him, was the four-man team they had been pursuing. The four men were firing at villagers, who were far off in the distance, but still clearly blocking their way.

  Mushahid smiled. Even men who were too old or too young to leave their village and join the Taliban do not fear these elite troops, he thought. He really hoped they were American, so their bodies could be displayed far and wide in propaganda videos. Even better, he hoped one or two were taken alive.

  “Get ready!” Mushahid yelled, rapping the top of the cab to alert those riding in the back.

  Mushahid sat in the passenger seat of the lead truck. Behind him trailed the other tw
o trucks. He glanced back and saw they needed no warning. The fighters could hear the firing, and they stood with their weapons ready, eager to punish these dogs who had come into Pakistan and killed so many.

  Mushahid had learned these men they were chasing had proven themselves to be murderously good with their accuracy. He wanted to limit the number of men who died in the looming battle, so there’d be no dismounting and attacking. Even at twenty-four against four, he’d lose a lot of men.

  Yes, the best course of action would be to rush them. Drive in as fast as possible across the mostly flat, open ground. Get in close. Literally run them over (where possible), dismount everyone, and gun them down like sheep from so close they’d be in pistol range. A range where his men’s rugged Soviet-bloc weapons would not be at a disadvantage.

  Mushahid passed his orders to his men by radio, instructing them to hold off on firing or screaming.

  “Now, spread out and let’s go as fast as we can.”

  Chapter 42

  The enemy machine gun remained silent, but Nick’s men hammered the position on and off as if it were a dragon, waiting to rise from the ground and bathe them with fire.

  Nick allowed it a few moments more, then yelled, “Cease fire. Everybody cease fire.”

  Each team member passed along the order down the line until all shooting had stopped on the American side. A relative silence took hold though the Pakistani villagers fired a few rounds in angry, half-hearted attempts that fell nowhere near the mark.

  Nick, Marcus, and Truck scanned the terrain for targets, but the villagers stayed low. A few periodically lifted a rifle to sling an un-aimed shot in the team’s direction. And though they still outnumbered Nick’s team 2-to-1, they had learned their lesson about showing themselves. Even at such a distance, they could be hit and killed.