north on Highway 70 through Marysville and Oroville until it turned northeast into the Sierra Nevada Mountains and became a designated scenic highway. The road gradually climbed into one of California’s greatest natural treasures. Oaks and grassland gave way to hundreds of thousands of acres of pine forest. An hour later, Harv found their turn onto the logging road they’d identified in the aerial photos. Using his handheld GPS device to find the exact spot they wanted, Harv followed the gravel track for eight miles before he pulled the Tahoe off the road and parked it deep within the trees where it wouldn’t be seen by a passing vehicle.
They quickly changed from civilian clothes into their woodland MARPAT combat utility uniforms, which would merge them into the native colors of the forest. They exchanged their shoes for combat boots. Nathan had cut one of the cleats away from his right boot while Harv’s left boot had the same missing cleat. Their footprints would be distinct and recognizable in the event they had to separate for any reason.
Harv secured his Kowa spotting scope along with twenty-five stripper clips, each clip holding five rounds of hand-loaded.308 ammo, into his backpack while Nathan inspected his cloth-wrapped Remington 700 sniper rifle from end to end. Each of them made one final check of all their gear, making sure nothing was left behind. Harv removed two Sig Sauer P-226 pistol belts from a duffel and handed one to Nathan. Next, they tied their ghillie suits onto their backpacks. The last thing they did was apply green, brown, and black body paint to their exposed areas of skin.
Nathan didn’t talk during this part of the operation-it wasn’t necessary-but still he noticed the occasional glances Harv was giving him. They were both thinking the same thing. It didn’t need to be vocalized. They’d come to terms with it over a decade ago. Harv patted his shoulder. It felt good. Reassuring. He couldn’t imagine his life without Harv. He nodded a silent approval to his partner.
Harv locked the Tahoe and put the keys atop the right front tire. They didn’t want an untimely jingling in a pocket. Although the sound was inaudible to humans, it wasn’t to dogs and dogs were always a concern. Shooting an attacking dog was a surefire way to give away your presence. Besides, Nathan really liked dogs, more than most people.
All set to go, they started up the mountain, keeping fifty feet of lateral separation between them. Although getting footholds was easier due to the damp earth from last night’s storm, it was still a difficult climb over decomposed granite, sand, and loose rock. After several hundred yards, they took a breather. Nathan motioned Harv over to his position.
“Time,” he asked.
Harv slid his sleeve up and looked at his watch where he’d smeared soap over the dial to prevent a glint of light from the sun. “Thirty-seven minutes.”
“Let’s do an RF check.” Nathan pulled the DAR-3 radio frequency detector from Harv’s pack and handed it to him. With a price tag over 4,000 dollars, it was a high-tech device and very reliable. About the size of a shoebox, it employed half-a-dozen dials, various jacks for input and output, and a small six-inch antenna. The DAR-3 could pick up signals from 50 kilohertz all the way up to 12 gigahertz.
Harv turned it on and after a minute or so said, “We’re good.”
Nathan secured the detector back into Harv’s pack, and they resumed their hike up the canyon’s wall. High overhead, a red tail hawk rode a thermal. The lonely whisper of wind through the pines was the only sound present. They diverted 200 feet to the east to avoid a granite face they couldn’t negotiate without climbing gear. Near the summit, Nathan slowed their pace. He turned toward Harv, pointed to his own eyes with two fingers, then pointed to the left. Harv went in that direction while he swept around to the right. He wanted to be certain there weren’t any sentries overlooking the compound. There were countless places to hide up here. The summit’s ridgeline was dense with pines, some reaching over 100 feet high.
After making sure the ridgeline was clear, they began scanning for a shooting position that would give them a clear view of the compound below. Although he was more than capable of hitting targets at longer distances, he didn’t want to be any farther than 600 yards. Six hundred yards was a good distance because the bullet arrived before the report of the rifle. From their current location, they needed to advance another 700 yards closer. Using field glasses, they took a few minutes to study the layout of the compound. Just as the aerial photos had shown, Freedom’s Echo was situated in a grass valley interspersed with mature pines. Twenty or so small cabins surrounded a larger central lodge along with several other metal outbuildings, presumably used for storage. The cabins were constructed in the classic log-cabin style with steep metal roofs. Several camouflage-painted pickups were parked next to the largest outbuilding.
Harv secured their field glasses into his pack before they started down.
Nathan kept his head up, always scanning the area. Wind, about ten miles an hour from the west. Temperature, about 60 degrees. Humidity was low, probably 20 to 30 thirty percent. The scent of pines hung in the air and triggered a memory of his early camping experiences. He issued warble-type whistle. Harv stopped and faced him. Nathan pointed to a small outcropping of rocks flanked by mature pines several hundred yards closer to the compound. Harv nodded his understanding. The approach to that location was going to be a little risky. The trees were sparse near the rock outcropping so they’d be out in the open for the traverse. They’d crawl the last fifteen yards on their bellies, camouflaged by their ghillie suits. Anyone looking in their direction wouldn’t see a human outline and by crawling slowly, an observer wouldn’t see any discernable movement, and movement is what usually caught the eye.
The valley below sloped gently to the west where the forest was much thicker. Most of the pine trees surrounding the compound had been cleared, creating a fire break nearly 200 feet wide, but more importantly, it forced any approach to be out in the open. Nathan gestured for his field glasses and Harv pulled them from his pack. He scanned the compound again. All quiet. No movement at all. He handed them back to Harv.
“What do you think?” Nathan asked. “Those rock spires over there.”
“Low crawl.”
They freed their ghillie suits, put them on, and dropped to their bellies. With Nathan in the lead, they started their crawl across the sandy surface covered with pine-straw fallout. The 30-degree slope made the trek awkward. To keep from rolling down the hillside, they had to align their bodies at 45 degrees to their actual path. Crawling on your belly over sloped terrain wasn’t easy, even at a snail’s pace, but the damp earth made it tolerable. Nathan hated being out in the open, even for brief periods. If an enemy sniper spotted them, they’d be dead. It took five minutes to crawl the fifty-foot distance. One foot every six seconds. They made it to the outcropping without incident. So far, so good. It turned out to be an ideal shooting position. Shaped like a European cathedral, two large spires of granite each reaching twenty feet over their heads were leaning slightly to the east. The larger of the two gave them shade from the sun and put them securely in depth of shadow. Between the spires was a flat area of sandy soil that offered a full view of the compound below and the dirt road leading into it. Staying below the compound’s line of sight, they quickly unpacked their gear.
Harv handed Nathan a stripper clip containing five rounds of.308 NATO ammunition. Harv had used a black felt marker on the stripper clips, inside and out, to prevent an untimely glint of sunlight. Each hand-loaded round produced a muzzle velocity of 2,350 feet per second. Nathan preferred a lighter than normal load. Bullet time to the target at 600 yards was just under a second. He removed the bullets from the stripper clip, drove them individually into the rifle, and closed the bolt.
He handed the empty clip back to Harv.
“Time,” Nathan asked.
“Eleven minutes.”
A gust of wind dropped a few pine needles past their position from right to left.
Harv spoke without being prompted. “Maybe ten miles an hour. Four clicks right.”
He made the adjustment to the external windage knob on his Nikon scope, while Harv set up his 10-to-50 spotter scope. Once in final position, they would be lying side by side with three feet of separation between them. He shouldered his weapon and began a slow visual sweep of the compound below through the rifle’s optic. “We’ll call the main building zero and vector from there.”
“Copy.”
“Elevation?” Nathan asked.
“Nine clicks.”
“Copy, nine clicks to zero. Plus three to the far side of the compound, minus two to the near side. Concur?” Nathan asked.
“Concur.”
