slope? I want your people to clear it out tonight so I can use it tomorrow morning.”
“Of course,” said the commander. “We all look forward to seeing a display of your skill against the Crusaders.”
Juba gave a slight bow of appreciation but said nothing as they went back downstairs and into another building for some lunch. If he took a shot from that farmhouse, those big Abrams would be on him in a heartbeat with a hurricane of plunging fire, then the Humvees, armored personnel carriers, and troops would run over him, unless they decided to let an Apache helicopter gunship take care of the job. He had no intention of telling anyone, including the commander, where he would set up. Not with that five-million-dollar reward on his head.
During the afternoon, he borrowed a car and went out alone. As the commander said, there were only so many roads that the Americans could take into the area. Out of the bleak terrain and houses, an opportunity rose like a mirage at a little crossroads, and Juba stopped the vehicle beneath a few tall palm trees, got out, and walked around. His eyes studied the isolated area and the single Iraqi government traffic policeman on duty. The deep ruts made by the passing of numerous tracked vehicles spiderwebbed the crossing. The Americans came this way often.
Then he restarted the car and drove some more to find the second site he wanted. This was payback for Swanson’s daring raid, and the method in which the challenge would be answered had to be special. The scorecard would be kept in human lives not their own.
Back at the safe house before nightfall, he studied a map, ate only a bite of food, and went shopping for the few supplies he needed for the coming hours. He retired to his room about eight o’clock and spent a long time cleaning the weapon he had chosen from the insurgents’ stockpile, a beautiful HS.50 Steyr Mannlicher long-range, single-shot, bolt-action, precision-fire sniper rifle that could punch right through the body armor worn by the Americans.
A few hours after midnight, he left the house. He had a small backpack that contained some rations and his compact computer.
COB SPREICHER
“He’s out there tonight. I can feel it,” Kyle Swanson told Sybelle Summers as they sat atop a sandbagged bunker and watched a pair of bright flares drift down on small parachutes to the west. A moment later came the chatter of an automatic weapon and the loud booms of a big gun. “He will hit back soon.”
“I don’t know, Kyle. Task Force Hammer has things pretty well buttoned up. Patrols were rolling in and out of the gate all day, and the surrounding bases report nothing unusual.”
Swanson pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, rocking back and forth, feeling the muscles stretch. “Would all that stop you, if you were him?”
She picked at a rip in one of the bags, and the sand beneath was hard. Been there a long time. “No. Just slow down and take my time. Pick my spot.”
“Umm. That’s what he’s doing, too.”
A shadow appeared beside them and Travis Hughes flopped down. “Hey.”
“Hey,” said Sybelle.
“Let me pick your brains here,” said Swanson. “Juba is pissed off and wants to get even, right? But what is going to be his target, and can we stop him?”
“Hell, Shake, we can’t stop the bastard until we know where he is. As for the target, my bet would be that he is going to want to match your number of kills, if not surpass it.” Hughes spit over the side of the bunker.
“Classless jarhead,” said Sybelle, disgusted. “Travis is right. He’s going to want a nice body count, so he will be looking for somewhere that American troops are bunched together.”
Travis laughed quietly. “Hell, maybe he’s going to come in here. Lots of people gathered at the Subway. They’re even giving Latin dance lessons over at the Morale Building. Hell of a war.”
“No. He might be able to get inside the wire, but it’s too dangerous. The man is not stupid.”
Darren Rawls crawled up and joined them. “Just visited a friend for a couple of beers,” he reported. “Man, the buzz is all about what you did last night. That is interesting, because nobody on our team would say anything, which means informants are spreading the word about the badass snipers in town.”
“We wanted the word to spread,” Sybelle commented. “Part of the game. What we don’t want is for the whole of Task Force Hammer to go charging out, trying to track Juba down, because he will take off and we will have to find him all over again.”
“They won’t,” said Kyle. “Remember, Sybelle, that you and I specifically let Colonel Withrow know during our introductory briefing that Juba and the poison gas formula was our assignment.”
“So where the hell is he, Shake?” Hughes asked.
Kyle laid back on the bunker and stared up at the stars. “I don’t know. He’s out there somewhere. I can feel it.”
HARGATT
Juba had no way to really know if an American patrol would come through that crossroads seven hundred yards away from his hide today, but all those track trails and torn berms and crushed vegetation indicated that it was frequently used. Just like animals create paths through a thick jungle by padding along the same route, the steel animals of the American tanks and other vehicles were following a familiar pattern, apparently thinking the lone Iraqi cop directing traffic there was adequate security. After all, it was just a way station; the fighting forces were just passing through.
He had a position in the rubble of a destroyed shop that had collapsed upon itself in a jumble of timbers and stones. Many of the cement blocks were painted white on two sides, the outside and inside walls before it all came crashing down. During his scouting, he had found a narrow entrance that dropped into the shop’s storage basement, and by moving aside a few big rocks, he had opened a good view down to the crossroads. He had put the rocks back in place when he left, returning with his gear a few hours ago.
Working in the narrow beam of a flashlight, Juba built a sturdy hide that provided maximum protection on top and to all sides. Stacking stones and wood, he created a firm platform on which to rest the Steyr Mannlicher. The tip of the muzzle would be four feet back in the room. Turning off the light, he practiced his escape route several times, returned, and walked around the devastated shop to rearrange more debris. A dirty piece of blue and white canvas that had once been an awning was spread across the rear opening and anchored in place with loose rocks.
Dawn was coming, and, with luck, so were the Americans. After planning and prayers, luck helped. At first light, Juba slowly removed the loose stones that would create a ragged window facing the crossroads, one by one, inch by inch, until the hole was about two feet wide and two feet high, just behind some scraggly underbrush outside. When a sniper fires, it is an automatic response for the people in his target zone to look up in order to sweep the rooftops, where the attacker may have the height advantage. Juba had chosen a place with a two-story building nearby. That was where he expected them to concentrate during the critical moments that he was firing three shots, no more, following standard doctrine that shooting more than three times from the same place allowed the enemy to pinpoint your position. And kill you. Three and out.
The previous day, during his scouting ride, he had noticed that the children in the neighborhood were eating candy from America, scribbling in notebooks with ballpoint pens, and playing with silly plastic toys. Gifts from U.S. soldiers. A relationship was being built. Good.
There was a distant grinding rumble, and as he expected, his juvenile early warning system began to shriek as a dozen kids took off running toward the intersection. A pair of bulky M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles surged down the road, raising big roostertails of dust behind them, where three up-armored Humvees trailed. Juba made a mental note that the 25 mm Bushmaster chain guns on the Bradleys were his biggest threat.
The kids were running alongside the vehicles, dodging the tracks and the wheels with ease and calling up to the soldiers in broken English. Sure enough, little packages of gaily wrapped candy showered down on them. The convoy pulled into the crossroads and into a line along one axis. The policeman steered traffic around them. Everyone was relaxed, and Juba focused his rifle on the second Bradley, which had a number of aerials sticking up
