At least fifty men pass, with more on the way.
Shit.
Launch tubes. SAM-7 missiles, NATO codename Grail. These are the bad boys that took out the Apache. There is a risk they could reach our exfil helos from the north face of Kagur-Ghar.
More men with assault rifles. Others carrying heavy rucks full of spare ammunition. Others carrying water. This is Shahzad’s main body. Troops with specialized functions. Riflemen, RPG gunners, SAM operators, a logistics train. Men who carry spare ammunition and water for the others.
At least sixty men have passed. There is no end to them.
Maybe it’s time to slink away. It could take an hour for these guys to pass.
Wait. They are carrying mortar tubes. Soviet-era 82 mm mortars. Two groups of six men each. One with a mortar tube, another with a bipod, a third with the baseplate. Three men with rucksacks crammed with mortar bombs.
Our odds are dropping fast.
If I spot Shahzad, I can end this with one shot.
In my mind, I reconstruct Shahzad’s photograph. Now that I know his main body is after us, I will watch for a chance.
I crawl away from my blind, inch deeper into the forest. Sixty yards from the trail, I rise to a squat and start to move. Faster now, but careful to remain silent. I’m not walking through the brush, I’m swimming through it. Cleaving through foliage so as not to leave signs of my passing.
A hundred yards from the trail, I rise to my feet and begin hiking. I head north. I want to overtake the lead elements of Shahzad’s force.
One man can move faster than two hundred. Ten minutes pass, and I stop to listen. Nothing. If only for a moment, I want to turn the tables on Shahzad. Our rear guard, Ballard, is half an hour ahead of me on the trail.
The gloom of the forest lightens. I see daylight through the trees. I reach the tree line, and it’s exactly what I was looking for. Fifteen feet of barren rock slope, with the tree line resuming on the other side. Down-slope, a half-slice cone of rock spreads to the base of the mountain. Koenig’s party would have crossed it more than half an hour ago, and Shahzad’s will have to in the next few minutes.
I cross the fifteen feet to the forest on the other side. Two hundred feet below me, Shahzad’s force will have to cross a hundred feet of slope. That’s a thirty-yard kill zone. I find a thick tree trunk jammed against a large boulder. Raise my rifle, brace it in the V between the tree and the stone. I throw my shoulder against the bark, a solid stance.
Five minutes pass and a Taliban fighter steps onto the slope. Turban, AK47, chest rig. I dial the magnification on my scope back to 3.6x and lay the crosshairs on his face. The scope is zeroed at four hundred yards, and he’s sixty yards away. I adjust my holdover.
I watch the man start to cross. Sweep the scope to the dark forest from which he emerged. Two more fighters there, one with a hand-held radio to his ear.
Command and control. I let my breath out and squeeze the trigger.
A supersonic crack and the man with the radio crumples. The radio drops from his hand and bounces down the slope. Without hesitation, I swing the muzzle to the man standing next to him and fire again.
Hit.
Blood sprays from the back of the man’s neck and he collapses.
I switch my aim back to the man on the slope. He scrambles to reach safety on the other side and I fire. Miss. The bullet ricochets off a boulder down-slope.
Fire again. Hit. The man drops his rifle and cartwheels down the mountainside.
Shouts from the forest below. The rattle of AK47 fire. Bullets thrash the trees to my left. They’re guessing where I am.
Three more men at the forest edge. Two kneeling, firing AK47s. A third scanning the tree line, looking for my muzzle flash. He’s the senior of the three. I lay my crosshairs on his belly and fire. Hit. The bullet slams into his chest and he drops.
The men below are jabbering in Pashto.
One points at me.
Another comes from behind, an RPG over his shoulder. The men shout and wave to clear the area behind him. I take my rifle from its support and duck behind the boulder. There is a swoosh, the sound of the rocket firing. A boom, and it’s like a giant has boxed my ears with cupped hands. On the other side of the boulder, an orange fireball blossoms. A wave of heat breaks against the rock and washes over me.
Lucky they hit rock. Soon enough, they’ll fire at the trees, or over my head. The Talis figured out how to modify an RPG’s self-destruct mechanism. To detonate the rocket at ranges inside 950 meters—fusing the weapon for airburst. I have cover against direct fire. Indirect… not so much.
I displace, move thirty feet down-slope. Find cover behind more rocks. Raise my rifle.
Fire. Hit.
The Taliban shift their aim, cut loose on full auto. A crew breaks out a belt-fed PKM and thrashes the trees around me. The bullets whack into tree trunks, scatter chips of bark, split thick branches, and rain splinters on my head. More shouts. Glimpses of shadows scurrying inside the tree line—ghosts climbing the slope.
I hold the high ground. They have to climb to my level or higher. Another vertical envelopment. The mountain men are masters of these tactics.
Muzzle flashes twinkle across the sloping tree line.
A popping sound. Burning bright red, a flare arcs toward me. The PKM and two dozen AK47s ranged along the tree line zero in on my position. Not rambling waves of suppressive fire. Deliberate aimed fire. The PKM gunners fire eight and ten-round bursts. The Tali infantry know what they are doing.
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